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Post by tingramretro on Nov 14, 2016 4:30:28 GMT -5
Note to Chris Claremont, should he ever see this: moorland is characterised by low growing vegetation on acidic soils. Low growing vegetation, Chris. Not trees. Definitely not forests.
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 14, 2016 4:21:45 GMT -5
Captain Britain #8 (Dec '76)Script: Chris Claremont Art: Herb Trimpe/Fred Kida "Riot on Regent Street" A deceptively mundane (by superhero comics standards) beginning to this issue, with CB helping Inspector Kate Fraser to take down some more of Vixen's armoured goons (last seen in issue #3) leads to some major revelations. First, Fraser (who won't be seen again after this issue; a shame, as Claremont seems to have been slowly building an interesting relationshop between her and the Captain) reveals to him why the absent Dai Thomas dislikes superheroes so much; on a visit to a police conference in New York some years earlier, Thomas was injured and his wife was killed by a collapsing building during a superhero battle, and Thomas is now determined to "stop that sort of madness from spreading to London". Suddenly, Thomas is a much more believable character and his viewpoint easier to understand... From there, following a brief, pointless interlude in which Brian describes fighting forest fires on Darkmoor (eh? forest fires? We've never even seen trees on Darkmoor!) to Courtney Ross while Jacko Tanner seethes and plots revenge on his love rival, things get more interesting as Brian's peace is shattered by the sudden appearance of his previously unmentioned twin sister, Betsy, who has rushed over to Thames University to tell him that their equally unknown brother Jamie has had a serious car accident! Hasn't this woman ever heard of a phone? Until now, we've known nothing about Brian's family other than vague hints that his parents were dead; now, in the space of two pages, we find out that he has a twin sister who is a charter pilot(!), a brother who is a Formula 1 racing driver (!!!) and that, oh yeah, his sister is evidently given to weird psychic flashes, as she loses control of the plane in which she is flying Brian and herself home after seeing "horrible monsters--all around us"! The plane crashes, and after switching to his super powered form, Brian pulls the unconscious Betsy from the burning wreckage...only to be confronted by a weird figure on a white horse, who declares that Betsy's mind has been destroyed by "Monsters of the mind! Monsters spawned by the demon dreams of Dr. Synne!" It's all a bit overwhelming, but you can't say Claremont doesn't know how to move a plot along when he wants to. This is Betsy, by the way. Please note that she is in no way, shape or form Japanese.
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 14, 2016 3:30:51 GMT -5
Wouldn't that have changed at least sometime early in the 90s? My first comic book orders were all foreign address, and shipping took 10 weeks, but worth it when I got a package. Oh, I probably could've ordered from them even back in the '80s, but I just sort of got the idea that I couldn't because I wasn't living in America. I don't know where I got that idea...possibly a parent, I guess. The only thing I ever ordered from the back of comics were a Dennis the Menace and Gnasher set of badges from the Beano, and the novelization of The Empire Strikes Back from the still-very-young original Forbidden Planet shop. This would've been circa 1980 or '81, I guess. The badges are long gone, but I still have that original copy of Donald F. Glut's ESB novelization on my shelf today. I have that same book! And you're right, I believe in the 70s at least it was specified that you couldn't order any of that stuff from the American ads if you didn't live in America. No sea monkeys for us, sadly...
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 12, 2016 13:40:55 GMT -5
IMO, Legalizing pot has nothing to do with that... it's about the taxes. Specifically, I want the government to collect them on Marijuana sales, instead of spending resources arresting completely harmless stoners that aren't bothering anyone. My only concern (I'm in Massachusetts too) is that there doesn't seem to be a good way to test for someone driving under the influence... hopefully someone will come up with that soon now that it's becoming an increasing need. I agree that should be the reason to legalize it, but I don't have any faith in a state whose officials kept tattoos illegal into the 21st century. And it's because they are a bunch of old religious folks who don't want to let people decide for themselves. Seriously? So what happened if someone who already had tattoos moved in from outside?
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 12, 2016 13:34:29 GMT -5
I remember buyng a few issues of Captain Britain, although it was the ones with FF stories in them as back-up strips. Which is why I bought them. I never appreciated Cpt Britain at the time, probably seeng him as a poor man's Cpt America... my loss! Sadly, I suspect you were not alone in this view at the time.
