Ken Aldred

Recently purchased The Complete Terry Moore digital bundle, everything from the start of Strangers in Paradise. A fan of Love and Rockets, especially Xaime’s work, from the very beginning. Chris Ware’s a genius. Easy to find standout examples.

First cartoon I recall, aged 3, was The Impossibles. I also recall being quite mesmerised by characters that could turn into stretching coils or flow like water. That sense of wonder clearly started my lifelong fascination with comic books. About a year later my parents gave me a British reprint of a Fantastic Four comic, and the obsession only escalated from then on, especially 1973 onwards when I had easier access to more FF in our Mighty World of Marvel comic, along with the other members of the company’s Silver Age pantheon. A very nostalgic series, but not close to being my favourite. (That would be the 90s Batman Animated.) Its influence can’t be doubted, though.

Web of Spider-Man 1 was mid 80s, so more Copper Age.

I believe that. Now, we can reference the monthly Newsstand online… http://www.mikesamazingworld.com/mikes/features/newsstand.php But, in the 70s and early 80s I did the same thing with the ‘on sale this month’ checklists at the back of Marvel comics. A lot of it did seem lacklustre, especially once I’d become familiarised with the writers and artists, and had a good idea about whether or not I really liked their work. As a cash-strapped teen it allowed me to prioritise what I’d enjoy the best, and cut down. I was always a huge X-Men fan, and so picking up the Claremont / Byrne issues was an inevitability. In one of the promotional pages in a Marvel comic, possibly with the ‘comics on sale’ checklists I mentioned earlier, was a small alert to look at Daredevil 158, and to check out the work of a new artist with a lot of potential, Frank Miller. I did, could see something there, and started picking up his other books, watching him grow rapidly in skill. That is, my triaging process allowed some latitude for experimentation with interesting new stuff as well. Fond memories, on a shoestring.

The Englehart / Brunner run was great. Sise-Neg.

I agree. They dated very quickly, even by early Copper Age. I was disappointed with them when I first read them around 1980, after buying into the hype. Didn’t really mix well at all with the depressed, dark, tumultuous atmosphere of England at that time. A very different zeitgeist to their’s, less than a decade earlier.

Good call. Forgot about that one. Surprised no-one corrected me for forgetting From Hell, but I didn’t, as I found it utterly depressing.

Too many, too quickly. A rapid succession of gut punches.

For me, his peak was the 80s. Swamp Thing, Miracleman, Watchmen. Beyond that, there are other writers with just as great an imagination, such as Grant Morrison, but nothing much quite on that level from Moore. Promethea, maybe.

Generally, the quality of stories improved during the early-to-mid 80s for me, early Copper Age, and remained very readable until the comics companies started to be controlled by asset-stripping investors and their glut of high-volume, low quality books in the early 90s. Still some great books during that time, but, for me, a return to the pre-Copper Age situation of a very few exceptional titles and lots of mediocre-to-unreadable dross ‘on the stands’. Remember, that was true of earlier times; for every Claremont / Byrne X-Men, Miller Daredevil, O’Neil / Adams Batman, or classic New Trend EC there was a lot of tenth-rate, churned-out rubbish around them as well. Quality started to improve again from the 2000s onwards, with Marvel starting to produce more interesting books, and the emergence of Image Comics as a high quality independent imprint, almost the polar opposite to its 90s incarnation. I find a lot of very well-written books in the modern era, and consider it to be unfairly, harshly criticised, along with being illustrated by some clearly very talented artists.

Appears so… https://comic-con.org/cci/badge-faq

Another factor which lessens conventions now, the loss of many of the creator icons that you avidly looked forward to meeting. In my case, less motivation for an expensive trip to a London convention; no Adams, Wrightson, Perez now, but just as applicable to assessing the value for money of attending the San Diego event.

That’s ridiculous. I’d be finished with the viability assessment with that alone. Clearly unaffordable for many of us.

Another terrible loss, too many in recent times, too frequently. A great writer, as a Brit, my first major exposure to his work being with Dredd, but he was also responsible for one of my all-time favourite runs of Batman stories with the just as sadly-missed and talented Norm Breyfogle. Dredd or The Dark Knight, you could look forward to a consistently good story every time.

Yup. That’s all that’s ever left in the box in these situations.

Even with smaller events here in the U.K., that’s always been a back-of-the-mind issue for me. Yes, there’s still nice material to be found, but there’s also the knowledge that after all the time, effort and expense you’ve gone to, that to some degree it’s the leftover scraps. Same with a small, regional comic mart here as it would be for a large con such as San Diego, but, given the magnitude of the costs involved with the latter, and with fewer cheaper comic dealers attending, I’d expect meagre pickings after the pre-opening feeding frenzy.

If you’re just following Hickman’s work in collected editions this one really gets in the way; a multi-title, overlong, fetch quest storyline.

I was more thinking along the lines of his earlier work at EC, before he started using the more minimalist style in the stories you mentioned. His science-fiction material. For me, much more tense and energetic. I prefer that.

Not sure Kirby’s style would’ve fit in that well at EC. The only artist there that might have a stylistic similarity, with kinetic, tense linework, would be Kurtzman, particularly his early material, or Davis on occasion. Mainly Kurtzman. Maybe, before Kirby started exaggerating his style more and more in the 60s. Timing would still have to avoid confinement by the CCA.

Love Toth’s artwork. Like Richard Corben, visual storytelling that’s crystal clear even without looking at the text.

I’ve just read that the director has stated that the inspiration for the screaming goats is this Taylor Swift meme…

Pure nostalgia. But, that limits its appeal. In the trailer you feel you’re watching a retread of the TV series, and that it seems a bit of a pointless exercise, even over a couple of minutes. Not offering anything new and contemporary. I agree.

The thrilling anticipation makes it worthwhile.

Dated and irrelevant. This guy looks like he would fit in to the visual scheme going on there, and would help to make it more interesting…