Copyright MARVEL COMICS |
CRIVENS! COMICS & STUFF!
A cascading cornucopia of cool comics, crazy cartoons & classic collectables - plus other completely captivating & occasionally controversial content! With nostalgic notions, sentimental sighings, wistful wonderings, rueful reflections, remorseful ruminations, melancholy musings, poignant ponderings & yearnings for yesteryear! (To say nothing of a few profound perplexities & puzzling paradoxes thrown in for good measure.) Plus a bevy of beautiful, bedazzling, buxom Babes!
Wednesday 17 April 2024
The MARVEL AGE Begins - FF #1...
Saturday 13 April 2024
(BOND) BABE Of The DAY - VALERIE LEON...
Friday 12 April 2024
WHERE THE ACTION IS... OR IS IT?
Copyright DC COMICS |
Thursday 11 April 2024
BEAR OF THE DAY - AND HE'S BARE NEKKID...
Monday 8 April 2024
DALEK DOUBLERS...
Copyright BBC TV and the Estate of TERRY NATION |
(In the interests of full disclosure, I've cheated a bit by using the above pre-scanned image of my other copy from a prior post, rather than go to the bother of scanning its recently-arrived twin. I won't mind if you don't.)
To be honest, this is probably the weakest of the three Annuals as it has 8 pages of Chris Welkin Planeteer, a reprint of a newspaper strip by the look of it, though whether or not that was its original name is unknown to me. Also, one could be forgiven for wondering if the book should actually be called The Sara Kingdom Outer Space Book (Guest-starring The Daleks) as she seems to almost dominate the contents at the expense of the tinpot tyrants. Having said that, though, it's good to have 'doublers' of each of the three editions; after all, most people don't even have one copy of any of them.
Did you have any of the trio of '60s Dalek Annuals when you were a kid? If you were lucky enough to have had all three, which of them was your favourite - and why? Crivens is an 'interactive' blog, so feel free to leave a comment in the you-know-where. (No point being interactive if you won't interact, so join in.)
AN AMAZING SIGHT ON PLANET KRALKA...
Sunday 7 April 2024
WHO'S GOT TIME FOR THE DOCTOR?
Copyright BBC TV |
As far as I know, there were only two Dr. Who Annuals in the '60s that bore William Hartnell's image on the covers*, the first one being for 1966 and the second for '67, though they were each issued in '65 and '66 respectively. I've owned the first one for many a year now and it's not a difficult Annual to obtain, popping up on eBay fairly regularly.
(*There was also a World Distributors book called Doctor Who And The Invasion From Space, but it wasn't described as an 'Annual' and contained what is now regarded as the first illustrated original Dr. Who novel, or more accurately, novella.)
The second book is the rarer of the two as it had a much smaller print run than its predecessor and therefore usually fetches a higher price on the collectors' market. I recently acquired one for not-a-lot-of-dosh, though it needs some 'corrective' work on it to bring it up to par, but luckily I'm quite good at that sort of thing and it's shaping up nicely.
Anyway, thought you might like to see the covers, so that's them above and below. I've also included the covers to the first Annual just so you can see both books featuring William Hartnell - just in case you're completists who wouldn't be satisfied with seeing only one of them. I believe the art is by Walter Howarth. Enjoy! (And comments welcome.)
Saturday 6 April 2024
MUSINGS ON MEMORY - FRANKIE STEIN IN WHAM!...
Copyright relevant owner |
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From WHAM! #114, cover-dated August 20th 1966 |
Friday 5 April 2024
MARVEL COMICS #1000 & 1001... (Updated)
Copyright MARVEL COMICS |
Thursday 4 April 2024
GOLIATH RESTORED - MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION #43...
Copyright MARVEL COMICS |
Here's a brief post simply to showcase the above cover by John Buscema, who was surely the finest artist ever to draw The Avengers. The quality of interior reproduction isn't as good as it should be and two pages have been edited out, there being only 18 altogether instead of the usual 20. (Around 1970, Marvel mags really only had 19 pages, though by printing two half-pages with ads below each one, the numbering still consisted of 1-20.) I can't detect any obvious 'jumps' and my Marvel Masterworks volumes are tucked away somewhere, so I can't compare this MTA reprint of Avengers #51 with a later, fuller reprint, so the editing has been executed better than was usual in such instances.
Anyway, not that it matters much as I'm only offering you the cover to appreciate, not the contents, so enjoy Big John's art at its finest.
Wednesday 3 April 2024
The COMING Of CALEB HAMMER...
Copyright MARVEL COMICS |
Monday 25 March 2024
Part Two Of Nostalgia Meets Modern Technology - Guest Post By Dr. Andrew May...
