The House of Cobwebs

"The World Will End in 1983!" A Random Rummage Through My Comic Box

2011-12-16T09:11:00.000Z

An anonymous commentator who has used my critique of Pudgy Pig for his research project into Charlton humour comics (a project he's mysteriously carrying out despite the fact he doesn't like them very much - I salute you, sir - and, though you don't specify, I'm somehow sure you're a sir rather than a miss) has stirred me to return to the 'blog-o-sphere', where we can all share that same joyous futility of expression, disguised by a nebulous idea of 'community', while never leaving our bedrooms.

I note that while I was away 'Blogger' have fiddled with things to make it all a bit less straightforward to do, and it's all a bit uglier behind the scenes, but I remain undeterred. I will never alter my fonts, add fancy backgrounds, or make any kind of stylistic changes at all. The more obsolete this looks, the better I shall like it. So there. Meanwhile, while they come up with new ways to make it harder to keep things exactly the same, I'm easing myself back in with some brief rummages through the comic box. I had some crazy idea that I might catalogue all the rotting periodicals therein on a computer 'spreadsheet' (who says I'm not 'hep'?) Another glorious exercise in empty industry...I haven't got round to it yet. But it's a good chance to pull a few comics out and take a look.

If you scoot back up to the top there you'll see issue two of the early 1970s Gold Key series, O.G. Whiz. As you can see, he is the boy boss of the Tikkletoy Company (reminds me of an episode of The Monkees where they used that idea) and you won't be surprised to discover that I bought this one purely on the strength of its bizarre cover. A reversal of the ol' secretary sitting on the boss' knee chestnut, but with a vaguely perverse twist which inevitably I find appealing. The comics inside are an entertaining late work by the legendary John Stanley (I think) but can't quite live up to the weirdness of the exterior. Now, talking of weird exteriors...

Might I draw your attention to Exhibit 2 above? I don't know about you, but I can never resist comics with gorillas robbing banks on the cover. This is a British 1950s reprint of Australian Mandrake the Magician newspaper strips, by Lee Falk, I believe (that chap who famously did The Phantom - but I always thought Mandrake was a more interesting creation). In this case, the innards are just as odd as the outards, and I can heartily recommend this old nonsense. Note the claim that these are "new adventures" (they're not) and the wonderfully awful efforts of the editorial hacks at L. Miller (the British publishers) to resize a small panel of artwork to fit their superbly badly-designed cover template. Such charming amateurism is neither attempted nor accepted these days. I love the awful criss-cross lines on the 'floor', the bank clerk's swollen hand, and his glasses flying in the air. Splendid. I have another issue of this somewhere that, if I recall correctly, features giant worms.

Here's another terrific cover. However bad Charlton humour comics were, you can't complain about their space/horror/mystery titles, which were invariably fascinating and often very good. As is this one, Space Adventures, a 1980s comic reprinting what looks like 1950s or 60s material. These were the kind they used to sell in the newsagent down the end of my road in the days of my youth; maybe I saw this one down there. I didn't buy this back in the day; this was a fairly recent purchase. I can't remember what's in it exactly, but I remember I enjoyed reading it. It probably includes a thinly-veiled story about the Cold War, and cautionary tales about the inhumanity of a giant computer and some robots, and a man who invents a time machine but then naughtily uses it to win on the horse races. You know the sort of thing. What a cover, though. I guess they're supposed to be fighting, but I prefer to imagine they're doing some kind of groovy extra-terrestrial disco-dance at the interplanetary palais, while a green-afro'ed dance-contest space-judge checks their moves and looks on approvingly.

And finally - an ill-fated but rather excellent Jack Kirby magazine-format comic book from the early 70s, Spirit World. There are some wonderful and experimental tales of ghostly weirdness and witches inside, yet for some reason the kids failed to dig it. I paid £3 for this (wondering at the time whether it was worth it) but I'm told this is quite a desirable and scarce item. Note that it has been reduced from twelve and a half new pence to five pence, and the relish with which the 'rubber stamper' plonked his 'brand' between the spooky eyes. Note also at least one prophecy which failed to come true on the cover. Sadly, my copy did not come with the free Giant Poster of the Occult World. If it had, you can be certain it would be straight up there on the wall next to my Cycling Proficiency Certificate.

I hope you have enjoyed this brief rummage amidst the decaying newsprint...and that we might meet again some day, here in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

The Incomplete Buddy Holly

2011-03-18T14:06:00.010Z

The second Buddy Holly LP I owned had 20 - yes, 20! - tracks. Some of them sounded a bit odd - "electronically reprocessed for stereo" - but it didn't matter.

One of the many scary things about this bloated modern computer world we live in, chums, is that you can have pretty much everything you want, right now, delivered to you in an instant (well, a few days) with just the click of a button. As you know, I'm a nutty, nerdy collector of old stuff, and I'm just as bad as everybody else, snapping up more books than I will ever read, more CDs than I can ever listen to, more DVDs than I can ever watch; but every now and then I suddenly find myself freaking out in a vague sort of way, staring at the piles of dusty old gubbins that fill my sordid garret, waving my hands and going "AAARGH!" as I realise that, once again, I risk being consumed by my own desire to possess more stuff than is good for me.

I'm not an acquisitive fellow in the usual sense - no property, no car, for instance - but I am a sucker for the kind of pop cultural bric a brac that I have previously written about here at this Blog. Yes, I love my stuff. But it strikes me that it's so easy to get everything these days that I don't quite always get the same kick out of the things I love as I used to back in those simple pre-internet days of yore.

Let me give give you an example. I am very keen on the music of Buddy Holly. I have been since I was a small boy (thanks to the influence of my Old Man, who, as well as sharing his worn-out collection of Coral 45s with the triangular centres, even used to have the same glasses as Buddy). Back when I was 8 years old, when I was given my first 'box' record player, something like a 1970s Dansette, orange, with cream lid and auto-changer, one of my first records to go with it was this cheapo Buddy compilation LP...

Things were so different back then. First of all, you could only buy LPs that you spotted in a shop - without going through a hefty printed catalogue, there was very little way of checking out all the releases by a certain artist. So your choice was limited to what the shop stocked. Secondly, there seemed to be far fewer 'oldies' records to choose from - unlike now, record companies generally couldn't be bothered to re-release original albums in their original format. All you got, a lot of the time, were strangely packaged compilations, which often seemed to have been flung together with a total disregard for whether the track selection was any good or not. Thirdly, if you wanted to find out more, you couldn't look up Buddy Holly on Wikipedia. You had to track down a book (which you had to go to a shop or the library to order). Often all you had were the notes on the back of the LP - an LP without them was always a disappointment.

So, I studied the notes on the back of this LP many times - soaking up as much information about Buddy as a I could from a dry bit of text by some chap called Roger St. Pierre (the web says he's a travel writer and /or cycling journalist, depending on which unreliable source you prefer) - and, meanwhile, as I didn't own many LPs, played the record over and over, all 12 tracks, the good tracks (Dearest, Take Your Time, That Makes it Tough) and the not so good (Love Me, Now We're One), pretty much until I learned the record.

Nowadays, I have oodles of records and CDs and packages from Ebay and Amazon turn up for me almost every day. I often get CDs that - on paper - are a hundred times better than crummy old budget LPs like this, and contain umpteen squillion more tracks, and booklets full of information, and yet somehow it's not quite the same. Many of them are listened to once, then set aside. Few of them give that raw thrill of my distant yoof.

For instance: recently, after many years of legal wrangles, MCA released Buddy Holly: Not Fade Away - The Complete Studio Recordings.

This was something I'd been hoping for for years. I couldn't wait to order it. Hundreds of tracks on loads of CDs. Everything that Buddy had ever done! Everything! It was going to be great! But when I received it - it wasn't. As I unwrapped the package, there was a strange sense of deflation, of ending. I felt hollow. As I checked out the back cover, and saw all the names of the songs, in neat chronological order, extra takes and all, I was overwhelmed by a sudden sense of sadness and disappointment. This is all there is. There are no more tracks by Buddy hidden away elsewhere, uncollected, unissued. There will be no more exciting discoveries. I need never again hear any more odd juxtapositions of Buddy songs on bizarre greatest hits compilations. Having it all there, in order, in front of me, killed the mood somehow. And as I listened to the discs, I realised that I didn't want Buddy's (sadly short) musical life story laid out in front of me in its entirety like a giant aural tombstone. Nor did I need to hear a pre-pubescent Buddy warbling a bad country cover on a now-wrecked homemade 78 (one of the previously unreleased tracks on Disc 1) or multiple bad incomplete takes of Mona in a row, none of which Buddy would have held on to or wanted released (though, undeniably, the collector in me nonetheless wanted to possess them). And then it occurred to me that if I could and would skip these tracks, as I loaded them into my fancy Ipod, why not skip all the ones that weren't quite of the highest calibre (something I would never have dreamed of doing as I played those old compilation LPs)? What was the point of it all? Looking at it all laid out before me, flat, dead, in a long list, with all the recording dates solemnly documented, was it still music to listen to spontaneously, and for fun, or had it become a historical artefact to be endured in its entirety? Is this what Buddy would have wanted?

I have not been able to answer these questions, and do not intend to, though they disturb me still. But the upshot of this is - even though I have The Complete Buddy Holly, I find myself wishing it was The Incomplete Buddy Holly. I don't want to know all there is to know about it. I want to return to random, badly-chosen compilations of the great man's music, even those oddly fashioned by cycling journalists; I want to savour strange mixtures of tracks, and experience that sense that - as you listen to a particularly uneven collection - something good has been forgotten - but something else you might have forgotten has crept up where you least expected it. They say that enough is as good as a feast - and maybe I don't need everything all the time. Where's the fun in having everything?

The Complete Buddy Holly is indeed in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS, and, don't get me wrong, I'm glad it is, but so far it has has been played less than those budget compilations it was supposed to supersede. I wonder if Roger St. Pierre has a copy in his saddlebag?

Marvelman: not really that marvellous at all

2010-10-08T18:56:00.017+01:00

It's been a while, but yes, against the odds, I have returned once again from the grave to bring you another edition of THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS. Aren't you pleased? Today let's rap about coal. Not just any coal, but coal in space. You dig?

I may have mentioned previously how much I like the 1940s-1950s Captain Marvel comics that were published by Fawcett (and later reprinted in Shazam! by DC). Eventually curtailed thanks to a legal action by the publishers of Superman, who claimed it was a rip-off of their precious goody-goody super-ruffian, Captain Marvel was in fact an inspired, magical, brilliantly entertaining send up of the whole superhero genre. Cap (the alter ego of newsboy Billy Batson, who becomes Cap when he says the name of ancient Egyptian wizard Shazam) is the only superhero (pre-Spiderman) who was entertainingly aware of his own failings and shortcomings, and who made mistakes. Yes, he was a tough bully-boy, but he knew it. He remains the only superhero to exhibit a dry sense of self-aware humour and sometimes displayed an ironic awareness of how freakish a 'superhero' actually is. Perhaps more importantly he was the only superhero to face a villainous worm who spoke through a radio set around his neck (Mr. Mind) and whose best friend was a talking tiger who worked as a museum guide (Mr. Tawky Tawny). His arch-nemesis was a bald bloke who looked like a dentist and went heh-heh-heh a lot, the immortal Dr Thaddeus Bodog Sivana. It was brilliant stuff, I promise you, and I wish those clowns at DC - who hold the rights to the back catalogue - would reprint it properly. I don't want no modern 're-imaginings' of it, no thanks. One of the blogs I link down the side over there - written by the mighty Captain Zorikh - is devoted to the Big Red Cheese - take a look.

Here I am rambling off on one again. This post isn't even about Captain Marvel. When Cap bit the dust, L. Miller, the British publishers of his comics, suddenly without American material to reprint, quickly filled the gap with a homegrown rip-off of their own: Marvelman. Starved of the genuine Fawcett stuff, British kids (or their parents, who bought the comics in Woolworth's) made Marvelman a success, and his adventures continued into the early 1960s.

I remember, when I was a kid, my old man showing me a few old copies of Marvelman that he'd saved from the 1950s. In my memory they were badly drawn, stiffly written, unfunny, and often swiped directly from superior Captain Marvel tales of days gone by. But he lingered in the pop-cultural consciousness. Intriguingly, Marvelman was unexpectedly revived by eighties comics genius Alan Moore in the short-lived British adult comic Warrior. I bought some of the issues at the time and seem to recall that it was quite good as you would expect but it's quite tricky to get hold of now, for Marvel Comics long ago decided that rule the universe and that they have the copyright in anything called Marvelman because it sounds a bit like Marvel Comics and Moore's effort had to be called Miracleman when it was reprinted some years back and then it was forbidden from being reprinted at all. You see? No, neither do I. But I have probably violated fifteen pieces of legislation simply by mentioning the matter here, and I await my imminent arrest.

Anyhow, Marvel Comics have suddenly decided to reprint the old British 1950s Marvelman. I can't imagine that they are doing this for any other reason than that they want to irrevocably establish copyright on the character, which I thought lay with old geezer Mick Anglo, now 94, the Brit comics hack who 'created' him back in the 1950s. Imagine my surprise at seeing loads of Marvelman comics in the local emporium, amidst the X Men and what have you. Could they really be as bad as I remembered? Maybe I'd been unfair on them. Anyway, I picked up a few to check them out.

I hadn't been unfair on them. But what I don't get is why Marvel are bothering to reprint this stuff at all. It must be the lamest old super-tosh ever consigned to newsprint. And worse than the ineptitude of its production is the namby-pamby nature of the stories. In the unlikely event that any contemporary child picked up an issue, and unwisely bought it before they had a look inside, they'd sure get a shock when they broke the seal on the mylar comic sleeve and discovered what lie within - for if there ever was a trades' description act for comics covers, this one surely broke it. On the front, your standard buff super tough-boy prancing po-facedly about through space:

Inside, though, it's a different story. Here you will discover the true tedium of Marvelman: dreary, grey, post-war England fittingly encapsulated in the flattest, feeblest, drippiest superhero tales ever written. All power to Mr Anglo, who I'm sure did his best, for hopping on the gravy train while he could - and presumably Marvel have handed him a sizeable cheque for the 'rights' to his rip-off? - but his story ideas were hilariously dry and dull. I can't quite believe that Marvelman ran into the 1960s but, somehow it did.

Displaying a distinct lack of irony or self-awareness themselves, Marvel are touting the Marvelman stories as Golden Age classics. They ain't.

Coal in Space is a thrilling tale of that most thrilling of subjects, coal mining, but in space. The chap with the glasses is Gargunza, Marvelman's foe. He decides to mine for coal in space. He mines coal in space. It's not illegal to mine coal in space, but Marvelman duffs him up at the end anyway, for importing it without a license.

Frustratingly, they only reprinted the cover of this one, so I didn't get to read Marvelman and the Map Makers. But I bet it's pretty thrilling. I expect he meets some map makers, and...they make some maps. And probably he duffs them up at the end...for making maps without a license.

If you can stand the excitement, check out this thriller involving Kid Marvelman, the junior version of Marvelman: The Park Thefts. It's serious stuff, involving damage to plants. If you're of a nervous disposition, look away now.

No wonder they tried to ban comics in the 1950s. A gratuitous depiction of a man in a demob suit pulling up a plant, while his evil associates push statues about, willy nilly. And they're enjoying it. Why, it almost borders on a transgression of various local bylaws. Here's the plot:

Yeah, yeah. Gripping stuff. The sack is the least of his worries: hope Ned gets a decent meal sometime soon, so his shoulders can develop properly. For naughty kicks, and a frisson of guilty excitement, here's a close up of the plant-defiler. Don't tell anyone I showed you this.

He's not enjoyed himself so much since powdered egg came off the ration. Anyhow, that's quite enough excitement for me for one day. You won't find these comics in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS, or in any other house, I would suspect. But nonetheless I sure hope Mr Anglo made Marvel cough up big time.

Who let a dog in here?

Western Gunfighters: least popular of all Top Trumps sets

2010-08-15T19:14:00.014+01:00

Greetings junk fans. I have been rummaging around in the splendid dustbin of my past once again to bring you another essential blog-broadcast from beyond the grave. Men of a certain age - I don't think any girls ever played this game, even then they had better things to do - will doubtless remember Top Trumps, the number one card game played at junior school on the last day of term before the summer holidays. It was purely a male thing. Ladies: if you played this game, please get in touch. I want to meet you.

You had a load of picture cards, which usually featured cars, tanks, aeroplanes, all that sort of rubbish, y'know, mechanised machinery, and you would try and outdo your opponent by reading out one of the statistics attributed to the machine depicted on the top card of your half of the deck. Understand? No? Well, here's an example. "Engine cylinders: six," you would whine nervously, perhaps clutching a crumpled depiction of a yellow Ford estate car; whence your oily opponent - a scrawny, pasty-faced boy who perhaps always had the faint aroma of curdled milk lingering about his person - clutching a superior Ferrari, would crow joyfully "cylinders: twelve!", and snatch your card. The idea was to get all the other player's cards. Yes, that's what we did for entertainment, circa 1979. There were no other options for amusement. None at all.

