'Ere you are, your 'ighness

 Nottingham, England. From the depths of a river of fog emerges the blood moon... It's some kind of omen, obviously, betokening a quite horrifying example of what American comics think England is like!

It's Wonder Woman #28, cover-dated March 1989. It's the post-Crisis re-imagining of DC's superheroes. Fans were variously excited or disgusted by it at the time, but I was entirely oblivious. As I documented a few blog posts ago, I wasn't into superheroes at all just yet; that would take a couple of years to happen. But that time was definitely approaching, and this one might have put me off them completely if I'd seen it! It's not really that great, I'm afraid.

George Pérez, who was one of the world's very greatest superhero comic artists, is the writer of this comic. Chris Marrinan, a pretty good artist recently recruited by DC, drew the pictures. I really wanted to claim he was a greater writer than an artist, but I can't really do that. He definitely wrote some of the Nova comics in my collection that I was looking at just recently! But no, he's an artist, and a good one too. Point is, though, he's not George Pérez, and some of the writing on this comic is kind of embarrassing.

We open with several pages of suspense on the fog-shrouded moors. Because England has fog-shrouded moors all over the place, you know. Nottingham is full of them.

You get the idea. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman is living in Boston at this point (the fake Boston in America, not the real one in Lincolnshire, England) and hanging out with a large supporting cast including Hermes the god while she tries to find her stolen magical lasso. It had also been decided to add Wonder Woman to the cast of DC's new "Justice League Europe" comic as a part-time member who would take part in their adventures when the ongoing plot of her own comic permitted. What this meant in practice is that she appears in the first issue of Justice League Europe, it's mentioned in this issue of her own comic, and then someone must have changed their mind about the whole idea, because her membership in the Justice League is never even mentioned again.

But it comes in handy here as a pretext for her to go to Europe (the Justice League were based in Paris, but it's all "Europe", right?) and investigate the mysterious Dr Minerva in her sinister castle in Nottingham, England. She disguises it as a general celebrity royal visit, and of course the "London Star" newspaper is all over it...

The London Star gets sold in Nottingham, apparently. Or maybe they have it specially delivered to the building that's interchangeably referred to as a 'mansion' or a 'castle'. Since it's the only building we see in Nottingham in this comic - one solitary mansion surrounded by foggy moors - the postman probably doesn't have much trouble finding it. Even when bringing a letter addressed to Prof Minerva, [indecipherable squiggle], Nottingham, England.

And of course Wonder Woman finds her way there too. This first panel is the real doozy:

She's come by taxi. From Paris? Well, presumably from the airport. The taxi driver seems to be Dick Van Dyke. The taxi is very American-looking, but the artist and writer have made an effort here - the driver's on the right hand side.The colourist has made everything green, so it's hard to tell if they're meant to be on a road, or what side of it they're on, but Diana doesn't seem to be standing in the middle of a busy street to talk to him, so it's okay.

And of course, that clever writer has used the one and only thing that Americans know (entirely incorrectly) about Britain - that we measure distance in kilometers. "The mansion's close to four kilometers past those moors there," says the cockney chimney-sweep who drives a New York cab.

See, here's the thing, George Pérez (the late, great artist whom I admire enormously) - Nottingham is a CITY. It isn't a castle surrounded by four kilometers of moors. If, like me, you grow up in the Boston area (real Boston, not fake American Boston), then Nottingham is the coolest big city you could ever dream of seeing! Sixty or seventy miles away, so too far for a regular shopping visit (it helped that Grandma lived close by) but a whole lot cooler than the likes of Lincoln or Peterborough. The biggest and coolest city I was familiar with at the time this comic was coming out, by far! (London was remote enough that it didn't really count - the world was a bigger place back then).

I would have been really annoyed by this comic if I'd seen it in 1989. No acknowledgement that the Boston in America isn't the one I'm familiar with? Well, that's just rude. But getting Nottingham so totally wrong? Unforgivable!

Okay, let's be fair. There are, even to this day, people in Britain to whom Nottingham is just the place where Robin Hood lived. And where Forest play. But they probably assume there's a castle like the one we see here (Nottingham Castle doesn't look much like that, really) and wouldn't be so certain it's without a foggy moor or two. And to be honest, when I was young, I assumed they used kilometres in America. Miles seemed like a strictly British kind of thing, and kilometres would be what a modern, flashy country like America used, right? It still feels kind of wrong when I see Americans talking about miles. But, see, I make sure to keep it a secret, and laugh at them if they try to do me a favour and translate it into kilometers!

Chess nuts

 Boston Utd beat Alfreton on penalties last night in the first round of the play-offs! 5-4, with one crucial and impressive save from our goalie and five perfectly scored spot-kicks. And so, like all people who technically support a football team but only remember it when something good happens, I'm all about the Pilgrims right now! Semi-final away at Scunthorpe on Saturday!

