England's World Cup Glory!

Remember when England won the World Cup? No, I don't mean 1966, I mean when it was won by...

For those of you unfamiliar, Roy of the Rovers was a comic strip that originally appeared in Tiger in 1954 before getting his own comic which ran from 1976 to 1993. It was essentially a soap opera about the titular Roy Race and his team, Melchester Rovers and their struggles with winning/losing/being relegated etc. All the fun of following a real football team with (almost) none of the actual football.

Anyway, there was that one time Roy captained England to World Cup glory!

Our story begins with Roy, relaxing at home, as all footballers do, with a hot milky drink. It's 1982 and he has been a professional footballer for 28 years now. And he is also the Rovers' manager now. No wonder he's exhausted. He doesn't even notice his wife's clear invitation. Penny, former club secretary, is naked under that unflattering dressing gown but Roy is too tired to think about that.

Ah yes, "the lads" are at the World Cup in Spain. Something is always keeping this fictional character from competing in real world events. Like when James Bond couldn't prevent 9/11 because he was being held prisoner in North Korea. This time, it's because he'd been shot less than a year earlier and seriously injured. It was one RotR's bigger storylines.

Uh-oh. He's falling asleep.... I think I know where this is going...

That's right! Dream sequence! Because even in a fictional world where Spandau Ballet played top-level professional football (that really happened in RotR, I'll show you that some other day), England cannot win the World Cup outside of a fantasy!

William "Blackie" Gray was Roy's oldest friend and played on the team with him from the start. I believe he hadn't played for a while at this point. Also, surprisingly for a character created in the 50s, his name is not a racial slur.

"Just go out there and play football." ARE YOU LISTENING HODGSON? IT REALLY IS THAT SIMPLE!

A typical feature of RotR is this pinpointing of individual voices from the crowd to try to convince the reader that stationary drawings of football are exciting.

This is so boring even the artist couldn't be bothered finishing the drawing. Or maybe it's to give the reader somewhere to doodle.

The mullet. A bad choice for professional athletes. Or anyone.

GOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAL!!!!

The actual 1982 World Cup final was between Italy and West Germany, fact fans.

Oh look! Another doodle pad!

I've run out of things to say about how comic strip football is even more boring than the real thing.

...Nearly there....

Hooray! England wins! Vindaloo! Vindaloo!

"It really was a dream result!" Look! The England captain taking the Jules Rimet trophy! (I really have said everything I know about football now)

There is something genuinely pleasing about this image of our greatest fictional sporting hero holding that trophy aloft. They should make it into a poster. Only, you know, with better art. Also note the UK flag in the background. I don't know that's someone trying to be inclusive of the non-English bits of our country, allowing Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish to celebrate with the English, or just a mistake. Let's say the former.

Wow, Penny was really up for it tonight. I reckon her parents had the kids (they have pre-school twins at this time) and she wanted to make the most of it.

And an ideal dream ends with low-level homophobia.

The notion of being kissed by a man seems to have brought him out in a cold sweat. Roy Race was never confused. He grinned the grin of a man who wished to hide his delight.


Edit: I KNOW the Jules Rimet trophy is no loger the World Cup trophy! That was a deliberate mistake, intended as a joke about how little I know about football.


Edit 2: All right, it wasn't. I really am that clueless.

The Topper Book 1989: An Overview

I spend a lot of my time reading old children's annuals I've picked up in charity shops. I'm used to seeing material of a somewhat... questionable nature in them. You know, there will be jokes or stories based around certain attitudes of the time that would no longer be acceptable. Usually racist, often sexist occasionally homophobic. Sometimes a word will have shifted in meaning over time giving us a good ol' 21st century snigger.

With that in mind, here is a selection of nuggets culled from a single annual. The Topper Book 1989.

The Topper was published by DC Thomson between 1953 and 1990 and was certainly the weirdest of its "big four" humour titles. Strips you may remember include Beryl the Peril, Tricky Dicky and Mickey the Monkey (who I've only just realised is actually an ape, not a monkey).

There is also a character who tries to make other children's wishes come true.

Hey look! He's dressed like.... Oh. 

Okay, they could not have foreseen that.

Let's move on to casual racism.

Figaro was a Mexican bandit character. The two jokes were: He was a rubbish bandit. He spoke with an hilarious accent.

It's the late 80s. Allo Allo is on telly.

Ugh.

Then there's Video Kid ("HE STARS IN HIS OWN VIDEOS!")