There were all kinds of sets, but only a very few that appealed to nerds like me, who couldn't care less about cars, one of which was Western Gunfighters. So unpopular was this set, I suspect that less than 10 sets were sold and very few still exist. Nobody gave a stuff about Westerns by then. Amazing that they bothered to issue it. It was about thirty years too late. My set was bought way back when for thirty pence from Western International Market in Cranford. I'd like to share a few of these cards with you. Do you remember? Read these notes first:

Yes, somebody, apparently, actually did some research before they came up with the 'stats' for these cards. Would you believe it? And that they were worried enough about kids' reactions to erroneous information that they would bother printing a card like this one? Did they think I'd write in and complain? Talk about attention to detail. They were different times. The 'facts' still all seemed like nonsense, though. But any young lad with a deck of these could - and would- proclaim himself an expert on the wild west. At least, I did. In practice, it was only I who could proclaim this, as it was only I who owned this deck. And, on the rare occasions I could persuade somebody to play (often my brother) it got so I could sneakily identify the gunfighter on the card from the information on the back...see if you can guess who this is:

Yes, that's right. It was the film director, Visconti.

Don't you love these terrific ultra-seventies line drawings? God only knows who hacked these out, but they're terrific. The rocket-powered chair flying through the air is a nice detail. Only 10 kills? The only weak spot on this card, which one of the strongest ones. It's all coming back to me now. At the start of the game, after you'd dealt, each player would quickly sift through their respective decks to see how many good and bad cards they had.

This one would always evoke a groan. Black Bart was considered the rottenest of all cards. If you had this one you'd be worried. You might wonder why, if the number of kills and age of the character could not be ascertained, he was included. Is this a game, or a history textbook?

And if you had Marion Hedgepeth as well as Black Bart, you might well have angrily thrown down the cards, refused to play any more, and gone off to for a game of Ker-Plunk with the other more normal children. If the stats aren't bad enough, worst of all, he has a girl's name.

This is more like it. John Wesley Hardin. In the seventies, gunfighters could be podgy and bald and still be ultra-cool.

The deck was a weird amalgam of shoot-the gun-out-of-the-hand wholesome style Western hero types and Spaghetti Western-esque characters, like Bloody Bill Anderson above. The artist even throws in a rather splendid lightning bolt. Very Gothic. I expect he'd rather be drawing the horror trumps (of which there were two sets, yes, I know).

It's only just struck me how many chaps named Bill were knocking about the Wild West...

A chap named Bill Doolin...in nice chaps....if you like that sort of thing...

Some other famous Bills included...like Billy the Kid...and, most famous of all, the one you've all heard of...

Ah yes, the legendary Old Bill...nice purple pantaloons. But if you can't manage more than 6 kills by the age of 66, you're not much of a cold-blooded killer. Might as well pack it in, I say....

More popular non-mechanical Top Trumps sets were the horror sets, Dracula and Devil Priest. I have the Dracula set, but Devil Priest is ultra-rare. Perhaps we should have a look at those sets sometime...anyhow, before the internet, checklists were printed on small pieces of cardboard, with boxes to tick off the packs you had...

How lonely Western Gunfighters looks down in the left corner of this checklist, shoved under Soccer Stars Set 2. I'd like to get hold of World Record Holders (if it means men with beards made of bees, that sort of thing, not if it's more rotten cars), but if that was a pack you had to collect coupons for then I'm guessing it's rarer than hens' teeth.

The bloke at the market who sold Western Gunfighters to me all those years ago seemed to have about a zillion packets laid out on his stall, and none of the other sets at all...so I guess he might have acquired a ton of dead stock and that this might have been the least successful of all the Top Trumps sets. The Del Boy who sold them to him must have been rubbing his hands with glee. He probably claimed it was a crate of Military Choppers. Either way I'm glad I found these...and it's a relief to know that I still own this set. There's just one thing...nobody wants to play any more...not that they did then, come to think of it.

You will find these cards in the HOUSE OF COBWEBS. Reputation: 0

"Ho-ho! Now we're both eggheads!" Dandy 1496, July 25th, 1970

2010-06-08T23:40:00.036+01:00

Hello again, pals. You may have noticed that I have been in self-imposed exile for some time now, only to be lured out of retirement by the fact that I have a whopping 21 followers. Intriguingly, the number of followers I have seems to grow at an inversely proportional rate to the amount I write. Or something.

Anyway, what could be a more entertaining way to briefly rouse me from my deathlike stupor than a little one-sided chat about that staple of the British comics scene, The Dandy. Nowadays, I understand, in a bid to boost flagging sales, The Dandy has been misguidedly redesigned to hide the fact that it is a comic, and looks pretty space-age. Yet no matter how futuristic it may now purport to be, I feel sure that it cannot compete with the out-there other-worldliness of this issue from 1970, which is, in fact, stunningly super-weird. Why the kids nowadays wouldn't want to buy this, I will never understand. Well, actually, to be honest, I do understand. But what I don't understand is why the kids would have wanted to buy it then.

Let us begin our journey into yesterday with Korky the Cat.

Page one, and we're already in a strange realm of the unreal. Putting aside for a moment the fact that this tale revolves around a sentient cat and elephant in a bizarre tit-for-tat battle of inter-species rivalry ultimately resulting in their becoming "eggheads", we are also asked to accept that Korky needs to find employment as a "death diver". If we're talking circus acts here, isn't being a giant talking cat enough? My favourite thing about all this, though, is not the splendidly contrived tale itself, but Korky's fish supper, neatly laid out on a cafeteria tray, with a nice cup of tea. How old is Korky supposed to be? He's like a pensioner on holiday, a wrinkled old duffer in a furry suit. I expect he paid for it with Luncheon Vouchers.

Now on to a work of considerable genius: Dudley D. Watkins' superb Desperate Dan. You can see that kids would have loved this, surely? Although they might have been freaked out by how exceptionally anachronistic it must have looked, even then. But feast your eyes on this fantastic artwork. Those splendid solid blacks...so brilliantly funny. I love how Watkins juxtaposes the wild west with a grimy Glasgow of long ago.

Cramming the page with brilliant humour, Watkins effortlessly manipulates the comics form here, treating us to two panoramic cinemascope panels, to create a brilliant visual gag. Absolutely terrific. What care we that it would appear to be 1954 rather than 1970? Perhaps it's a reprint. Publishers D.C. Thompson were frugal that way.

Now on to Brassneck. The inspiration for Viz Comic's Tinribs, the original has a surreal genius all of its own...more fantastic artwork. I don't know who drew it. Here's a great sequence where the evil Swotty takes Brassneck to pieces. The (unknown, underpaid) artist seems to be enjoying himself here; perhaps relishing the chance to dismantle Brassneck for a few panels, at least.

I do not long for much in this world, but I want a Brassneck I can attach a microphone to the 'bonce' of. Notice, again, that it seems to be circa 1958 rather than 1970, though the mic itself looks like a contemporary Sure SM58 (good for vocals and robot brain manipulation).

And then along comes Dirty Dick, and we could almost be back in the days of rationing, were it not for the abundant Bunter-esque jam tarts. Note the distinctive lettering. I always wondered why the Dirty Dick artist was, unlike everybody else, allowed to do his own lettering. And I always shall. But it allows his speech bubbles to pop out of the pictures in a dynamic way.

What I'm digging the most is the portly chap's straw boater and moustache (bottom right), and how he's jammed into the picture to accentuate the gag. Fantastic.

Another comics genius is at work on the centre pages: Davy Law, better known for Dennis the Menace, but here drawing the lesser known Corporal Clott. Love the splurgey watercolour inks.

Good old fashioned slapstick. Now we venture into a strange realm of dog-related soap-opera. As a kid I always hated Black Bob, the champion sheepdog/faithful border collie. I didn't like the way the story was written out in painfully flat prose in the corners of the panels, which always seemed to be in 'long shot'. And it was an interminable serial, which seemed to have no beginning or end, only an infinitely dull middle. It ran for ever and ever, didn't it? And didn't every kid, spotting the grinning mutt, the cloth caps, the shepherds' crooks and the acres of type, groan and skip this page? Oddly enough, though, looking at it now, Black Bob seems like some kind of impossible masterpiece of comic strip strangeness; an ultra-artificial Scottish canine melodrama, a Douglas Sirk film with dogs. And no women, of course. Just animals, wrinkled men, and young boys in shorts.

Take a look at the plot summary. The boys were on holiday from the city and knew so little of country ways that their grandpa thought they were cissies. The wee Sassenach bratties! So, quite rightly, they run away to show their innate manliness. But, meanwhile, their grandfather had been taken to hospital for an operation. Various nonsense ensues. But the main drama this week centres around a lamb that falls off a cliff. Can you imagine any of this in a kids' publication today? Splendid. Check out the following sequence - and the best thing is that Black Bob is so into his lamb-protection mission he's quite prepared to herd the wee laddies off a cliff, possibly to their deaths, to save it. For they are sissies, and deserve it.

Unfortunately, though, the small child does not die, and lambkins is saved. But, in the final panel, new intrigue.

Looks like they'll have to dash about amidst the heather for another week...and another...and another...forever and ever, amen. But I don't blame them. Grandpa looks a bit sinister and I bet he'd have at the little cissies with his stick. If he could see them. Which he can't. For another ten episodes, at least. It's all rubbish, really. Yet still I long to know what happened next.

Now, gather round, kids. Back before the internet, the letters page was a place where the readers of a comic could converge. Here - with the tantalising promise of a Bag of Laughs - a creepy aged schoolboy in rather close fitting shorts invites readers to write in with True Stories, Big Laughs, Funny Stories, though what you would actually end up getting were invariably Contrived Lies, Depressing Puns, Mirthless Incidents. But occasionally something a bit unusual would turn up - for instance this:

Shown around the set of a Norman Wisdom comedy film? Wow, how I wish I had been Timothy Snape of Lancs. But hang on a minute - this isn't just any old Wisdom vehicle - it's the brilliant 'adult' one that's never on TV - where wrinkly not-Pitkin unwisely gets his kit off and slides his spindle-shanks frame incongruously into the sack alongside the yummy Sally Geeson (rumoured to appear topless in the legendary 'export' cut). Blimey! No wonder Timothy Snape's so pleased with himself.

That's enough of that. Take a cold shower and return to the world of teachers in mortar boards, where you belong. Here's Greedy Pigg.

Pigg gives me the creeps. There's just something about him. Is it the striped trousers? The oddly swollen belly? The tongue? The way he surreptitiously prowls around the boarding school after classes stealing things from children? Couldn't Mr. Pigg afford his own cake? Shouldn't he prefer a stiff drink? Too many questions. We shall leave social services to investigate and linger here no longer. Flip the page for more mortar boards - as we visit an equally odd time-warp school to meet Winker Watson. He's a what? Oh, you said Wangler.

Another endless serial. Lots of running about, climbing over walls, that sort of thing, this week and every week. I always quite enjoyed Winker Watson - and do like the fact that Mr Creep wears his mortar board with his pyjamas - but I never seemed to locate the start or the end of any of the stories. The same artist as Dirty Dick, but here he's not allowed to do his own lettering. Why? This is the question that haunts me to this day.

And finally - another one that Viz ripped off - Bully Beef and Chips. The premise was simple enough. Every week Beefy would duff up Chips, but get his comeuppance at the end. Small recompense for Chips living his life in fear. But as we have learned the greatest of all crimes is for a child to be a cissie. Just ask the blind old git in Black Bob. A real-life Bully Beef would hopefully have been in an institution for young offenders. But this is Dandy world. More great artwork! Loud check demob suits all round - and supporting characters who look like George Formby film racetrack spivs - except for Beefy, who sports a Ramones haircut some years early.

July 1970. Not so long ago, really, in the scheme of things, yet so distant, so obscure, that it may as well be all eternity. How lucky we are to have The Dandy to give us an entirely inaccurate idea of how things were back then. And if you think all this is bewildering, you should take a look at The Dandy's early 70s companion paper, The Sparky. Especially the jaw-dropping title character, Sparky himself. No, you shouldn't. Don't even go there.

You will find this comic in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

"Measure the louse for the hot seat while I take these two babes out where they can fight over me!" Crime Mysteries No. 3, September 1952

2010-03-30T09:52:00.016+01:00

What-ho, pals. Welcome back to the fusty virtual corridors of THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS. Where have I been? Never you mind. But, in the interim period between this and my last posting, I have been engaging in a possibly futile attempt to get my life together (cripes!) and sort out some important matters. I even considered putting my comic collection in alphabetical order. But it's trickier than you first think, when, flushed with the gay excitement of a new day, you first contemplate the hefty crates of decaying tat. Do you sort by publisher? Is there really any point in it? I came to the conclusion that probably there isn't. Though I had an entertaining time reacquainting myself with issues of Super Duck, The Partridge Family, and many others, I was forced to conclude that my collection is a bit of a raggedy-bag of low-grade, tatty, falling to pieces comics, the unavoidable consequence of many years of not having enough cash to secure the kind of 'key issues' that 'serious' collectors would, by now, have 'slabbed' in plastic cases with official CGC gradings (9.5, NM+). There will be little for fortune-seekers to flog some years hence when they cart my lifeless body from my garret.

But every now and again a collector on a budget manages to pick up a valuable item for much less than 'guide' price. As is the case with this issue of Crime Mysteries pictured above, snapped up for just five quid at one of those seedy comics fairs I so enjoy. What a terrific pre-code cover! Of course, it has nothing to do with anything within. So, let's take a look inside.

We begin with The Seance of Horror. Which isn't really a horror tale at all, despite this lurid splash-panel. In these days of post 9-11 terrorist anxiety, it's intriguing to recall there once was a time that you could travel on aeroplanes with toothpaste, pencils, bottled water, shampoo, and...ticking briefcases.

Artist Marcus Rocke (or Marcus? Or Rocke?) has his limitations (faces, human bodies, that sort of thing), but is splendidly adept at extreme close-ups of ill-fitting trouser wrinkles and shoes with no socks, something today's so-called 'artists' could learn from.

Yes, the evil medium blew up the plane. Time for crusading criminologist Lance Storm to do a flying rugby tackle at the turbanned ruffian.

And what is to be his punishment for blowing up a plane?

Yes, that's right, a sock on the jaw. Take that! Even if he has a girl's long nails. Next comes my favourite story in the issue, The Fantastic Dr. Foo.

Of course, the flatfeet are entirely incapable of sorting this out. They need to call on the services of the sagacious Dr. Foo, and his ward, the beautiful Nalya...

Hmm, yes, you sure have a way with words, Dr. Foo. You tell 'em. Whatever it means.

Seems like Nalya is something more than Dr. Foo's 'ward', don't you think? Various pseudo-oriental high jinx ensue, before the climax - featuring another great shoe-close up. With some baggy white sports socks in evidence this time.

But there's more to Foo than just this talk of worms and eagles. There's the helio-electric battery, for starters.

What else can you produce from beneath your robe, Dr. Foo? Or is that strictly between you and Nalya?

Yes, turn it on, I say! Turn on that helio-electric battery!

That's the stuff. Now let us turn our attention to the Glamor Girl of Hollywood, Queenie Starr.

The fascinating thing about Queenie is that she seems entirely blase about the whole 'casting couch' approach to stardom. She'll do anything for a whopperoo, even if it involves canoodling with sleazy murder-suspect film directors, seen here cravatted and crotchety after the leading lady is bumped off...

Admittedly, our saucy heroine does rifle through his drawers looking for clues, but, blimey, Queenie sure is devoted to her job...and, when she solves the mystery...

And maybe she'd better climb right up on Sol Arnim's knee, and all, because...that's Hollywood!

One breathless page later, here comes Jerry Jasper...

The story is nothing to write home about, but I do admire Jasper's pizazz when, having solved the crime, he gets the girl and the murderer's girl, who would seem to be just a tad fickle, in one fell swoop, the dirty dog...

Is it just me, or has there been some rather loose morality going on in this issue of Crime Mysteries? Is this a good example to set to the nation? We've had a mass-murderer punished by a sock on the jaw, Dr. Foo pimping his ward Nalya down by the docks, Queenie Starr smooching it up with all and sundry just to get ahead in Hollywood, and dear old Jerry Jasper cracking crime just so he can get it together for a three-in-a-bed with some sleazy dames. In fact, upon consideration, I feel positively unclean. Which must be why the last page of the comic features this public service announcement...

Well, I'm off down the church or synagogue of my choice. Praise the Lord! Please be seated. Today's reading will be from Crime Mysteries.

You'll find this reprehensible publication in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

"Ha Ha! Very unfunny!" Freddy comics are bad comics...yet still I buy more of them

2010-03-18T13:28:00.004Z

Because you demanded it: another rollicking moment from the strange, sick world of Freddy,Charlton Comics' chilling Archie rip-off. I won't bore you by telling you what's going on here, but one thing is for sure: he's not selling copies of his own magazine. Nah, dey ban not goot!

You may recall, chums, that I mentioned the fact that I had been tempted, against my better judgement, to purchase further copies of Freddy, following my fascinating blog posts about the oily-haired twerp here and here, but had not done so owing to the fact that I refused to pay £4.00 each for copies at a comics fair. You remember, right? No? Just humour me, anyhow.

Well, it just so happened that there I was, at the same stall some months later, and the stall-holder (who used to run a comic shop, but now works in Sainsbury's, apparently) was having an "everything with a little red sticker on it is half price" sale. Unsurprisingly, his previously £4.00 copies of Freddy had still not been snapped up. Reader, I bought them. Here they are; I beg your indulgence while I interject some random observations.

Another strange cover from D'Agostino. Wearing those "trunks" it is perhaps no wonder that the sword fish is keen to give him a friendly prod up the sit-upon. And, though the comic book might perhaps be somewhat below par, you should buy it anyway because there are coupons worth $3.37 in this issue. Incidentally, in case you were wondering, I can confirm that the comic book is not all that it might be; and, unfortunately, the coupons are no longer valid. But I still bought it, however, so what does that say about me? You don't have to answer that.

Freddy's overdone the magic mushrooms in this special libido-overload issue.