Ahh, Scunthorpe. A Lincolnshire derby that can only ever remind me of the time I went there for a memorable match of my own, back in my schooldays. Incidentally, if you want another reason why I so identify with Simon the Chipmunk, there's one great episode that reveals that Simon (as everyone would expect) loves chess and enthusiastically forms a chess club when he gets the opportunity... but actually isn't very good at the game. Jeanette always beats him easily.

Whereupon Simon quickly makes sure to smile, congratulate the winner, calmly pick up the board and go away somewhere private, and have a screaming tantrum about playing such a stupid move.

Incidentally, this episode was clearly written by someone who knows the basics of chess, but animated by a studio that didn't. You can see in the first picture above that the board is the wrong way around. Other scenes have the board correctly oriented, but the king and queen in the wrong place, and black making the first move. It's the basics, people - get it right!

I also have always had a reputation for being good at chess, just because I'm that kind of person, but am actually not terribly good at it. This even goes back to my schooldays, when on the rare occasion anyone outside of our chess-club clique heard that I was on the school chess team, they'd probably just nod and think that made sense, since I was the kind of person who would be. Nobody really knew just how unsuccessful our chess team was, but suffice to say there'd never be an announcement in assembly or anything to say we'd won something.

As an aside, the one person who didn't assume I was good at chess was my dad. He had an annoying unshakeable belief that I was a really terrible player, to the extent of barely knowing how the pieces moved. He'd picked this up from playing me at the age of five or so, and never updated his mental image. I wasn't as bad as he thought, at least.

But our chess-club gang was me, Noddy, Slosh and Jimmy, and we were extremely cool in our own way. There were other people at the school who were actually better chess players, the kind who had won competitions and things, but they had better things to do than play in the chess club by the time of our golden era, so the four-man school chess team, which travelled around to other schools in regular competition was me and Noddy, Slosh if he could make it that night (Jimmy never wanted to), plus one or both of Keith and Damian, two younger kids who were about as good as my dad thought I was. We seldom won a game, but some of our opponents were on about our level, so there were some fun and exciting nights!

And then there was the trip to Scunthorpe. It wasn't part of the regular chess tournament circuit, it was a strange one-off thing. I can't remember any details about why it happened, but we had a team of six for this event. Slosh, Noddy, me, Keith, Damian and a friend of theirs who I don't think knew anything about chess at all. We went to the match, as always, in the school minibus, driven by Dr Chambers. The Doc, who was the only teacher at the school with a doctorate to his name, was the chemistry teacher and in charge of the chess club. If challenged on the point he said he did know how to play chess, but he could never be persuaded to prove it. His participation consisted of being in the general lab at lunchtimes and allowing the chess club to happen there, plus driving the team to and from matches.

Scunthorpe is a whole forty miles from Horncastle, outside of our usual range, and should have been about an hour's drive. We somehow got lost along the way and the journey took more than three hours. We were all comprehensively thrashed in our games - if memory serves, Noddy's was a longer and closer contest, lasting about twenty minutes, and the rest of us were all polished off in nothing flat. Then we went back home again. It was a great night!

So that was my only previous visit to the town you can't say on Facebook because it's got a rude word in it. In honour of that previous triumph, I'm expecting a 6-0 win for someone in the play-off semi-final on Saturday. Hopefully Boston!

My lady love, my dove

 I've had lunch today with a magician who wants us to do a mind-reading act together. This is something that could be really cool! I could be Magic Ian!

Which is a reference to a Supergran story (the books, not the TV series), in which I first learned about this particular kind of magic act. Although the title of this post is from a Roald Dahl story which was probably my second encounter with it. I don't think I've ever seen anyone actually performing the trick live, but I'm sure I could be great at it.

Anyway, this magician turned out to be a Hereford fan, and they happened to be playing Boston Utd today in a crucial game for the Pilgrims' chances of making the play-offs in the National League North, and Boston did indeed win, two-nil. So this is probably a sign that I should definitely do this magic act, although that might just be because I want to do it, and I'm seeing signs everywhere. We can perform at the promotion celebration party!

The vast unknown powers of the sun and moon

 There's a total eclipse of the sun in America today, and not nearly enough people are talking about this guy!

Another great Bob Haney creation who I said I should write about some time, and still haven't. I'll do it one day! Maybe the next eclipse...

The Bendertaker

 Remember that time Boris photoshopped my head onto Christopher Dean's body? Seventeen years ago? Wow, that's a long time now I come to look at it. Thankfully, I've just made more friends since then who do things like that - Don Michael Vickers in a conversation about wrestling on Facebook said I'm his favourite wrestler!

I would be great on the WWE. I can totally see the storyline already. It would involve The Miz and guest-star Lars Christiansen, perhaps the only memory master who could pass for a WWE superstar. I should write it down and send it to whoever writes their scripts nowadays.

An Actor's Life For Me

 Remember the short-lived sitcom with John Gordon Sinclair? It was sort of okay. But the point is, I'm an actor now, and a puppeteer too - I write this on the way home from a weekend's rehearsals, with a whole new appreciation for the cleverness and complexity involved in a stage production! I've never done this kind of thing before, and the whole experience is just brilliant! I don't care if it's a thing none of my blog-readers are going to see, or want to see, I'm officially considering myself an experienced stage actor from now on!

