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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2023 6:51:33 GMT -5
I’m looking forward to it. All seems so ominous in the first chapter. Sadly, the volume I have has had to legally omit the “Burger Wars” chapters due to copyright. Shame. I would have liked to have read those; the introduction in the volume offers a summary at least. Oh, that's a shame. That episode is both hilarious and rather surreal...and features some gorgeous Brian Bolland artwork too. I’m struggling to think what the legalities are. Is satire illegal? Or is the UK tougher on satire? I mean, I take it, the companies in that arc weren’t called Burger King, McDonalds, KFC, etc? |
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Post by Confessor on Apr 13, 2023 7:39:49 GMT -5
Oh, that's a shame. That episode is both hilarious and rather surreal...and features some gorgeous Brian Bolland artwork too. I’m struggling to think what the legalities are. Is satire illegal? Or is the UK tougher on satire? I mean, I take it, the companies in that arc weren’t called Burger King, McDonalds, KFC, etc? No, if anything the UK is more relaxed about satire than a lot of other countries. The companies in the Cursed Earth arc were indeed called McDonalds, Burger King, Green Giant etc, but I don't think that the mention of those multinationals by name was the problem. As far as I've always understood it, McDonalds, Burger King, and Green Giant filed a lawsuit against 2000 AD for unlicensed use of their trademarked mascots, such as Ronald McDonald and the Jolly Green Giant. Specifically, it was some of the, shall we say, "less wholesome" actions that these mascots undertook in the Cursed Earth storyline that these companies really objected to. 2000 AD's publisher IPC settled out of court in the end and part of the conditions of the settlement was that the offending episodes could never be reprinted. I think it was a change in EU copyright law in the past decade or so (or something similar) that meant that the strips were finally allowed to be reprinted. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 13, 2023 7:46:09 GMT -5
Thanks for the explanation, Confessor. As a change in EU copyright law allowed reprints, I guess I will find these (I think the volume I am reading is probably from 2006 or something). |
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Post by Confessor on Apr 13, 2023 9:40:48 GMT -5
I re-read the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Nemo – Heart of Ice by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill last week.  The story is the first part of a trilogy which spans 50 years of LoEG continuity. However, this trilogy doesn't, as might be assumed from its title, revolve around Captain Nemo from Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas; it instead concerns Janni Dakkar, the daughter of Captain Nemo, who was first introduced in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century – 1910 and who now commands the Nautilus. This first volume is set in 1925 and opens with Janni stealing a tremendous amount of treasure from Queen Ayesha (from H. Rider Haggard's 1887 fantasy novel She), who here appears to be in the company of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane (from Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane). After this opening scene, Janni capriciously decides that she is bored with pirating and pillaging and instead would rather lead an expedition to find a hidden city in Antarctica, as her father had done before her, though it drove him mad. However, Ayesha is still smarting from the earlier robbery and thus Kane assembles a team of inventors/adventurers made up of Tom Swift (spelled "Swyfte" here) – who Wikipedia tells me comes from a series of early 20th century Edisonade adventure and sci-fi novels written by Edward Stratemeyer – and Jack Wright and Frank Reade Jr. who are both characters from the Victorian science fiction dime novels of Luis Senarens. This team are charged with pursuing Janni and her crew across Antarctica to retrieve Ayesha's treasure. As they cross the frozen wastes, Janni and her pursuers run into various creatures and locations described in Edgar Allan Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Jules Verne's Antarctic Mystery, and H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. Frankly, this is where Kevin O'Neill's art really shines, as his depictions of the various cosmic horrors – including giant albino penguins, ghostly apparitions, and a shoggoth – are simultaneously brilliantly inventive and suitably unsettling. I didn't think much of Nemo – Heart of Ice when I first read it some years ago, but I really enjoyed it on this re-read. Maybe it was enhanced by coming to it as part of my current re-read of the whole League of Extraordinary Gentlemen saga, rather than encountering it some years since I had last read a LoEG book? I mean, don't get me wrong, the book has its flaws, such as the premise being a little flimsy and a lack of character development. Nevertheless, I found Heart of Ice to be a cracking adventure story, with a thrilling chase at its core and some superb visuals. It's a lighter read than most LoEG books, but then again it was less of a slog than some of the Century trilogy. |
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Post by Cei-U! on Apr 13, 2023 12:10:28 GMT -5
FYI, Edward Stratemeyer not only created Tom Swift but also Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, and The Bobbsey Twins, all popular childrens' book series of the 1930s and beyond.
Cei-U!
I summon the creative giant!