It starts out innocent enough. He wants to make a musical but hilariously stumbles off onto another film set, then another (like the end of Blazing Saddles). At one point he crashes a war movie and takes a grenade to the face:

Yes, the bright side... He can get back to that musical he was doing. With a twist:

Oh dear. A reminder: This was published in 1988.

Another popular character you might remember if you're over thirty was a boy who had a magical transistor radio. It could make things shrink, grow or fly because reasons. Leaving aside just how dated the concept of a transistor radio was in 1988 (I didn't know what it was) the strip is saddled with this unfortunate title: 

Now, I've recently been told that the word "tranny" is seen as a term of abuse by the transgendered community but until then I'd only known it as a fairly cute word for a cross-dresser. And that's the use I chose to think of when I read this strip in which Danny is watching a football match with a friend in a pink frock.

Danny and his friend prevent the opposing team from cheating and are hailed as heroes:

They were so accepting. It's rather beautiful...

And then there's these panels from Beryl the Peril....

Erm...

That's your Dad you're talking to, Beryl.

DADDY-BOOTS!?

GOOD NIGHT EVERYBODY!

Minnie the Minx meets Walter White

My last post featured Minnie the Minx and an ice cream van. Oddly the current issue of The Beano also features Minnie and an ice cream van. But the real interest is the artist has chosen to include a cameo of everyone's favourite chemistry teacher-cum-meth dealer.

You could argue it is not really him, even with that blue crystal-like lolly and the trading name "Icenberg's". But the strip is called "Breaking Dad". They should call him Walter the Mr Softee. Expect an outraged Daily Mail story.

Minnie the PC Minx

I've just found out that this month saw the 60th anniversary of Minnie the Minx. So, have these images from 1978 that show how Minnie brought the feminist agenda to Beanotown.

Happy New Year!

Review: Man of Steel

Here are my opinions on the movie Man of Steel. There may be spoilers ahead, but I really think Zack Snyder already spoiled it for everyone. I did not like it.

My initial reaction to finding out Snyder was making a Superman film were not positive. Watchmen remains the movie that has made me the most angry I have ever been at fiction. Sucker Punch (even if you accept the misogyny as ironic) is a messed up collection of music videos with the plot of an early nineties video game. My hopes weren't high. But I felt it would be my duty as a Superman fan to go see it even if no-one else did. I remembered going to see Batman and Robin on my own in a mostly-empty theatre in 1997 and thought that might happen again.

Then the second trailer came out. And it was ace. It perked me up and actually made me excited to see it. This is going to be good! Like the first trailer (all arty shots of butterflies and washing lines) it still seemed almost embarrassed about showing Superman but that's just to preserve some mystery right? Right?

No. The truth is this is not a Superman movie at all. In the same way that Superman III is not a Superman film but a Richard Pryor comedy that happens to have Superman in it, Man of Steel is an alien invasion film that happens to have Superman in it.

Seriously, all I want from a Superman film is to see Superman doing Superman stuff. If I want to watch the American military fighting spaceships I'd watch Independence day or Battleships. And be massively disappointed with them.

It's not until nearly the end of the movie before someone calls him Superman. And he's made to feel ridiculous for it. Lois (Amy Adams - I'll admit to something of a crush on her) nearly calls him Superman but is interrupted. He doesn't get his costume for over an hour and even then it doesn't really look like his costume. If you didn't want to make a Superman film you could have done something else.

The interesting stuff about Clark Kent's journey is probably the best part of the film. We see what life is like for him as he travels from town to town under new identities, hiding his secret power until being forced to show it by, for example, getting angry and heading on the road to the next town, all the while being pursued by an intrepid reporter who believes he killed Bruce Banner.

No. Wait. Got confused there.

Eventually Clark comes forward and offers his help to the military who don't know whether they can trust him. At this point he has become Klaatu from The Day the Earth Stood Still. I don't mind this. (incidentally Klaatu was a Christ allegory which is something Superman often is - indeed the script explicitly states that Clark is 33 years old)  I think ditching the whole secret identity thing was a bold and interesting choice which makes a lot more sense in a movie than in serial fiction. Which is why I was surprised that he gets his secret identity at the end of the film.

A real problem I have with most superhero movies is the need to tell the origin story. For most of the running time. The Amazing Spider-man from last year spent far too long telling an origin the audience has barely had time to forget. The Fantastic Four was almost all origin and I'm sure put people off seeing the sequel, which is a shame because that's one of the most fun superhero movies ever.

Is there anyone who doesn't know Superman's origin? It's one of those cultural touchstones of twentieth century western storytelling. And it's been told on screen at least six times. Smallville took nine years telling it for Klaatu's sake.