A good Friday

 I like four-day weekends. There should be more of them. Especially when I've got nothing I needed to do except arrange travel and accommodation for a trip to London tomorrow for puppet rehearsals. I can't really afford it, but sometimes you need to splash out a tiny bit. Likewise, I've got my bike fixed (more money) and went for a ride this morning, trying and nearly successfully managing to avoid the downpours and only be out in the sunny bits.

And I had a bath and played a memory league match against Tohirbek O'rolov in my pyjamas. Why he was wearing my pyjamas I'll never know, but he won, which puts paid to my chance of promotion to division 2 for next season. But that's fine - I still play reasonably well without any training, and I know what it would take to improve.

Here's an alternative take of that joke: I played a memory league match against Tohirbek O'rolov in Uzbekistan. Why I went all the way to Uzbekistan to play on the internet I'll never know, but it's really great to see new explosions of memory competition enthusiasts in parts of the world are new and exciting to me. I'll never get tired of seeing the constant expansion of memory sports! What unexplored territories are still remaining to us? I should investigate which countries have never had a competitor, and go over there to introduce the people to an all-new national pastime!

I came 53rd

 Well, it's an improvement on 72nd. I stupidly rearranged the order of part but not all of the data page and had to go back and fix it, or I would have had time to do a bit more, but really, this is unimpressive. I need to get better at this.

How to excel at Excel

 It's the third battle of this year's Excel esports on Thursday morning, and it's fair to say I haven't done excellently so far. I came 72nd in Battle II. That doesn't really qualify as excelling.

I don't think I've got worse at it; there are more people competing this year who are really good at it. But this is something I need to work on, and it's all about speed and technique. I'd really like to do with this what I did with memorising cards, and devise a way to solve problems using Excel more quickly and efficiently than has ever been done before. I don't know if that's possible. You can't invent new Excel formulas. But Excel has a LOT of formulas, most of which nobody in the world ever uses. There's scope for believing that if I can get familiar with them all, and how to apply them... it's definitely possible.

Brilliantly, the spreadsheet provided for Battle II accidentally had a formula left in the example box for task 4 - if you noticed that (which nobody did), you just had to copy it down into the answer boxes! No brainpower required! But the point is, it's a really great formula!

=SUM(ABS(OFFSET(Customers!$B$2:$F$2,MATCH(G169,Customers!$A$3:$A$102,0),0)-OFFSET(Wines!$B$2:$F$2,MATCH(H169,Wines!$A$3:$A$102,0),0)))

That's so much more efficient than the way I did it, which had lots of intermediate steps. I did those steps really quickly, but I need to get to the point where I can instinctively see that one complete formula, and set it up! It gives me something to aim for, at least...

Strong men and nude frogs

 I'm suitably chastened. Right after I posted yesterday's blog, Kurt Busiek (in a comment on an unrelated article on Tom Brevoort's blog which I nonetheless take as a personal reproach) extolled the virtues of the great John Stanley in a way that makes me ashamed not to have recognised the name at once. But it's actually the fault of a deep, dark psychological flaw within myself, which has been very much brought to light by my recent chipmunk obsession.

I think I have to make a full and frank confession here, and apologise to everyone for it, but it has to be said. Deep down, much to my shame... I think girls are ickypants.

There's no denying it. While I was deluging my brother with Alvin and the Chipmunks during his stay here, the first thing he wanted to see was one with the Chipettes. Which took me by surprise a bit - not because he said it (he always liked them and other girly things when we were young, though he tried to keep it more of a secret in those days lest I jeer at him for it) but because it made me realise that I'm still, even in this day and age, really not interested in Brittany, Jeanette and Eleanor. I mean, look back at everything I've written about the Chipmunks this last couple of months - I haven't made a single passing mention of the girls!

It's not that I dislike them. There are some good episodes all about them. But all the ones I instinctively identify as great episodes, both watching the 21st-century series today and watching the 1980s series on Saturday mornings when it was new, are the ones focusing solely on the boys. Simon especially, as I've mentioned, but really all three of them! The girls kind of get in the way of that beloved brotherly dynamic. It's the ickypants factor. I should do something about that.

Which explains why John Stanley, celebrated for his fifteen years in charge of Little Lulu, hasn't made such an impact on my consciousness before now. Funnily enough, although I'm (thanks again to my brother, who now he's an adult is disturbingly in touch with and open about his feminine side) more than usually familiar with Little Audrey and the many other Little girl heroes of classic comics, I don't know all that much about the first and foremost of them, Little Lulu herself. I really should do. And for that matter, Nancy, whose adventures John Stanley apparently contributed a lot to over the years.

And there's no excuse at all for me not knowing about Melvin Monster! Created by John Stanley and starring in ten issues of his own Dell comic in the sixties, he's a boy and clearly a great comic hero! I'll add him to my must-read list! 