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Apr 13, 2023 12:35:41 GMT -5
I re-read the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Nemo – Heart of Ice by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill last week. The story is the first part of a trilogy which spans 50 years of LoEG continuity. However, this trilogy doesn't, as might be assumed from its title, revolve around Captain Nemo from Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas; it instead concerns Janni Dakkar, the daughter of Captain Nemo, who was first introduced in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century – 1910 and who now commands the Nautilus. This first volume is set in 1925 and opens with Janni stealing a tremendous amount of treasure from Queen Ayesha (from H. Rider Haggard's 1887 fantasy novel She), who here appears to be in the company of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane (from Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane). After this opening scene, Janni capriciously decides that she is bored with pirating and pillaging and instead would rather lead an expedition to find a hidden city in Antarctica, as her father had done before her, though it drove him mad. However, Ayesha is still smarting from the earlier robbery and thus Kane assembles a team of inventors/adventurers made up of Tom Swift (spelled "Swyfte" here) – who Wikipedia tells me comes from a series of early 20th century Edisonade adventure and sci-fi novels written by Edward Stratemeyer – and Jack Wright and Frank Reade Jr. who are both characters from the Victorian science fiction dime novels of Luis Senarens. This team are charged with pursuing Janni and her crew across Antarctica to retrieve Ayesha's treasure. As they cross the frozen wastes, Janni and her pursuers run into various creatures and locations described in Edgar Allan Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Jules Verne's Antarctic Mystery, and H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. Frankly, this is where Kevin O'Neill's art really shines, as his depictions of the various cosmic horrors – including giant albino penguins, ghostly apparitions, and a shoggoth – are simultaneously brilliantly inventive and suitably unsettling. I didn't think much of Nemo – Heart of Ice when I first read it some years ago, but I really enjoyed it on this re-read. Maybe it was enhanced by coming to it as part of my current re-read of the whole League of Extraordinary Gentlemen saga, rather than encountering it some years since I had last read a LoEG book? I mean, don't get me wrong, the book has its flaws, such as the premise being a little flimsy and a lack of character development. Nevertheless, I found Heart of Ice to be a cracking adventure story, with a thrilling chase at its core and some superb visuals. It's a lighter read than most LoEG books, but then again it was less of a slog than some of the Century trilogy. I haven't read this since it came out, but I remember liking it. I should probably re-read the entire series again. |
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Post by Confessor on Apr 14, 2023 4:47:49 GMT -5
Carrying on with my re-read of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen "Nemo trilogy" with The Roses of Berlin...  This second volume is set in 1941 and finds Queen Ayesha (from H. Rider Haggard's Victorian fantasy novel She) in Berlin, which is modelled after the dystopian setting of director Fritz Lang's 1927 silent film Metropolis. The Queen is in league with Adenoid Hynkel, who is a thinly-veiled parody of Adolf Hitler taken from Charlie Chaplin's 1940 film The Great Dictator (and who was first mentioned in the The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier). Janni and her lover Broad Arrow Jack undertake a daring raid into Berlin in order to rescue their daughter Hira and son-in-law, Armand Robur (who is presumably the son of the titular character from Jules Verne's 1886 novel Robur the Conqueror). Both Hira and Armand have been taken prisoner by The Reich, as part of a trap laid by Hynkle and the Queen. Once in Berlin, Janni and Jack encounter the "Twilight Heroes" – a Teutonic version of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – made up of Dr. Mabuse (from Norbert Jacques' 1921 novel Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler), mesmerist Dr. Caligari and his mind-slave Cesare (from the 1920 German silent horror film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari), and Dr. Rotwang and his female android Maria (both from Lang's Metropolis). The story culminates with Jack sacrificing himself and Janni having a final showdown with Ayesha, which results in the Queen being slain. I felt that this instalment, while pretty action-packed, was less interesting than the first, but it was still a pretty fun read. As ever, Alan Moore liberally sprinkles his usual wealth of literary and pop cultural references, in-jokes and Easter Eggs throughout the script and artist Kevin O'Neill's depiction of the German Metropolis, with its futuristic overhead trains, industrial ironwork and Dieselpunk aesthetic is superb. A