Your Humble Scribe's Over-Fecund Imagination
I've looked up "Fecund" just in case and it means what I thought it did, and as for you, then you'll have to go look it up, too. Don't whine so, it's splendid intellectual exercise.
Right! I had an idea about what to have this Intro be all about, which was "Commando", that comic book purveying endless tales of derring-do amidst the First and Second Unpleasantnesses. I did have a compilation of them, 12 stories in one volume, which seems to have gone a-walkies or I'd have a photograph for you. Art!
Then, from the depths of my cesssea mind (like a cesspit but worse) I dragged forth the above band's name. They are described as 'country rock' so we're not going there, "Sweetheart Of The Rodeo" was quite enough for Conrad.
ANYWAY I did the minimal amount of due diligence required, and found that their name was a rip-off/homage/nod to <delete where applicable> none other than - drum roll please -
This is a bit of a cheat, as the original film series was in monochrome, although I can claim this one's a lobby poster to advertise the serials. Very Nineteen Fifties, fittingly, as that's when this schlock was made, since it made a shoestring budget look positively lavish.
He's also making rather a large claim there, isn't he? Not simply "Protector Of The Planet" or even "Guardian Of The Galaxy" (although there might have been copyright issues with that one), but rather the whole Universe.
It's a big universe. Mr. Cody must have been extremely busy. Why, he already had to t
ANYWAY back to "Commando", which seems to have been pushed aside, rather. Your Humble Scribe, with his dynamited-filing-cabinet mind model of storage, was wondering about the artists who filled the pages of these comics. One of them I knew well - Cam Kennedy. Art!
Cam has been in comics for at least fifty years, as I remember his artwork being around in the early Seventies in both "Commando" and mainstream comics. Aha! Here's proof -
Kennedy went freelance and worked as an illustrator on D.C. Thomson's Commando, a well-known British war comic, between 1967 and 1972, before leaving comics altogether to become a professional fine artist
Fortunately for comicdom, he was lured back to "Battle" in 1978 before making the transition to "2000AD", which is getting off-topic a little. Art!
Enter "Bear Alley", a comics blog to beat the band. This is a real afficionado's web resource, and it had a long list of artists who worked on "Commando", which is where I lifted Cam's name from. In an introductory blurb, Steve mentioned two of these stalwarts by name, one being Gordon Livingstone. Art!
Conrad is especially glad to have seen both the artist's name and his artwork, as this artist was one whose style I remembered, and this is indeed it. According to Steve, Gordon spent most of his career doing "Commando", with side gigs in 'women's comics' whatever they were, not going there, and here's a collection of covers from "Down The Tubes" which is another splendid comics resource. Art!
Remember me qualifying that colour picture of Commando Cody? The same applies to these covers, because the artist would spend hours creating a detailed painting, whereas they were on a production treadmill for the actual monochrome contents.
I think we'll leave it there for this Intro, because that list in "Bear Alley" was extremely long and requires quite a bit of digging to extract background information. Art!
Aguilar
Juan Gonzalez Alacreu
Algarra
Matias Alonso [Matias Alonso Andres]
Jeff Anderson
Mick Anglo
Luis Arcas
Victor Hugo Arias
Asian
Raphael Auraleon
Martin Baines
Dan Barnfield
Ken Barr
Bea
Bellalta [Jose Maria Suarez Ballalta]
Benet [Manuel Benet Blanes]
Luis Bermejo
Jordi Bernet
Bevia [Aurelio Bevia Pascual]
Bielsa [Jose Maria Fernandez Bielsa]
Blasco
(Jaime?) Blasco
James Bleach
Rafael Boluda
Armando Bonato
J. P. Bridson
Bujeiro
Alan Burrows
Buylla [Adolfo Alvarez Buylla]
That's only the artists down to "B". You'll note a lot of jobbing Spanish illustrators there, as the Iberian Peninsula was the place to go if you wanted a lot of artwork cranked out pretty quickly. When they were under the whip, "2000AD" used to resort to them. Which is another story for a different day.
Did You Know?
This is old news, but last year the Kremlin's television presenters were all pushing the line that we here in the UK were so desperately short of victuals that we were resorting to eating squirrels.
Conrad rather thinks not. For one thing, squirrels in the wild are remarkably agile and fast, meaning running after them with a club is unlikely to fill that pot on the hob. You might try to set traps for them, but squirrels are canny, crafty creatures adept at dodging, diving, ducking and dithyrambing. Art!
This is obviously a dedicated squirrel trap, where the creature is dropped into a pickling jar after the cyanide works it's baleful magic. No, I have no idea whether it would be safe to eat.
That's another thing. Squirrels are small. Art!
You'd get a single mouthful of meat from an entire squirrel. Conrad is pretty sure this is why they aren't farmed for eating.
Conrad Speculated Idly
As I'm sure I've told you already, I have the complete run of "Invincible", all 22 trade paperbacks if I recall properly, and I also remember when Mark and Eve attempted to coin money by offering Invincible's services on contract. Art!
Please note that Mark "Invincible" Grayson is quite capable of besting a modern jet fighter, as he is impervious to whatever missiles it might use, whereas said jet would crumple like tin-foil were he to hit it.
It's just a thought. Art!
Something's going on over there.
"City In The Sky"
Somewhat against the odds, the alien Lithoi's lethal drones have both been destroyed in battle at the township of New Eucla. Meanwhile, the cities in the sky are communing.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Would You Believe?
Vice President Waukegan shook his head.
From his reading, the old British had been sticklers for ancient
ceremonies that went back thousands of years.
Doctor Haritanian, on the other hand, seemed very ill-at-ease when he
came out of the big boarding airlock and found an honour guard of US Marines
waiting for him, ceremonial (and unloaded for safety reasons) induction rifles
pointing at the walls above. Their old
dress uniforms were handed down from the previous generation and would have
revealed nips and tucks to a close observer, but the whole thing went well.
The Veep, as he knew his nickname went, personally conducted Doctor
Haritanian to the Closed Conference Room and shooed out the waiting staff, all
except Miss Martigan the scribe.
‘Now, Davy,’ he began, dropping any formal address and indicating that
the real discussion had begun. ‘Tell me
what’s so important that I sent the MEV to collect you and get rid of my
personal staff.’
"MEV" = "Martian Excursion Vehicle", which I think I stole from Zero-X.
Conrad is an unpenitent thief
It's Big, Orange And Is Not Designed To Fly
It cannot be a Brannif airliner, then, can it? Nor is it the Toxic Tangerine Toad. Art!
No, no, it's not his Live Debt Tracker either, although that is a big sum and the numbers do have an orange glow to them.
No, I am talking about a 4-ton sled on wheels, which is painted bright orange to heighten visibility, and then hurled from the deck of an aircraft carrier to test their electro-magnetic catapult mechanism. Art!
The clip on Twitter doesn't provide any data about speed, but if you can propel a 4 ton sled hundreds of yards with sufficient force to make it bounce, it's going Fast.
As to why they did this? Answers in the Comments, please!
Finally -
Conrad is thinking of taking a trip into Babylon Lite's library, to espy certain sci-fi volumes, have a nosy at cookbooks and peruse the military history shelves. We shall see. I've doubtless already got more mil hist books than they have.
Ramas Bun!
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