We have been living in a more permissive society over the last few years, with less censorship and more flexible norms, particularly as displayed in our media. However, this kind of change is always going to bring a reaction. And this has come in the form the National Viewers and Listeners Associations (NVLA) led by campaigner Mary Whitehouse.
Whitehouse (r) during the Clean-Up TV campaign, the forerunner to the NVLA
A former art teacher, she has declared the director general of the BBC to be “the devil incarnate” and that they are putting out “the propaganda of disbelief, doubt and dirt… promiscuity, infidelity and drinking” when they should be trying to “encourage and sustain faith in God and bring Him back to the heart of our family and national life.”
Since being founded last year, the NVLA has been growing, with over 100,000 member and around 600 churches being associated. As they hold their annual conference at the start of next month, it might be worth looking at what they are objecting to.
The Kinks, dangerous to Britain’s moral health?
Speaking at the conference, Rev. E. L. Taylor took aim at popular rock musicians, declaring that Christian songwriters were needed to “out-compose Tin Pan Alley” and Christian singers should appear on television to out-sing The Animals and The Kinks, comparing the latter to “savages” from Africa.
Television coverage of war, too pacifistic?
Factual programming has also come under fire. Whitehouse herself has objected to a documentary episode on the concentration camps in Belsen as “filth”, the production of The War Game for it prejudicing “the effectiveness of our Civil Defence Services, or the ability of the British people to re-act with courage, initiative and control in a crisis”, and to the coverage of warfare in the world as too pacifistic.
Up The Junction, not promoting clean living?
However, BBC Drama seems to draw the most ire from the group. In her speech to the conference, she declared that in the name of the word “reality” viewers were asked to accept a tiny part of human experience as the reality of the world we live in. For example, objecting to Neil Dunn’s play Up The Junction for not demonstrating that all abortion is wrong and that it could be prevented through “clean living”.
Whether the more liberating or conservative forces will win out over British media remains to be seen, but where could this kind of reactionary and totemic obsession with morality lead? That is one element that is discussed in the latest book from Compact, The Symmetrians.
The Symmetrians by Kenneth Harker
Starting with the situation, the book is set after a great disaster (strongly hinted at being a nuclear war from the start), people in Britain now living in a feudal society where symmetry is worshiped as a religion and any deviation from this is punished. Those with non-symmetrical faces are sent to work camps. We follow the young DavaD RaiMMiaR as he begins to question the society he lives in.
For British readers, they will probably find John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids (apparently published as Re-Birth in the US) brought to mind. In Wyndham’s text, a fundamentalist society in a post-nuclear Canada obsesses about normality and considers that any deviation from the norm should be killed; but David and some other telepathic children begin to dream of a society outside.
Whilst I don’t agree with the curmudgeons of SF that think every book needs to have a new idea central to it (even though they seem to be happy using the same situations over and over again), it would be easy to see Compact trying to cash in on Wyndham’s current success with a pale imitation. After all, they did it with Bradbury\Moorcock’s turgid Kane of Mars novels. However, though there are a number of obvious similarities, I think Harker manages to make it his own skillful piece of fiction.
First of all is the extent of world he has built. The Symmetrian religion has grown to a point that it encompasses so many facets of life. Mirrored surfaces are banned, fields have to be ploughed symmetrically with the emblem of symmetry in them, and all names have to be symmetrical. By which we don’t just mean palindromes, but they have to be symmetrical in three dimensions. There is an in-depth explanation on this in the book which I don’t want to repeat in this section, but it makes sense and really shows the effort gone into this.
Secondly is the real-world critique of religious reactionism and eugenics. As I cited above, the conservative religious pushback is emerging to the current liberalism of British culture. Seen as people sticking to rigid codes of what is pure and good and enforcing this belief on the rest of the population, there is a large degree of overlap between the Symmetrian authorities and the aims of the NVLA. At the same time the field of eugenics was a big part of the cultural discourse until the last war. Even today we see still see an idolization of the symmetrical face as a symbol of beauty and physical health. And there are still far too many people who still believe in pseudo-scientific justifications of racism (just read one of the many editorials John W. Campbell has written on the subject). The horrible truth is that these beliefs will probably not die off in our lifetime and it is all too reasonable to see a catastrophe resulting in this kind of prejudice returning to the mainstream.