neat bit of appropriation from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari that I particularly liked was that Moore has the Twilight Heroes commanding an army of walking, hypnotised "sleep troopers", all decked out in Nazi stormtrooper garb. This is because in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, the good Doctor uses a sleepwalking stooge to commit a number of murders, which itself is a veiled commentary on the "sleepwalking" mindlessness of army soldiers conditioned to kill. I thought that was a really clever instance of Moore turning the original source material's subtext in on itself. However, one big nitpick for me in The Roses of Berlin was Moore's dogged determination to have all the German characters speaking in German throughout the book, without any form of translation. Now, while I understand that this use of German language might well add an air of authenticity to the story, having so much important dialogue and plot information – pages and pages of it at the start of the book! – in a language that will be unreadable to most of the comic's audience smacks a little bit of bloody-mindedness. Nonetheless, this was another satisfying instalment of the Nemo trilogy and one that I enjoyed a lot more on this re-read than I did the first time round. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2023 5:17:23 GMT -5
Last night, I found out that there’s a sci-if magazine (not available in shops) called Spaceship Away, which appears to be devoted mainly to Dan Dare. Here’s the latest cover:  The publisher’s description: |
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Post by Confessor on Apr 14, 2023 9:00:01 GMT -5
Last night, I found out that there’s a sci-if magazine (not available in shops) called Spaceship Away, which appears to be devoted mainly to Dan Dare. Here’s the latest cover: Oh yeah, Spaceship Away has been running for yonks. It was first published in the very early 2000s, I believe. It features new Dan Dare strips written and drawn in a deliberately faithful pastiche of how the strips were back in the 1950s in The Eagle. I have no idea whether the stories are any good, mind you, but the artwork always looks suitably Hampson and Bellamy-esque, while clearly never quite reaching the artistic heights of those two giants of British comics. I remember when Spaceship Away first appeared that I was really excited about it, being a huge fan of the original Dan Dare strips. But back then, a subscription (pretty sure it's always been subscription only) was prohibitively expensive, with each issue being £7 or something (which seemed very steep in the 2000s). In addition, the publishing schedule – which I believe is supposed to be quarterly – always seemed really sporadic, with months and months passing between issues sometimes. It's great that it's still going, and I think that these days the magazine has other strips from The Eagle in it too, but yeah...the price and erratic publication schedual has always put me off taking the plunge. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2023 9:50:01 GMT -5
Just had a quick look at the website. Ordering page looks a little antiquated - and seems they only accept Paypal. (I have a Paypal account, but it’s been an age since I logged in) I think they could update things a tad, and allow one to just enter a debit card number. It does look a little old hat: spaceshipaway.org/sales/order.htm |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Apr 14, 2023 10:03:50 GMT -5
I just re-read Nexus (vol. 2) #1-15 (Capital comics, then First) as well as Nexus: the Origin one shot (Dark Horse).
I was an idiot not to start reading Nexus back in the day. It's a really fun book, with lovely art by Steve Rude and mature scripts (in the good sense of the word "mature") by Mike Baron. Although Nexus deals with a fellow who executes mass murderers, the general tone is always humorous even when it deals with serious social, political or philosophical subjects. Not surprising that both Nexus and American Flagg! were published by First comics; both are a very good fit on the same shelf.
I didn't remember that many of those early issues had been inked by a young Eric Shanower, who also provided full art on certain back-up stories; although he was already good, it's amazing to see how Shanower's art would undergo a quantum leap forward just a few years down the line (a bit like Barry Smith in between Conan #15 and #19).
Rude's art is brilliant right from the start. I really enjoy his clean, clean lines and sharp contrast; he has an artistic sensibility and a sense of storytelling that evokes Kirby without plagiarizing him, and one that I also found (much to my delight) in Mark Buckigham's Fables.
The only tiny nit that I would pick is that Baron uses cosmic distances a little haphazardly; two racing spaceships separated by a million parsecs would be galaxies away from one another. But that's unimportant when one considers the richness of the universe Baron creates here, and the varied and colourful characters he peoples it with.
I do believe I'll keep digging in those long boxes and read the series to the end!