But now, let's put all this unnecessary girlishness behind us, and talk about Men. Specifically, Strong Man, Cuckoo Man, Tornado Man, Rope Man and Diaper Man - the Mighty Heroes!

Actually, this is where I have to annoyingly break off what was intended to be a long, coherently-plotted blog post with everything leading from one subject to another. I can't find the Mighty Heroes comic from 1967 online. I used to own them, but don't any more, and thought I'd have no problem finding a few snippets to illustrate the point I was going to make about comic book adaptations.

I'll just have to go from memory, and encourage you to read things like this review with irritatingly broken image links to learn all about this fascinating series. The cartoon version of the Mighty Heroes (a supporting feature to Mighty Mouse) had a strict formula - we'd see the above sequence when an emergency arose, and then the rest of the episode would consist of the five Men trying to stop the villain, with a whole lot of crashing into each other and apologising. It was one of those cartoons where you knew exactly what you were going to get, and enjoyed it hugely every time.

And that kind of cartoon always seems to run into trouble when they make it into a comic - it always feels a little different, and fans of the cartoon never seem to quite like it. There's a tendency for comic adaptations to start out doing slightly different kinds of story, and then take note of reader feedback and try to replicate the cartoon more exactly. Mighty Heroes is a great example - in the cartoon, we never see anything of the Heroes' civilian lives beyond that bit of stock footage that appears in every episode. The comic showed them at home, going about their everyday business, for a little while! It just felt wrong.

But the really interesting thing about the first issue of the comic (as best I can recall) is that there were little things different about the appearance and personality of the Heroes. Strong Man's hair was the wrong colour, and he said "duh..." a lot. He's not supposed to be particularly stupid, but the writer, unfamiliar with the cartoon personality, assumed 'musclebound oaf' was the stereotype to go for.

The really, really, interesting thing was that Tornado Man was drawn throughout the 'civilian identity' sequence wearing his superhero cowl! It's a very strange communication mix-up somewhere in the production process, and I'm really annoyed I can't post pictures of it here. I thought EVERY comic ever published was illegally pirated and broadcast to the world nowadays! What's wrong with these evil pirates? Don't they appreciate the great heroes like they should? Someone should have the law on them.

Still, if you have a look around you can find the classic cartoons, not to mention the triumphant return of the Heroes in the Mighty Mouse cartoon of 1987, in which they have retired from heroics and become the law firm of Man, Man, Man, Man and Man, who come back into action in the traditional heroic way. Diaper Man announces that now he's 36 years old, he's changing his name to Plastic Training Pants Man.

Which is the segue into the next subject I was going to blog about! We're back on track now, and I ask you this - can you imagine Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy wearing diapers?! Well, that's what Marvel Comics promised in 1985, but not what they delivered...

I should point out, in the name of unnecessary pedantry (one of my favourite things in the world) that even in the cartoon, the Muppet Babies don't wear diapers (except Rowlf and arguably Animal). Although potty-training was still a taboo subject in kids' cartoons until Rugrats made it mainstream in the nineties, there's ample evidence that our heroes aren't wearing them under their clothes, and people really need to be aware of this fact. But the first issue of Marvel's tie-in comic takes things just that little bit further.

All the way through the first issue, all the characters are wearing their standard costumes (first established by the dream sequence in The Muppets Take Manhattan in 1984 and quickly turned into a long-running and quite brilliant cartoon series), except Kermit. He, for who knows what weird reason, spends the entire comic stark naked. Not a stitch of clothing. Not even a diaper!

The artist is Marie Severin, the writer is Stan Kay. I know nakedness is the adult muppet Kermit's usual state, but they clearly must have had the full Muppet Babies character designs in front of them, because everybody else is exactly on-model! What happened to Kermit's sailor-suit? It looks weird even taking the comic on its own merits, when everyone else is fully clothed. It's even weirder to people who know the Muppet Babies cartoon, where nakedness isn't anywhere near as prevalent as it was on The Muppet Show. How did it happen that Kermit ended up in the buff? This is the kind of thing it's possible to think about too much. I should find some more healthy entertainment.

(PS I can't let this go to press without noting that in the later and inferior portion of the classic Muppet Babies cartoon, Bean Bunny joins the cast and wears nothing on his lower half, just like his puppet self. He goes to the bathroom in one episode, too, which rather undermines what I said about Rugrats breaking new ground. But Muppet Babies was well past its best by that time, so we can safely ignore it.)

Let's all turn to issue #2 and beyond, and see Kermit after he's remembered to put his clothes on! It's good stuff, I promise you. Although I never really used to like Piggy. Ickypants, you see.

(Skeeter was always cool, though)

I still want a hula-hoop

 Among the things I love about Alvin and the Chipmunks is the long and multi-media history behind them - including the way it ties in with another subject I find fascinating: early issues of comic book adaptations of new cartoons, made before they knew how the franchise was going to develop.