In a previous guest post on Kid's blog, I talked about some of the positive benefits that modern digital technology can offer, even for old-timers like myself who spend a lot of time mentally living in the past. In particular, I love the way that, now I've got more time on my hands, it lets me engage in creative activities that I've always had a hankering to do, but lack any natural talent for. During a recent side discussion with Kid, I remembered two other examples of this from a few years ago that may be worth mentioning. The first concerns the Avengers issue pictured above, which was one of the first Marvel comics I ever bought, while the second relates to Fireball XL5, which was the first sci-fi TV show I ever watched. If that isn't nostalgia, I don't know what is!
Another advantage of no longer having a day job is that I have time to write books on various subjects, and back in 2019 I did one called The Science Of Sci-Fi Music. One chapter of this deals with the 12-tone method of writing music, which as well as featuring in the soundtracks of movies like Planet Of The Apes and Dr. Terror's House Of Horrors (not to mention various Tom and Jerry cartoons) was also used by Frank Zappa in a couple of his songs. When I discovered this, I vaguely recollected seeing an ad for one of Zappa's albums in a comic-book I read as a child. I eventually tracked this down to Avengers #50 as pictured above (though I imagine it appeared in other comics around the same time), and the album in question turned out to be "We're Only In It For The Money" by The Mothers of Invention.
Having dug the comic out, I decided to do a short video of me flicking through it, complete with a specially written soundtrack courtesy of modern technology. I scoured the internet for MIDI clips of various songs from the album (four of them: "Who Needs The Peace Corps?", "Let's Make The Water Turn Black", "The Idiot Bastard Son" and "Mother People"), imported these into a music-editing program, made various adjustments to make them fit together in a reasonably harmonious fashion, and then changed the instrumentation from a rock band to a full concert orchestra. Here's the result:
Another chapter of my sci-fi music book deals with "algorithmic composition" - in other words, programming a computer to write music - and this led to another nostalgia-laden experiment. One musical form that particularly lends itself to algorithmic composition, because its rules are so prescriptive and mathematical, is the fugue. This hasn't had any great popularity since the early 1700s (because even when written by a human it tends to sound like it was cranked out by a machine), but I thought I'd have a go at a computer-generated fugue anyway.
The only real input the program needs is a starting melody, so for fun I chose one of my favourite tunes from my childhood, "I Wish I Was A Spaceman" (sung by Don Spencer) from the Fireball XL5 end-titles. The program itself was constructed using OpenMusic, a free app that's specifically designed for algorithmic composition. You can see it in the background to the video which follows - the "Fireball" input tune is up in the top left-hand corner, while the other inputs along the top row are lists of acceptable rhythmic units and chord progressions. Everything below that was generated by the computer itself, and (to my ears, at least) the end result does sound like a pretty convincing little fugue!
When I originally posted this on Facebook in 2019, I invited suggestions for other tunes I could plug into the program, but I didn't get any takers. I'll make the same offer now, although I can't promise I can still get the program to work! In fact I love these "X in the style of Y" experiments (I've also done rock and electronic versions of classical tunes, as well as orchestrations of pop songs as in the Zappa example). So requests are always welcome!
Sunday 24 March 2024
MASTER OF KUNG FU IN THE AVENGERS...
Copyright MARVEL COMICS |
Ah, the memories the above cover evokes, 50 years after buying my original copy in 1974. This one is a replacement, but I've owned it for a considerable time now, probably at least a couple of decades, if not longer. Although cover-dated March 30th, it would've gone on sale on the 23rd, so I'm only a day late in celebrating its initial appearance half a century ago. Got any reminiscences connected to this ish, Crivs, with which you can regale the rest of us in the comments section? Then get typing, 'cos we're all dying to read something interesting around here.
Saturday 16 March 2024
BABE Of The DAY - LYNDA CARTER...
Friday 15 March 2024
The MAN With FOUR SKELETONS...
Airfix skeletons, that is. I've got more than that if I count ones by other makers, but Airfix ones will do for now. (After all, I have to keep something in reserve for future posts.) The first one was bought around the late-'60s, from newsagent's R.S. McColl's in the shops across the road from me. The manager was Mr. Smith, who'd been manager of a newsagent's called Chamber's in a previous neighbourhood in which I'd lived. 'Twas he from whom I'd purchased my TV21s in the mid-'60s, and 'twas also he from whom, a few years later in my then-current area, I'd bought Countdown, containing reprints of some of the same strips from TV21.
But that's by-the-by. The second skeleton I bought (again from McColl's) came in a longer box as it included a metal rod by which the wall mount could be transformed into a display stand for Skelly to hang upon while resting his feet as he did so. The first box had been smaller and mostly black, but the second version was longer and largely blue-ish, with a different illustration of 'Mr. Bones'. I must've had 3 or 4 skeletons at different times over the next few years, but they each eventually vanished as most childhood playthings do - sometimes without you even realising they've gone until much later. (The last one I had as a kid was in 1969.)
