Fifty Years Ago Part Seventeen

 

I loved the Planet of the Apes franchise as a kid (still do) but only ever had the one action figure. Despite my amazingly artistic interpretation of General Ursus, here's what he really looked like in 1976-

 

NEXT-PART EIGHTEEN

 

Fifty Years Ago Part Sixteen

 

NEXT WEEK- PART SEVENTEEN

 

The Listening Post #6

I've mentioned this guy way back in the first Listening Post in 2020. I give you three masterpiece tunes from Mr Steven Wilson...

Love the animation in Beautiful Scarecrow...

NEXT WEEK- FIFTY YEARS AGO

You know it.

Woolley Jumper #15

 

NEXT TIME- MORE THINGS...

Fifty Years Ago Part Fifteen

The innocent summer of 1977.

NEXT TIME- You guessed it, more Woolley!

 

Fifty Years Ago Part Fourteen

That tent was in service until at least 1991 when an old girlfriend and I took it to the Reading Festival for the weekend where Iggy Pop, The Sisters of Mercy and James were headlining the main stage. We also saw Carter USM, Pop Will Eat Itself and a pre superstardom Blur. T'was a fun weekend fuelled by lots of beer!

 

NEXT WEEK- PART FIFTEEN

 

Fifty Years Ago Part Thirteen

 Unlucky for some.

I have heard of but have no memory of watching Star Maidens... Neil was one of my best friends back then. We played Starsky and Hutch and Hulk, built camps in the garden in the summer holidays and later played our Adam And The Ants singles to death. I snapped my copy of Antmusic at his house by sitting on it, what a muppet. I replaced it in the early 90s. He had the coolest room in our street with loads of giant film and TV posters and the centre spreads from Look-in wallpapered onto the walls. I'd love to get back in touch with him but there's no sign of him on any social media. He had an older brother and younger sister, Katy and Iain, but no sign of them either. This isn't a dox as they are long gone from the road where we grew up, but if anyone knows where Neil Blackman who lived in Tockley Road, Burnham in the 70s and 80s, or his brother or sister I'd love to catch up, if only to see that he's having a good life.   

NEXT WEEK- PART FOURTEEN

Fifty Years Ago Part Twelve

 I loved that 'Frankingstine' model. All the versions I have found online have glow in the dark hands and face, but from what I remember it was all black plastic, no glow in the dark bits. Perhaps the UK had a cheaper version? I didn't paint my one either. To be fair, if I did it would have been a mess so that was for the best.

 

 NEXT- PART THIRTEEN

 

Fifty Years Ago Part Eleven

Missed a couple of weeks over the Christmas holidays, so it's Happy New Years from 1977. A great year that saw the Queen's silver jubilee and, more importantly, the start of 2000AD (although I didn't start reading it regularly until 1980) and Star Wars!

 NEXT- PART TWELVE!

Woolley Jumper #14

 

Back to Mr Woolley's Massacre Comix this week with Part 2 of the secret origin of Massacre Man, originally published in Mondo#24 in July 1994. The issue featured two (!) editorial pages by Lee Davis, a Darkness text story, the first part of Superman In Britain, an interview with long term Mondo artist Tim Rees, Tim's own strip Mirror-Man, an article on the Sharpe TV show, Survivor by Lee Davis and Darren Bardsley, British Bulldog 2 by Davis and Paul Knight, and the final part of the Negative Man story The Heroic Trinity by Lee and Chris Doughty. All stuffed into 52 fun packed pages, not bad for £1.35 (plus postage).

Mondo #24 over art by Paul Knight

 NEXT TIME- MORE NONSENSE

Fifty Years Ago Part Ten

'AAHHH, Jim lad, we're off to Never-Never Land fifty years ago!'

NEXT- SOME SHIT OR OTHER

Fifty Years Ago Part Nine

 Tom Baker was my Doctor!

 NEXT WEEK- PART TEN!

Fifty Years Ago Part Eight

 Adventures in Brighton...

NEXT WEEK- PART NINE

Fifty Years Ago Part Seven

 

 Got a star for this one... In the book it's silver, the scanner turned it black for some reason.