Aha, no wonder he was getting hot under the collar. Though you might wonder what this statuesque dream-doll is doing hanging out with drippy Fred. Especially when he's started a fire on the ice in the middle of a frozen lake. Inside...

Hey mom, how come you're the same age as I am? Don't ask awkward questions. It is all part of D'Agostino's master-plan. Talking of which, where's our Jughead-rip-off pal, Stuff? Here he is!

I must confess to being somewhat confused by this wordplay. "Holy Cow" isn't generally spelled "wholly cow", and either way, it isn't pronounced "woolly cow". And besides, it's not a cow, it's a dog. I guess Stuff must be confused because of that ice-bag on his head. Or could this be the rottenest joke in the world?

Hey, here's an idea. Why not get another character to repeat the same rotten joke again, then get Freddy himself to remind the readers how rotten it is? Very unfunny! But somehow it makes sense in the strange world of Freddy.

Unfortunately, though, pals, overall none of these newly acquired issues of Freddy reach the dismally sublime heights of surreal ineptitude that marked the one we examined previously. But they have their moments. Like a chucklesome story about killing animals, with this pay-off panel:

Nice elk, madam. We even have "plop-cloud" end of story fainting, a venerable comic strip technique dating back as least as far as Mutt & Jeff circa 1907.

And this bargain-basement hep cat crops up all over the shop. It's Nick the Beat, here appearing in Like, Let's Dance.

Like, the story is as tired and throwaway as you'd expect of, like, any tale written in approximately thirty seconds on the back of an envelope entitled Like, Let's Dance, but, like, I must confess that I have a sneaking affection for Nick the Beat. Happiest when upsetting uptight aged schoolboys whacking his bongo with a hearty Bong! Bonga! Boom!, I wish I were he. If only he'd had his own comic.

Now, how about some hand grenades? Guaranteed to break the ice at parties.

I think I'll have the "Pineapple" as it is famous through three wars. And an "egg", while you're at it.

I didn't realise that, in his heyday, Freddy had his own letters page. Hard to believe that anybody wrote in, right? And that's what "a girl by the name of Linda Hartman" thought too...

On the contrary, I think Linda Hartman must have been an unusually astute young lady. Whereas young Marilyn (they're the very best ever. I've been buying them for a long time and will continue to buy them) may perhaps have been an unhappy child, and (all my friends and I love "Freddy" comics) a loner at school.

The Charlton office boy seems almost to be blubbing into his $3.37-worth of coupons in his drippy heartfelt response...

Though Freddy pretends not to be "mad" at Linda it nonetheless seems to me that there is the underlying implication in this tearful reply that Ms. Hartman is anti-American, a Communist, and a thoroughly bad sort, and should be pelted with stones in the street. If there were any "loyal" Freddy fans to do it, of course. Which I doubt. I think most of the letters were made up. Probably including this one.

I'm with you, cue-ball. Leave him there. That about wraps it up, don't you think?

You'll find these marked-down copies of Freddy in the HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

In which I get an award

2010-03-06T19:02:00.025Z

Greetings readers. I had planned to bring you the final unwanted chapter in the story of my relentless search for further back issues of Charlton Comics' unloved 1960s Archie rip-off, Freddy. But I'm afraid that will have to wait. Please try and be patient.

A certain Mr. Coniam, a 'blogger' who appears to have a great deal of time on his hands, if the huge number of blogs he writes is anything to go by, has unexpectedly awarded me The Creative Blogger Award.

I usually have no respect for awards at all, and affect to despise both those who give them and those who receive them, but I'm making an exception in Mr. Coniam's case. Any man who writes a blog entitled The Marx Brothers Council of Great Britain as well as another solely devoted to the intricate analysis of every forgotten Dennis Wheatley novel (in order, no less) is obviously a man of discerning taste who both knows what he's talking about and truly understands and savors both the futility and the joyous, pointless excitement of wallowing in pop-cultural history, while your everyday life crashes and burns around you. So, despite even his misguided suggestion, amongst the comments following one of my posts, that Morecambe and Wise's Night Train to Murder is "magnificent", I remain pleased to accept this award. Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking, etc. The British are coming!

Apparently, though, it's not as simple as that. These awards are beastly things, something like chain letters. I can't just accept it and be done with it, and go about my business. In order to receive it, I have certain duties to fulfill, all of which revolve around the number seven. But instead of having to promise to send loads of creeps from my junior school class 5p each, I am now supposed to reveal 7 facts about myself, and award further awards to 7 other 'bloggers'. Complicated, eh? And does anybody really give a toss about moi? Besides, the concept of a 'fact' is inherently problematic. I ask you. To tell you the truth, I could live without it.

Anyhow, here goes. Let's start with the 7 blogs lucky enough to receive awards from me. Blimey. I feel exhausted already.

Ideally, I'd give awards to all the "followers" up there on the right who read my blog, of course, including that mysterious chap Jerry who doesn't seem to have one of his own, but has a rather fetching picture of a budgerigar as his 'icon'. But I'm afraid I can't. So I apologise in advance. Here are the lucky nerds who get The Creative Blogger Award from me (if they, or you, care):

1. KinoKarno

The deranged ramblings of British trash film-auteur par excellence and connoisseur of all things smutty Fred Karno, who has himself been churning out zero-budget film rubbish of the highest order since the 1980s. One day the mainstream media will surely discover him and proclaim him as a genius, as Stan Laurel did for Marcel Marceau. I fear, though, it may be some time after his demise, unfortunately. Mr. Karno doesn't post as much as he ought to, but you're sure to find some obscure saucy film-fun at his blog.

2. Exile on James Street

Splendidly poetic and perceptive travel writing, social commentary and pondering on existence from the enigmatic I AM PENTAGON. He doesn't write enough, either. But take a look! His latest, after about a decade of silence, is all about a graveyard. That's the stuff.

3. Matching Dragoons

As a big Western fan, I am a loyal devotee of the DC Comics western Jonah Hex, which - somewhat implausibly - is being made into a film after being cancelled in the late '80s then more recently revived. A fine fellow called Dwayne writes a splendid blog about it all, and has provided detailed analyses of every issue of his adventures. He's also keeping a careful tally of how many owlhoots Hex has offed over the years. And it's plenty. Now he's dealing with the spin-off comic Hex , which saw the scar-faced bounty hunter in a post-apocalyptic Mad-Max rip-off future. You know you need to head right on over!

4. Famous Five Style

Ever wanted to live your life in the wholesome style of Enid Blyton's immortal George, Anne, Julian, Dick and Timmy the dog (woof!)? Of course you did. You didn't? Well, here's your chance. From choosing the right brogues for the Famous Five look, to chasing children who won't wash with carpet beaters, by way of how to make ginger-beer scones, it's all charmingly documented here in lovingly eccentric detail.

5. Eclectic Banana

And relax. A chap called Drake does this one. I'm not sure how to accurately sum it up in a couple of sentences, but suffice to say a recent post devoted to a photo of a cute redhead in a tight outfit ("am I shallow to melt over a pic like this?" says Drake. Yes, you are. But I'm more than happy to reprint it here) follows immediately after a post about Top Cat advertising Kellogg's Corn Flakes in the 1960s. I feel a distinct affinity for Drake's worldview.

Keep up the good work, Drake! I salute you!

6. Silver Age Comics

Nostalgia, incisive analysis and humorous comment on old comic books, the main things that make life worth living. And Pat, who writes this, was the first blogger to post an encouraging word of comment on my humble blog (a friendly disagreement about Donald Duck comics, I seem to recall). I'm sure he has plenty of awards already, but here's another one for his Bat Cave. I often spend my lunch hour reading Silver Age Comics. It's jam packed with important information I can't afford to miss about gorillas in comics, Ace the Bat-Hound and Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen's signal-watch (zee-zee-zee).

7. Dartman's World of Wonder

If there's a theme running through my choices it's a certain degree of - shall we say - eccentricity going on here. And Mr. Dartman is no exception. There's all kinds of crazy stuff to be found in his World of Wonder, and as this is where I obtained a copy of the deleted rock n' roll album Chuck Berry '75, I feel I must give Mr. D an award - even if he contravenes all health and safety regulations by also making available the tragic post-Monkees travesty LP Dolenz, Jones, Boyce and Hart. If you don't believe how bad it is, just take a look at that sickly picture above. That should give you some idea. Yes, I just had to have it! But I regretted it.

So there you are. Sorry I could only do seven. And now, finally, the facts about me. Stay awake at the back, there. Just give me the facts, ma'am.

FACTS.

1. This is the first award I've won since I took first place in the London Borough of Hounslow 'Peace' poster competition (it was the 11-13 age group, about 1982, I think).

2. My winning picture, exhibited in Hounslow Civic Centre, was a ghastly watercolour painting of a war scene, complete with mushroom clouds, death, destruction, etc., melting into a giant cup with a CND symbol on it.

3. The prize was a book token for Ten Pounds. Or something. I may have spent it on the first British edition of Herge's The Blue Lotus.

4. Despite my pride at such an honour, the event was nonetheless tinged with regret. Which I will now attempt to convey to you.

5. In the following week's Middlesex Chronicle they mistakenly said that a drippy girl from a posh school had won first prize, and had a picture of her gloating in front of her painting instead of a picture of me gloating in front of mine (which, frustratingly, I believe could be glimpsed at the edge of the picture).

6. I was forced to wear my ill-fitting school uniform to the prize giving ceremony, and had a 'bowl' haircut. The newspaper made sure to publish a group shot, which wholly demonstrated this, though at the same time I was partially obscured behind someone's shoulder.

7. Just like The Gallery on Take Hart, they did not return my picture, presumably depositing it, along with all the others - with relief - in a dustbin as soon as Hounslow Council's Leftist agenda had been fully satisfied by its well-publicised exhibition.

I hope you enjoyed that intimate glimpse into my private world. You will not find my prize-winning poster in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

A world where no-one had ever heard of Laurel and Hardy

2010-02-13T15:47:00.015Z

Feast your eyes on this splendid old Stan Laurel money box. Yes, I know it's a bit damaged and it's been glued back together at some point, but it's still a fine item, is it not? I reckon it's 1950s, and it has an Italian look about it to my eyes - Stanlio - what do you think? I've cleaned it up a bit, but didn't want to rub it too hard - for fear that the paint might come off.

I picked this up at a car boot sale. When I saw it on the stall - standing proud and incongruous in the middle of a grimy wallpaper pasting table otherwise adorned with what seemed to the randomly scattered contents of a kitchen dustbin - I was momentarily fearful that the vendor would ask a high price for this, the only thing there that he could possibly hope to sell in a million years.

Feigning careless disinterest I stepped forward.

"How much is the money box?"

"Is fifty."

I eagerly handed over my 50p.

"You want another? I got another. Just like this. Fifty."

Enthusiastic in the hope that further large sums of money might be exchanged, the man proceeded to rummage among some dirty pieces of screwed up paper under the table. Did he have Olio down there? Sadly not: he emerged with some kind of small ornament shaped like an owl.

Smiling and nodding, I noted that it was indeed a fine piece, and undeniably the ideal complement to the item which I had already acquired, but ultimately declined to make the purchase. This seemed to puzzle him somewhat. I made my excuses and left.

As I scudded away chuckling idiotically over my prize, an important and troubling thought suddenly occurred to me: that bloke has no idea that this money box is supposed to look like the famous comedian Stan Laurel...in fact, he has never heard of Laurel and Hardy at all.

Which makes you think, doesn't it? On the one hand, it's a sad, sad world where people don't know who Laurel and Hardy are; on the other, it's not such an unhappy one if it means that, even in these post-Bargain Hunt times, nerds like me can snap up delightful grimy old Stan Laurel money boxes for 50p. I guess it's all part of the great design.

We're going now! Good-bye!

You will find Stanlio in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

Suppressed Desires of a Bank Manager: The Sexton Blake Library, Third Series, No. 216, May 1950, "The Evil Spell" by Walter Tyrer

2010-01-14T20:33:00.018Z

Greetings, junk-fans. It's been far too long since I last invited you to join me in an unholy decaying-newsprint tryst amidst the fusty portals of the House of Cobwebs. More importantly, I have to get rid of that picture of Morecambe and Wise from the top of the page - they look so sad and unwell they're starting to make me feel a bit poorly myself.

So, let's replace that faded photo with a splendid Eric Parker cover for The Sexton Blake Library dating from 1950. I love it. What brilliant composition, full of atmosphere and colour, and so evocative - really summing up that only-just-post-war world. What a fine artist Parker was. Check out the succinctly-captured look of pompous outrage on the hypnotist's victim (not to mention the watch chain tightly stretched across his waistcoat), the splendidly shocked clown, and the saucy showgirl in her scanty costume.

Sexton Blake isn't on the cover. He was perhaps the most famous of all the fictional brainy private detectives to follow in Sherlock Holmes' footsteps, and he appeared in umpteen squillion pulpy stories between the 1890s and the 1970s, notably published in the story paper Union Jack and, for decades, in the pocket-size The Sexton Blake Library. Hundreds of authors churned out stories of Mr Blake's exploits, as he unceasingly cracked crimes ably assisted by his young assistant, Tinker. He was big in his day, which was an incredibly long one, spinning-off into the films and on to the radio and the telly. He still has a devoted following. My old man - who crops up rather frequently on this blog - proudly displays hundreds of Sexton Blake libraries on the shelves of his 'man cave'.

The Evil Spell is about a bank manager who, under the influence of an evil hypnotist, does naughty things, like gambling with investors' money (bankers haven't changed much, have they?), and hanging out with showgirls. It was written by a chap called Walter Tyrer.

Like me, Tyrer doesn't seem to care that much about the one-dimensional characters of Blake and Tinker - for him they are merely the central ciphers that, as the hack writing this, he had to hang the tale upon. The two 'tecs don't feature very prominently in the story. Nor does Mr Tyrer seem to be much interested in plot, nor the potential for sensation in the 'hypnotism' premise. Indeed, it seems to me that, like so many frustrated writers of pulp, he was more interested in his own, more serious novelistic goals. One of which, for Tyrer, seems to be fashioning a character study of a supposedly respectable, puffed-up lower middle class chap (the bank manager you can see on the cover) tempted into debauchery, while gleefully highlighting how temptation begins the speedy slide from respectability to shame.

He creates a brilliant thumbnail sketch of the tormented bank manager, as he slides towards sin:

"Mr. Arthur Grimes had spent the early part of the evening listening to a symphony concert on the wireless because he thought that was a dignified and respectable thing to do, although good music was inclined to induce drowsiness in him. He did not listen to the Light Programme because he thought that was unrefined and socially beneath him. Humour puzzled him, also, although he occasionally unbent enough to make a joke. The Third Programme was, of course, suitable only for cranks and eccentrics, and not for bank managers.

...He switched the wireless off, because it was a regrettable fact that good music bored him. Now was the hour which, he informed those people who cared to listen to him or were compelled to, he usually spent with a good book, something to improve his mind.

A few minutes later he was busy with a form book and several newspapers, trying to reduce the running of certain horses to a mathematical formula. "

There's a lot of dry wit in Tyrer's prose. As Grimes - hypnotised - gets involved with an ageing showgirl - "a blonde with somewhat chemical characteristics" - Tyrer fleshes out her character, too, with cynical, humorous economy:

"Miss Lottie Short was creditably punctual the following morning. Blake and Tinker had arranged to meet her in the private bar at the Station Hotel, where they were staying, and promptly at opening time Miss Short, a bright and colourful figure, came through the swing doors like a newly painted liner with flags flying leaving the slip-way on which it had been built.

"Here I am!" she said gaily. "Up with the lark for once! I haven't even stopped to have any breakfast."

"Maybe we can arrange something," said Blake.

He looked around for the barman with the idea of ordering a sandwich, but he discovered that Miss Short's breakfast appetite was somewhat unconventional, and she elected to have a double whisky with ginger ale. It was, she explained, economical, because with the double quantity of whisky you didn't have to leave any of the ginger ale."

Later, Blake confronts Grimes with Lottie:

"Lottie's delight was childlike and unrestrained.

"Dear old Friar Tuck!" she exclaimed. "Fancy finding you here! Aren't you glad to see your little Maid Marian. When are you going to chase me round Sherwood Forest, like you threatened?"

Mr Grimes' consternation was only too apparent. His fountain-pen fell from his hand, while his eyebrows fled upwards in apparent search of his non-existent hair.

"You have the advantage of me, madam!" he said frostily."

Writing in a somewhat stodgy, but cosily effective style, pleasingly reminiscent of a minor Victorian novelist, here Tyrer concocts two fine studies of flawed, jaded, mediocre, unexceptional people, hiding them within the commercial confines of a feebly-plotted sevenpenny detective story. Who was Tyrer? Was he a jaded bank clerk, tempted by gin and gee-gees, wishing he had the time and luxury to write "proper" novels?

This is only the second Blake story I've read. It's not much of a detective story, but if you're unhealthily obsessed with the past and want a forgotten tale of closely-observed, small-time, down-at-heel characters trapped within a pulp-fiction British social drama, look no further. Just nip out with your 7d and pick up a copy. It may still be on the bookstalls.

Blake himself, impervious to all temptation, of course, sums up the moral of this tale:

"We have had a glimpse of the suppressed desires of a bank manager. It's dangerous, Tinker, to suppress desires too violently. Like sitting on the safety valve of a boiler."

How true, Mr Blake. But we can't all be as upstanding as you...

