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Grew up on Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge. Still have bound editions of everything Carl Barks did for Disney, which took years to publish, and required a subscription in advance. (I understand that now these volumes are worth a lot more.)
From all the comic book stories in this thread, you're the only one with whom I have at least something in common. Guess it's the cultural difference between our countries that explain some of it.
In Norway, Scrooge never had his own weekly comic book (that I'm aware of), but he had his own pocket book series. Over here, Donald Duck is a major institution in itself and the most-read weekly comic of all time.
Carl Barks was a genius, a real satirist on the level of Voltaire. Endless possibilities abound in his work, regarding thumbing his nose at capitalism. Scrooge may have "3 cubic acres of money," and be "the world's only "fantasticatillionaire," but he's still "only a poor old man," because all he really likes to do with it is "dive into it like a porpoise, burrow underneath it like a gopher, and toss it up and let it hit me on the head." That's the only reason he wants to have so much wealth.
And the characters Barks created are still just as viable now as they were: Gladstone Gander, the world's luckiest duck, Magica De Spell, the sorceress out to capture Scrooog's Number One Dime, so that she can melt it in the fires of Vesuvius and gain the Golden Touch, Gyro Gearloose, the amazing inventor, not to mention Donald's nephew's involvement with the Junior Woodchucks, as amazing an organization as e'er there was, with their almost magical Junior Woodchucks' Handbook, which has every piece of information ever.
Back in the 50's and 60's, Barks was never credited, but I could recognize a Barks story by the drawing style, and the screwball scripts, with funny repartee. Later, in the late 60's, various people researched him, discovered his whereabouts, and brought him the kind of fame he should have had all along, so that, when he finally died, he was really very well-known. Which is just fine.
I once received a very nice letter from him, but that, as they say, is another story....
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Daily newspapers almost always had comic strips -- so I grew up with Dick Tracy, Terry and the Pirates, Flash Gordon, Lil Abner, Prince Valiant (especially the color strips in the Sunday paper! -- I always looked forward to those color comic strips). So comic books were just a natural expansion of those daily strips. There were daily soap opera comic strips -- Mary Worth, Lil Orphan Annie. So many different genres!
I loved the Scrooge McDuck comic books (as opposed to the strips in the Daily paper) as a really young kid -- and Batman, Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern. These would have been the late 50's versions.
There were also oddball comics that I loved: Herbie Popnecker was a wonderful character who appeared infrequently in "Forbidden Worlds" -- a new issue with Herbie made me blissful as a kid. I also liked the scary comics -- the scarier the better! Also anything with dinosaurs was an immediate purchase. I loved movie tie-in comics -- The Magic Sword, Jason and the Argonauts, Jack the Giant Killer.
When Marvel appeared I liked their quirky humor and lively visual style -- I have a Spider Man #3 in which the Green Goblin is introduced. Kind of worn, though. (Edit: It is actually Spider Man #14 -- I just did due diligence...)
I even subscribed to a bunch of Gold Key comics -- they had truly gorgeous covers -- Doctor Solar, Turok Son of Stone -- and Magnus Robot Fighter which remains one of my favorite series.
Lots of great memories.
Oops forgot another favorite: Metal Men - DC.
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Posted: |
Nov 14, 2015 - 1:32 PM
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By: |
Xebec
(Member)
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Some of my earliest comic book memories are of a Tarzan comic where a villain is crushed against a cave wall by a giant snail, and a Conan comic where he's enslaved and in a chain gang crossing on a log over a ravine, when one person slips and starts dragging everyone with them and Conan holds them up with his immense strength. I thought it was amazing. Also a Conan villain with an arm like an Orang Utan. I've always scoured old comic shops for those issues when i've been in them.
When i was yong there was Beano & Dandy, which were okay but i didn't like half of the art i. The first one i got weekly was Whizzer & Chips, which was a lot of fun.
I'd also get Starblazer and Commando comics when i could. They seemed to be at petrol stations a lot on racks, and i'd always ask my dad for one. Commando in particular had some great artists and some top notch stories. The first times i remember seeing heroes being killed in comics, as in the main characters. Some quite emotional and heroic stuff in those. I can remember some quite clearly.
Then, there was a horror comic called SCREAM! which had Dracula strips and one called Monster, which i all found terrifying. Though i do remember one Dracula strip had Dracula trapped in the centre of a crossroads - and then everyone thoguht the sun was coming up, but it was just a motorbike light, and the motorbike hits Dracula, knocking him out of the crossroads and freeing him. I thought it was ace at the time, but dear me, that idea couldn't work in anything but an old comic.