NEXT WEEK- PART EIGHT

 

Fifty Years Ago Part Six

 

 

 

V for Vendetta is Copyright DC Comics

NEXT WEEK- PART SEVEN

The Listening Post #5

 Found this not so long ago...

NEXT TIME- Fifty Years Ago Part Six!

Woolley Jumper #13

We're taking a break from the fifty year old school diary this week to leave you in the very capable hands of Mister John Woolley and his Massacre Comix, originally presented in Mondo #23 from June 1994.

 

NEXT TIME- SOMETHING ELSE

Coming Soon- Fred Fortune: City of Tomorrow

Fifty Years Ago Part Five

 Here's an in depth account of one of many times I went to my friend Chris's house for tea.

 

 NEXT WEEK- THE RETURN OF WOOLLEY JUMPER!

Fifty Years Ago Part Four

Grandma's October visit...

 Next Time- Part Five

 

Fifty Years Ago Part Three

 This week it was a trip to London. Those pigeons in the sky look like dragons to me now with those claws!

NEXT WEEK- PART FOUR!

Fifty Years Ago Part Two

Half a century ago ('kin 'ell!) I went on a trip to Windsor Castle...

 

Next Time- Part Three 

 

 

Fifty Years Ago Part One

While packing stuf up for our house move a couple of years ago I came across an old box full of loads of old childhood stuff. Amongst this nostalgic treasure trove I found an old school book that was a weekly diary we had to do on Mondays at infants school. We had to write about what we did over the weekend as kind of an exercisw in practising our newfound skills in writing, as well as a bit of drawing as the top half of the page of the exercise book was left blank for a drawing. It runs from September 1976 to June 1977, so for us in the UK is pre Star Wars, though there are a lot of Doctor Who references! I was 7 years old and it was the same year that I sat with my dad as he painted a still life of the union flag which is the banner of his Facebook page.  You'll see as it progresses that my hand writing does improve so I guess the exercise must have worked. Did you have to do any of this sort of work at school? If so what memories do you have? Tell us about it below...

 Strap yourselves in, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!

 

 

 NEXT TIME- PART TWO 

 

Where were you in '76?
 

Woolley Jumper #12

 

More Mondo classics from Mr Woolley!

Next- MORE STUFF

If you like Funky Punk please follow, subscribe, comment and share. If not, thanks for reading this far and we'll be back with some more comics and other stuff next Friday.

I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
'NO' to 2030

The Listening Post #4

 THIS...

One of my all time faves

Next- More...

Coming Soon- Fred Fortune: City of Tomorrow 

If you like Funky Punk please follow, subscribe, comment and share. If not, thanks for reading this far and we'll be back with some more comics and other stuff next Friday.

I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
'NO' to 2030

Dreddful Submission

Presented here for the first time is my 2002 art submission to 2000AD. It was from a spec script that appeared in that year's Christmas special prog drawn by Cam Kennedy. As I was drawing it I deliberately avoided reading the published version so that I couldn't, even on a subconscious level, be influenced by Cam Kennedy's fantastic version. It took a few months to do in my spare time, not helped by the fact that we moved from south west London to Milton Keynes (60 odd miles) while I was working on it.

The original pages are black and white traditional pen and ink on bristol board, scanned and digitally coloured around 2010. I added the grainy texture and pinky colour in the gutters to age it up a bit and evoke the old school cheap newsprint 2000AD was printed on back in the day. This colour version was going to be included in a Mondo 2000AD fan special that we still might do one day. Mondo master Lee Davis was going to rewrite all the dialogue to create a new story, hence his name on the credit card.

I much prefer the above older chunky graphic logo for Dredd than the current spindly robotic one.

Judge Dredd is copyright 2000AD/Rebellion.

Next- Something Else

Coming Soon- Fred Fortune: City of Tomorrow 

If you like Funky Punk please follow, subscribe, comment and share. If not, thanks for reading this far and we'll be back with some more comics and other stuff next Friday.

I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
'NO' to 2030