Ken Aldred

I’d agree with the 50s.

I watched 5 episodes and got bored with it.

Uncharted 3 reference. Desert section.

Richard Corben’s first comic book, and cover…

My first ‘comic shop’ in the late 70s was a bookstore near Manchester called Chapter and Verse, where a local dealer dropped off stacks of Bronze Age comics each month, which were then only a few years old, of course. A bit overpriced, such as a standard cent import being 35p when the cover price for a distributed pence copy was 12p. It did give me access for the very first time to comics that didn’t appear on the newsstands here in the UK, and seemed a magical next level to a young kid. I got my X-Men 95 there for 75p. The next step up was taking the occasional day off from school to head down to Forbidden Planet in London, which felt like a treasure trove in its early, non-corporate days. When I discovered comic marts in Manchester I had access to a much better range of back issues, but, just as importantly, I switched over to buying the cent imports at cheaper prices from a dealer there, Paul Schofield, who I went to regularly until I left the area to start university in London in the mid-80s. Also got many UHG Warren magazines from him. A comic shop, Odyssey 7, opened up in an arcade in Manchester University precinct, a very inconvenient location for those of us to the north of the city, without a car and no direct train or bus connection. The name of the store reflected the idea that local comics fans would, regardless of inconvenience, make the trip there every week, having no other practical option other than to feed their sense of monopoly. This wasn’t true, as it soon became quite tiresome and I went back to the easy efficiency of buying new stuff from Paul at the comic marts in the city centre each month. I was in London from 85 until 90, doing all of the centrally-located shops; Forbidden Planet, past its exciting, early prime, now soulless and corporate, Gosh!, Comic Showcase and Stateside Comics. It was a period when at first you could pick up a lot of very cheap and high grade older material, which was great for a student with limited funds. A FN to VF FF 48 for £4. Later, Batmania had struck around the time I’d finished college and was about to leave, prices had gone up because of the speculator boom and several of the shop owners were getting inflated opinions of their importance. The paradigmatic comment and demand made to me was ‘you’ll pay our price or go and collect something else.’ Good timing for me to be moving on, to continue collecting the same thing elsewhere back in my northern home city, and bring their era and the 80s to a close.

I was always fascinated by Kirby's Brooklyn dialogue when I read his Golden Age reprints in the 70s. Never enough to start using it here in England, though.

I thought I'd go for something absolutely unattainable for me, and something I'd consider outside my normal focus. The original art to these comic covers would be nice... Almost delusionally unrealistic.

That post's not very comic book in nature. Meat Loaf was also in the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the title character, Rocky Horror, bore an uncanny resemblance to Adam 'Him' Warlock, something that's been frequently commented on. Classical Adonis figure, or, Richard O'Brien, the creator of the show, as comic book fan? He was seen in my LCS back in the 80s, so an employee there once told me, but that's trivial evidence.

I've never seen it as a pure rock album anyway. The title track is a bit of an anomaly due to the overlay of Todd Rundgren's guitar work, and maybe 'All Revved Up With No Place To Go' is a rock arrangement, but, otherwise, it's an album dominated by Jim Steinman's often admittedly overblown retro 50's, ballads and show tunes. Same thing for 'Bad For Good' and 'Pandora's Box', Steinman's albums which contained songs which were re-recorded by Meat Loaf for 'Bat Out of Hell 2' in the 90s. Treated it as a change of pace from listening to actual metal or complex progressive material. Something I have fond memories of from my teens, but, once I started focusing on more extreme rock such as thrash and death metal later in the 80s, I largely moved on from it.

I hope my efforts have made this thread comic book enough.

Corben also did the cover to Jim Steinman’s ‘Bad for Good’ album… Although Meat Loaf didn’t do the vocals here, it was Steinman, he did re-record some of the songs for Bat Out of Hell 2.

As I said in the Water Cooler, the album cover which introduced me to the brilliant art of Richard Corben, one of my all-time top ten comic artists, and surely one of the greatest colourists of all time, with his amazingly vibrant airbrush palette. An artist that otherwise I wouldn’t have discovered for years in the U.K..