You will (temporarily) find this pocket library in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

Go now, to the dustheap of history... Morecambe and Wise, Charlie Chester and Larry Larkin

2009-12-29T16:57:00.023Z

Welcome, chums, to what probably won't become a new occasional series of articles focusing specifically on popular cultural items held in the House of Cobwebs Archive that I have somehow acquired, and have some kind of vague, fleeting interest in, but that I cannot ever foresee myself actually using, reading, watching or listening to... the kind of millstones of clutter that I profess to wish to throw out or give to a charity shop or foist on to an unwitting pal as an "ironic" gift, but end up proclaiming a renewed interest in, and carry from one flat to the next, like some kind of madman. Apologies in advance to international readers who don't have a clue who Charlie Chester is. Don't worry, hardly anybody in the UK knows (or cares) either.

Exhibit 001:

Morecambe and Wise in Night Train to Murder

Format: VHS videogram

Source: Gift?

Time held: 2-3 years

Description: This choice addition to the Thames TV "Best of British" Collection features the much-loved comedy duo in a feature length "spoof comedy thriller".

The case for the Prosecution:

Take a look at the cover picture for a start. Wise looks tired, Morecambe looks ill, and if that's the most enticing image they could conjure up from this end-of-the-line TV special (from when they'd gone back to ITV again) dating from their twilight years (1984), who needs it?

Incidentally, I don't know about you, but I never thought Morecambe and Wise were anywhere near as good as everyone would have you believe, and my least favourite bits were always those tedious long sketches with celebrity guests (like the creepy Angela Rippon) in them that everybody is supposed to howl with laughter over (according to minor celebrities on those rotten "100 funniest comedies" type TV shows). So I'm biased to begin with. Also, this tape was passed on to me by my very close friend Fred Karno, and, highly suspiciously, he told me that he didn't want it back.

The case for the Defence:

According to the back cover, it was written not by the team's usual writers, but, unusually, by Morecambe, Wise and director Joe McGrath. So, even if it's awful and self-indulgent, it'll be interestingly awful and self-indulgent...won't it? Also the pictures on the back suggest that there are two attractive young ladies in the cast. Yes, I'm shallow like that.

And Fulton Mackay is in it, too...that can't be bad, can it?

Even if Eric looks like he's slipping into a coma in this lively production still.

Verdict: Back on the pile for another few years at least.

Exhibit 002:

Charlie Chester: The World is Full of Charlies

Format: Hardback book in horrific faded orange photo dust wrapper.

Source: Probably a charity shop. But according to the price pencilled inside the front it cost £1.50, which is a bit of a puzzler, because I couldn't see myself paying any more than 10p for this highly desirable item. In fact, to be honest, I couldn't see myself buying it at all.

Time held: 8 - 10 years?

Description: Recollections of a lifetime in show business by the old variety performer.

The case for the Prosecution:

"His first job after leaving school was as a grocer's errand boy but it was not long before he was augmenting his meagre earnings by entering and winning many talent competitions as a yodeller and guitarist. At seventeen he ran his own accordion band."

The case for the Defence:

Additional evidence for the Defence:

Ernest Marples, former Minister of Transport having fun with Bud Flanagan, Jack Solomons and Charlie.

(No glass in Bud's glasses? Oi!)

Charlie, as King Rat in 1951 with guest of honour Charlie Chaplin. Georgie Wood and Fred Russell, OBE, in background.

(Chaplin looks like he wishes he wasn't there. But then so would I if Wee Georgie Wood was lurking behind me, wearing a strange sash, peering over (or under in his case) my shoulder.)

Verdict: Back on the shelf for another few years at least.

Exhibit 003:

Larry Larkin: Is the World Ready for Larry Larkin? (Answer can be found below)

Format: 45rpm Extended Play record

Source: A charity shop in Amersham

Time held: Approximately 8 years

Description: Supposedly humorous record by a forgotten beardy comedian.

Track listing:

SIDE ONE

1. I'm Just Here to Make You Laugh.

2. Flasher.

SIDE TWO

1. You're 16 Stones (You're Ugly and You're Mine)

2. They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha! Ha!

The case for the Prosecution: I have, in fact, listened to this, and it was a grisly experience. I reckon any comedian who feels they have to come right out and tell you that they are insane (or zany, or wacky, etc.) is highly likely to be extremely unfunny and tedious in the extreme. And any humorist who claims that they are slightly insane is likely to be worse still. It's like he wouldn't want you to think he was too silly: he might be clowning around like a genius for two sides of a 45, but at heart, he is a cool clued-in kinda guy.

Nonetheless, I had high hopes that this record might be a contender for the "so bad it's good" section of my Archive and be garbage of the highest order, but alas it is merely mediocre.

The question on everybody's lips: Is the world ready for Larry Larkin?

The answer: No. However, the local charity shop is. Not that anyone will buy it.

But...

The case for the Defence:

Larry's autograph on the inner sleeve - his shaky felt-tip bestowing "luv" upon one Sarah (where is she now, was she the only one who asked for an autograph that night at the holiday camp ballroom, and did he buy her a gin and orange?) - makes Larry seem somehow more human.

It seems to me to evoke a wistful glimpse of the inner man, and makes me feel more sympathetic towards this slightly insane figure, who, let us not forget, got his first break as a baby boy when his Dad dropped him on his head. It makes me feel more kindly disposed towards Larry Larkin, and to his years of struggle, playing "Pantomime and Top Cabaret Venues", afterwards desperately trying to flog copies of "this excellent production".

Verdict: It doesn't take up much space. Back on the record shelf for another decade.

Conclusion:

Unfortunately, as soon as I start writing about this old rubbish, I always find myself suddenly more interested in it. Sigh. You will find these three items in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS. At the bottom of the pile. Covered in dust.

POSTSCRIPT: Yes, you guessed it. As a result of digging this junk out from the heap, I spent much of yesterday evening watching Night Train to Murder. It is a full life I lead. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be - an amiable enough if failed experimental attempt to break away from the Morecambe and Wise sketch show format, structurally very similar to a British comedy film of the 1930s, in fact. Unfortunately, though, the script was pretty duff, and exceedingly corny. Times had moved on. And though it appeared to have had some money spent on it, and there was a bit of location stuff, it was all shot on that particularly ghastly garishly-bright early eighties video tape. What's more, Eric looked like he might collapse at any moment (shades of Stan Laurel in Atoll K). Well, it can leave the house now, at least. The World is Full of Charlies remains here, however.

"You've got it wrong, love..." Mirabelle, No.1, 19th February, 1977

2009-12-15T19:08:00.025Z

Greetings from beyond the grave, chums. To celebrate the fact that there are now at least 10 discerning culture-vultures who actually want to read this stuff (thank you, pals!) I thought it was about time I exhumed myself and dug into the fun-cupboard to reveal another useless, fusty artefact we can all enjoy.

Today we turn our attention to the fair sex and the ways of LOVE. Not something I am particularly expert in, it must be said. But, putting my own neuroses aside for a moment, I have always enjoyed girls' comics - a fact that, when mentioned over the years, has prompted many a raised eyebrow amidst the conspicuously weedy but distinctly hetero ranks of the comics cognoscenti, who generally prefer an adolescent power-fantasy to girly stuff like relationships, flowers, and all that rot.

Way back in the days before we males could admit to having any kind of sensitivity I used to keep it quiet. Indeed, I remember afternoons in the school summer holidays when I was a lad, circa the early 1980s somewhereabouts, when the best thing about the dismal prospect of having to be "looked after" by the next door neighbours was the chance to read their teenage daughter's copies of Misty, the now-cult British girls' comic that featured stories of ghosts, witches, strict schools and naughty girls getting their come uppance in inventively supernatural ways. In my heart, I always wanted to be able to get Misty delivered every week myself, but how could I? It was a girls' comic. So I thought I had to read Warlord and Victor instead, unfortunately for me. Have a pineapple, Fritz! Himmel! Boom! Argghh!

Maybe we'll talk about Misty one of these days. Or maybe not. But for now I want to draw your attention to another British comic for girls. One I certainly didn't see at the time, and one that I had never heard of until I stumbled across a copy at one of those aromatic comics fairs of which I am so inordinately fond. Today I would like to introduce you to Mirabelle. This, the first (and possibly the only issue) was recently found in one of the cheap boxes among a load of rotten British reprints of dull 1970s Marvel Comics and cost me 25p. I may have imagined it but I think the stall holder may well have given me a look of what could only described as sceptical disdain when I purchased said item: is there something wrong with you? I don't care. It's terrific! But it is definitely not Love Stories in Pictures as the cover misleadingly claims.

In fact, I can't find any of your standard love stories in pictures in here at all. Instead, I find romance fused with horror, bleak post-apocalyptic sci-fi and sleazy sex comedy. Take a look at the comic's opener, The Poison Valentine.

It's like a Mills and Boon paperback crossed with a Pete Walker movie. Splendid. Dig the "skull" motif. Paperchase, take note. These cards would sell.

Could it have something to do with her boyfriend? It's a serial, but the moral of the story might be: never trust a guy with gypsy looks, an enigmatic smile and a David Essex neckerchief. He may secretly be a "freak". But we'll never know...

Flip the page and we have a strip about a fashion model desperate to get the photographer to "notice me as a person". This is how she goes about it. Hang on a tick, I thought this was a mag for girls!

I say, ding dong! Something for the Dads, eh? But, wouldn't you just know it...

"You've got it wrong love...pop off and change." Methinks it is this Leo Sayer-esque snapper who has got it wrong. But each to their own, I suppose...

Anyway, there's three pages of that. What shall we have next? How about some love stories in pictures? If you insist, but let's combine it with the story of a girl and her dog in a post-apocalyptic world. As you do.

Oh Jacko. Sometimes I feel like I can't move another step. Probably the radiation poisoning. Didn't you read the government leaflet about painting your doors white, buy in the dustbin bags for the family corpses, or stock up on tinned fruit? Jacko looks happy enough, though. He could be doing an ad for Pedigree Chum, if you ignore the rubble.

I fear that, deep in her heart, she may already know the answers to both these questions. If she's hungry, it looks like Jacko has plenty of meat on him.

She's also being chased by a load of sinister, vaguely Russian-looking soldiers. But hang on, this is all a bit bleak, isn't it? Where are the love stories in pictures? Time for some irradiated love interest...

Not a bad spread, eh? Armageddon can be quite nice, really. Less competition from other chicks when you're attempting to snare a guy, and that's the main thing, eh? Even when you're vomiting every ten minutes.

Hmm, a few pages left to fill. How about some lust stories in pictures? How about an exceedingly seedy comedy comic-strip reminiscent of Confessions of a Driving Instructor, reinforcing every stereotype about women drivers you can possibly think of? That's sure to appeal to the young ladies, don't you think?

Check out this lost sleaze-classic. They don't do comic strips like this any more. Not that they ever did, apart from here, as far as I'm aware...

Wa-hey, eh? Every girl loves a driving instructor in Tartan flares. Irresistible.

So much for Mr. Grimes... but there are other cravatted Lotharios to contend with...

Hel-lo indeed. You get the picture. But there is a happy ending to Sue's tale.

Here's how she did it.

Do you know, I could have sworn there was this movement called "Women's Lib" in the 1970s. But I must have dreamed it.

Whatever happened to Mirabelle? According to an advert inside the back cover, number two was on the way...but did it ever make it to the newsagents' shelves? I wonder.

Eight great stories and free shampoo? Girls, how did you manage to resist?

Mirabelle is the weirdest British comic for girls I've ever read. You will find it in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

Wood-and-String Music Men, Adam Faith, an Empty Record Sleeve and the Extended Holly Hiccup

2009-11-17T18:36:00.018Z

Hey, what's cookin', you hep cats? These wood and string music men live on the desk here amidst the detritus in the House of Cobwebs. Generally, however, as they are not very stable and fall over at any opportunity, they are usually to be found sitting in a small pile, often with their heads broken off, gathering dust. But I have posed them resplendently here for your enjoyment.

I can't remember where they came from but they used to live inside a vintage cocktail cabinet I had in Amersham in one of my previous lives. I'm guessing that they are circa 1960s and that there might be one missing. In repeated efforts to convince myself that they are supposed to be The Beatles I have often found myself trying to assign the identities of one member of the Fab Four to each of them, but to no avail. You can't get round the fact that this bass player is not left handed. Still, pretty groovy, eh? Straight outta the fridge, Daddio.

While we're on the subject of music, take a look at this - from a time in British music before Beatles.

If you haven't seen it, Beat Girl is a terrific British rock n' roll exploitation picture from the late 1950s. Everyone goes on all the time about how it features a young Oliver Reed (and, yes, it does) but perhaps more importantly, quite apart from the foxy chicks (Gillian Hills and Shirley Anne Field) pictured here, it is a showcase for the much maligned but much underrated Brit fop-pop star and actor Adam Faith.

Soon after this film was made, with the first wave of rock 'n' roll rebellion tamed and morphing into 'pop' music, Mr Faith's image was revamped somewhat - he was given smart tailored suits, and some foppish pretty-boy songs to sing (e.g. Poor Me, Someone Else's Baby and, recommended for die hard devotees only, the ultra-saccharin seasonal number Lonely Pup in a Christmas Shop, complete with kiddie choir). Popular with the young ladies, he became rather a fixture in the Hit Parade in the early 1960s, before The Beatles came along and changed everything. Adam tried to keep up with the beat groups, and he recorded some rather fine tougher-sounding waxings with his own backing combo, The Roulettes, but the kids weren't fooled. But, in his day, he was big. My old man assures me that, once upon a time, so famed was the young Mr Faith that he was known simply as 'Adam' the same way Presley was known as 'Elvis'. Yeah, right. But I love the idea, and, though I suspect that my old man has allowed his own enthusiasm for Adam to cloud his memory, I choose to believe him. Anyway, everybody laughs it up these days when they hear Adam's slightly flat, drippy, ultra-twee Buddy Holly-esque vocals (hiccups all over the place - where Buddy would use one every now and again, Adam would often attempt to get as many as he could into virtually every line, with his own particular twist on the idea being to extend the hiccup as far as possible; e.g. Poor Me becomes P - aw-aw-awa-awa-ahaw-oor Me-ee-ha-her-hee-ee) but it's all great fun and the early singles all feature great, lush, echoing orchestral backings by John Barry, and I like to listen to Adam warbling along with them while I am in the bath.

Let's have another close up look at sulky Adam and his 'dolls', down at the espresso bar drinking the new continental invention 'frothy coffee', the young rascals.

He's so mean and moody. Unfortunately, there is a sad end to today's tale. I have the Beat Girl E.P. sleeve, but not the record that goes inside! Horrors! This was another Hounslow Heath Car Boot buy, for 50p, from a bewildered seller that couldn't understand why I would possibly want to buy a record cover with no record. I combed the stall for the platter, but alas...

That was many years ago. Of course, I live in eternal hope that one glorious, happy day I might locate a sleeveless copy of the disc, and then...but why torture myself, eh?

You will find this empty record sleeve in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

Kinky Mouse Bondage!

2009-10-25T19:09:00.025Z

Not only are pre-Comics Code funny animal comics funnier and more imaginative than those that came later on - they also contain all kinds of weird subtexts to disturb your brain.

This one here, recently obtained from an Ebay seller who finally cut the price on this choice item (unbelievably, it would seem that no-one else but me wanted this - and he must have spotted me watching it for about six months), is full of all kinds of crazy stuff.

I suspect this was its writer's first crack at a Disney comic. He doesn't seem to have much of an understanding of the characters he's handling - so they all act a bit oddly - and, unusually, he draws attention to the fact that the main protagonist is a mouse. I've never seen Mickey act so rodent-like.

You wouldn't care much about the entertaining but ridiculous plot; suffice to say that Mickey gets framed for stealing some jewels. But Minnie takes centre stage in this one. Goofy only turns up for one out of character - but funny - bit:

Considering how he's usually Mickey's closest compadre, it's amusing and slightly weird to see the Goof as a full-on "village idiot" type labourer - complete with wheel barrow - stupider than usually depicted. I particularly like his blank stare, and the whizz clouds behind him. It would be interesting to see him this dumb more often.

But the most striking thing is, that through the course of this story, Mickey gets tied up over and over again. The cover pretty much sums it up. I'm not kidding, not much else happens.

So, even if Minnie's glossy black gothic mouse-lipstick doesn't do it for you, if you're one of the growing number of deviants into MBSM (Sad0-Masochistic Mouse Bondage), with enforced bow-ties, you'll love this. Made sure the missus is out? Good. Then we'll begin.

Chonk! Rough stuff. What's more, everything really does look painful. Yow! It's like Mickey Mouse directed by Tarantino. But if the bad guy cuts off this dude's ear, he'd better put down some plastic sheeting first.

Mickey remembers he's a rodent and gets chewing. Mmm, delicious rope. Mind your bow-tie!

Simply being tied to a chair combined with nose-play no longer fulfils the fetishist's need. The whole mouse body must now be tied, and left in a country lane. Only the enormous cartoon-character shoes can be exposed. Then the ropes are eaten to achieve climax.

As the fetishist's sexual needs escalate, to find satisfaction, he must now be fully tied in an armoured car with a lady mouse, and talk dirty about ham sandwiches, whilst he forces himself to ingest rope.

Mutual mastication.

I don't know about you, but I'm full. I couldn't eat another bite. No, not even some string.

Aha, here comes the denouement:

I wouldn't dream of giving the end away, kids, but maybe - just maybe - you might be able to figure it out. Suffice to say - it's all tied up at the end! HO HO HO HO HO! Scream! Guffaw! I still got it.

