Ken Aldred

Heavy classical influence using the pre-Raphaelite style, which got even more detailed in his later, post-Conan art prints.

Another excellent Conan artist, particularly the combination with Neal Adams inking on Savage Tales.

His later work from the 80s onwards has my favourite art style. It might polarise some because, often to me, the faces in particular could look statue-like as if they were chiseled from marble, but, overall, there was a consistently excellent, classical quality to it. Superb comic artist.

So working class.

I couldn’t help watching that with every mention of America being replaced in my head with Caltopia.

Yup. I put my unwrapped Archives and Masterworks in magazine bags as well.

I prefer his later, more detailed Conan art, where his figure work and faces had greatly improved.

A Free Comic Book Day line is an excellent example.

The Creepy Presents : Berni Wrightson collection is much better.

Has anyone seen ‘The Room’? It has a reputation for being quite bad, I believe?

Yup. Even without the internet, I didn’t find it that difficult to put together my first long run, Conan 1 to 100, back in the late 70s.

Given the number of units that some video games sell in a day or two after release, I’m not surprised that there are players so keen to get started. I’d rather wait a while until they’ve come down a lot in price. Cheap entertainment for me.

I must’ve missed that type of activity completely while I was in London. Quite easy to pick up a copy or two of DKR 1 in one of the fairer-priced stores such as Showcase, without a markup. Batman 428 was generally limited to 2 per customer at cover price.

+1 Was the mask really so Klan-like? Memory failed me, thankfully.

There's also the possibility of a Doctor Doom voice; a character also favouring the third person. Caltopia, a more benevolent version of Latveria, I might imagine.

The Marvel UK weeklies messed up the distribution of US comics, something along the lines of, for example, while Spider-Man was being reprinted, distribution of new US material over here would cease. It was a frustrating time. FP was a great shop in the late seventies.

Never heard of that happening in the UK for a comic book. Then again, over here it was primarily bus and train stations, newsagents, and distribution was on-and-off, unpredictable, especially once you get into the early seventies.

Very nicely-presenting Batman 227 for the grade.

You're a maverick like me, Cat. We don't often win social popularity contests.

About time a Brit won one. Marwood is a strong contender.

I've been collecting since the late 70s. I'm actually very tired of keeping on being involved with the time-consuming, frustrating and very limited old-school approach of mail order, shops and convention trips, and making grindingly-slow progress. I suppose I've simply run out of patience, and, now I'm in my fifties, realising the impracticability of getting anywhere near to completion by persisting with this, exacerbated of course by the current speculator market. Also, there are my health issues to consider, which make me want to do something else with comics that's far more relaxed and fuss-free. And, I get a much greater sense of progress and closure after reading a book collection or a digital file. It's enough for me, and better than bashing my head against a brick wall, again and again. So, I don't believe that contemporary instant gratification is necessarily the main driving force for such a transition ; I'm just happily not chasing this particular rainbow any more.

Yup. I'm very relieved that we now have several additional options available for reading unbroken runs of comics, and that we've moved past the monopoly that back issue dealers formerly had on this activity. Quite liberating.

It really isn't. Honestly.

Terribly miscast.

Strangely enough, I find that film quite entertaining. I'll raise you the soul-crushing boredom of Manos, The Hands of Fate.