Make Mine Marvel
One Saturday afternoon in 1972 my mum came back from the shops with a comic she’d bought for me: the first issue of The Mighty World of Marvel. This was a weekly that reprinted the early (movie-length!) adventures of The Hulk, The Fantastic Four, and Spiderman in glorious two-colour, bringing real American superheroes to us deprived English kids if not exactly for the first time, at least the first time properly by Marvel themselves. It was so popular that it soon spawned a whole family of other Marvel UK reprint titles like Spiderman Comics Weekly, The Avengers, The Titans, and eventually our very own superhero Captain Britain (who was a bit crap really).
Until then my comics reading had consisted of cheeky English funnies like The Beezer, Cor!!, and Whizzer and Chips (I was a Chip-ite, and my sister a Whizz Kid) but these swinging and clobberin’ superheroes seemed far more exciting to 10-year-old me than Colonel Blink and The Bash Street Kids and I pretty much gave up all those and started getting the Marvel UK titles every week. The character that seriously grabbed me was Spiderman whose alter ego Peter Parker was a bit of a loser despite his super powers: his family was poor, he was shy and hopeless around girls, and he was often picked on at school (mostly by that twat Flash Thompson) — just like me! In British comics, on the other hand, it was the bully or the bad kid who was usually the hero and the weedy, bookish kid was the figure of fun who was laughed at, kicked in the shorts, or shot at with a pea shooter.
I never wanted to be Dennis The Menace (who now seems like a bit of an arsehole, a thug with a nasty dog) but I really wanted to be Spiderman and would daydream about having his super powers so I could beat up whatever knuckle-headed bully was picking on me at school at the time. I got quite emotionally invested in Peter Parker’s personal life too and, I have to admit, I cried when his girlfriend Gwen Stacy was killed. I think I was more upset by that than I was by Ian Curtis dying a few years later.
Back then we had to get our Marvel fix through these reprints because actual American comics were hard to come by at your local newsagent. Every now and then my mum would see one and bring it home for me and I felt like I had come into possession of some precious, rare document from another world. For a start they were in colour (or “color”) and they were full of ads for exotic things like X-Ray Glasses, Sea Monkeys, a newspaper called Grit, and all kinds of other strange curiosities — even your own nuclear submarine! — what an amazing place America was!
Then I discovered the legendary Soho book and comic shop Dark They Were And Golden Eyed and, when that closed, the original Forbidden Planet shop on Denmark Street, so I was able to stop buying the reprints and get the real thing — which I bought lots and lots of every month, especially Daredevil and The X-Men which were going through classic runs in the late 70s and early 80s. Both places had a similar atmosphere to a record shop (where I was also spending a lot of money at the time), being like secret boy’s clubs with their own cliques and mythologies, and needless to say there are a lot of similarities between comic and music fandom: both are overwhelmingly the province of obsessive young males with insufferably smug opinions, a love of arcane trivia, and difficulty with the opposite sex (though there may be rather more virgins in the comics world).
I eventually stopped reading comics sometime in the mid-1980s, the last one I bought regularly was Love & Rockets which wasn’t a superhero comic at all, but even so-called “adult” ones like that weren’t doing it for me anymore and frankly started to seem a bit pointless — if I was going to read something “adult” why not just read a novel? It might be simplistic to say I grew out of them but I think that’s basically it, it’s the same reason I stopped listening to gloomy post-punk. I sold my comic collection in the 1990s which got me a lot more money than the records I also sold at the time (those Daredevils and X-Men had become quite valuable) and haven’t had the urge to pick up once since.
I’ve actually been into a few comic shops recently for the first time in nearly 20 years because my daughter has developed a love for Wonder Woman through watching the old TV series, but I have a hard time finding one suitable for her as they’re all so relentlessly dark and violent now (and expensive — $2.99!) with none of the Pop-Art fun they used to have — even a Supergirl I looked at was as bloody as a Tarantino movie. Personally I think it’s all Alan Moore and Frank Miller’s fault, ever since Watchmen and The Dark Knight they’re all trying way too hard to be grown-up and gritty but to me they seem even more juvenile as a result — only adolescents take themselves that seriously.
Download: Comic Strip – Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot (mp3)
Not really Moore and Miller’s fault – it’s all the less talented bods that came after who saw how well grim’n'gritty went down, and appropriated the surface characteristics. And then applied them over and over and over….
Didn’t you at least stick with 2000AD? I got into that after losing interest in the American material…lasted till the mid 90s.
Agree with the current state of comics, though; via the Comics Journal et al, I’ve tended to read more about comics in the last 30 years than the actual things themselves…I wonder how many people are going to come along and say “Oh, you should try reading (insert their fave)”
(My suggestion is collected reprints of old newspaper strips)
cheers
B Smith
I never read 2000AD
As a Yank lining in Tokyo I ran into people from all over Britain and I was able to study all of their accents by reading Viz magazine’s comics. So the Brits have something to teach the seppos too, as it turns out.
Oh, I also forgot to ask – did you take any interest in strips like Tintin or Asterix, or indeed any of the work the European artists?
Dark They Were And Golden Eyed, St Ann’s Court. God I loved that place. I’m a few years younger than you, but apart from that – and the fact that my first comic was Dracula, and that I loved Captain Britain – there’s loads of things there that could have been written by me as per usual. I swear we’re separated at birth.
Up until I was about 15 I had some dream of writing and drawing comics, which kind of got pushed aside by playing guitar in bands and girls. I’ve barely picked up a pencil in 25 years.