This is how Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely told the origin story in the excellent All Star Superman:

Eight. Words.

I don't want to get bogged down with complaining about plot holes because they were no worse than those in, say, The Dark Knight Rises or Skyfall. Although both those films entertained me so much I didn't notice them until long after. Man of Steel has so many boring extended action sequences that I was able to think about the internal logic problems in the script. I will however highlight a piece of dialogue which might as well have been this:

"We also demand you hand over the one called Lois Lane!"
"Why?"
"No reason. We wanted to give her a chance to save Superman and spoil our plans. We're evil but we're sporting."

As for the representation of other Superman family stuff. That was a mixed bag too.

Krypton was a planet of over-designed machinery. Smallville was too big (a bit more like that bafflingly popular TV show's Smallville). But Metropolis... Superman's most famous home was barely seen. In fact I didn't even notice that's where we were meant to be during the big Avengers-y fight at the film's climax (hey, did you like them big metal flying snake things from The Avengers? Then you'll like seeing then again!). It could have been anywhere except for it having The Daily Planet offices there. Which looked like every other building.

I liked Laurence Fishburne as Perry White and I'm not aware of any racist whingeing about casting him like there was with Idris Elba in Thor. I'm sure if did a search I'd find a thousand tweets saying "They should call him Perry BLACK! lol!" so to preserve my faith in humanity I won't.

I was more concerned with the fact that Lois and Lana both had wrong coloured hair! Which is equally ridiculous, really. But Pete Ross is a fat bully? That's right out of order.

Also nice to see Professor Hamilton and Kelex make appearances (for those you who weren't reading Superman comics in the 90s, don't worry about it). Also what may be the first onscreen appearance of sports reporter Steve Lombard. Even though he neither looked nor acted like the character I'm still putting that under "positives".

But then there's the big negative. A huge hole in Superman's world. No, not Lex Luthor (there was at least a tiny reference to LexCorp). I mean the faithful friend. Cub reporter. Mr Adventure. Y'know, Superman's Pal.

Jimmy Olsen.

I love Jimmy Olsen because I love silver age comics. If you don't understand how I can love him look at this:

Who could resist? Apart from Lucy Lane.

There is an intern by the name of Jenny, who I'm sure was intended to be Jimmy in an earlier draft. Maybe the producers were concerned that there weren't enough female characters (not something producers usually care about kudos if that is so). So why they didn't use Cat Grant or any other woman in Superman's life is odd.

Still. If this gets a sequel I DEMAND SOME JIMMY OLSEN ACTION!

Batman pays tribute to The Dandy

Ah, The Dandy. Good Ol' Dandy. Doomed, soon to be defunct Dandy.

One of the better-known strips out of the many to have been published is called "Bully Beef and Chips".

It debuted in 1967, drawn by Jimmy Hughes and featured an amiable boy called Chips, perpetually threatened and/or thumped by a big bruiser called Bully Beef (or "Beefy" for short). Here's a picture from their first outing, helpfully reprinted in The Dandy 75th Years Special which is out now (sadly exclusive to WH Smith):

 It was a simple format that made it enduring. Bully picks on underdog, underdog uses cunning to defeat bully. Born and bred in the briar patch. The style changed a little over the years. Here's the version I grew up with, this image taken from The Dandy Book, 1975:

 It lost its appeal (at least for the publishers) during the 90s when children being bullied became a touchy subject for comedy but after a couple of revival attempts this is how they look in the current issue of The Dandy:

 But another reason they have been remembered over so many other characters is that the spirit of the strips was transferred to the decidedly non-child-friendly pages of Viz in the form of Biffa Bacon (taken from the annual The Last Turkey in the Shop):

 "Yes, yes" you say "But what about Batman?"

I was reading the latest issue of Batman Incorporated this week (Volume 2, Issue 3 if you must know, written by Grant Morrison, drawn by Chris Burnham) and watched Matches Malone (one of Batman's undercover identities) quizzing a boy about Leviathan. Or a man with a growth deficiency who looks like a boy. "Huh" I thought "That henchman looks familiar."

 I reached over a grabbed a Dandy (always keep a Dandy handy) and flipped to Bully Beef and Chips. Yep. Looks just like him. If that's a coincidence it's a terrific one. But Morrison (a Scotsman) has previous form here. He attempted to introduce a British comics sensibility to Batman Incorporated before during a storyline in which Batman came to Britain to aid The Knight and The Squire, who then had an excellent spin-off miniseries written by Paul Cornell. That miniseries paid direct homage to the Oddhams/Fleetway comics style, including having a villain called "Jarvis Poker, the British Joker".