Bizarre old stuff, eh? You'll find this comic in the kinky HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

Baron Von Charlton's Spooky Comics Casebook: The Hounslow Spine-Roller

2009-10-04T16:58:00.039+01:00

As the autumn nights draw in you will often find me, cosily perched atop my deluxe Argos oil-filled radiator, amidst the splendour of my luxurious wood chip-panelled hovel, enjoying my comic collection. If you got a ladder, placed it against the wall, climbed up it and peered through my third floor window, you might perchance spot me carefully arranging my beloved comics in numerical or alphabetical order, worrying whether they should be sorted according to publisher, checking them against the price-guide, sniffing at the smell of their glorious decaying newsprint, lamenting the fact that modern printing methods cannot replicate a particularly vivid cover hue, or engaging in some other similarly useful and fulfilling activity. Sometimes I even read them.

You will remember my Old Man, who spotted that Man From U.N.C.L.E. Annual. Well, he came up trumps once again recently when he stumbled upon a stash of early 1970s Charlton horror comics at the legendary Hounslow Heath Car Boot Sale. I must confess that though I have long been an aficionado of Marvel and DC horror comics of the Silver Age, I had generally written off the Charlton stuff, assuming it must be as lousy as other Charlton product, like Freddy. I was wrong.

The Pater - calling me up direct from a muddy field - had brokered a deal with a seedy chap peddling old comics and obtained a stack of Charlton horrors at 50p a time (the seller regretted offering them so cheap once he realised someone - at the other end of a mobile phone - was interested - ho ho!). I wasn't expecting much, to be honest, but when I got hold of said issues, and dug out a similar pile that lurked unread in a cardboard box on top of a wardrobe, I was both shocked and pleased to discover that Charlton were the unexpected masters of crazy, outlandish 1970s horror comics.

As we know, the 1970s saw a resurgence in the popularity of the horror comic genre. Charlton were publishing small-fry compared to market-leaders Marvel and DC, and couldn't offer their writers and artists as much in the way of spondulicks as their hy-tone competitors; but, as I gleaned from the enthusiastic discussions going on in the letter columns the comics contained, something else was on offer: artistic freedom.

Hence cheesed-off, exiled unpredictable genius types like Spiderman co-creator Steve Ditko found a haven here, and were allowed to plough their own bizarre artistic furrows without editorial tampering.

I expect we'll chat about these again, but in the meantime, let's have a quick look at a few covers...

Afraid of women, moi? Don't be ridiculous. Do I detect just the merest hint of repressed male sexual anxiety here? I must be imagining it. Great cover, though. As per the eternal rules set down by EC in the Tales From the Crypt days, all the Charlton horror comics had to have "hosts" who introduced the tales within - in this case it was the delectable Winnie The Witch (you can see her up on the top left corner, in all her vivid blue glory).

From the quaint looks of this one, the 1950s never ended... Artwork by Rocco "Rocke" Mastroserio, apparently, who, from the sound of his name at least, gave up boxing to draw this (this is a 1981 reprint of a comic first seen in 1967). Your horror host: Doctor Graves. All the stories within come from his "casebook". Since the first case in the issue is No. 805, I wouldn't want to be the one carting that tome around in my briefcase. And, more importantly, how come my hair didn't go grey in that cool way?

This one is rather more 1970s, is it not? You'll note that this comic bears unmistakable marks that identify it as one of "The Hounslow Horde": to wit, the previous (slightly unhinged?) owner has rolled the spine so carefully and excessively that a fair amount of the back cover seems to have ended up on the front. I'm not sure how he managed this; but you have to hand it to the poor nerd, he's done a splendid job. I've never seen such a bizarre and distinctive damage-marking technique employed before. In fact, I can almost imagine him, alone in a bedsit, perhaps in Feltham in 1978 - unconsciously? - marking ownership of these comics in this "special way". Incidentally, I spent some hours trying to flatten this out again, and thought I had succeeded, but slowly, insidiously, overnight, it sprang back.

Top marks to artist Mike Zeck, who drew this, one of the best giant-furry-spider-menacing-a-sleeping-child covers I've ever seen. Terrific. But sadly his efforts were in vain: this was the last in the series. Horror host Mr. Dee Munn just didn't catch on. I guess that middle-age and pot-belly is no competition for sex-pot micro-skirted blue witch-chicks, and the unfortunate Mr. Munn was obviously at the back of the line at Charlton HQ when it came to handing out the pun-tastic names.

Another one from the "Hounslow Horde" with an even heavier spine roll. Boy, he sure was a nutcase. Coverwise, I don't have much of an idea what's going on here, but anything featuring killer mummies and a sacred scarab amulet is fine by me. That chap at the front looks a bit stressed, and may perhaps be in a spot of trouble here; but, on the bright side, it doesn't look like he ever has any trouble with his teeth. You have to count your blessings. Artwork from Rich Larson's fevered brain, apparently. Your horror host for this one is the lively Mr. Dedd, who's opening words are And now you will pay your debt in full! Just thought you should know.

Ah, Ditko. Good ol' Ditko. Only Ditko would contemplate a bizarre composition of this sort, and only Ditko could pull it off. Sort of. Just about. OK, maybe not. But the story inside is about mad ventriloquists, so that's all right. Get back in the box. I don't want to get back in the box. You know what happens in it.

This one is weirder still - baffling, balmy and proudly defying all rules of composition, it's surely a fine example of the kind of cover image that the other, more fraidy-cat publishers would have rejected. Great. Love the guy with the flower-pot on his head, and the devil-man pointing out at us. Hey, you squares, yeah you! I'm a devil-man. I don't think this is by Ditko, but definitely by an artist who wishes he was Ditko. A freaks' parade. Don't ask me what it means. And it has nothing to do with the stories, either. Your horror host is a lanky fellow in a natty suit with an enormous blue forehead (blue seemingly being the groovy colour of choice for 1970s comic-book horror-hosts). I don't know his name. But it doesn't matter, they're all interchangeable anyway. Try not to let it worry you.

I really enjoyed reading these. If the sample I have studied so far is anything to go by, the Charlton horror comics of this era contain some of the weirdest, least predictable and most entertaining tales of the strange and uncanny to emerge from the genre since its late 1940s/ early 1950s pre-Comics Code heyday. I will find more of these and do further research. And every issue I find I'm going to roll the spine right round to the front.

You will find these comics in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

"Ze alcohol! You are spilling ze alcohol!" The forgotten genius of Danny Kaye in The Man From the Diners' Club (1963)

2009-09-19T10:42:00.021+01:00

Greetings. As well as old comics, I love old films. Especially comedy films. The incredible rubber-faced multi-voiced high-speed comedy genius Danny Kaye has always held a particular place in my affections. When I was a kid, I remember watching his 1955 comedy The Court Jester with my Paw and laughing so much at it that I thought I my sides would split - really, I'm not just saying that. Twenty years later, it finally came out on DVD and I got the chance to see it again. I was rather worried - supposing that it wasn't that funny after all? I sat down to watch it with my flat mate (who also hadn't seen the film for 20 years) and luckily it was just as funny as ever - perhaps more so. Or perhaps I'm just even dumber than I was as a kid. But seriously: it may, in fact, be the funniest film ever made. Yes, folks. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, get yourself a copy right now.

But that's not the film I'm writing about today. No, today let's rap about The Man From the Diners' Club. This is a lesser-known Kaye comedy, directed by Frank Tashlin, a one-time director of Warner Bros. cartoons who moved into live action work, notably directing some films by comedy genius clown / unfunny conceited club comic (depending on your opinion ) Jerry Lewis in the 1960s. More about Lewis another time, maybe.

The Man From the Diners' Club is not available on DVD. I find this astonishing. It is an unduly ignored comedy film about nervous, twitchy credit card company employee Ernest Klenk, who accidentally issues a card to a gym-running mobster (splendidly played by Telly Savalas), then spends much of the film trying to get the card back from the gangster before his boss notices he's issued it. For ridiculous reasons, he has to get a job as a gym instructor in the gangster's gym to do this. Meanwhile, the gangster has decided that he will murder Klenk because he has the same size feet as himself and steal his identity (along with his credit card) and split to Mexico. The plot's pretty muddled up at some points and a bit over-complicated but it doesn't matter that much - the main thing is that you get to see some great energetic twitchy gulpy Danny Kaye routines. Savalas is great, and there are some very sexy 1960s gals on hand to take a peek at too, which all adds to the fun.

Danny Kaye as nervous employee Ernest Klenk. He's probably just about to start twitching, rolling his eyes, and gulping. I wouldn't be at all surprised.

These are the best bits:

1. Ernest/Danny attempting to get a card out of a giant computer, which is in fact an enormous card index. Of course, his tie gets stuck in the mechanism, and all the cards fly out, with sound effects of springs twanging. Cue Danny twitching, pulling faces, and cards flying everywhere, as he frantically tries to collect them up, while they blow about like they were in a gale. The scene just goes on and on. He falls over, etc.

2. An amazing beatnik party scene, with a groovy young Harry Dean Stanton spouting brilliantly well-observed Ginsbergesque hokum about "The Cosmic Laundry" to the bongo accompaniment of his polo-necked pals. Cue Danny twitching, pulling faces, etc. Fantastic.

3. Ernest/Danny, pretending to be a gym instructor, attempting to give one of his office colleagues a massage, without him catching on who he is. Cue Danny pulling his jersey over his face, and pretending to be a brutal Bavarian masseur, twisting the poor guy's neck, hammering his back, and pouring massage oil in his face every few seconds whilst shouting "Ze alcohol! You are spilling ze alcohol!" and such like, in a cod-German accent, over and over. The scene just goes on and on. It looks genuinely violent. Then, having run out of script and ad-libs, he throws talcum powder all over the place. Brilliant stuff.

FOH Stills from the film (which was in fact in good old fashioned Black and White). Note bottom right - Ernest gets his tie stuck in the giant computer card index... guess what happens next...

The tie-in paperback adaptation of the film. If you look closely you can see the cards all flying about while Ernest tries to gather them up. Also note Danny's doll-like screen girlfriend, whom you can't possibly believe would go for drippy old-man Klenk. Nice cover, but the problem with the novelisation is that it can never replicate the experience of hearing Danny shout "Ze alcohol! Ze alcohol!" over and over until you think he can't possibly do the line again, and then he does.

I must stress that Danny isn't given much to do here in terms of his trademark witty, clever quick-fire verbal humour, and there's no singing at all; I guess many Kaye fans would be disappointed for that reason. It seems more like a Jerry Lewis vehicle, crossed with a Jacques Tati film, crossed with a Bugs Bunny cartoon. All of which suits me fine. But if you don't like your comedy broad, loud, childish, overdone and with humorous German accents, you probably won't like The Man From the Diners' Club.

Indeed, difficult though it is to contemplate that there are such philistines out there reading this, I must point out that if the thought of watching 90 minutes of Danny Kaye relentlessly mugging, dashing about, rolling his eyes, stuttering, twitching nervously and shouting "ze alcohol!" doesn't fill you with a sense of buoyant joviality and an air of expectant glee, you may conceivably find this film a laughter-free zone. You humorless old buzzard.

But you will find a bootleg copy in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

The Cheapo TV Spin Off Affair: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Annual 1969

2009-08-30T14:54:00.037+01:00

I was out with my Pater perusing some of the second-hand bookshops along the Charing Cross Road when he pointed out a copy of the 1969 edition of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Annual, in a dank subterranean basement, for just two quid. This seemed remarkably cheap for the Charing Cross Road. Closer scrutiny of said item revealed that at some stage the cover of the book had either got wet, or some happy child had attempted to burn it, or perhaps both. But not being the kind of fellow who "slabs" my comic books or won't open up a paperback for fear of cracking the spine, it didn't matter to me. I snapped it up.

On the cover you can see the stars of the show: U.N.C.L.E. secret agents Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughan) and Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum), with their boss, Mr Waverly (Leo G. Carroll) peering crustily over the book title. I can almost hear him gruffly mumbling "Open Channel D! Come in, Mr Solo!"

I love the Man From U.N.C.L.E. series. Growing up in the 1970s-1980s, I was too young to have seen the TV shows the first time round, but the feature films (which collected together two-part episodes from the original series) were regularly seen on Sunday afternoon telly. It was an excellent tongue-in-cheek spy show made in the shadow of the James Bond movies, and though I was a kid I could immediately detect that it was funnier, more absurd and less self-important, in the same way that Fawcett's Captain Marvel was always more fun than DC's Superman.

Besides this, Napoleon Solo (suavely played by the brilliant Vaughn) was responsible for what became my obsession with what is now known as "retro" clothing (back then it was out of date clobber that you gave to jumble sales). I spent much of the 1970s clad in hand-me-downs from various folks who lived up and down the street (I had a happy childhood, and never went without, but times were tighter back in those days!) - and for a brief time I was unfortunately compelled to wear a particularly awful pair of tartan flares with golden buttons (adorned with anchor designs) down the legs, to emphasise the flare (which, believe me, didn't need emphasising). I was not best pleased. Already yearning for the days when I could choose my own attire, I was awestruck by the sharp style of clean-cut Solo's splendid 1960s suits and narrow ties. He was so cool! But I had no idea then that he was wearing the fashions of a past decade.

Ironically, I had chosen to focus on the old-school "square" of the programme's duo of leading men - for it was his supposedly Eastern bloc spy-colleague Illya Kuryakin (splendidly played by Brit David McCallum) who was supposed to be the the stylish "swinger" of the show, with his gear Beatles mop-top, groovy black polo-neck jumpers and shades. Anyhow, at the time, I didn't care about that, I wanted a suit like Napoleon Solo's. I still do. But, funnily enough, they don't turn up in the charity shops very often. Incidentally, I do now own a couple of sixties suits (one of which, I'm proud to say, I acquired from a charity shop bargain rail for just a quid. It is known as The One Pound Suit). I wore one to my University graduation in 1993, in fact, with a vintage triangular U.N.C.L.E. badge on the lapel (hidden by my graduation gown), which might give you some idea exactly what kind of a man I am. But, as usual, I digress. What of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Annual?

It's easy to forget, in these fanboy-friendly modern times we live in, that adult devotees of TV shows were not always so well-served in terms of collectible ephemera and spin-off product. Kids' shows were kids' shows. Nobody had a video recorder back then and you were expected to watch a TV show once, half watch the repeat, then forget it. Collectors' DVD box-sets weren't even thought of. Tie-in products - like this annual - were fewer and further between (though U.N.C.L.E. fared better in this regard than many shows of its period, with plenty of magazines and paperbacks) and many such items were generally uninspired, quickly knocked-up cash-ins, designed to be peddled to parents to give to the kiddies on Christmas morning. This annual was meant to be looked at rather than read, scribbled on, made soggy, dried in an airing cupboard perhaps, burnt around the edges, left lying about for a year or two, then thrown away. It was definitely not designed for kooky adults (like our good selves, dear readers) to hoard, wax lyrical about, store in a plastic sleeve, or subject to close analysis. Paradoxically, part of the substantial charm of these hastily-prepared artefacts lies precisely in their weaknesses - the throwaway nature of their production, their unpretentious bargain-basement design, the strange absurdity of their thrown-together content. All these factors help make them fascinating (and highly entertaining, if you are a connoisseur of all things trashy) keepsakes of less pop-culturally aware times, times never to be seen again.

So, what do we have here? All the stuff you always got in these annuals. Reprints of American comic strips - which, as was often the case, were the high point. In this case, these were taken from the Gold Key U.N.C.L.E. comic, which bit the dust in 1969. How can you go wrong with this one, featuring a giant kangaroo, who's also an agent for nefarious spy organisation T.H.R.U.S.H.:

The kangaroo has even developed the villainous scowl of a sinister secret agent. You'll note that the writer and the illustrator have cottoned on to the fact that they can do stuff in a strip that might be a little trickier to stage on TV, and they can do it in lurid day-glo colours, to boot. The strip also features a snake and an eagle, two more mean-looking animal agents for T.H.R.U.S.H. You can't knock the ambition of this tale, even if Napoleon and Illya don't quite look themselves (Solo even seems to have developed a stutter) and the kangaroo looks a bit ratty. I must keep an eye out for some of the Gold Key issues...

A nice surprise was this crazy back-up strip featuring foxy biker chicks...

Is it just me, or has the artist copied that car - at that angle - straight from the Zapruder film? If only JFK had had the "beautiful femmes fatales" Stunt Girl Counterspies to protect him. "Good work, Petite...but make sure your shots don't endanger the crowd!" cautions Jet. Useful advice in those tricky firing-your-gun-in-crowded-areas-whilst-riding-a-motorbike situations. Whatta gal.

The problem is, it seems that the publishers of the annual only licensed one comic-book's worth of American strip content. Which meant that the filler-factor was at maximum. As the tightwads who cobbled the book together also didn't cough up for any photos from the programme apart from the ones on the cover, there is an abundant bounty of awful text stories, incredible illustrations of the cast that don't look like the people they ought to look like, and bizarre, unintentionally hilarious filler pages. Imagine getting the gig to write all this stuff. Or to do the illustrations. No-one was ever expected to read it. And no-one cared. It didn't matter in the slightest how it looked, as long as it was done quickly. All of which is highly entertaining in a dreadful sort of way.

The American-ness of the show collides with the British-ness of the cheapo kids' annual on pages like Spy Catchers, which would be more at home in a DC Thompson weekly war comic like The Victor. I include it here for your delectation and delight.

Hmm. The U.N.C.L.E. logo and the title, Spy Catchers. Sounds pretty exciting - I bet it's about the villains that Napoleon and Illya face, right?