It's a niche thing, but a great rabbit-hole (or chipmunk-burrow) to dive down if you're in the mood. I must tell you at length all about the fascinating first issue of "Mighty Heroes", or possibly go on for pages and pages about naked baby Kermit the Frog some time. But those are comics that had some preliminary details of character designs and the like to work with - the one I've been enjoying today is working from less than that...

The Chipmunk phenomenon started out with novelty records:

And the sheer cleverness of speeding up Ross Bagdasarian's voice to turn it into chipmunk voices is something people don't appreciate in these days of autotune and technology! In 1958 it was a brilliant innovation!

 

Luckily, some genius on YouTube has satisfied the world's curiosity and compiled an original-speed version!

 

But that song and its sequels (squeakquels) only give a slight hint of the chipmunks' personalities, and the various record-sleeve illustrations don't provide more than a suggestion of how they would look. Even an appearance on Ed Sullivan as glove-puppets is just a step in the right direction...

 

No, what was needed was proper Chipmunk fiction to bring them to life! It took the cartoon "The Alvin Show" in 1961 to really turn Dave and the boys into a lasting phenomenon. There were comic book spin-offs aplenty after the cartoons had caught on, but the first real work of literature in the chipmunk universe was this one comic, in 1959!

Dell comics weren't like most American comics of the time, which had a separate numbering for each title. This was no. 1042 in a long, long series of one-off comics based on cartoons, films, all sorts. Number 1041 was Sea Hunt, starring Lloyd Bridges. Number 1043 was The Three Stooges, showcasing their new lineup of Moe, Larry and Curly Joe, which is probably what led to the chipmunk issue getting the unique title "The Three Chipmunks", the only time the trio is described in exactly that way. I recommend ComicBook+ if you want to read all the Dell comics that don't feature copyrighted characters (and maybe Disney and Warner Bros will allow them to include the rest, one day).

The GCD reckons that the stories in this comic were written by Paul S. Newman, but has no idea who drew the pictures. A comment on ComicBook+ says John Stanley. Neither of these names mean anything to me, but it's good stuff! 

Alvin's harmonica, subject of the chipmunks' latest hit single, gets a starring role in most of the stories. There are a lot of elements that have stayed constant over the sixty years of adventures - Alvin as well as his typical antics is distinguished by wearing a hat, and there's a consistent colour scheme for each chipmunk, albeit an unfamiliar one. The red-blue-green colours came about for The Alvin show. And the generic cartoon exploits they get up to, usually with a musical theme, are the kind of stories you'll still see in the latest 21st-century cartoon episodes. It's nice when things stick to the classics.

The characterisation of Simon and Theodore is in a very early state too - they didn't get much individuality in the earliest songs, but Simon picks up from a throwaway line or two and comes across here as boastful and thinking a lot of himself. It's an unusual take that drifted away once he'd got his glasses. Theodore is a bit more bland, but has a few moments that make him feel like his present-day self. Here's a perfectly in-character Theo and an unusually self-possessed Simon:

I should have read this comic long ago. I'll have to find a real-life copy out there some day...

Nations

One thing I'll admit to thinking is quite cool is the Nations League football. If it was on a TV channel I could justify paying money for, I'd watch it all the time. I'm excited to see what happens when Gibraltar play Lithuania.

I like the excessively complicated rules about rankings and things that come with it - it's a competition that appeals to the nerdy mindset, maybe just because of the pure pointlessness of the whole thing. I like the expanded play-off system that will take up the international break in March 2025, and especially the attempt to make excuses for it on the official website - "The expansion of the UEFA Nations League into the International Match Calendar window of March will only concern a selected number of teams and the remaining teams will already be available to start the European Qualifiers."

By my count, the "selected number of teams" will be 28 of the 54 European "nations". That's got to put a bit of a dent into the qualifiers for the world cup. But I'm sure it'll all work out nicely. And maybe a proper TV station will get the rights one of these days!

But in the meantime, here's something else that everyone should be watching - Norwell the weasel and his husband, an ensouled coat, have got their own cartoon spin-off from the Charlie the Unicorn saga! Honestly, I love FilmCow's YouTube channel possibly even more than football games between Gibraltar and Lithuania!

Sophisticated entertainment

 Here's a favourite scene of mine, from the Beano Comic Library "Triple Trouble", starring Baby-Face Finlayson. Some things never get old - I've been reliably laughing at "thinks he's helping" for the last forty years.

Drawn by Henry Davies, probably. And really, you don't see this kind of thing in the Beano any more - even the best strips these days don't cram anywhere near this many gags into every panel!

Of course, there is still some entertainment to be found for the children of today. But if, like me, you spend an unreasonable amount of time watching Alvin and the Chipmunks on kids' TV channels, you get the drawback of seeing a limited number of adverts, over and over again.

