Ken Aldred

Robert Kirkman was a really nice guy. Said he liked my British accent and slang, had a really great chat about his books, especially Invincible, then when I started looking through his stack of trade paperbacks he suggested I pick a nice copy of Walking Dead Vol 1, signed it for me and said that I could take it for free. What else is there to say.

Wise words.

I’ve had one or two bad experiences with other creators who are being praised here in this thread, and I just accept that there’s never going to be a perfect 100 % consensus in social situations like these.

I too was slightly taken aback by the prominent green cylindrical object to the left of Nodell’s signature, saddened by the thought that someone had ruined this memento of a fantastic experience with a sophomoric and quite infantile act, until I thankfully recalled that Nodell was the creator of the original, Golden Age Green Lantern, and then the sketch made perfect sense. Joking apart, those are absolutely superb. Congrats.

He is. I was once walking through a convention and accidentally almost hurtled briskly straight into him as I turned a blind corner. I’m much taller and heavier-set, but he deftly performed a quick, hyper-responsive sidestep out of the way, avoiding physical injury and any creasing of his immaculate, tailored suit, utilising lightning fast reactions honed by years of experience as a magician and escape artist. I was impressed.

Police Comics 96

Fantasy Unlimited, a British dealer called Alan Austin, summer 1977. An exciting, extremely hot summer holiday time during which I bought some Fantastic Four issues, 20, 22, 23, 25, learning immediately, first time out on mail order, that good condition was a bit of a contradiction, as the low grade books were basically rags. Always better to buy at the top end NM / M level, as those were very nice condition, focusing at the time on buying cheaper Marvel All-Colour Comics distributed runs that I’d missed, such as Ms Marvel and Eternals. As a kid, limited funds. The nicest run of books I bought from them, in 78, was a set of Savage Sword of Conan 1 to 10, lovely NMs, and a wonderful surprise waiting for me after the family got back from an exchange holiday in Germany that year.

I was going to post something along these lines about him, and I can imagine his bluntness might not work for some fans, but being from the north of England we can be quite similar; a familiar hardness and directness in tone, I suppose, which I was very comfortable with. Glad I met him and got a brilliant movie version Thor commission, which I’ve posted several times here.

Starlin's stories were laugh aloud fun... (Hardly)

And they'd probably decide to turn The Magus into a Joker-like character as well, just to ruin things as much as possible. Let's hope not.

I met him at one of the London LSCC conventions, 2016, I think, and felt I’d irritated him a bit by being a little too overeager or insistent about getting a detailed commission rather than a rough convention sketch. Previously he’d always been incredibly friendly and exactly as he’s described by so many others. However… This was at the last con he did here, and he was already struggling with health issues, such as failing eyesight and advancing diabetes, and having had a mother with the same complications, and recalling the toll it took on her, I could understand and empathise with why he might not want to be pestered first thing in the morning by a desperate fanboy, and how tiring that kind of interaction might have been. Other than that self-inflicted, one-off faux pas, I’d maintain that on all other occasions he was the friendliest, most engaging creator I’ve ever had the privilege of meeting, and remains one of my all-time great comic book icons.

It needed to be said.

But, 60 % off of that would be a bargain, I think, but then my arithmetic’s not very good.

For me it’s Howard Greber, my underground comix mentor. Nik was just slightly before I’d settled in here.

Even though you may never have had the opportunity to meet up in person, only knew them from their board post presence, PMs, or maybe comics purchases, losses like this one can still be very affecting. It feeds into and brings back additional memories of similar, previous situations here as well.

Yup. Very dated and wrong. Holy mesothelioma, Batman.

Then there was Undead Punisher as well. Was there a patchwork Frankenstein version at some stage, in the 2000s? Lots of poorly-conceived attempts at injecting some variety into the vigilante character that were short-lived.

Good recommendation. Just read it and it’s a surprisingly gory reimagining.

Afterlife With Archie 1 to 10 2023 total = 70 For an Archie comic, this is absolutely astonishing. Highly recommended. Brilliant reimagining, good story and art.

i saw a fairly rough looking copy in a record store here, near Manchester, and wanting a couple of cherry-picked minty copies. At the time of X-Men 121 and 122 we didn’t have any dedicated specialist comic shops near here, I was still limited to whatever appeared as distributed 12p Marvel All-Colour Comics, and that record store, later on, only had a handful of ND imports on a small shelf. However, by the time of X-Men 137 I’d also heard of Forbidden Planet down in London. I absolutely hated school despite being pigeonholed as a nerdy academic type, and every so often I’d take a ‘day off’ and go down on the Intercity to visit the store and buy a stack of new imports and back issues, and, being a huge X-Men fan, the Death of Phoenix issue was an obvious motivation for this. It had to be done. Fond memories.

Sad news. Didn’t really know him on here, but very clear we had similar tastes in our comic book interests.

Not too keen on that prospect either, as I’ve always liked Warlock for being very deep, intense and melancholic, as written by Starlin. But, we’ll see, even if it isn’t the characterisation I’ve been into since I first read the books back in the 70s, through to the more recent Infinity GN Trilogy.

America’s Best published some great comics. My favourite character from Tom Strong, his rabbit-headed, alternate universe, funny animal world counterpart, with what for me is the most inspired name in the entire history of the funny animal comic or cartoon genre… Warren Strong Hilarious.

That’s a good benchmark.

Squadron Supreme mini-series by Mark Gruenwald. Batman Holy Terror JLA The Nail Superman Red Son Gotham by Gaslight