Then i started reading 2000AD. I'd had a few Annuals, and Titan Collections before that, but started reading it properly in 1989. Read that and Judge Dredd the Megazine from 1989 to about 1995. Then i'd collect all the Best of monthly collections and read backwards from there. Some amazing stuff. Strontium Dog, Dredd, Rogue Trooper, Nemesis the Warlock, Sam Slade: Robo-Hunter, Bad Company, Halo Jones, Zenith, etc. Lots of truly great artists, with distinctive styles, and lots of great, imaginative writing.
I also read Marshal Law, which is immense fun, and one of the best comics ever. Amazing art and fun stories. Check it out. There was also a comic called TOXIC! which lasted about a year, but some of the art and stories were truly woeful in that one, but then it had some great stuff too.
Also in 1989 i started reading American comics and collecting them. But such was the cost and my lack of funds (i was 12, i got 2 quid pocket money and a comic was 60p) after a few months i had to choose which house to follow. I chose DC. They had Batman. Lobo. The Flash. Green Lantern. Teen Titans. Ambush Bug. Legion of Super-Heroes. Aquaman (yes, Aquaman) and a few others i really enjoyed.
Marvel, i collected a few West Coast Avengers just for the John Byrne art. I'd also dip in now and again for other artists, like John Romita Jr on Daredevil, Lee Weeks on Captain America (or was it Punisher?) and Gary Frank on Hulk, John Bolton and Art Addams on some X-Men stuff. I'dalso read Hellboy or anything drawn by Mike Mignola. Groo was also an amazing comic - anything by Sergio Aragones is amazing.
To be honest, what really put me off Marvel was Stan Lee. Seeing his blurbs and suffering through just seeing his face in various comics and feeling his presence, i decided i wanted the characters and not the publisher or figurehead or whatever he saw himself as. To this day i groan and am taken out of a film when he pops up in the Marvel stuff.
Nowadays i just collect anything drawn by Kevin O'Neill, which is mostly The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics. The writing i think is pretty awful. Almost every panel has sidebars or references to soemthing that really isn't important to the story, but is just the author saying "look at what i've read/know". I pick up the odd collection of old comics too, Nemesis the Warlock, Rogue Trooper, Zenith: Phase 1-4. Bone is also beautiful.
I used to work in a newsagent/comic shop in Bolton and got to know a comic artist called John Ridgway, who i was a huge fan of at the time, so it was nice to chat to him, a lovely chap with a great body of work behind him and his own style.
I look in comic shops every now and again, pick random independent comics off the shelf, every one of them seems to have "fuck" and some massive hyper-violence in it, with scratchy artwork that looks unfinished or what is definitely just tracing a photograph. My comics interest has been pretty much nil for 20 years, but if something old that i remember comes up in a collection i'll spring for it. Or if it's a certain artist i like.
And that's that.
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Grew up on Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge. Still have bound editions of everything Carl Barks did for Disney, which took years to publish, and required a subscription in advance. (I understand that now these volumes are worth a lot more.)
From all the comic book stories in this thread, you're the only one with whom I have at least something in common. Guess it's the cultural difference between our countries that explain some of it.
In Norway, Scrooge never had his own weekly comic book (that I'm aware of), but he had his own pocket book series. Over here, Donald Duck is a major institution in itself and the most-read weekly comic of all time.
Love Uncle Scrooge! "The world's only fantasticatillionaire, with 3 cubic acres of money." And all he likes do do with it is, "Dive into it like a porpoise, burrow under it like a gopher, and toss it up and let it me on the head." So funny.
Carl Barks was the author/illustrator of the best Scrooge/Donald Duck stories, and, for years, was referred to by fans as "the good artist," simply because the Disney machine wouldn't let him take credit for anything. You could recognize Barks' drawings, because he had a little white wedge in the eyes of his characters, which he later stated, indicated the direction in which they were looking. Gradually, fans investigated his identity, and sought him out. I actually wrote him at one point, to get his input on a an idea I had for doing radio shows, based on the Scrooge stories. He replied very politely, stating he doubted I'd be able to get that past the Disney juggernaut. And he was right. This was several years before the advent of "Duck Tales." Oh well.
But I still have the letter from him.
For years, I bought reprints of the Duck stories and saved them. Then, with the advent of the printed box set (10 slipcase volumes, with 3 large folio books per set, compiling all the work Barks ever did for Disney. Wonderful. Still have that, and still read it every now and then. Barks was the Moliere of his day; I can't think of anyone who has been able to create such gleeful satire, before or since. And none of it mean-spirited, though all of it decidedly pointed.
I still use Scrooge quotes on occasion. Such as, when faced with a rampaging stampede of all kinds of wild animals, he plaintively states, "Oh my misspent life!" Too funny.
Barks was a genius.
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Funny, I keep repeating myself, responding, as it were, to my own responses
Ah well.
Barks was a genius...
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