And the one that really bugs me is the one for Fairy Liquid, with small child saying "Dad, I really want to make a spaceship out of that Fairy Liquid bottle, but it's taking ages to run out!" I have several problems with this. Firstly, the boy is a terrible actor, but that's not his fault. I'm also a terrible actor, and I'm making a point of being nice to such people, in hopes that other people will do the same to me. But secondly, they did this exact same advert back in the mid-nineties or thereabouts, only better. That one was taken from an early reality show where they gave video cameras to members of the public, and so the original scene was at least pretending to be unscripted, and looked a lot more natural. Why remake an old advert, only not nearly as well? Thirdly, Fairy Liquid bottles aren't even the right shape to make spaceships any more. Bring back the old ones, Fairy! And fourthly, I've never understood the whole "it lasts longer" thing that Fairy like to boast about. Whatever washing up liquid I'm using, I just put a squeeze of it into the sink. Who uses extra when they're washing dishes if they think it hasn't adequately cleaned them? Nobody, that's who! Fairy Liquid lasts the exact same length of time as any other, and someone ought to stop them claiming that about it!

I'll stop complaining now. And to be fair, I always buy Fairy Liquid. I don't remember the last time I used one of the rival brands that they claim to last longer than.

But the most irksome advert on the kids' TV channels right now is what seems to be a serious attempt to make children want to eat vegetables. "Eat them to defeat them." I'm sure everyone involved in it was doing it very tongue in cheek, but I bet the child actors in that one (better ones than the Fairy boy) get jeered at by their drama-school classmates.

How to become a superhero comic fan

 It can be a long and surprisingly circuitous process, you know. I haven't always been into superheroes. I can date the time I became a 'real' superhero comic fan quite exactly, in fact, having recently come into possession of some important historical artifacts [by way of having my brother's stuff in my spare room]. They're the brief DC interlude in my Marvel comics fandom, and I really never give them enough credit.

It's the summer of 1990, I'm thirteen going on fourteen, and my comics experience up to this point has consisted mostly of the Beano and similar titles, plus the Transformers comic from Marvel. Transformers had been going since autumn 1984, it had been really fantastic, but by 1990 it was past its peak and declining steadily. I needed another comic to get excited about.

And I came across this one (or maybe one from a month or two earlier) in WHSmith in Boston. Now, I'd read superhero comics here and there before - backup strips in Transformers, occasional other Marvel summer specials and annuals, but nothing regularly. I'm not sure what induced me to buy Superman Monthly - monthly comics still hadn't really caught on in Britain, though I'd been very excited by the short-lived Dragon's Claws from Marvel in 1988/89, and read a few others during Marvel's attempt to sell American-size monthly comics to British readers. That era was well and truly dead by 1990.

Superman, though, was in the larger British comic size, and I think I must have just picked it up in Smiths and liked it. It wasn't just Superman, you see, it also featured the Justice League International, and that was really the selling point...

Millennium is here! This, in fact, was a problem. The death knell for the British tradition of reprinting American superhero comics (which had thrived for the previous couple of decades, although I'd ignored it almost entirely). See, when American comics were self-contained, it was easy to reprint them in Britain like this without causing confusion. But after the success of "Crisis on Infinite Earths", DC and also Marvel had started to do regular 'events' like Millennium, in which lots of different comics would tie into a wider storyline. The publishers of Superman Monthly found themselves with months of side stories to a bigger epic (published in different comics, most of which British readers would never get to see) and had to run lengthy text features explaining what was going on.

I didn't really mind that - the Superman stories (John Byrne's rebooting of Superman) were all right. I didn't really appreciate that it was the first ever total rebooting of the character after fifty years of publication, because I didn't know the history. The Justice League, though, I found really intriguing, even though it was almost always referring to and crossing over with other comics that only existed on the other side of the Atlantic. I particularly liked the story with the Suicide Squad, which ran through late 1990.

This launched a very brief era of my life in which I would have told you that DC's superhero comics were much better than Marvel's, because DC had lots and lots of different superheroes, whereas Marvel only had a small handful of them.

I don't know why I thought that. I'd read Spider-Man comics with guest stars and references to multiple heroes. I'd read the Secret Wars sticker album, back in 1986 - lots of heroes in that, easily as many as in the Justice League and Suicide Squad. But I was just left under the impression that DC was a bigger and better universe than Marvel. Maybe I'd have continued thinking that for years, if I hadn't wandered into the book department at the back of Smiths one day...

This book has been read to pieces over the years, as you can see. Actually, that fateful day in Smiths they had two Official Handbooks of the Marvel Universe - volumes one and four. It was number four that I picked up, read, and was fascinated by. But having spent a long time poring over its contents, I decided to buy volume one, and then come back and get the later volumes at a later date.

The first part of the plan was executed; I never saw another volume on sale anywhere, ever again. Even volume four disappeared from the Smiths shelves by the next time I went in there.

But that was okay - I read this book extensively, and became an expert on all Marvel's characters from A to Circus of Crime! Superman and the Justice League were forgotten, and I was a dedicated Marvel fan for years and years to come!

 As I said, I'd read summer specials and things with Marvel heroes in them before. Way back in 1985* there had been this one, with a second story (reprinted from Marvel Team-Up #145 in America, though I didn't know that at the time) that blew my mind and expanded my perception of what a superhero comic could be. It was written by Tony Isabella, drawn by Greg LaRocque, and featured the supervillain Blacklash going through a very bad time.

