30-Day Comic Challenge Week 4

I've come to the final week of the comics challenge and it kicks off with one of those perennial comics questions: Who is stronger, who would win, who would get their green or orange arse kicked?

Day 22
Your dream "versus" match

To be honest this isn't something I've really given much thought to since I was about 10.
I don't know... Swamp Thing vs Man-Thing? Black Panther vs White Tiger? Killraven vs Apeslayer?
Or how about these two...?
( I'm nothing if not shallow )

Yeah, I'd definitely read that.

Day 23
Fave comic book cartoon series

I have to admit defeat here as I don't really have one. So here are The Ramones covering the theme tune from the 1960s Spider-Man cartoon:



Day 24
A comic that made you laugh

I think we can all agree that Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes is one of the greatest and funniest comic strips of all time. Right? Right.

The cover detail and strip above are both from my copy of Calvin & Hobbes Sunday Pages 1985-1995, a catalogue from an exhibition of Watterson's work at the Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library. This is just a wonderful book which features original artwork from the strip alongside the published version with commentaries by Watterson himself. If you're a fan of C&H it's definitely worth scouring t'internet for a copy.

Day 25
A comic or story arc you wish they would make a movie of

The Incal by Moebius and Jodorowsky. Of course, "they" would need a top director and a huuuge budget to do this epic justice but it's a nice thought. Paging Denis Villeneuve?

Day 26
A guilty pleasure comic

I don't really get the concept of "guilty pleasures" ( if you like something you like something ) but maybe Howard Chaykin's Black Kiss? Great artwork but not something you'd leave lying around the house. "More tea vicar?"

My blog buddy Pete Doree summed up the guilty pleasure idea thus: "Something bearded hipsters use to describe something they like but don't want their mates to think they like. Silly."

Day 27
Comic you've read the most times

Not just one comic. These. All of these.

These 20 comics are just a small selection of my Fantastic Four collection. I own 72 regular issues and 5 annuals from the Lee / Kirby run from 1961 - 1970. I know it's a collection I'll never complete unless I suddenly become a millionaire but the chase is often better than the catch and it does eliminate that existential feeling of emptiness experienced by all comics fans when you complete a collection and think "now what?"
Sadly, between me posting these images on Twitter and collating my tweets here, the legendary Joe Sinnott passed away at the age of 93. Joltin' Joe, as Stan dubbed him, did absolutely phenomenal work inking Jack's pencils and was key in establishing the "look"of the FF. Below is a great image of The Thing and the Human Torch which I've posted before but is a lovely example of Sinnott's work. Here's to you, Joltin' Joe!

Day 28
Fave super power or skill

Well, it's the most obvious one  -  flight, as exemplified by the original super hero, Superman himself. Who hasn't dreamed of flying and escaping this mundane / insane world for a while?

Day 29
Comic that changed the way you see the world

I don't think any one comic did that but many helped shape my worldview. The surrealism and social commentary of this issue of Howard The Duck had a big impact on me as a kid. I wrote briefly about this issue in an ancient post on this 'ere blog which you can read ( should you want to of course ) here.

Day 30
Your favourite artist

With apologies and respect to the many other artists I love, there can only be one King Of Comics.
Of course, it's Jack Kirby!

So, that's the end of the challenge. It was a fun distraction from these crazy times and a chance to share images and thoughts about comics. Thanks to everyone who commented on these posts  -  you're all super heroes!

"I do believe in Spooks"

Well, I don't really. But I've always been interested in the supernatural and things that go bump in the night and, hey, it's Halloween so now must be the time to talk about it, right?
I'm more interested these days in fictional ghoulies and ghosties but when I was younger I was borderline obsessed with the supernatural and was always reading "true life" ghost stories. As a teenager I subscribed to the infamous part-work The Unexplained which contained many a tale of spooky and, yes, unexplained phenomena in its eldritch pages.
Of course I had an active imagination as a kid and the fact that I was brought up in a creaky, draughty 200-year old farmhouse just added to my fascination for the weird and bizarre. I was always imagining footsteps on the attic steps outside my bedroom door or hunting for secret passages in the cellar. My dad, Pete, told me his family had lived in the house since 1930 and nobody had ever seen even the merest wisp of a spectre. By the time I was a teenager I was starting to doubt that...

As an adolescent I started having weird experiences at night ( no, not those! ) which had me thinking there were stranger things in heaven and earth etc. etc. On many, many cold dark nights I would wake up ( always at 01:40 am for some reason ) with a feeling of absolute dread. I found myself unable to move, as if some giant weight were pressing down on my chest, and there was usually the impression of a shadowy figure standing at the foot of my bed, no doubt meaning to do me harm. After much struggling and scrabbling around to find my light switch I would feel the weight suddenly disappear, switch on my light and reveal... nothing. I don't know for sure how long this lasted  -  probably a couple of years  -  but I was understandably freaked out by it. I couldn't tell my parents, or anyone else for that matter, because I was sure they'd (a) think I was nuts, (b) laugh at me or (c) both. I began to think that the house was indeed haunted... or I was indeed going nuts.

Many years later as an alleged adult I was watching a TV documentary about sleep and dreams ( this time in our resolutely non-spooky one-bed suburban terraced house ) when the narrator mentioned the subject of sleep paralysis and I nearly fell out of my chair. This was it! This was the cause of those fear-filled nights. There was no nocturnal creature holding me down or lurking at the foot of my bed, merely a quirk of REM sleep which keeps the body immobile and presumably safe whilst dreaming. I wasn't haunted or mad! There was an actual physiological explanation for this private night-time terror which had gripped me for so long but was now an adolescent memory. Boring or what?

