If I had any aspirations at all in my early years at university, I hoped to become a writer; specifically, I wanted to write for John Nathan Turner's Doctor Who, like Full Circle's Andrew Smith. From 1981 to 1983, I mass-produced handwritten pages of lined paper about Jack the Ripper,Yakuza, Burke and Hare, Al Capone, Cornish wreckers and werewolves on the space shuttle. Never sent a single one off to the BBC, although I would get radio work in the mid-90s.
In my late teens, I was still living at home in Chapelton and well into 1983, I still had an order for Spider-Man, even in its embarassing tv tie-in phase.
Don't You Want Me, Baby?
When times are challenging, I think you turn to familiar things for comfort-like this blog, effectively. I wasn't ready to relinquish my life in Chapelton yet but the influences of the new decade were working on me.
I was introduced to Warrior by my former schoolmate Graham Sim. It was another anthology but it seemed to tap into tropes from Fifties and Sixties tv and film in a way British comics hadn't done before. Channel 4 started to repeat The Avengers and The Prisoner between '82 and '84 and it was as if the collective unconscious that Sting sang about was working its way into being through comics.
In Glasgow, meanwhile, the prevalent student cultures of drinking and headshopppery were ready for me.
I was buying up Silver Age issues of Adventure at comic marts in hotels and public halls but I got my contemporary DCs and Marvels in the Virgin Megastore in Union Street. A gloomy, furtive place on several floors, it sold, in addition to records, concert tickets, the Furry Freak Brothers and Amyl Nitrate. With its violently orange poly bags, it was, in lyrics of my friend Roy's song, a "Caledonian Camden Town". Virgin reminded me of the Oh Cult shop in Live and Let Die and was a breeding ground for the subculture we'd eventually know as Goth.
Moller's snap of the former Megastore
From the Hidden Glasgow Forum
The early-to-mid 80s was a peak of creative and critical success for DC comics while Marvel's greatest achievement was a toy tie-in. The New Teen Titans, Brian Bolland's Camelot 3000, The Legion; then Crisis on Infinite Earths, Who's Who, Byrne's Superman, The Dark Knight and the British Invasion. Moore's Swamp Thing; Moore and Dave "Big E" Gibbons on Watchmen; Alan Davis on BATO and Detective. Comics weren't just for kids (now, maybe they're not for kids at all)
The adman's idea of the cocktail bar 80s, with its big hair and designer stubble, had yet to gestate fully. It wouldn't really catch on in Glasgow until well after Live Aid. But it seemed the decade's angst and deprivation- mass unemployment, the Falklands conflict, the Miners Strike, Red Wedge, Greenham Common- had irradiated all these 2000 AD alumni.
I'd forgotten Lord Hawk. And why was I in Troon in November '85?
As we've seen before on "Place", Captain Britain had a second shot at his own title. Chris Claremont would soon suborn Brian Braddock and his supporting cast for US Marvel's whimsical mutant spin-off Excalibur.
I gave up on Doctor Who Monthly shortly after the introduction of Sylvester McCoy and finally ended my comics order in Craig's in Strathaven after nearly fourteen years. I was throroughly unemployable upon finally graduating from University and was living behind a basement dance studio in Hyndland Road.
There was a brief fad for weekly comics at the Big Two: Action Comics and Marvel Comics Presents. Foolishly, I ignored the former and bought five or six of the latter; then, I lost interest. My brother was still getting 2000 AD, however, so I was up to speed on super-powered pop satire, Zenith
As the classic soul of 80s club nights was drowned out by 90s rave-y whistles, DC seemed to have lost its confidence and more damagingly, its classy Silver Age sheen. The Titans were mired in ugly, brutal stories while their nemesis, the mercenary Deathstroke, headlined his own comic. A kid -friendly line called !mpact, featuring Archie's Mighty Crusaders, failed to make one. Robin the Boy Wonder had been graphically murdered as a result of a fan phone poll. The British invaders had infected the Super Friends then replaced them with paranoiacs and anarchists who could only "get it on" in the cape and cowl.
Marvel, on the other hand, was breaking sales records with Spider-Man and X-Men, youth-oriented titles where pin-ups hoisted basketball breasts and even bigger firearms.But on the other side of the pond, something different was coming: an anthology blending Eastern mysticism, retro-futurism and the new dance culture. It shared its name with a Beatles album.
I was very impressed by Revolver. I had moved from the West End of Glasgow to the South Side and then into the East End. I was already watching The Late Show, presented by Sarah Dunant and Tracy McLeod and reading Arena and GQ- the influence of my new flatmate Neil, who had worked at designer store Cruise. I was also reading about Enochian magic in the Mitchell Library and was such a Grant Morrison fan that I made a special visit to the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. So I welcomed Revolver, for its short existence, as the Thinking Person's Comic Magazine.
There was a brief resurgence of invention and bravado by Marvel UK at the dawn of the decade. Overkill, making its debut in the spring of 1992, was a bi-weekly anthology comic.As such, it was aimed at the home market, while the features it hosted appeared simultaneously in colour US editions. Mirroring the threads that bound Kirby's Fourth World tetralogy, the new Marvel UK titles operated in a shared universe, where an occult organisation called Mys-Tech was planning world domination. Hells' Angel, Death's Head, Motormouth and Killpower all went on to interact with the parent company's stars of the day (namely Wolverine and the X-Men ) and even Doctor Who. Unfortunately, a glut of titles ended the line, which was a pity since it melded the punk attitude and magickal traditions of British comics with the glamour and intertwined melodrama of US Marvel.
By 1993, I had drawn upon magickal rituals and willed myself into becoming a professional actor, with some help from my temporary acting teacher, Bobby (Trainspotting) Carlyle. As such, I couldn't afford as many American comics and a designer mag habit with all the networking ( i.e. clubbing and drinking) the actor's life demanded. But I did come back to DWM with the 1996 TV Movie and drifted back around US comics for initiatives like "Heroes Return" and the Johnny DC line. Three years on, I had ditched the stage (temporarily, I thought) for a regular call centre wage and a mortgage.
DC has revisited the weekly publishing format several times in more recent years, firstly with 52, then Countdown and Trinity. But the most entertaining and interesting weekly was 2009's Wednesday Comics, an eclectic and often beautiful selection of one-page strips, designed to look like a newpaper supplement. Some of the characters featured - Deadman, Metal Men, Metamorpho- would struggle to hold down a monthly title in the modern market. I was disappointed to see there was no follow up and I bought the giant-sized hardback collection last Xmas just to own the extra material :one-pagers for The Creeper and Plastic Man.
I still take a passing interest in the Panini reprints in my local WH Smith; not that long ago, I bought a copy of Avengers Unconquered in Elgin, which featured reprints of two annuals within its card covers. The matey, upbeat letters page, edited by erstwhile DWM scrpiter Scott Gray, took me back to '78.
I hope you've enjoyed this overview of British comics. In the coming weeks, I hope to look more closely at FOOM magazine and at the beginning of November, will be observing the thirtieth anniversary of the Five Faces of Doctor Who.
The Legal Bit: all images (and song lyrics) are presumed copyright of their respective owners. I owe them a great debt of gratitude.
No comments:
Post a Comment