So it was a real delight to see that Blacklash had his own two-page entry in the Official Handbook, documenting that story and others!

*Can I just point out that I have SCOURED the internet today, trying to confirm that this was the summer special of 1985. I've gone through my comic collection to find ads, and eventually been able to definitively rule out any other publication date it might have been. It definitely couldn't have been 1984, despite what the Spider-Fan website says; that was when the reprinted stories were originally published in America. This was a very very important comic for me, and it's outrageous that the internet contains only scattered, vague and inaccurate documentation of it!

Okay, rant over. Let's read all about poor Blacklash.

But the one that really intrigued me, somehow, was Alpha Flight. I'm not sure what it was - the Avengers were in the Handbook too, there are more of them, and I'd heard of them before. But Alpha Flight caught my imagination. They do look very cool in these headshots, don't they?

And so in the summer of 1991, when I explored the world of imported American comics by mail order - I'd seen classified ads for comic shops ever since the mid-eighties, but only now decided to send off for a catalogue from one - it was the latest Alpha Flight that I bought. Starting with #100, I became a regular reader, although to be fair that era wasn't much good. It did prompt me to find back issues in an attempt to find the lineup from the handbook (five or six years out of date by this point), which led to me discovering the glorious Bill Mantlo days of the title. From that point onwards, I was hooked on superhero comics, and dread to think how much money and time I've dedicated to finding and reading them ever since!

And it might have been different if those Official Handbooks hadn't been on sale in Smiths in Boston. Without them, I might have become a DC fan and dismissed Marvel for years! Or I might have given up on superheroes altogether, because let's face it, those Superman and Justice League comics were mediocre at best. Maybe I would have found another hobby to waste my life on...

Weak links

 As I've mentioned before, I like to see in Blogger's stats that someone has been looking at old blog posts of mine that I hadn't thought about for years - such as this one in which I start by mentioning The Weakest Link and move on to apologising for insulting the creator of Mullein Fields, a webcomic that has long since disappeared from the internet.

This is why the Wayback Machine is the most important thing in the world. When you see an old blog post that links to a disappeared page with the cryptic comment "this is me and my brother when we were that age", you can usually still rediscover exactly what it was talking about just by researching the web archive. Here it is:

Actually, seeing that old post again was a timely reminder that this is very much still me and my brother now - I did, after all, just post a blog last week in which I tell him I love him by writing an extensive essay about Alvin and the Chipmunks, insulting him subtly and slipping a message of affection in at the end. I mean, he was in the next room at the time I was writing it...

So thanks to the person or robot who went and had a look at that 2005 post of mine, because it shows you're keeping up very impressively with my current and past preoccupations! And can I repeat the request made in that post for more blog comments here, please? Say hello if you're out there! Stay in touch! I'm going to write about Excel and Superman and lots of other things in the near future!

Mathematical games!

 Remember the Logic and Mathematical Games that I went to last year, having found out that such a thing existed the day before? Well, now I can give you all advance notice about the next one! May 25th, in Coventry! I recommend everybody go along and give it a go - it's great fun!

(I probably can't go myself, though - remember that puppet show? There's a clash.)

We hope this message finds you well, and radiating with the same enthusiasm you brought to the Mathematical and Logical Games last year.

We are thrilled to announce the return of the challenge: the British Finals 2024 will again be held at Coventry University.

With this e-mail we are extending to you our personal invitation to dive back into the world of puzzles, problem-solving, and the pure joy of mathematics.

Please find enclosed a poster with all the details. If you know someone who shares your passion for mathematics and puzzles, or who is just curious, please invite them to join our community.

Thank you, and looking forward to seeing you at the Games (and our fun training sessions).

 

https://bfmg.maths.coventry.domains/

 

To participate, and for further information, just drop an email to info@bfmg.maths.coventry.domains with your name, surname, town, date of birth, and category.

 

With warmest regards,

The Organizing Committee

Bromance

I mentioned previously how surprisingly great I find the new "ALVINNN!!! and the Chipmunks" cartoon, and it has to be said that a large part of why I like it so much is the way it portrays the everyday home lives of the Seville siblings - particularly Simon. There are multiple episodes that really make me feel for Simon, just because I recognise myself in him so strongly, and the episode I'm going to spotlight for you all today is one of the very best of these. It has its moments of sympathy for all three chipmunks, in fact, and really presents a believable and accurate family dynamic. I can see my own childhood in these stories perfectly represented!

Incidentally, fans of the various Chipmunk incarnations over the years should know that in this latest world Simon is the oldest, Alvin the middle child and Theodore the youngest, and there's an unspecified age gap between each of them. In the eighties series they were explicitly triplets and Alvin mentions in one episode that he's the oldest (by five minutes), while back in the sixties Alvin is the smallest and probably youngest of them. It can get a bit confusing.