As much as I might wish otherwise I've still never had any real kind of supernatural encounter. Even when my mate Paul and I tried to sacrifice my sister to the Devil down in the cellar of the farmhouse there was no puff of sulphur or echoing voice from another world. ( I suspect Lucifer would have rejected her for being just too nasty for the hot place anyway. ) All we got was a telling off from my Nan for "trying to raise evil spirits"  -  chance would be a fine thing!

Really, the only sniff I've had of the spirit world was sometime in the early 90s when Sarah and I visited Littledean Hall in the Forest Of Dean. This is one of the oldest houses in the country and is now a Site of Special Scientific Interest, being home to a colony of Greater Horseshoe Bats. I'd spotted it on my travels ( I was a truck drivin' man in those days ) and thought it would be worth a look. We had a nice couple of hours there, looking around, and although there didn't seem to be anything too notable about the place, it was a pleasant enough way to spend a Summer's morning. There was very little in the way of information on display so we didn't really find out much of the house's history at the time.
One of the last rooms we looked in was a fairly unremarkable, almost bare room containing not much more than a table, a fireplace and some exposed roof beams. For some reason, even though the day was warm and all the other rooms felt light and airy, I suddenly felt an extreme cold creeping into my bones. As the room felt colder and colder I started  to feel anxious, claustrophobic, I just felt I shouldn't be there. I didn't say anything to Sarah because, again, I would have felt foolish but I was extremely relieved to get out of that room and breathe some fresh air and feel the sun on my face. From the outside I could see that the room was bathed in sunlight, not obscured by trees or hedges, and there was no real reason why it should have been so marrow-chillingly cold.
In the car on the way home Sarah suddenly confessed to me that something had really upset her in that room and she'd felt oppressed and nervous and couldn't wait to get out. She hadn't told me in case I thought she was just being silly...

Brrr! I'm feeling cold, just typing this. ( Well, it is October. ) We later looked up the history of Littledean Hall and apparently it's been the site of many supposed hauntings over the centuries. We hadn't been aware of that before our visit and had no reason to expect any "cold spots" in the house or anything like that. We both just think of it as a strange anomaly that we can't explain and it certainly didn't turn us into believers in ghosts. But... maybe, just maybe...

Steve Ditko

The major news events of this weekend may include the football World Cup, Wimbledon and London Pride but, for me, the most significant news was the sad passing of comic book legend Steve Ditko. There are countless excellent tributes to the great man on t'internet to which I can add very little, so I thought I'd post just a few Ditko images from my collection starting, of course, with his most famous co-creation, the Amazing Spider-Man.

These two early Spidey covers are among my favourites, showcasing indelible images of our wall-crawling hero fighting some of his idiosyncratic Silver Age foes. Both of these comics are a bit wrecked ( which is how I could afford to buy them! ) but that just adds to their charm for me. I love the "Spidey in darkness" image of the first cover and the instantly-recognisable Ditko cityscape and vile villain of the second. ASM #9 is the oldest Spider-Man comic I own and is a treasured possession, taped-spine and all!

Of course, Sturdy Steve's other most famous character was Stephen Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts and this issue of Strange Tales was Ditko's swan-song on the title and also featured his only cover. And what a great cover! The mind-bending, psychedelic adventures of Doctor Strange in Ditko's surreal worlds often come across as a four-colour waking dream and this image of Doc encountering the enigmatic Eternity is a splendid example.

Of course, Ditko worked for many comics publishers throughout his career, creating supernatural stories and the mighty Captain Atom for Charlton, as well as various jobs for Warren, Atlas, Pacific and Eclipse. After jumping ship from Marvel in 1968 he dreamed up some outlandish characters for the usually staid and conservative DC Comics, including The Hawk & The Dove and the outrageous chap above, The Creeper. This weird-looking misfit never set the super hero scene on fire but was a fine example of Ditko's bizarre character designs.

And, speaking of bizarre characters, during a later stint with DC in the 1970s he created the short-lived Shade The Changing Man series, packed full of his trademarked surrealism and dimension-hopping adventure. In many ways it was an attempt to recreate his 1960s weirdness which could only seem out-dated ( although the distorted architecture on the cover above seems to prefigure the likes of Inception... ) but it was fun while it lasted. And it gave us pages like the one below...

The fiercely independent and legendarily reclusive Ditko became an avid proponent of the objectivist philosophy of the likes of Ayn Rand and devoted decades to expounding these moralistic, black-or-white theories in self-published comics such as Mr. A. ( I've got a copy of that somewhere but haven't managed to dig it out. ) These almost hysterical Libertarian tracts were virtually unreadable but often the great man's sublime style shone through the tub-thumping...

Steve Ditko was indeed a unique talent whose imagination made the world a better and weirder place. He will be sadly missed.

Happy Halloween!

Bill Stoneham artwork

For your viewing pleasure just some of the surreal and disturbing work of the artist Bill Stoneham. He is best known for his 1972 painting The Hands Resist Him ( above ), the infamous

"haunted painting" of internet urban legend.

For more of this unique artist's work head to his website here...

Pleasant dreams...