L&T and V&TV21 are a fairly shoddy opportunistic mix: cover-stories are look-and-learn-ish "fact-oid" panels; a lot of the art is incompetent; a lot of the stories very obvious imitations or feeble stabs at novelty: "the spellbinder" = a catweazle rip, for example; or "starts today! a hilarious new crime-busting adventure with... Yellowknife of the Yard. Yellowknife, son of a sioux chief, was Scotland Yard's strangest detective..."; or (actually at the time my sister and my favourite, "war of the white eyes", where a cloud of gas is turning all, man and beast, into superstrong homicidal killing machines (with all-white eyes) --- we liked bcz even at that age we knew that it wz abominably badly drawn, and that this line, issuing from a bad picture of a jetplane, "aaargh! bees! millions of bees! and look! their eyes are all white!", wz very silly
but not all of them are awful: stories drawn by one particular artist really sprang out - though of course no mention is made of his name: broodingly dark, skies AND faces hatched, when the right gothic moment brews, by thick furrows and patches --- a very memorable style, at least in the sense that (unlike the spellbinder or yellowknife), i remembered reading these stories at the time, and indeed remember images from issues that haven't survived
the stories are these "adam eterno": abt a guy who can't be killed - except by a weapon made of gold - who hurtles through time helping ppl he doesn't know "kelly's eye": tim kelly owns the eye of zoltec (which protects him from all harm when he wears it); he is travelling through time (only i forget why) "janus stark"; a victorian crimebusting escapologist and inda-rubber-man! "raven on the wing": gypsy foopballer who plays in bare feet
ok so i googled and discovered that (as probably some of you know?), the artist was indeed fairly special: Francisco Solano Lopez, an argentinian later famous for ahem erotic comix like the young witches --- he contributed a bit to early 2000AD, then stopped (why? falklands collateral? or IPC didn't pay enough when he had erotic comics to write w.his son?)
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 10 October 2004 09:30 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 10 October 2004 09:31 (nineteen years ago) link
(haha HR Dept discussion: "This candidate is called Eevil E. Hellspawn McMurderer, shd we hire him or not?")
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 10 October 2004 10:34 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 10 October 2004 10:41 (nineteen years ago) link
this is one of my favourite comics ever, living pristine pure in my memories, unsullied by reprints or revivals. I don't think I ever saw him travel through time and space, mind. This must have been after he fought against the robot giant bats or his evil double.
Is Robot Archie in any of your comics? Or The Spider? Or Mytek The Mighty?
― DV (dirtyvicar), Sunday, 10 October 2004 11:11 (nineteen years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 10 October 2004 11:15 (nineteen years ago) link
(kelly teams up w.a little bald guy called dr diamond and they travel on a kind of clock-looking-tardis, if memory serves) (to be honest i have possibly somewhat confused kelly narrative w.a.eterno narrative, as they share many characteristics)
martin: return of the claw is in valiant&tv21, as is capt.hurricane (but i'm sure they skipped around esp.hurricane)
hunting on the internets (©g.w.b.) informs me that "the spider" wz. written by superman's creator - is that true or did someone (me?) misunderstand something?
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 10 October 2004 11:22 (nineteen years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 10 October 2004 11:27 (nineteen years ago) link
Bah, I have just thrown away an hour of my life looking at internet nonsense about British superhero comics.
― DV (dirtyvicar), Sunday, 10 October 2004 12:10 (nineteen years ago) link
eg CAVEAT SLAxOR
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 10 October 2004 12:28 (nineteen years ago) link
― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Sunday, 10 October 2004 13:48 (nineteen years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Sunday, 10 October 2004 19:23 (nineteen years ago) link
was set in ww1: the evil baron wz a german air ace who was somehow related also to a race of telepathic bat people, who he encouraged to harrass the plucky british flyers
war comix are generally homosocial - all-boy casts being manly at one another - but this wz something else; HIGHLY sexualised and very creepy - the bat-people had big wings and bat-heas, but lovingly drawn and detailed naked male bodies, with strategic shading at the pubic area
(also black max and his evil sidekick dwarf dr gratz tunnelled through caverns in a vehicle like the mole in thunderbirds)
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 10 October 2004 20:12 (nineteen years ago) link
― robster (robster), Monday, 11 October 2004 06:23 (nineteen years ago) link
does anyone know if anyone has plans to reprint Zenith? It irks me that I gave up on 2000AD before it finished, and thus do not actually know how it ended (apart from some vague stuff about pocket universe).
― loggedoutvicar, Monday, 11 October 2004 08:29 (nineteen years ago) link
David A
― David Simpson (David Simpson), Monday, 11 October 2004 08:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Monday, 11 October 2004 10:54 (nineteen years ago) link
― loggedoutvicar, Monday, 11 October 2004 11:07 (nineteen years ago) link