1990 was twenty years ago. Ten years ago.
Continuing in the tradition of me scanning a bunch of pages from an old magazine and whacking some tunes together in the pursuit of content. You’ll be pleased to know I’ve been fully Moderna-ed and might actually post more than 4 articles this year.
From August 1991, Kraftwerk are the cover stars, not that it might be entirely obvious as the text is all over the place and someone’s been overdoing the Deluxe Paint IV on their copy of The Robots / Robotnik from 1991.
MOREA conversation elsewhere reminded me of Heartbreak Hotel, a short-lived “Comics Lifestyle Magazine” which attracted talents such as Trina Robbins, Steven Appleby, Dave Gibbons & Alan Moore to name a few. There wasn’t any mention of the mag on Wikipedia until about 15 minutes ago when I added it as a future rod for my back but more about that another day though. In skimming one of the issues I spotted a house ad for Titan Books, the usual fare and well, something I don’t remember.
I though I had struck gold with the Halo Jones ad, there’s a version in my head that I swear describes the whole thing as a 9 book saga with a Pirate Queen Halo that I’ve never found again, but I haven’t found it today. I had both of those Love & Rockets volumes as my first introduction to Hopey & Maggie and I was of the age where Hopey was a real crush. And my first Watchmen copy would have been the Titan edition due to it being slightly easier to come by (and these were probably featured in LM), but in the middle, there’s the real monster. And it’s not wearing the memories of Alec Holland.
I had more ambition in 2020, I had hoped to post at least few times. Look how that turned out.
Anyway, less said about the past few months the better, this year’s (primary? only?) post is about the 1991 Comic Relief Comic, Wikipedia says this about it.
Various items of merchandise have been sold to promote and raise money for Comic Relief. In 1991, The Totally Stonking, Surprisingly Educational And Utterly Mindboggling Comic Relief Comic was published by Fleetway. Conceived, plotted and edited by Neil Gaiman, Richard Curtis, Grant Morrison and Peter K. Hogan, it featured contributions from a vast array of British comics talent, including Jamie Delano, Garth Ennis, Dave Gibbons, Mark Millar, Simon Bisley, Mark Buckingham, Steve Dillon, D’Israeli, Jamie Hewlett and Bryan Talbot. (Alan Moore, arguably Britain’s most famous comics writer, was not credited as working on the book having sworn never to work for Fleetway again, but was said[19] to have worked with partner Melinda Gebbie on her pages.) The comic was unique in that it featured appearances by characters from across the spectrum of comics publishers, including Marvel and DC superheroes, Beano, Dandy, Eagle and Viz characters, Doctor Who, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, in addition to a cavalcade of British comedy figures (both real and fictional). These were all linked by the twin framing narratives of the Comic Relief night itself, and the tale of “Britain’s meanest man” Sir Edmund Blackadder being persuaded to donate money to the event. The comic “sold out in minutes”, raising over £40,000[citation needed] for the charity, and is now a highly prized collectors’ item.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comic_Relief#Merchandise
Highly prized collectors’ item isn’t really a term I would use to describe something you can get on ebay for a fiver but I digress. Please find below a few pics taken from the comic, as it’s not something likely to be reprinted.
A beak, an eye and a heart, all over Europe’s motorways.
Continue reading “September 2019, Je suis partout / I am everywhere / the beak and the eye and the heart”
Not the first edition of the magazine to become available to the public, I don’t seem to have that one. Or have it to hand at this point in time at least. Popular music in 1989 was slowly becoming more electronic due to the influence of club culture and DMC were wise enough to put the previously DJ only magazine on to the shelves of John Menzies & WH Smith for the great unwashed to devour and dream big of an Ibiza holiday next year. Don’t want to dwell too much on the content of the magazine as I’m mostly looking for music of the era in the little chart boxes, but I do have to mention the cartoon.
Continue reading “August 1989, Mixmag Charts”