As I prepare to bid a fond farewell to my brother, who's moving back to China after an impressive four-year covid-related exile, I think there's no better episode to focus on than "Bromance", written by chief chipmunk of the Bagdasarian family, Janice Karman.

We open in the living room at home, and a typical family moment. The computer animation in this new series does have its serious limitations, but the well-written and well-directed stories get around them very nicely for the most part. And the things it does well, like facial expressions, are absolutely wonderful! So is the dialogue, which is always snappy, funny and (impressively when you consider it's chipmunk-speech) very well delivered by the actors!

Oh, oh, can I play?

Sorry, Theodore - Alvin and I are at the final level against the grand general of the undead army, and, well, if all goes well today we'll beat them!

That's what you said yesterday. And the day before. And the...

I know, I know, but today, I...

FLYING SQUIRREL ATTACK!!!

AAAAAAH!

Gotcha!

Alvin, remember I said no more Flying Squirrel Attacks! I told you, I hate when you jump out of nowhere like that!

That's the point! What fun would it be if you saw me coming? "Oh, there you are, Alvin," "Yep, yep, here I come, look out," "Oh, gee, that's really scary..."

Whatever. Now take a seat, my compadre, and get your game face on! Today, we have an army to defeat!

Ooh. No can do, Simon. I've got a basketball game in ten minutes.

No, no, no, no! You're flaking on me again? This is like the tenth time!

Don't hate me because I'm popular... (departs)

Well, here you go, Theodore. I'll just work on my science project. (leaves)

Yeah, well... thanks for asking me to help with your army! Cause... I didn't want to anyway!

The relationship between Alvin and Simon is at the core of this episode, but the way they both neglect and ignore Theodore throughout is a fascinating subplot, and does feel very true to life. I only had the one younger brother, who was (and still is) always the Alvin to my Simon, but what would it have been like if we'd had a Theodore in the family too? It really makes me think...

Next day at school, Alvin gets lumbered with showing a new kid around, and quickly hands over the nerdy Jamie to Simon, who shows him his International Space Station model. 

The two of them hit it off right away and now when Alvin has a moment in his busy calendar for video games, Simon is texting Jamie and not interested. 

As seen in the obligatory musical montage, the two of them stay up all night exchanging funny text messages, play video games together, spend all their time hanging out and even develop their own cool science-gang handshake. It's really awesome.

But then Jamie notices that Simon's brother is one of the cool kids and starts suggesting "Hey, maybe your brother would like to come too?" Now, some people say (well, one person says) that I go on about this a lot, but I don't think I'm being unreasonably melodramatic at all when I say that my primary school days were characterised by being repeatedly ditched by my best friends in favour of my more charismatic younger brother. It's amazing that I grew up into such a well-rounded human being despite this traumatic experience. And if even to this day I avoid introducing my friends to him because I know they'll inevitably like him more than me, well, that's just normal common sense, isn't it?

Simon even cheerfully tells Dave Jamie is the best friend he's ever had. It's heartbreaking! It ends up with Simon and Jamie signing up for a dance class, Jamie getting out of it and inviting Alvin to the cinema. Jamie ducks around a corner to avoid Simon and then runs after Alvin... 

Alvin, to be fair to him, isn't at all interested in spending time with Jamie and is hugely reluctant when Jamie invites himself around for a sleepover. But Simon misinterprets the text Alvin sends, thinking that Alvin wants Simon to do his chores while he goes to Simon's best friend's house, and texts back to say that he's going for a really cool sleepover with someone else. 

Which is a problem when Alvin and Jamie show up at the Seville house and Simon has to hide! Alvin and Jamie play together, not really having much fun all round, and Theodore has to keep distracting them from finding Simon's hiding place - Theo really is the heart and soul of that family, isn't he? 

But eventually Alvin's going to open the wardrobe, and Simon gets out of it with a stroke of genius - Flying Squirrel Attack! The absolute delight of Alvin's reaction really makes you feel a little sorry for him, too, it has to be said. What he really wants is someone who will play Flying Squirrel Attack with him, and he doesn't get that from his siblings. But they all get along together in the end, as shown in the brilliant final scene.

(In which, it has to be said, they discuss their issues with possibly a little more maturity than I ever did...)

My point is, you deserve a better friend than Jamie. He's a jerk!

I can't blame him for wanting to spend more time with you.

He just liked me because he thought I was one of the cool kids!

But... you are more fun.

Simon. The only one having fun with me is me! I'm selfish, obnoxious, reckless, insensitive! Need I go on?

Er, please, no.

Good, cause I was kind of hurting my own feelings. Anyway, if Jamie doesn't get how cool you are, then he's the wrong kind of friend!

Yeah!

Thanks, guys. You know, I feel a little better. Goodnight.

Goodnight, Simon. (turns out light) FLYING SQUIRREL ATTACK!!!!

I really love this show. And, for that matter, my excessively cool younger brother, who I will greatly miss while he's so far away. I'd still like to meet our hypothetical Theodore, too...