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 12, 2016 13:24:58 GMT -5
Captain Britain #7 (Nov '76)Script: Chris Claremont Art: Herb Trimpe/Fred Kida "Wind of Death" The Hurricane saga finally concludes after four issues, and better yet, we finally find out who our windy villain is and why he's doing what he's doing, as-in a move straight out of the Superhero Handbook-CB staves off his impending doom by inviting Hurricane to "at least tell me the reason--! You obviously have genius! Why use it criminally?" Naturally, there isn't a supervillain alive who can resist that line, so the Captain's predicament is sidelined for a bit as we go into a flashback of Albert Potter, a meteorologist employed by the London Weather Research Centre, who is attempting to "tame the big wind". A noble goal no doubt, but poor Bert has wasted ten million quid in trying and failing, we are told, and his lousy attitude doesn't excatly endear him to his co-workers, either (lines like "He who controls the weather will control the world" can't fail to be a little worrying for those having to work with him, one feels). Inevitably, Bert's project is cancelled, but the Director doesn't know that Bert has completed his "experimental weather control craft", which he foolishly flies into the heart of a Hurricane, thinking he can destroy it. He can't... His craft destroyed by repeated lightning strikes and powerful winds, Bert somehow survives a four thousand metre fall into the ocean and drifts for two days before being rescued by a passing ship. The only visible sign of his ordeal is total hair loss (why? Who knows) but Bert, who wasn't exactly playing with a full deck to start with, is now completely unhinged and believes his misfortune to have been caused by the deliberate sabotage of his craft by some cworker jealous of his brilliance. "All mankind was guilty--guilty of ridicule and scorn--and now that the hurricane had changed me--had made me one with itself--I had the power to exact my vengeance!" This, he did-by "hiding from my unsuspecting enemies" while building his super suit, and then embarking on his ever so slightly silly blackmail scheme (one suspects that in the meantime, Bert's "unsuspecting enemies" back at the centre have probably forgotten all about him). It's rather vague at this point whether Bert has actually gained powers from the storm which the suit is somehow regulating, or if his abilities come from the suit, and he's just developed some sort of god complex. Either way, his monologue has given our hero a chance: as Hurricane starts up the engine, te Captain manages to free a hand, and uses it to rub his magic amulet, reasoning that "the chains are set to hold Captain Brtain, not Brian Braddock." The shackles holdig him fall straight off Brian, who is "slimmer as a non superhero", and he (somehow) swings himself out of the jet intake before it can suck him in, before resuming his super form. Deducing that Hurricane has indeed somehow internalized the power of the hurricane, CB then works out that it's his backpack that's regulating that power, cooling "the tremendous heat generating within him". Engaging the bad guy again, the Captain at first can't get near him, but then figures out how to use his previous defeats to his advantage: he pretends to pass out again, luring the villain to him, then slips his staff under the straps of Hurricane's backpack and levers it off him. Seconds later, the villain collapses: "Deprived of a cooling system for drawing off his tremendous body heat--Hurricane literally burned himself out!" The clear implication is that Hurricane is dead, like the Reaver before him, though well over a decade later he would be revived having supposedly spent years incarcerated at "Darkmoor Prison" in the 90s series Gene Dogs, and would later battle the Fantastic Four after for some reason moving to America (see below). Captain Britain ends the issue by musing, as the airport security staff run onto the scene, "poor, hapless Albert Potter! He had so much genius! He could have done so much to help mankind...but instead he chose to throw it all away".
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 12, 2016 12:16:23 GMT -5
Captain Britain #6 (Nov '76)Script: Chris Claremont Art: Herb Trimpe/Fred Kida "Havoc at Heathrow" OK, there's really not a great deal to say about this issue, as all we basically get is a protracted fight scene between Captain Britain (who still doesn't seem to know what he's doing, and at one point even sabotages himself by carelessly dropping his quarterstaff and then can't find an opportunity to recover it) and Hurricane, who appears to have him totally outclassed. The Captain does discover that his foe's weak point is the cooling unit in his backpack, but he can't get close enough to him to do anything about it. Eventually, having narrowly failed to drop a jumbo jet on CB, Hurricane manages to knock him out again by sucking all the air out of his lungs with a wind tunnel, and our hero awakens to find himself chained over the air intake of a Concorde. Hurricane has been waiting for him to wake up, and now intends to turn the engine on at full throttle: the Captain will be sucked into the engine, and become mincemeat... I think Hurricane has been watching too many old movie serials, personally. Why didn't he just kill him while he was out cold? Oh yes, one piece of trivia: the cover image of this issue was used on one of the earliest and now rarest pieces of Captain Britain related merchandise: a 180 piece jigsaw puzzle, released in 1977.
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 12, 2016 11:56:41 GMT -5
I own quite a few collected editions for ease of reading, but nothing beats actually having the original comics. To me, a collection of trades isn't really a collection, somehow.
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 12, 2016 1:53:24 GMT -5
So Massachusetts's message is "out with the tea, in with the pot?" (And Massachusetts is a very difficult name to type).I think that slogan will appear on our flag in the spring, and yes it is difficult to spell. Usually when it comes to spelling and saying places around here I'd blame that on the pigeon language that is English but in this case I guess it's due to the ingenious people that once populated these shores. "Blame it on English"? Why would you blame it on English? You lot don't even speak English, and you certainly don't spell it! Silent letters exist for a reason, and a "subway" is a pedestrian underpass...