But I can still remember Dark They Were. When I was going there the comics were on one floor and the fantasy/science fiction/horror books were on another. I can remember the smell of the import books, the ink and the paper, and that yellow edge they put on paperbacks in the US.
The comics were on the basement floor. I didn’t spend much time upstairs, it was a bit hippy if I remember. I used to dream of drawing comics myself too and actually did a few of my own, it’s probably what got me going to art school.
Yes, I loved Tintin and Asterix, I still have a bunch of Tintin books and used to buy French comics even though I couldn’t speak a word of French just because the art was so great.
What a great piece – you’ve nailed the vibe of the time. I’ve been a comics fan and collector since the age of 3 (seriously!) and have still got a couple of my earliest Superhero issues. Comics are so cross-cultural now it’s easy to forget how impossibly rare and other worldly American comics seemed back then. What was a zip code! Luckily my nan and other family lived in London so I could grab some stash whenever we visted.
Batman was the first one that gripped me and Grant Morrison’s run on the new Batman and Robin or Batman Incorporated are as good as anything I’ve ever read…I had the Marvel UK issues Mighty World of, Spiderman, The Superheroes (Silver Surfer and X-Men reprints)I think. Spiderman – loved it couldn’t wait to tuck in on a Friday. And Planet of the Apes (viewable below).
http://pota.goatley.com/marvel_uk.html
Favourite shops were Forbidden Planet, Comic Showcase (Monmouth St), and one off of Denamrk Street. Comicana on Shaftsbury Ave was the last place that still had the dusty, damp smell Simon mentions – but that’s being refitted as I type.
If you’re looking to get back in, Mark Millar’s Ultimates 1 – 4, Civil War, Kurt Busiek’s Marvels are a great way in. Or Geoff John’s Green Lantern run of the last few years..
If you fancy revisiting some vintage dig about for CBR files and comic reading software literally everything is out there..And you MUST read Excelsior Stan Lee’s. One of the finest pop-culture biogs I’ve ever read.
PS
I’ve just returned from Forbidden Planet with this week’s stash: Daredevil, Batman, Flash..
I sold my collection at Comic Showcase, my complete Frank Miller Daredevil and Dark Knight, Claremont/Byrne X-Men, plus piles of old Spideys, Capt. Americas, Jim Steranko’s SHIELD and Jim Starlin’s Warlock netted me a pretty penny.
Do you know I’ve hardly sold any of my collection – although did unload some stuff in the early 90s mainly silver age titles which I bought for pennies and sold for pounds. And a complete run of the earliest 2000 ADs (prog 1 – 50 something with free gifts). They were swapped for trading cards and silly bits that are probably worth peanuts now. I’ve still my got my Miller Daredevil’s though – and an early 70s one guest-starring Uri Geller. Don’t you wish you had a time machine and could go back and grab some of the bagged and on the wall stuff from Forbidden Planet. I paid an average of 50p for titles dated between 63-69. And remember flinching at some of the Five Pound rarities – the ones that are worth £500+ now. Green Lantern #76 for example…
Those Steranko SHIELDs are magic. If you haven’t got it – grab this. One of the best studies of comic art I’ve ever read. Totally non-nerdy and written by a comic artist. Just fab!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Silver-Age-Comic-Book-Art/dp/1888054859
PS any chance of Krazy Comic special soon?
I used to to go to the original Forbidden Planet on Denmark Street, and also Forbidden Planet 2 (which was a Film / TV memorabilia shop around the corner in St. Giles Street). It’s surprising to think back to how many comic shops there were. Even Virgin Megastore had one for a few years. Does anyone else remember the tiny shop in an alley off Denmark Street called Fantastic Voyage? It was so small that you were asked to hand over your bags at the desk. And does anyone remember the original ‘Books, Bits and Bobs’ in Kingston-on-Thames (an amazing Aladdin’s Cave of comics, posters, books, records, T-Shirts, posters, badges etc…it was the ultimate ‘Crying all the way to the chip shop’ emporium), it was amazing until about 1988, when it became a fancy dress shop.
Yet another post that 100% mirrors my experience. It is almost weird.
Such was my addiction to American comics, I worked at the Forbidden Planet on Denmark St for a couple of months around the time I did my O levels. We used to have signings on Saturdays, so I met Douglas Adams, JG Ballard, and a bunch of American SF authors. Heady.
Do you remember that little record shop next to Dark They Were in St Anne’s Court? I’d heard about bootleg records, but I’d never actually seen one in the flesh, and that seemed like the kind of place that might have some. Sadly they denied all knowledge, whilst happily selling me expensive imports.
Spot on about Dennis the Menace. Of course, speaking as a bit of a softie, I blame his behaviour on all the beatings he got from his dad.
Crikey, some serious reminiscing going on here… I too used to spend a considerable amount of pocket money in ‘Dark they were’ and ‘Forbidden Planet’, in fact I still have most of my collection intact, though I stopped buying comics in the late 70′s.
‘Forbidden Planet’ also stocked ‘National Lampoon’ as well – edited by PJ O’Rourke at the time.
And yes, Grahame, I too had heard about the record shop selling bootlegs, and was also disappointed – there was also a stall in Berwick Street market that allegedly sold all manner of exotic recordings…
Anyone remember Soho market? It’s got redeveloped in the early 80′s, but you could pick up all manner of back issues of ‘Oz’, ‘IT’ and ‘Melody Maker’ from the 60′s for pennies…