Wrong. It's about the Great British Bobby, in the Second World War. What do you think this is, the Man From U.N.C.L.E. Annual or something? Now forget all about those absurd American chappies, and pay attention. You might learn something. See the police officer use his initiative here, wisely arresting anybody with a moustache and a gaunt visage who looks at a signpost in the street. Sentence: death.

'Ello, 'ello, 'ello. What do we 'ave 'ere, then? The rozzers mop up another Nazi "wearing the disguise of a travelling salesman". Maybe sticking around with that suitcase full of toothbrushes in the immediate vicinity of his 'chute wasn't such a good idea after all. But even spies have to peddle their wares somewhere...

Ah, himmel! I knew I forgot something! Addendum to next edition of German spies' handbook: after burying parachute, adopting the disguise of a travelling salesman, and stroking chin beneath signpost, remove all German sausage from suitcase. Especially if it's gone green, you might have had it for too long. Sentence: death.

Enough already with the travelling salesman. What else do we have on file to fill the remaining two panels? Ah yes, a true but non-specific tale of the Scottish coast, in 1940. Don't splash my pencil skirt, you dumpkopf!

I arrest you for having sopping wet feet on a dry morning. No excuses. And also for wearing 1960s suits in 1940. And, come to think of it, having three legs is suspicious, too. Sentence: death.

There's also a charming but rubbish board game. Imagine the misery of playing this with an actual Uncle on a wet Sunday afternoon...

The Kiddies: Please, please, Uncle Peter, can we play THE SELECTA AFFAIR board game?

[some hours later]...Uncle Peter, pay attention, you're not playing seriously!

Uncle Peter: Nearly hit by a car? Why couldn't it be actually hit by a car? God, this is dull.

Sod this, kids. Play by yourselves, now. The pubs are open. [Exeunt.]

Splendid stuff. And as for those written stories, well, as you'd expect, knowing my track record, I couldn't get through them, but there are some superbly weird illustrations.

I'm made vaguely uneasy by the vest and Y-fronts combo going on there. I know I shouldn't be, but there's just something about it I don't like. This picture would have given me nightmares as a child. What was going through the artist's mind as he drew this? What was his brief? "Depict unconscious man in background, dressed in vest, white Y-front underpants, socks and shoes."

Look at the strange woman in this next one:

Illya, why are you harassing me with your child-woman blow-up doll? Not that it looks much like Illya, to be honest. It would seem that the main problem the artist faced here, as in all annuals of this kind, was trying to make the illustrations look like the people you'd seen on TV...

Illya? Is that you, Illya? Or a cabbage patch doll? And what happened to my face?

Illya? Illya? Is that you? Or a robot? No bananas for me, thank you.

Would you like a sweetie, little girl? Illya??

Illya? What happened to your hair? How come it's growing out of your forehead?

Illya? You've aged. And yellow's just not your colour.

All of which might give the impression that I didn't enjoy reading the 1969 Man From U.N.C.L.E. Annual. On the contrary, I enjoyed it very much. You will find this annual in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS. Open Channel D.

"It's the most worthless thing I ever saw!" Pudgy Pig and other annoying animals

2009-08-05T19:20:00.030+01:00

And now, chums, the long-awaited second in my occasional series of posts devoted to the detailed (and entirely pointless) assessment and analysis of the dismallest, lamest, what-were-they-thinking-est, dustheap-of history-est comics of all time (which, oddly enough, are all qualities which seem to compel me to purchase them and gather them together).

I was at the London Comic Mart on Sunday, shuffling quietly amongst my seedy, aromatic, vaguely embarrassed child-man brother-collectors, when I came upon Pudgy Pig. Though the issue is numbered Number 1, Volume 1, I can't imagine that anybody genuinely believed they would ever need to put an order in for a leather binder (proudly embossed, perhaps, with Pudgy Pig Volume I in gold leaf on the spine). Even the least critical kid would surely have spurned this publication, and it would seem they did: the 'volume' ended with Number 2.

The signs couldn't have been good for any comics-savvy prospective purchaser, back in September 1958 - it's a Charlton Publication, for a start, and you know what that means - but to the purveyor of all things odd, obscure and culturally bereft, it has a certain desperate something that is hard to resist. Take a look at that splendidly idiotic cover. Did you ever see such a blank-faced and emotionlessly conceived porcine hero? Blatantly and specifically designed to rip off Dell's successful Porky Pig comic book, this was surely a magazine created for one purpose, and one purpose only: to be purchased by mistake by a parent in a hurry or a half-blind grand-mama.

They didn't even bother to be consistent. As you can see from the cover, Pudgy sports a ridiculous Donald Duck-esque sailor hat, to disguise his exceedingly Porky Pig-esque coat and bow-tie. Perhaps the headgear was an attempt by the chaps at Charlton to deter the Warner Bros. lawyers from paying a visit. Intriguingly, by page 3, Pudgy has had a complete make-over, and sports instead a distinctly unPorky-like red jersey with a 'P' on it. Perhaps WB's lawyers did see the cover and did pay a visit.

Gone is the jacket and bow-tie. But his new outfit doesn't do him any favours. In fact, he doesn't even look like the same pig. That jersey fits where it touches, and Pudgy seems to have aged somewhat and put on a considerable amount of bacon around his somehow vaguely distasteful hips. Most disconcerting. No wonder his girlfriend favours Packing-House Pig III; by comparison, the rich fop seems to have sleek, snake hips, if such a thing is possible for porkers.

The stories are bewildering; I couldn't make much sense of them. It was like they were never intended to be read. Particularly the weird highlight of the issue, It's a Trade, which seems to have been written by an out-of-work absurdist playwright.

Gee whiz, there's an old boat full of holes at the bottom! I wonder if it's any good? Hmm, that's a tricky question. It's a boat, but it is full of holes at the bottom. And stop jumping around turning your head in three directions at once (none of which would allow you to see the boat you seem to know so much about). Anyway, here's the answer:

It's horrible! Calm down, Pudgy Pig, it's only a boat with holes in the bottom! A simple "no, it's not any good" would do. But Pudgy is kinda extreme, claiming that it is the most worthless thing I ever saw. You reckon? Taken a look in the mirror lately, Pudgy?

That's enough of that. Also in this bumper fun package, Pudgy gets erstwhile support from Atomic Bunny (not at all reminiscent of Fawcett's Marvel Bunny), who features in his own story, of a similarly high standard.

Mmm, delicious irradiated vegetables. And as Atomic Bunny is such a great, original idea, why not have Atomic Mouse (not at all reminiscent of Paul Terry's Mighty Mouse), too? You can't steal too much of a good thing, eh? Flip a few pages, and you'll come across this -

Erm...daily habits, Atomic Mouse? What kind of 'Fun with Pop' daily habits? Should I call Social Services?

Oh, those kind of daily habits. You mean if I do my exercises, I'll grow up to look as good as pudgy-cueball Pop? Maybe I'll just stay in bed after all. Reading Pudgy Pig comics.

But seriously folks, Atomic Mouse even does charitable work for the community. A whole page is devoted to this important public service announcement to the nation's youth, as part of the Fun With Pop scheme. What do you mean you've never heard of the Fun With Pop scheme? You been living under a rock or something, pal?

Poor Charlton. Whereas their hi-tone competitors (DC, et al) were actually sponsored to publish genuine sanctimonious governmental advert pages to brainwash the nation's youth, it looks like our pals at Charlton had to make up a nebulous, wholesome scheme of their own to get in on the act, complete with an official-looking logo, accidentally-on-purpose printed in a smudgy, indistinct fashion, I suspect, to hide the fact that there was no official endorsement of the initiative by anybody at all other than the hacks in the Charlton editorial office.

Well, at least the Pop in the logo has some hair. And doesn't wander about in his vest all day.

All very wholesome. But supposing you're not able to go out for 'Fun with Pop'? Supposing 'Pop' is an alcoholic, or something? What then? The next page has the answer. A horrible and unusual gift in a box.

Or, in keeping with the cheery atomic theme, how about this?

Just like an A-Bomb. I'm glad to hear it. Anything less would be rather a disappointment.

And once you've stolen 20 cents from Pop's wallet to pay for your A-Bomb, flick over another page and there's a ghastly written story, Annoyed Animals, which, once I'd detected that the words 'happy zoo' were included, I certainly didn't bother to read.

But the "illustration" is in another league entirely - definitely worth a look.

A masterpiece of stylised ineptitude, you have to admire the total lack of care taken over its execution: it looks like the 'artist' had a quick go at a couple of 'annoyed animals', did them a bit wrong, then drew funny lines over his mistakes. And shoved in a tree and a moon, because they're easier to do. Except the moon went a bit funny and looks a bit like a banana. A superb piece.

All in all, another Charlton classic. And which gifted comics-auteur came up with Pudgy Pig, I hear you cry? Sadly, we'll never know for sure, but perhaps there is a clue on the cover: the proud, prominent signatures of the cover artists (and creators?) of Pudgy Pig.

Yes, dear reader, one of these names is already familiar to the ever-growing legion of discerning readers who follow this blog: D'Agostino.

Could it be Jon D'Agostino, the key figure behind Charlton Comics' Freddy? Do I detect the hand of the master?

You might find this comic in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS. Or I might shred it. I just don't know.

Reading old 'funny animal' comics: a sure way to get people to give you funny looks on trains and buses

2009-07-19T08:56:00.032+01:00

Greetings, chums. If you would be so good as to indulge a mad old man I thought I might mention some undeniably good comics today. I'm rather a fan of vintage 'funny animal' comic books, particularly those that feature Donald Duck written and drawn by 'the good duck artist' Carl Barks or Mickey Mouse drawn by Floyd Gottfredson. But in all the decades of my lonely existence I have never met anybody - in the flesh - who really shares my love of this particularly unsung avenue of the obsolescent, the old and the nerdy. Even friends who like comics - and I have one or two, believe it or not - who, reassured by the recent adult acceptance of superheroes as in some way cuturally valid, would be quite prepared to spend an all-too-rare evening in the pub discussing how many different kinds of kryptonite there are, or whether Super-Horse or Beppo the Super-Monkey was the stupidest idea for a super-animal, nonetheless perceive 'funny animal' comics as infantile, ridiculous, and the most obvious symptom of my antisocial sickness. In fact, they can barely conceal their disdain for me, when, with a nervous laugh, I casually attempt to drop a topic like Super Duck, the lederhosen-clad Donald rip-off of the 1940s (who had a strangely attractive, albeit duck-headed, girlfriend), into the conversation.

So, many years ago, searching for informed discussion and intelligent debate on weighty issues such as this, and when I was younger and even more idiotic than I am now, I joined a Disney comics "discussion group". Super-Duck was not mentioned there, of course (even less people care about him than care about Donald) but I hoped to engage other like-minded fellows in some cheery 'funny-animal' related wrangling on topics of mutual interest. It has to be said that in the main the experience was a grisly one. Many messages had been written by people (all men, of course) who seemed quite clearly to believe that Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, et al, were real, and that comic strips about them were little more than transcribed excerpts from their personal biographies; and that if you could manage to ignore the superfluous irritation that these strips contained an entertaining narrative, jokes, and that sort of thing, they might at least contain useful statistical data which would enable you to calculate the exact size of Scrooge McDuck's Money Bin in square feet, or to ascertain in precisely which year he first wore a top-hat. The fact that Carl Barks, writer and illustrator of these tales, had no interest at all in such considerations, meant nothing to the feverishly enthusiastic chaps on the message-board. In addition, in other free moments, when not engaged in such matters as isolating the strictly correct permuations of the convict-numbers written on the fronts of the villainous Beagle Boys' jerseys, many of these chaps would write in the group to tell a more recent writer of Duck strips, also a member of that group, who shall remain nameless, but who is rather highly regarded these days, (perhaps precisely because he is obsessively interested in all that kind of boring fan-boy duck data) how very wonderful he was, and how very wonderful it was that he devoted his valuable time to reading their unworthy messages filled with their glowing praise, lavished upon him endlessly, like a cascade of oily gold. Which, to me, all seemed rather sickening.

Foolish dolt that I am, I could not contain myself. Unwisely, I immediately wrote in to the group with a comment to the effect that I didn't give a stuff how big McDuck's money bin was, and Barks wouldn't have done either; and that I didn't think the new stories could hold much of a candle to the old ones, to boot. After merely being ignored for the preceding years, suddenly I found myself somewhat towards the centre of attention, as I was savagely lambasted for my sacrilege. Suffice to say I did not write in again.

But I digress. What I was trying to say was that I don't get much of a chance to actually share the delights of old Disney comics with anybody, hence I am writing about them here for my massive internet readership. Let me make it clear, I'm being quite specific about this. I don't just like every Disney comic strip, they have to be by the decent writers and artists, who transcended the limitations of writing about characters that, by the 1940s, were already coagulating into corporate ciphers, little more than advertising images for the mass-marketing of American pop-culture. But beneath Uncle Walt's radar, under-paid artists like Barks and Gottfredson were not telling stories of ducks and mice, they were telling stories of hard-up everymen, who just happened to have animal heads. If you've never tried them, you should. I recently picked up a whole batch of early issues of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories from way back in the 1940s, from an ebay seller in the states.

The issues themselves are what you might call a curate's egg. They always get off to a cracking start with a Carl Barks Donald Duck ten-pager (unlike most of the geeks who I upset all those years ago, I prefer Barks' comedy shorts to the long Scrooge adventure tales). The best of Barks' work stands up against anything in American popular literature, I reckon - it is simultaneously funny, sad, bitter, life-affirming, truthful, bizarre, and massively cynical. And somehow, thanks to Mr. Barks, a weird duck in a sailor suit becomes an everyman who can make me laugh. Check out the page below that I have attempted to upload for you in my usual ramshackle way.

This is from Walt Disney's Comics and Stories 89, February 1948. I think this page alone is a work of genius. I believe Barks has included a self-portrait, depicting himself as the battered boxer halfway down the page.

Not only do you get this brilliantly funny "interior monologue" character stuff with great visual gags, Barks also sticks in screwball craziness whenever he feels like it. Having got the job as a night watchman, Donald must attempt to stay awake until he clocks on... hence the following...

Isn't it terrific? A little later he tries a spot of dancing...

For me, the first panel above has more potency than a six-month prescription of antidepressants...

Anyhow, enough about Barks, for now. As well as top-quality stuff like this, you also get filler. Drippy kiddie stuff. There's the tedious slum-dwelling insect Bucky Bug (out of focus, below, like a half remembered nightmare), for example...

Incidentally, as a rule of thumb, any comic strip written in rhyme (and this goes for all comic strips, in the world, ever) is not worth reading and is best skipped over (in certain cases, best destroyed). For some reason, somebody somewhere at some time decided that the kiddies gleefully delight in text written in rhyme, no matter how rubbishly it has been concocted. Invariably painfully knocked-up to order by miserable half-drunk hacks, compelled to tell contrived stories in rhyming 'poetry' they do not feel any desire to write (and more difficult to cobble together than straight sentences, goddammit), efforts of this sort are always painfully infantile, tedious and - literally, in this case - lousy.

Another rule of thumb: Chip 'n' Dale: AVOID AT ALL COSTS. E.g.:

And it's in rhyme. The evil chubby-cheeked little shits. I hope Donald has a rifle.

Instead, spend some time digging Gottfredson's fantastic Mickey Mouse - another highlight of early issues of Walt Disney's Comics and Stories. Take a look at this brilliantly drawn sequence from issue 89, February 1948(written by Bob Karp and Dick Shaw), featuring Goofy's pet lion, Agnes....

And the splendid strip below is from issue 77 (February 1947), and was written by Bill Walsh...a great example of how down-at-heel Mickey (and Donald) were before they got cleaned up and middle-class-ified a few years later...

I love the weird pre-comics code funny-animal world, where it is entirely normal for a libidinous giant mouse, in slacks and a Leo Gorcey hat, to attempt to make some time with a haughty human gal, only to be served with an eviction notice.

The looming spectre of adult sexuality within the 'innocent' funny animal kiddie universe of these years never fails to fascinate me. Which leads me on to another highlight of these comics: short Donald Duck strips (reprinted from newspapers) by Al Taliaferro. His Donald is often tempted away from Daisy by other, more shapely, more human, dames...

Who can blame Donald for winking at that curvy gal, eh? After all, Daisy is a duck! But, erm, hang on a tick - so is Donald. I forgot for a moment. Also, Don seems to be wearing more in the trouser department when he's on the beach than he does at home. I'm confused. As usual.

Don't be afraid. You know you want to try some of this stuff. It's brilliant, really funny, I guarantee it. You just need to get the right stuff, the old stuff, by the good writers and artists. Start with a cheap reprint volume of Barks. And be prepared for the funny looks you'll get if you read this stuff on the bus to work. Perhaps slip your Donald Duck inside your copy of The Economist?

You'll find a growing stack of these comics in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

"Bagged...in a giant unbreakable plastic net!" Blackhawk, No. 189, October 1963

2009-07-04T08:30:00.016+01:00

This copy of the DC comic Blackhawk, salvaged from an Oxfam shop in Reading, clip-cornered, and with '6d' scrawled in biro across it, has been through the wars a bit. As had the Blackhawk characters by this stage: October 1963. They had started off decades previously as WWII 'Air Ace' fighter pilots of different nations, but by the 1960s the kiddies weren't interested in that sort of thing any more. As we know from one of my previous posts, the flower children were more interested in reading about wacky teens, skin-head wigs and feeding lollipops to little monkeys.

So, what were the editors to do with Blackhawk? The answer was obvious. Keep the good bits - the fetching leather gear, and the national stereotypes (a useful aid - along with hair colour and moustaches - in differentiating between a large cast of virtually identical airmen in matching outfits) and get rid of the bad bits - like all those pointless, boring aeroplanes (whose crazy idea was it to have those?) - leaving the team do what they were best suited for: sci-fi crime investigation.