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Post by EdoBosnar on Apr 14, 2023 14:21:45 GMT -5
White IndianFrank Frazetta, 2011 (edited by J. David Spurlock)  This book collects a bunch of comics illustrated by Frank Frazetta that appeared in a variety of comic books from 1948 through 1955. First and foremost, as per the title, it has all of the Dan Brand/White Indian back-up stories originally published in the first sixteen issues of The Durango Kid, published by Magazine Enterprises. It also has a number of shorts, including one-page features and PSAs, that Frazetta did for various other publishers during that period ( one of which I noted recently in another thread), mostly appearing in a series called Heroic Comics (published by Eastern/Famous Funnies).  None of the stories really stand out – they’re all pretty typical fare for comics from this era. Those about the titular ‘White Indian,’ Dan Brand, are set in the late 18th century during the period leading up to and then during the American war for independence. There are occasional guest appearances by actual historical figures, most notably George Washington at various phases of his military career, from lieutenant, through colonel to general.  As one would expect in stories from this period dealing with the frontier, there’s a lot of stereotypical and often objectionable portrayals of Native Americans, running the gamut from noble savages to treacherous and murderous ‘renegades.’ The latter comes to the fore in particular in a non-Dan Brand story called “Chief Victorio’s Last Stand” (from Jesse James #20, published by Avon) about that Apache leader’s battles with the US and Mexican armies in the late 1870s.  (inked by Al Williamson) What makes this book outstanding and worth having, however, is the art. It is so lovely throughout the book, and at places it is just absolutely gorgeous, as one would suspect – and which should be apparent in the samples peppered throughout this post. Here’s one more from a Dan Brand story:  And we’ll close off with one from a fairy tale, “Diamonds and Pebbles” that originally appeared in Happy Comics #33 (Standard/Nedor, 1949): 
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2023 14:45:31 GMT -5
White IndianFrank Frazetta, 2011 (edited by J. David Spurlock) This book collects a bunch of comics illustrated by Frank Frazetta that appeared in a variety of comics from 1948 through 1955. I got a copy of that book when we were sheltering in place, but went back to work before I got to dive into it. It's still sitting in my to read pile, and I need to get to it soon. -M |
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Post by commond on Apr 14, 2023 17:10:35 GMT -5
I just re-read Nexus (vol. 2) #1-15 (Capital comics, then First) as well as Nexus: the Origin one shot (Dark Horse). I was an idiot not to start reading Nexus back in the day. It's a really fun book, with lovely art by Steve Rude and mature scripts (in the good sense of the word "mature") by Mike Baron. Although Nexus deals with a fellow who executes mass murderers, the general tone is always humorous even when it deals with serious social, political or philosophical subjects. Not surprising that both Nexus and American Flagg! were published by First comics; both are a very good fit on the same shelf. I didn't remember that many of those early issues had been inked by a young Eric Shanower, who also provided full art on certain back-up stories; although he was already good, it's amazing to see how Shanower's art would undergo a quantum leap forward just a few years down the line (a bit like Barry Smith in between Conan #15 and #19). Rude's art is brilliant right from the start. I really enjoy his clean, clean lines and sharp contrast; he has an artistic sensibility and a sense of storytelling that evokes Kirby without plagiarizing him, and one that I also found (much to my delight) in Mark Buckigham's Fables. The only tiny nit that I would pick is that Baron uses cosmic distances a little haphazardly; two racing spaceships separated by a million parsecs would be galaxies away from one another. But that's unimportant when one considers the richness of the universe Baron creates here, and the varied and colourful characters he peoples it with. I do believe I'll keep digging in those long boxes and read the series to the end! I have been re-reading the entire Nexus series over the past couple of years (one issue per week), and I'm up to issue #71. I had actually never read the non-Rude stuff. When I was a kid, I would only collect the issues that he penciled and ignored the rest. I really liked the issues where Paul Smith filled in for Rude, but on the whole, I would recommend collecting the first 60 issues and The Next Nexus mini-series and skipping the rest. The art is rough in the final stretch and it's not the same once Hellpop quits being the Nexus. My first issue was during the fat Elvis period. I have a real fondness for that era. |
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2023 18:18:39 GMT -5
I just re-read Nexus (vol. 2) #1-15 (Capital comics, then First) as well as Nexus: the Origin one shot (Dark Horse). I was an idiot not to start reading Nexus back in the day. It's a really fun book, with lovely art by Steve Rude and mature scripts (in the good sense of the word "mature") by Mike Baron. Although Nexus deals with a fellow who executes mass murderers, the general tone is always humorous even when it deals with serious social, political or philosophical subjects. Not surprising that both Nexus and American Flagg! were published by First comics; both are a very good fit on the same shelf. I didn't remember that many of those early issues had been inked by a young Eric Shanower, who also provided full art on certain back-up stories; although he was already good, it's amazing to see how Shanower's art would undergo a quantum leap forward just a few years down the line (a bit like Barry Smith in between Conan #15 and #19). Rude's art is brilliant right from the start. I really enjoy his clean, clean lines and sharp contrast; he has an artistic sensibility and a sense of storytelling that evokes Kirby without plagiarizing him, and one that I also found (much to my delight) in Mark Buckigham's Fables. The only tiny nit that I would pick is that Baron uses cosmic distances a little haphazardly; two racing spaceships separated by a million parsecs would be galaxies away from one another. But that's unimportant when one considers the richness of the universe Baron creates here, and the varied and colourful characters he peoples it with. I do believe I'll keep digging in those long boxes and read the series to the end! Nexus was a great series (one of my all-time favorite indies), loved the Badger crossovers as well! Baron was really on fire back then, and yes, Rude's art is a treat. |
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