Hopefully they’ll eventually allow PS versions to appear. Games such as Doom, Elder Scrolls and COD are tempting, multi-system cash cows. Timed exclusives, released elsewhere much later down the line?

I’ve been tempted to buy it as my first Assassin’s Creed game, mainly because I feel like wandering around Dark Age East Anglia, where the paternal side of the family is from. Might be interesting. Maybe do some farming.

Amazing Spider-Man 36 Iron Man 128

The characters have been used quite a bit down the years, mainly the evil gods of Apokolips, plus Mister Miracle and Orion. The Anti-Life Equation has been in a couple of important storylines, such as Final Crisis. But, sure many would consider a lot of it inessential despite some good stories. As a Bronze Age kid I have a fondness for the original saga, but, at the opposite extreme, I think it was a writer in Wizard, in the days before film speculation, who asked ‘Does anyone really care about these losers anymore?’, which was a little extreme. As I said, polarising.

Yup. It’s around 50 years old, so a common, understandable problem.

Classic Bronze Age, but Kirby’s dialogue polarises, either considered quite outright terrible by some but entertainingly bombastic to others, so I wouldn’t consider it a must-have for everyone. I personally like the overblown energy in Kirby’s art and phrasing.

I agree. Currently re-reading the excellent Geoff Johns series from the early 2000s.

Battlefield is supposed to be a buggy mess. A popular choice along with the GTA Trilogy for most disappointing recent game.

Glad to see Jay has still got his Helmet of Mercury.

Just realised I posted in the wrong thread.

Like Steve / Marwood I started out with the Marvel UK reprints such as Mighty World of Marvel and Spider-Man Comics Weekly in 1973. That led me to buying new, original American pence copy comics from the newsagent, my first big obsession being DC 100 pagers. I’d continued getting the Marvel U.K. reprints as well, and noticed an ad for a mail order company in there, Fantasy Unlimited, and bought some really nice books from them, circa 77 to 78. I was a bit of a Conan obsessive at the time and I recall them sending me Savage Sword 1 to 10 in absolutely beautiful condition. I started going into Manchester looking for comics around 79, initially finding a few scraps here and there in the book exchanges, but the first shop I went to that was specifically dedicated to comic books was Forbidden Planet in London, where I got my first GSXM 1 (£5), and a couple of EC science-fiction comics, with ECs in general being very hot at the time. I would take at least one ‘day off’ from school each term to travel down on a cheap Intercity ticket and get a stack of brand new US cent copy imports, up until around 1980, and which accounted for most of my Claremont / Byrne X-Men collection. That was curtailed when, while walking around Manchester, I was handed a flyer in the street from a guy who turned out to be one of the organisers of the local comic mart. I then started going to those events regularly and less travelling was required.

Like Steve / Marwood I started out with the Marvel UK reprints such as Mighty World of Marvel and Spider-Man Comics Weekly in 1973. That led me to buying new, original American pence copy comics from the newsagent, my first big obsession being DC 100 pagers. I’d continued getting the Marvel U.K. reprints as well, and noticed an ad for a mail order company in there, Fantasy Unlimited, and bought some really nice books from them, circa 77 to 78. I was a bit of a Conan obsessive at the time and I recall them sending me Savage Sword 1 to 10 in absolutely beautiful condition. I started going into Manchester looking for comics around 79, initially finding a few scraps here and there in the book exchanges, but the first shop I went to that was specifically dedicated to comic books was Forbidden Planet in London, where I got my first GSXM 1 (£5), and a couple of EC science-fiction comics, with ECs in general being very hot at the time. I would take at least one ‘day off’ from school each term to travel down on a cheap Intercity ticket and get a stack of brand new US cent copy imports, up until around 1980, and which accounted for most of my Claremont / Byrne X-Men collection. That was curtailed when, while walking around Manchester, I was handed a flyer in the street from a guy who turned out to be one of the organisers of the local comic mart. I then started going to those events regularly and less travelling was required.

Same for me. The struggle made the memories of that time in the mid 70s very intense. Not just monetary, but, here in England, the hunt for those elusive and incredibly fascinating American comics: sometimes distributed over here, sometimes not.