But if they were going to do a revamp, why couldn't the little guy with the Mr Spock haircut (prominent on the cover, but with no "lines" inside) have a leather suit like his pals?

Meanwhile, though the Blackhawks had been grounded, The Super Cavemen of 15,000 B.C. had taken to the skies. Any discussion of the plot would of course be both tedious and fruitless: this comic was sold entirely on this cover concept. Why do you think I bought it? But I must say that the story inside is a weighty, ambitious piece, about the theft of futuristic devices, which have been dispersed by villainous aliens into ancient times, in three "chapters". Indeed, so weighty was it that I fell asleep on two consecutive evenings before I had reached Chapter 3, The War With Super Weapons. I usually only do that with 1960s Superman stories - particularly those that feature guff about the bottle city of Kandor, tedious Kryptonians with names ending in "-El", or "Imaginary Stories" (gosh, you mean they're not real? zzzz), or Nightwing and Flamebird, whoever the hell they are. Or anything at all featuring The Legion of Super Heroes.

Though I love 'em, and this issue of Blackhawk is actually pretty good fun (if you stick with it and can remain conscious long enough to reach the end) it reminded me that DC Comics were the absolute masters of po-faced tedious pseudo-scientific snore-content, and it was at its height in the early to mid 1960s. God, some of their stuff was dull. Anyway, here we get a glimpse at ze cavemen's camp (and ze camp Blackhawks, non?) as our heroes are imprisoned in "unbreakable" plastic.

But, Himmel, did I mention the fact that the team also visit ancient Rome? Well, they do, and here the 'national phrases' are a useful aid in distinguishing your Olafs from your Andres. But, Himmel? Eh?

And where did they get those togas, I don't hear you ask? Well, they might have built the Colloseum, but you can bet your bottom US dollar that a trusty American Zippo lighter will turn those Romans straight into bewildered red-skins...

Do they find all the "super devices"? That would be telling, py yiminy! I wouldn't dream of spoiling the ending. But though he is surrounded by "ultra-modern" gadetry throughout, and has a quick go on the jet-powered skis to wrap everything up, poor old Blackhawk, trapped somewhere on Mid-Sixties DC Earth, can't for the life of him seem to find his aeroplane.

But, Himmel, you will find zis comic in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

"Dismiss these absurd follies from your mind!" The Stage-Struck Schoolboy and Miss Kitty Skitty (The Gem, No. 237, August 24th, 1912)

2009-06-07T11:39:00.020+01:00

Greetings, dear reader. Today, let's forget all about that clod Freddy. May I invite you to step aboard my pop-culture time machine? We're going back a long way - back to the days of Empire, back before the First World War, back to England, August 1912. Never such innocence... Here we will pick up a copy of the popular weekly story-paper, The Gem - issue 237 to be precise. It'll cost you 1d. in the old money.

The Gem was the companion paper to The Magnet. Both had, by then, for some years been published weekly; they were not comics: both featured lengthy written stories of fictional 'public schools'. The Gem came first, in 1907, and featured Tom Merry and Co. of St. Jim's; The Magnet began shortly afterwards, in 1908, and featured Harry Wharton and Co. of Greyfriars, as well as a splendid obtuse bespectacled check-trouser wearing fat-boy character called Billy Bunter, perhaps even now, 100 years later, still dimly visible on the 'enduring fictional characters' radar. But probably any moment bound to slip off.

No young folks remember either paper now, of course, and the idea of buying a magazine that just featured column after column of type-set prose fiction, with just the occasional illustration, would probably strike them as utterly bizarre, and laughable. Which is their loss.

Greyfriars and St. Jim's were the creation of a highly prolific writer named Charles Hamilton (aka Frank Richards, Martin Clifford, and umpteen other pen-names). Not a public schoolboy himself, he went at his writing with Dickensian aplomb, hacking them out at his typewriter, but writing in a beautifully clear style, churning out thousands of stories for loads of publications for decades. He created a truly fantastic, concise, yet clearly-defined imaginary world of high comedy and gripping drama amidst the ivy-clad cloisters, and somehow breathed life into massive casts of great characters, both pupils and teachers. None of this (thankfully) can have borne much resemblance to the elitist world of real public school life, but rather represented his considerably more democratic idea of how it ought to have been. Forget your J.K. Rowlings, this is the real deal. And, to a crackpot like me, at least, though it is supposedly based in 'reality' and set in a school, Hamilton's strange fictional universe is just as fantastically other-worldly, just as coherent, and just as meticulously realised, but a million times more entertaining than anything Tolkien ever dreamed up in his dreary footnote-riddled way.

Hamilton's work, though liberal in its overall outlook, is very much a product of its time, of course, and is full of ideas, expressions, and stereotypes that might seem outrageous today, but that's part of the fun, isn't it? And let us never forget to consider the context and the times in which an artefact was produced when we appreciate all things old. Incidentally, such issues have plagued the discussion - and honest enjoyment - of Hamilton's work for decades - as can be seen in this cartoon from 1970, reprinted in a Giles collection I found in the charity shop for £1 yesterday....

Anyhow, enough of all that. Principally, I wanted to share a few dramatic moments, and the superb illustrations from this copy of The Gem, with you. Recounted in this issue was a strange, slightly melancholy tale of Tom Merry's pal, Monty Lowther. Infatuated with actress Miss Kitty Skitty, he decides to run away from school and join the theatre company with which she performs.

Above we see Monty, wearing a rather fine topper, shamefully sneaking into a theatre, to ogle Miss Kitty.

Yes, he's stage struck, and, we discover, he's covered the walls of his study back at school with "theatrical pictures and photographs". His Headmaster, Dr. Holmes, sternly demands that he take down the "absurd photographs", and orders him to burn them immediately. I'm with Dr. Holmes - you can clearly see the lady's ankles in one of those pictures. Disgraceful.

"Take down those absurd photographs from the walls, Lowther!" said the Head, sternly. Lowther hesitated. But there was nothing for it to obey. Dr. Holmes stood frowning, while Lowther pulled down the offending theatrical photographs. "And now put them in the grate and set fire to them!" said the Head. (See Chap. 5).

Lowther is undeterred, however, and ends up doing a bunk, to get his chance to tread the boards. He gets swizzled out of his post-office savings by an boozy, unscrupulous thespian, but does manage, finally, to make his debut with Miss Kitty. However, just as they go giddily into the opening chorus of "The Counter Girl Waltz", and they begin to skip gaily about the stage, Dr. Holmes arrives to turn his dreams to dust. I must say, the old gentleman does not look especially impressed by Lowther's effete behaviour.

At least, in the background, the stagehand's having a good laugh at it all...

Dr Holmes takes Lowther back to school, and orders him to "dismiss these absurd follies from your mind". A wise lesson for us all. Never allow the siren lure of musical theatre, or Miss Kitty Skitty's ankles, to distract you from the quiet, contemplative world of academic study. I have always lived by this maxim.

I didn't read the back up story, The School Under Canvas, a story of Gordon Gay and Co. (another Hamilton creation, I believe), because it was part of a serial (modestly billed as the most exciting school serial ever written, in fact), but the introductory illustration of good-old fashioned school discipline might serve as a useful reminder of how we have taken the wrong turn with our modern, liberal educational methods.

The German master strode savagely towards Gordon Gay and grasped him by the collar. "Mein papers!" he hissed. "Give dem to me, or---" And in his blind rage his hands closed in a grip like a vice upon the throat of the Cornstalk junior. (See p.23).

You will find this story-paper (temporarily - I borrowed it) in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

Freddy comics: the excitement continues

2009-05-23T08:26:00.002+01:00

You may recall my previous posting about the feeble - yet strange - Archie comic rip-off, Freddy.

Well, safe in the knowledge that nobody else in the big wide world has the slightest interest in this greasy-haired, one-dimensional lothario, off I went to rub shoulders with the fragrant throng at a Collectors' Marketplace (what we used to call a Comic Mart) to see if, as I suspected, all copies of Freddy had vanished into oblivion.

I was wrong. I was intrigued to find copies of Freddy at two stalls. But, knowing from the outset that Freddy is rubbish, I couldn't bring myself to cough up the £4.00 that was required in each case to purchase said unpopular cultural artefacts.

I couldn't believe that anybody, anybody in the universe, would pay £4.00 for a Freddy comic; and I can't believe that any comic dealer actually would expect to sell a copy for anything over about 50p. As we have already ascertained, Freddy is rubbish. I could have afforded it, yes, of course I could; but should I set a precedent that might make comic dealers think that Freddy comics really are worth a few quid after all? If I had shamefacedly snapped them up, would it have started a rumour amidst the dealer community that there is some weird bloke going around buying copies of Charlton Archie rip-offs? As they consequently restickered all the newly priced-up copies, and rubbed their hands with glee, they'd have thought Christmas had come early.

The other possibility is that I unwittingly started a Freddy craze, pushing up the prices, with my massively-popular blog. Are "hep" young collectors (erm, that may perhaps be an impossible concept) rushing to snap up all remaining copies of Freddy, to scatter across the stylish retro coffee tables of their trendy East London studio-flats? I think we know the answer to this one.

Sometimes adult life throws up conundrums so complex, you cannot possibly conceive of an answer; you will appreciate the impossible dilemma I was faced with here. The end result of all my umming and erring was that I left without any additional copies of Freddy for my collection. My pal Fred K., who had accompanied me to the event, shook his head sadly, and, as usual, promised me that, as has been the case with so many things, I would regret it.

Will I crack next time? Are there cheaper copies elsewhere? Only time will tell. The excitement mounts. I'll keep you posted.

At the top you'll see one of the issues I could have bought for the extravagant sum of £4.00. But "We love Freddy"? I fear not. No! Not £4.00. No!

I guess I might end up buying this eventually.

You won't find this comic in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS (yet).

What point would there be to life without Bela Lugosi films?

2009-05-05T19:51:00.000+01:00

Believe it or not, dear reader, I am a single man. Hard to believe, I know, of a fellow of my obvious high calibre; yet there it is. I am a loose cannon; a gay blade, if you will.

One of the benefits (?) of the bachelor's life is the freedom to do precisely as you please; this means that you can pursue nerdy, ultra-male, often highly ridiculous pursuits to an absurd degree, unfettered by any need to pay visits to Ikea, or engage in extensive early-morning discussions about how the relationship might be "progressing".

One such pursuit is my current project: to collect and watch every film ever made by the legendary horror actor Bela Lugosi. Far more worthwhile than any relationship with a woman, don't you agree? Forever Dracula, frequently a Mad Scientist, eventually Ed D. Wood's mate, Bela's mannered performances, intensity and thickly accented delivery were unique. He would never have visited Ikea. He always gave the performance of his lifetime, regardless of whatever old tat he was appearing in, regardless of how little his genius was appreciated by the many infinitely less talented foolish hack film directors that ultimately controlled his fate. Things went so wrong for Bela, with his career falling to pieces by the 1940s, whereas things went so right, comparatively speaking, for his rival, (the equally brilliant, but luckier and more clearly spoken) Boris Karloff - hence I have a particular extra soft-spot for the underdog, Mr Lugosi.

I recently finished watching The Phantom Creeps, a 12 part late-thirties cliff-hanger Universal serial featuring the erstwhile Mr. Lugosi. I must confess it was a somewhat ramshackle production. Apparently, Mr. Lugosi was worried about remembering all his lines, and wrote them on bits of paper, secreted about the set. He need not have worried. He is, as always, majestic in his performance, and it would be hard to spot a fluffed line in this particular script. Unsurprisingly, he plays a mad scientist, Doctor Zorka. I think he may have planned to take over the world, perhaps - it wasn't entirely clear until episode 11, when a newspaper headline usefully clarified the situation: MAD GENIUS RUNNING WILD: DOCTOR ZORKA ALIVE. MAY BE INVISIBLE TO THE HUMAN EYE. Ah yes, I see. Pass the marmalade, won't you, dear? What was clear was that this was one of Bela's most gleefully evil roles, and also that he was wearing one of his finest fake beards (later mimicked by the jazz musician, Manfred Mann, I reckon).

Sadly the beard disappears after Zorka fakes his own death around the third episode (perhaps it fell off, it looked rather fragile). Apart from the fact that Bela plays his role with the fervour of a deranged, homicidal schoolboy, one of the reasons this serial is so splendid is that Bela/Zorka has numerous superb wholly impractical gizmos, gadgets and weapons of mass destruction, none of which are put to any particularly useful effect. These include:

1. An invisibility belt, which Bela often wears while he drives around town - cackling - in a huge station wagon. Actually, if he wants to travel incognito, the use of a car might be something of a schoolboy error. "Hey! who exactly is driving that huge station wagon? Why is there evil laughter drifting out of the windows? Yipes!" I guess even invisible mad geniuses need a solid, reliable, family car; but public transport may have been a better option.

2. A piece of a meteorite, which Bela is very proud of, which glows, and is kept in a secret cupboard in the lab. It is mentioned that this has something to do with Bela's power, but I couldn't figure out what. It is repeatedly stolen, then he steals it back, then it is stolen, ad infinitum. This, my friends, is the plot.

3. The spider/tablet bomb. This is particularly good. Pay attention, now. Bela has some white discs, in his pocket. If Uncle Bela drops a white disc in your pocket, then opens up a funny box that he carries in his other pocket (are you with me?), an electric spider will scurry out, go up your leg, and you will explode (and might be dead, or might be in suspended animation - the script, and Bela's superbly mannered incoherent delivery of the relevant lines, make this uncertain). I would imagine that when the scriptwriters came up with this particular concept it was a "high-five" moment.

4. A buzzing death ray of some kind. You know the sort - crackle lines scratched into the emulsion of the film. All mad scientists worth their salt have one. But there are so many cool inventions in this particular serial, this almost pales into insignificance. So spare a thought for the buzzing death ray.

5. A rather splendid giant robot, with an enormous, dome-like head. The best things about this are that Bela controls it using an armlet with some buttons on (like the one General Jumbo controlled his toy soldiers with in The Beano many years later), probably marked "STOP" "GO" "WAVE ARMS" and "DESTROY", it has long bendy-spring tube arms, and, best of all, it goes "kerzunk - kerzunk - kerzunk" whenever it is switched on. It looks like it was made with "My First Evil Robot Kit" and it is a proper robot. Incidentally, stored behind a sliding wall panel in Bela's house, it is brought out intermittently to lumber about unthreateningly until it is easily destroyed by a bullet around episode 12. Springs fly everywhere; Bela looks genuinely sad to see it go, and I was genuinely sad. I haven't got over it yet.

6. Test-tubes filled with "bomb liquid". Believe it or not, when the script runs out of steam (for about the third time) somewhere around episode 10, it's almost as if Bela said: "bugger this for a game of soldiers, my children of the night, how about if we stop all this 'stealing the meteorite' shtick and I fly around in a plane chucking bombs at things for the last couple of episodes?" And what a splendid idea it was. I have never seen Bela seem so joyously evil. He really looks like he's enjoying himself. And - thanks to the splendour of the Universal stock footage library - not only can he callously blow up ships and buildings, while he (and I) laugh like a drain (they all deserve it, the fools), he also blows up the Hindenberg, which we see in flames, in some genuine newsreel footage. Is this the first "snuff" movie?

Come to think of it, the whole serial resonates with a cheerful relish of death and destruction, and an appealingly carefree disregard for human life. I know that the cliffhanger serial should hardly be expected to be an arena for Bergmanesque ponderings on the frailty of humanity, and in B Pictures generally everybody gets over death - and every other trauma - remarkably quickly, but usually there is some gesture made to signify compassion. Here, neither heroes nor villains seem to care much about anyone, or any thing, except the meteorite. Which is all rather entertaining. When a passenger train is horribly wrecked (presumably killing hundreds) somewhere about episode 8, our bland hero and heroine seem mostly unconcerned, as they stand amidst the flaming wreckage.

He: The mystery box - did you find it?

She (straightening her hat): What a horrible experience.

He (wryly): Think what a swell story it'll make for your paper... (As an afterthought) feel strong enough to lend a hand with the first aid?

The Phantom Creeps would not win any awards for subtlety. It wouldn't win any awards for anything, for that matter. Do I care? And to be honest, I didn't make any attempt to follow the details of the meteorite-stealing plot after the third or fourth snatch. But it matters not. It was certainly a useful macguffin for Universal's scriptwriters - the whole serial is based around "the mystery box" (there's a narrative archetype if ever I saw one) being stolen - by government agents - by foreign spies - then Bela turns invisible, and steals it back - then foreign spies steal it - then Bela turns invisible, and steals it back - then foreign spies steal it - then Bela turns invisible, and steals it back - and so on, forever and ever, amen. It seems that it is only the fact that there was a limit of 12 episodes that succeeds in bringing the cycle to a close; but it is a narrative loop of the purest kind that could have gone on forever. There's no pretension about it and it could quite easily have been continued endlessly in next week's thrilling episode, at this theater, for all eternity, perhaps with the children of the cast taking over the acting chores when their parents passed on. "It's a proud day, my boy: it's your turn to take over the family serial now, Bela Jnr.!"

The Phantom Creeps may be an empty, ephemeral entertainment, but I like to think it is also an acute allegory for all human experience. There are various glowing meteorites of uncertain significance in this world to be collected (Bela Lugosi DVDs? Relationships? Ikea furniture?); people covet them, they are stolen, they are stolen back; they are lost...meanwhile, confused, seeking narrative resolution, we wander about the earth, perhaps invisibly...there are things people say we don't understand, there are cliffhangers at regular intervals, perhaps some evil laughter, maybe your robot explodes, and then your personal 12 episodes are all over. The end.