I bought a replacement skeleton in the late '80s or early '90s, which I've still got, but I couldn't resist the allure of them and have bought another couple in the last few years, each one being the longer box version. Today, at Castel Crivens, a replacement arrived for the very first one I owned, the smaller black box kit, renewing my memories of when I obtained my first one. If my powers of recollection yet serve, it was on a day when my mother, with me in tow, visited a sort of jumble sale in the Murray Hall, held by my grandparents' Darby & Joan club, of which they were members, though not in attendance that day.
'Twas there I also received a certificate for some flower bulbs I'd planted, as well as buying several unboxed Marx Dalek Rolykins, which I stored in Skelly's box until we returned home. First, though, we visited my nearby grandparents to show off my certificate, which I still have to this day (somewhere). The photo heading this post is of my late '80s/early '90s skeleton, which is the only one I've built - the others remain unassembled in their boxes. The other photos I've culled from the Internet to save me having to scan my own boxes, as I'm a lazy b*gg*h who prefers taking the easy option whenever possible.
After all, there's no guarantee that any of you will actually read this post, so why should I knock myself out preparing it? (To which you could reply "Why should we bother reading it if you don't knock yourself out preparing it, eh?" Oh, I'm a fool to myself, giving you the ammunition with which to shoot me down!) So, did any of you have an Airfix skeleton when you were kids? If so, share your reminiscences of building your bony friend with the rest of us. ("It's alive!")
Thursday 14 March 2024
JOE KUBERT/NESTOR REDONDO - The BIBLE...
Copyright DC COMICS and, more importantly, GOD |
(BOND) BABE Of The DAY - DIANA RIGG...
Wednesday 13 March 2024
DO YOU DARE BUY THE HAYNES SPACE FLEET OPERATIONS MANUAL, DAN...?
Above is a nice little book that I imagine all fans of Dan Dare would like (and will probably already have). Got it for a mere £5.99 (RRP £16.99) mail order and it's a nice 'companion piece' for the Fireball XL5 volume I acquired recently. It came out in 2013, but my copy is brand-new and unread, and though I'm not a massive Dan Dare fan, it's the sort of book I'll enjoy having a browse-through from time-to-time. And look at that cracking colour illustration below by Don Harley - great, innit?
The Mekon, Dan Dare, and Frank Hampson |
IN COLOUR - DR. WHO & THE DALEKS...
Copyright BBC TV and the Estate of TERRY NATION |
I already own many early episodes of Doctor Who on DVD, including the first serial featuring The Daleks, but when I saw this colourised, 75 minutes-long edited version on sale, I snapped it up. Haven't watched the main feature yet, but took a look at the 'making of' documentary and found it interesting. The colour seems to me more like an old MGM movie than a contemporary colour TV show, though that's merely an observation, not a criticism.
I'd have thought that the best way to edit the original seven 25 minute episodes down to 75 minutes in total would be to follow the template of the Dr. Who And The Daleks movie from the '60s, so it'll be interesting to see if that's what the BBC have done when I finally view the 'film', or have they gone in another direction? Time (most apt in the case of the Doctor) will tell.
In the meantime, here are some screen-grabs until I can tell you what I think of the newest addition to the Doctor Who legend. Incidentally, I know 'silver' is the correct colour for The Daleks' 'waist bands', but does anyone else wish they'd rendered them gold as they were in TV Century 21 and other '60s representations (Dalek Annuals and toys), or is it just me?
Who else thinks that Carole Ann Ford looks like Valerie Singleton? |
Saturday 9 March 2024
THREE NEW DC FACSIMILE EDITIONS...
Next, above, is Green Lantern/Green Arrow #87, which is where John Stewart made his debut as a new addition to the Green Lantern Corp. I wish the facsimile had retained the sideways spine banner declaring the comic's 'bigger & better' status, but for some reason DC opted to omit it. Why they do such things to what is supposed to be a 'facsimile' is beyond me. (Unless it was omitted for a previous reprinting.)
In the first two mags, the reproduction of the ads are of a mixed quality; some are crisp and clear, others are obviously scanned from published original issues and are not quite as bright and colourful as the strips themselves. However, in The New Teen Titans #1 facsimile, above, there are no such problems, as every page is presented with crystal clarity, just the way you'd expect in such an iconic number.
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One of the good things about the DC facsimiles is that they've now started placing the barcode boxes on the back covers in an unobtrusive manner. This, along with the fact that they print the interior pages on non-glossy paper, makes them handsome additions to anyone's collection. Below, are the splash pages to the above issues.
The indicia appears on the inside cover of the facsimile, not under the splash page. I don't have the original to compare, but it looks like the bottom of the page has been extended |