 Then the little fella calls his goon "Bully". Okay. Definitely deliberate now. Oh, hang on doesn't he look like... Yes, it's not as obvious but he's dressed like Chips and has his silly curls. And when Batman calls him "Small Fry", he gets corrected:

So there you have it. The British Joker is called Jarvis Poker and the American Bully Beef and Chips are called Bully and Fry.

And people tell me I've wasted my life.

The timing of this means Morrison couldn't have known he was paying homage to a comic that was about to end (unless something very unusual happened) but I doff my cap to him once again.

Britain's Oldest Comic To Cease Publication on its 75th Birthday

The Dandy. Reliable Dandy. Good Ol' Dandy.

The Dandy is Britain's oldest comic and will celebrate 75 years of publication in December this year. Then it'll stop.

That's right, they've finally thrown in the towel and the comic will cease to exist as a published, printed, stapled-together paper thing this year. Although owners D C Thomson claim to have digital Dandy projects in the works. We'll see what that means.

As it is lots of newspaper column inches and nerdy blogs have been given over to discussing what this means. Is it a terrible destruction of a British icon or a long-overdue mercy-killing of a pre-war relic? And there are those (like Charlie Brooker in The Guardian) complaining that these writers have no business pontificating on something they don't read and isn't aimed at them. They're just pining for their lost childhood.

Well guess what. I read it. I am an adult man and I read The Dandy. And I enjoy it.

Admitting you like good art specifically aimed at children gets you looked at with either pity or suspicion in this country. We've yet to have our own movement like the Bronies. But our time is coming.

I grew in a time when there was a huge choice in children's comics. After the true golden age had past but I still had plenty to choose from. I generally preferred the Odhams/Fleetway/IPC stable (the company changed hands a lot) as they generally seemed more anarchic and weird but D C Thomson's output was always consistently great too.

The king of those comics (and soon to be the last man standing, more-or-less) was The Beano. The Dandy (which was less than a year older) always seemed the less fun one. The Topper and The Beezer also seemed slightly "cooler" than The Dandy for reasons I couldn't explain as a kid. However when a comic failed to meet its target circulation and was cancelled, the popular characters who still had legs found themselves in The Dandy. This had the effect of gradually strengthening the parent comic.

Thus Nutty's TV star superhero Bananaman moved to Dandytown and Hoot's anarchic toddler Cuddles merged into a strip with Dandy's anarchic toddler Dimples (oddly ret-conned into being twins eventually). And as more titles dried up Topper and Beezer characters joined them too.

Since my teenage years I hadn't paid The Dandy much attention. Until the horrific relaunch as "Dandy Xtreme" a magazine (!) with a pull-out comic (!) in 2007. I was working in a shop that sold comics at the time and I was furious. The publishers were making it hip and cool and "not your father's Dandy" and Poochie. And the comic part was secondary. "That's it." I said. "It'll be dead within a year." I was wrong, as it turned out, but it did damage the Dandy brand.

Then, brilliantly, nearly two years ago, the comic relaunched. As an actual comic. With no regard for free gifts or two-page features on the latest CGI movie with tie-in McDonalds toys, it was back and better than ever.

It reminded me of my favourite read as a kid; Oink!

Oink!, which incidentally was the aforementioned Charlie Brooker's first writing gig, was great. It was anarchic, rude and hilarious. Outside of Viz (which was TOO far for my sensitive Catholic eyes) it was the most punk rock of the comics.It even had Frank Sidebottom, a funny bloke off the telly, doing strips starring himself. And it was peppered with fake adverts for all the stuff marketing people were telling me to buy in other comics. Ace.

And most of that last paragraph can be used to describe the "new" Dandy. Just replace Frank Sidebottom with Harry Hill (cover star for most of the relaunched comic's first year) and pretty much still stands. And it was funny. Properly funny. To my grown-up brain. It was a joy.

And in the (nearly) two years since it has been consistently entertaining, innovative and giving exposure to new talents. Everything I would have wanted in a comic as a child or an adult.

And this is what we get. Shame.

I'm willing to bet that the more popular characters like Desperate Dan (genuine British icon - he's got a statue in Dundee y'know), Bananaman and hopefully a couple of Jamie Smart's brilliant creations will live on in the pages of The Beano (which appears safe for now) but it's a sad time for British comics. I'll be watching the fortunes of Toxic and The Phoenix too. Because that's it once they've gone.

Excuse me.... I have something in my eye....