Yes, as I have demonstrated to you here, The Phantom Creeps is far more profound than anything Samuel Beckett ever wrote, and, besides, it features Bela Lugosi in a false beard.

You will find this serial in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

Nobody likes... Freddy

2009-05-02T14:16:00.000+01:00

Because you didn't demand it: the first in an occasional series focussing on the worst, feeblest, most unloved, entirely critically unregarded, most mediocre and/or weird, forgottenest comics of yesteryear. We begin with Freddy issue 47, Charlton Comics, 1965.

Yes, dear reader. There were 47 issues of Freddy. According to the indicia, it was published four times a year. Freddy was running for more than ten years. People bought this - regularly? Where are all the Freddy readers gone, long time passing? Where are all the thousands of copies of this and each of the preceding 46 issues? All destroyed?

Freddy is a lame rip off of the popular teen humour Archie comics: Freddy's hair is black, whereas Archie's is kind of red; Freddy's pal is fat, hirsute, yeucchy 'Stuff' (as seen on the delightful cover), whereas Archie's pal is Jughead. Archie has two gals on the go, virtuous Betty and sultry Veronica (the lucky stiff) whereas Freddy seems to go nuts over a wide array of interchangeable bimbo-girls. Dan De Carlo did a great job on the art for a lot of the Archie comics; Jon D'Agostino provides an inferior - though occasionally mildly deranged - carbon-copy of his style for Freddy.

Charlton Comics Give You More! it says at the top of every page. But you might find that you'd like less. One thing's quickly apparent: Freddy and his pal Stuff are odious creeps. Incidentally, that gal in the beret appears to have some serious upper-body issues.

The stories revolve around the same kind of teen stuff that the Archie comics do, but they don't make much sense; and they have an added edge of charmlessness and raging libido, strangely at odds with their approval by the Comics Code Authority. I suspect that the CCA couldn't be bothered to wade through these. Or else how would a bizarre scene with a sex-crazed dress designer get through?

And what's going on with these European stereotypes?

Did I mention that the comic also includes a story about smelly moustaches? That must have had a wide appeal.

And once you've enjoyed this charming tale, how about a pet monkey? Just flip to the advertisements...

You could even feed them on lollipops. Just imagine all the darling little confectionery-choked monkey-corpses buried in the backyards of 1960s suburban America. And if killing a monkey is too much effort, how about saving some money on hair cuts?

What a load of old rubbish Freddy was. If you know where I can obtain copies of the other 46 issues, please get in touch.

You'll find this comic - filed under "misguided comic cover images featuring obese skaters" - in the HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

Paperbacks with good covers that I'll never actually read

2009-04-10T13:04:00.000+01:00

I will never read either of these books, but I like the covers. Which can be something of a dilemma, when you're short of space, and you have tended to live the life of the hobo. Is it worth keeping books purely for this reason? Who else will ever see them, except me? Do I want them just to look at them? Would I ever look at them anyway? Do I want to carry them, like bricks, for the rest of my days, from one rented room to another? I guess so.

In the case of Art Colony, a pulpy US paperback of the 1950s, you just know that the story inside will never be able to compete with the saucy shenanigans going on on the cover. That roguish chap may be wearing an "artistic" spotty shirt and mauve neckerchief, but we all know that his mind is not on his paintbrush (incidentally he reminds me somewhat of Heinz, pop protege of mad 1960s British record producer Joe Meek - I've attached a picture of him so that you can compare). If you hadn't already guessed it, he must be a delinquent - just look at those biker-jeans. But I must confess I'm jealous - both those chicks look pretty hy-tone to me. You know, he shouldn't risk his chances with his red-headed steady, even for a valuable lesson in aesthetics with that raven haired floozy. Is he crazy? Hang on a moment, I'm forgetting - it's just an illustration. But, anyhow, nope, I dig that cover, but I'm never going to bother to look inside this volume. Never.

In the case of the Hank Janson, Bring Me Sorrow, that's a great title, and a great cover, but I'm not a fan of this series of British hard-boiled rip-off volumes, despite the fact that there are loads of folks out there, apparently, who are on the hunt for these - I can't believe they ever read many of them. They caused quite a scandal once upon a time, in the early 50s - because they were supposed to be very violent, and sexy, and the beautiful cover pictures of glamorous dames left little to the imagination - but the few I've read are tedious in the extreme (except for one called Bad Girl, which was sensational semi-erotic super-violent pulp trash of the highest order - unfortunately an ex-girlfriend swiped this one), with surprisingly little violence and virtually nothing remotely sexual - just page after page of turgid badly written guff about trilby-hatted, grim-smiling "dicks" - Hank himself is the main protagonist - shaking cigarettes out of packets, driving around, waffling on and on, with similarly cipherous other characters. Eleven million sale? Blimey, we must have been hard up for salacious thrills in 1950s Blighty.

But even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to read this one. And do you know why, dear reader? Because I was CONNED. Yes, I bought this volume recently in a second hand bookshop in Newbury. At the time I thought the shopkeeper looked a bit sheepish as he rushed it into the bag - he knew, you see, that the spine glue had disintegrated decades ago and he was well aware that about forty pages were missing. He even made a big deal of saying "these are worth buying, just for the covers". The scoundrel. I should send Hank Janson round to rub him out, but more likely he'd just talk him into a deep sleep.

You'll find these books - forever unread - in the HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

The only item of Star Wars memorabilia I possess

2009-03-30T14:10:00.000+01:00

This didn't come from the kitchen cupboard - I found it in a commemorative OXO tin from the 1980s, in a chest of drawers. It is one of a series of bubble-gum cards, issued to capitalise on the success of Star Wars, with which all boys who grew up in the 1970s will be familiar. I've never been much of a fan, to be honest. I remember going to the Northfields Odeon to see it, with a boy in my class, for his birthday treat, and marvelling at how it could be that such special effects were possible; and thinking that Han Solo was rather cool in his waistcoat, and being scared of Darth Vader, but I never got that into the whole thing. In later years, it was amusing to wind up one of my friends who is obsessed with it by labelling it a "Western in space" (which it is, of course) to his enragement - he dislikes all 'old' films, particularly Westerns. Alas, even Star Wars, and all of us young bucks who saw it first time round, are getting on a bit these days.

Once upon a time, as a boy, I had loads of these cards. Looking at this one now, I vividly remember the feel of the waxy greaseproof paper the cards were wrapped in, and the awful oblong of stiff pink bubblegum that came with them (in those days cards weren't sold specifically for sick adult geek collectors, on their own, to put in dumb binders; they were for children, and it was thought you needed something more to justify the purchase - but not much more). This gum was covered with a dry white powder, and I felt compelled to chew it, even though I didn't like the stuff (who did?) just to ensure that I got value for money. I recollect that it cracked into razor-sharp shards the moment you snapped it between your teeth, before gradually morphing into a stodgy mass of the least flavoursome, but most powerfully fragranced gunk you could hope to find in this galaxy, or in any others far, far away. I also recall the backs of the cards: when your collection was complete, and these were assembled corner-to-corner in a big square, they would make a giant jigsaw-picture - I believe the scene was Luke and Han in the Trash Compactor - I spent many hours of summer holiday (happy?) torment trying to complete that.

I think I may have had the whole set at one time. But I got rid of the lot. I'm not sure of the provenance of this particular card, number 60 in the set, but I know why I have it - because it features one of my favourite actors, the late great Peter Cushing, as Grand Moff Tarkin. It reminds me, at first glance, of two things. Firstly, his expression on the card reminds me that Cushing (like Bela Lugosi before him) treated every role, no matter how absurd, as if it was desperately serious, and worthwhile, even if it was little more than a cameo, and involved wearing a strange back-to-front coat with a watercolour paint-box on front, and being strangled by the Green Cross Code man (Dave Prowse, as Darth Vader). Secondly, it reminds me of that great story about Cushing wearing tartan slippers on set because the Nazi-esque boots were too tight and made his feet hurt. Only an actor of Cushing's stature - and old fashioned dignity, and lack of pretension - would have been permitted - or would have wanted - to do this. I love that story, and also that other splendid tale about Cushing, in his final years, wearing a special white glove to smoke a single cigarette (one per day, no more, no less), which was in turn held in a long holder which was kept behind the counter - along with the glove, of course, and his personal cushion (Peter's Cushion?) - to be ritualistically brought out for his daily visits to his favourite cafe in Whitstable, Kent.

It's a shame there weren't more pictures of Peter Cushing in the Star Wars bubblegum card series; and I would have liked to have seen one of the chap who played Mr Bronson in Grange Hill, too. Ah yes, I'd certainly hang on to one of those. But bafflingly the majority of the cards seem to feature the main stars of the films. In any case, it occurs to me that maybe Mr Bronson was in the second film, was he not? So he would be on one of the later cards with the red borders...I'd have to check with a Star Wars nerd to find out. Yes, someone nerdier than me.

You will find this bubblegum card in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

Whoopee and Wow! 26th May 1984

2009-03-24T11:42:00.000Z

British weekly humour comics had become exceedingly weird by the mid-1980s. Sales had slumped, and publishers - like IPC, who published Whoopee - were struggling desperately to figure out just what it was the kids wanted to read - if they wanted to read at all, that was, what with the distractions of their wonderful ZX Spectrum 48k computers and BMX bikes. When a comic was cancelled, the strategy was to amalgamate it into another more robust title - hence Wow! had been incorporated into the longer-running Whoopee, a veteran of the early 1970s. But I don't think the latter title lasted very much longer - this must be one of the last few issues, I would guess. I found it, crumpled and yellow, in my kitchen cupboard, underneath a pile of copies of Bullet, a British adventure comic that I might have a look at a later date. Or I might not.

So, anyway, Whoopee by this time was well past its sell-by date, struggling to survive, clinging on for dear life; in a perpetual state of identity crisis, with its editors anxiously reliant on the increasingly uninspired exploits of time-tested popular favourites like Sweeny Toddler (seen here on the cover, drawn by Tom Paterson), who was by now rubbing shoulders with an ever more motley crew of vaguely surreal, ultra contrived, conceptually bizarre characters and concepts, many of which had been rather hopefully salvaged from even less successful comics in the IPC Publishing line. So, dear reader, if you have a few moments to spare, let us pause from life's race and glance a while at a few of those weird, forgotten flops from the pages of Whoopee, before we consign them once more to the rotting heap of newsprint so akin to the eventual oblivion that beckons to us all.

Let us begin with Stage School. This double page tale is adequately described by the title. A special school, full of the kind of brats that end up in Eastenders and The Bill. Taught by a quaint British comics style teacher, in mortar board and gown. Perhaps at the time it seemed somewhat exotic and outlandish to imagine such an institution?

Looking back now it seems strangely prophetic. Note the junior Tommy Cooper. Is it Robert Nixon doing the art on this?

Stage School epitomises the case for the reinstatement of corporal punishment. Bring back the birch. They all need a good thrashing, the little bleeders.

We turn now to Creepy Comix. Once upon a time, comics were considered such a potent influence upon the nation's youth that questions were asked in parliament - yes, I'm referring to the Horror Comics flap of the 1950s.

Indeed, my Pater tells me that such was the furore once upon a time that when he was a lad his Dad tore up his British reprint of that fine EC publication Tales From The Crypt.

By 1984 it must have been apparent that comics had no influence whatsoever over anybody at all, certainly if we go by this strip, in which the comic of the title comes to life, producing horror monsters at useful moments - one of which is a demon, in fact - that pause from their rampages of destruction to help a young lad overcome the traumas of school life and get a good hot shower for the gym class - "Ooh, lovely!" Nice art by a very familiar artist whose name I have forgotten.

Family Trees is such a weird concept, you wonder how, and why, they came up with it.

It's a kind of soap opera type strip, by all accounts, but the characters are all trees. I believe the premise is that they are looking for a place to live. Each week, while they search, they dash out of the foliage - er, actually they are the foliage - have tree-fun doing exciting things like throwing coins down wishing wells (?) - but are forever thwarted in their attempts to find rest. Then they dash back into the foliage. Highly ecological, but exceedingly dull.

Boy Boss is another strange one. A kind of wish fulfillment fantasy where a kid runs a company; but the grim Jasper Ferret, the accountant, wants to stop him from having any fun, by forcing him to attend the meeting of "The Institute of Young Directors".

Of course, the joke's on Jasper when the other young directors are as outlandish as Boy Boss. Note the androgynous director of "Biff Records" and the frankly disturbing dog/bear man across the table. This strip is by Frank McDiarmid, who drew most of the Cheeky comic. His art saves this one.

Look who's on the joke page - the Krankies. Pause here to thank the lord that we don't have to see them on TV any more. In classic comics style, the "Star Joke" is "told by" the Krankies by virtue of attaching speech bubbles to a cheaply obtained press photograph. Well, it sure beats booking them through their agent. Fan-da-bi-dozy! Incidentally, I think I have their LP somewhere, but I seem to recall it has a massive scratch across most of Side One, where, I suspect, a disgruntled yuletide recipient of said album expressed their dissatisfaction with the "music" contained therein.

Spare Part Kit. I remember this character always gave me the creeps, as a child, and he still does. It was something about the premise - a boy who carried muscular arms and legs, and a "six-pack" torso around with him, donning them to become "bionic" - in combination with his knobbly knees and his goggle-eyed, curly-haired, Harpo Marx-like visage. It sends a shiver down my spine. I'll say no more about it.

Finally, Mustapha Million, the kind of light-comedy foreigner once so prevalent in the Great British comic, but who vanished from all mass-produced media sometime shortly after they stopped repeating Mind Your Language on ITV. We shall not see his like again.

A pretty ropey old comic, all told, but still I'm sad that they don't make 'em anymore. I was going to throw this issue of Whoopee out - but maybe I'll put it back in the kitchen cupboard for a few more years.

You will find this comic in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

The Adventures of Blake and Mortimer: The Francis Blake Affair

2009-03-21T10:49:00.000Z

I've just been reading this recently translated Belgian Bande Dessinee featuring the intrepid, stiff-upper lipped British duo Blake and Mortimer, originally created by Edgar P. Jacobs, the artist who worked closely with Herge on some Tintin books (notably The Seven Crystal Balls) before they had a bit of a dust up. Jacobs wanted more credit on the series - I think he was keen for the books to be labelled "The Adventures of Tintin by Herge and Edgar P. Jacobs". Not much to ask, eh? Needless to say Herge was not best pleased and eventually Jacobs received the order of the boot.

Off he went and created his own comic book series about spiffing Brits Blake, a top-ranking secret service man, and Mortimer, a genius physicist. Just average chaps. They share a posh flat in London with Egyptian statues lying about the place and hunting trophies on the walls, where they lounge about in their grey flannels, say "blimey" a lot and smoke their pipes. But - no smirking at the back! - they're just good friends, right?

A few years back I read The Mystery of the Great Pyramid, by Jacobs, expecting Tintin-level excellence, but was greatly disappointed. I realised then why Herge had to show Jacobs the egress. The basic idea was entertaining enough, and the strip looked great - with Jacobs employing the same clear line drawing style that Herge used - stylistically almost identical in some respects - but unfortunately Jacobs lacked the humour or visual economy of Herge. The story was torturously overwritten, over complicated, and relentlessly po-faced. The characters - even the main ones - seemed to be empty, stiff-jawed moustachioed ciphers. And if that didn't put you off, the stiff new translation into English would.

So I picked up this new volume - done in the 1990s by a new writer/artist team, Van Hamme and Benoit, working for the Jacobs studio - in the hope that it might be better than Jacobs' originals. It's a good effort, and has its moments, but unfortunately it seems authentically Jacobsian in its overbearing, wordy, grim-visaged convolutions. And once again, the translation seems more suitable for a physics textbook than a comic strip.

Here's a sample of the delightfully sprightly dialogue for you.

Mortimer: But that's Ardmuir Castle! That's where I was invited to attend a physics seminar.

Blake: I found one of those publications on Ardmuir Castle in Olrik's pocket. And that's how I finally understood what kind of "move" our enemies were preparing: the kidnapping by a foreign power of the best physicists in the Kingdom!

Mortimer: Good Heavens! That...that would be appalling!

Blake: Indeed. This would represent a technological step backward of almost ten years for Britain and her allies. And, an equivalent gain for the country that would thus obtain the forced collaboration of the unfortunate scientists.

Still awake at the back there? Like Mr Jacobs' earlier originals, it all looks splendid (though the period and location details are somewhat odd - attention all European cartoonists: no, British police didn't carry guns in the good old days, and I wonder how many inns would have served "a fried sausage and beans"), but it's all so desperately serious and pointlessly complicated and the speech bubbles are sadly crammed to overflowing with dry, stiffly translated, purely plot-progressing blather. By the end of the book I was wishing that the evil Olrik had kidnapped Mortimer, Blake, and every other bow-tied stuffed shirt in the volume, if only in the hope that it would make them shut up.

You will find this book in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.

The First Post

2009-03-21T10:37:00.000Z

Hello, hello, this is the BBC Home Service...er, no, it's not, it is a "blog", I understand, some kind of ethereal realm where I can expose every facet of my poor, tormented, sensitive soul to the world... no, not really, never fear, only joking. But I might document some rather fascinating old, obscure stuff, and that sort of rot. What do you say to that, eh? We'll have some larks. Aren't you excited? Who are you, anyway?

You will find me in THE HOUSE OF COBWEBS.