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 12, 2016 1:48:28 GMT -5
If it looks worse than the picture, I'm glad I can't see it. From here, it looks like it could be a nice meal if the rice was replaced by some roast potatoes. And if the...other stuff was replaced by a nice bit of roast lamb. I know, right. I have simply deplorable tastes. You should see some of the comics I read: {Spoiler: Click to show} This is the c**p I'm making right now: vegan lentil chili Yucky. I don't know what the comic is, but the art's beautiful. The chili, you're welcome to. I don't like any kind of chili. This is my idea of breakfast.
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 11, 2016 9:49:44 GMT -5
True. I went to an antiques place in Maine and they had various prices on all the books. I don't walk into an antique place to pay 7 dollars for a 2 dollar book. The last time I visited an antiques store I came across 7 silver-age Daredevils. These were obviously cared for by someone because they were bagged, boarded and started off from #20. My conservative estimate, 3 of the books looked around 6.5 and the other 3 were 7.5 - 8.5. #20 was a 7.5 The seller offered me them for about $15. They're all spares in my collection now. So there is still treasure out there...
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 11, 2016 9:12:16 GMT -5
Best finds I ever made were the first, second, fourth and fifth issues of 2000 AD in a cardboard box of old magazines sitting outside a second hand book shop in Crystal Palace in the early 1990s. They cost me ten pence each. The first issue alone was worth £60 at the time, the second £70 (first appearance of Judge Dredd). They've risen quite a bit since then. A few years later, I went back to the same place and found an admittedly low grade copy of The Avengers #5, for which I paid...twenty pence! Its like finding buried treasure. It is. Sadly, it doesn't happen so often now as it did twenty years ago. Even charity shops have now kind of grasped the fact that old comics are 'collectable', and therefore 'valuable'. Problem is, they're still fairly clueless about what is or is not worth anything and why, as a result of which, they now try to charge ludicrous prices for ten year old junk that's not even worth cover price...
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 11, 2016 8:55:41 GMT -5
A few years ago, I bought a collection of Eagle comics from the 1950s from an old bloke who'd kept them in his garden shed for almost fifty years. There were several hundred of them, all unbagged, all in pristine condition despite the fact that they'd been stacked flat, one on top of another, on a concrete floor...all except the top copy, which was slightly tattered and very faded due to sunlight through the shed window. Predictably, the faded top copy was the first issue, which would have been worth a couple of hundred pounds if it had been in the same condition as all the rest... Man, I love stories like this. I visited Maine this past fall and went to a little comic shop where I found the first appearance of Savage Dragon ( goes for 150 dollars) for 50 cents. Best finds I ever made were the first, second, fourth and fifth issues of 2000 AD in a cardboard box of old magazines sitting outside a second hand book shop in Crystal Palace in the early 1990s. They cost me ten pence each. The first issue alone was worth £60 at the time, the second £70 (first appearance of Judge Dredd). They've risen quite a bit since then. A few years later, I went back to the same place and found an admittedly low grade copy of The Avengers #5, for which I paid...twenty pence!
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 11, 2016 7:55:23 GMT -5
Books 20 years old or less were completely nude. I bought silver age books from a collector who had his books packed away boxes in a cool dark environment ever since he purchased them from the newsagent racks in the 60s, and they were completely nude too. For over 45 years. When I got them, they were still well within the 8.0 - 8.5 grade. I was surprised, and he was surprised his dearly departed collection was bought by a girl. I've since clothed them with mylites of course. A few years ago, I bought a collection of Eagle comics from the 1950s from an old bloke who'd kept them in his garden shed for almost fifty years. There were several hundred of them, all unbagged, all in pristine condition despite the fact that they'd been stacked flat, one on top of another, on a concrete floor...all except the top copy, which was slightly tattered and very faded due to sunlight through the shed window. Predictably, the faded top copy was the first issue, which would have been worth a couple of hundred pounds if it had been in the same condition as all the rest...
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 11, 2016 7:47:22 GMT -5
That actually looks like saag paneer, a dish many Indian people love. I've never been a huge fan of it personally. Palak paneer. I'm only mostly vegan. Mostly. I am about to eat this: peanut ginger curry with chickpeas I'm using jasmine rice instead of brown (unlike in the picture). It never looks as good as the pictures. If it looks worse than the picture, I'm glad I can't see it. From here, it looks like it could be a nice meal if the rice was replaced by some roast potatoes. And if the...other stuff was replaced by a nice bit of roast lamb.
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