Beyond these points, The Symmetrians is a really great adventure and coming of age story. The journey DavaD goes through is relatable in the tragedies he goes through and the realization that he does not have to blindly accept the teaching of his elders, reflecting the real-life experiences of so many of us. Whilst there is much that will still appeal to the adults, it is an excellent story to give to a teenager who reads Catcher in the Rye or A Clockwork Orange.
Kenneth Harker has stated this book was just created to entertain rather than convey a message. On the strength of this and his great recent short story in New Worlds The Cog, I cannot wait to see what happens when he tries to produce something even more spectacular.
A very high four stars; eagerly expecting a fifth in his next novel.
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On TV you are spoilt for choice, whether you prefer John Steed, John Drake, Richard Cadell, Napoleon Solo or even Amos Burke.
Just a few of the spy books that dominate UK bookshelves
You can go to any bookshop and pick up the latest thriller from people like John Le Carre, Len Deighton or even by Michael Moorcock (under one of his many aliases).
The late George Victor Spencer, alleged spy
But also, in real life news. A 92-page document was made public in Vancouver yesterday, detailing the allegation that George Victor Spencer, recently deceased, had been assigned to look into farms near the US border in order to find a suitable property to set up a site that could possibly have been a base for Soviet intelligence operations.
Mr. Spencer had denied these allegations and called for a public enquiry before his death. I imagine the debate about whether he was really a Russian agent or just a falsely accused man will continue for some time.
With all this intrigue happening around us, it is perhaps unsurprising that the first ever British comic book adaptation is another spy tale: Peter O’Donnell’s Modesty Blaise.
An Unlucrative Medium
Garth, deserving of a Republic serial?
Comic books have not been ones for adaptation in Britain. We did not have the 30s/40s film serials like the United States, so we did not get a Garth Conquers The Universe or The Return of Buck Ryan.
Would Belvision fancy having a go at Dan Dare?
Nor is there a strong enough animation field to produce The Adventures of Dan Dare or The Rupert The Bear Show.
Maybe a Roy of Rovers sports film would sell better?
Whilst comics remain popular the idea that we would ever get a Roy of the Rovers or Bash Street Kids film would seem beyond remote. But Modesty Blaise has changed that.
A Pop Culture Icon
Peter O’Donnell’s “novelization” of the film script
The first strip of Modesty Blaise was only released 3 years ago, but she has already become a massive success. So before talking about the new movie I think it is important to talk about the original strip.
A Romeo Brown story in which he gets hit with a golf ball and loses his memory
At the same time as working on the beloved adventure strip Garth, the Daily Mirror further employed Peter O'Donnell to takeover Romeo Brown, their comedy comic strip about a bumbling detective, usually involved in silly situations with various young women. The quality of the strip is not that memorable, but it is there he began collaborating with Jim Holdaway.
Modesty Blaise's Beginnings
After Romeo Brown finished, Peter O’Donnell decided to create a more serious strip where a woman would be a capable hero rather than simply an object of desire or a damsel for the man to rescue. Apparently inspired by an orphan girl he met when stationed in Persia during the war, he teamed up once again with Holdaway to create Modesty Blaise.
Modesty reassures Willie’s girlfriend Marjorie that she has no romantic feelings for him.
Starting in 1963, Blaise feels like a totally new type of hero. Both Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin (her loyal sidekick) are both former criminals neither from privileged backgrounds. Modesty grew up in refugee camps in Persia and other Middle Eastern countries, whilst Willie is very much a working-class character. There is also no suggestion that she has any romantic interaction with Willie, instead they are loyal professional colleagues.
An excellent action sequence where Willie rams a lorry into Gabriel’s mansion
It is not just the initial concept that is fresh, the quality of the strip feels ahead of anything else I could easily pick up. O’Donnell’s plots feel fresh and complex, varying significantly from story to story. One week she will be investigating drug running in the Vietnam war, the next dealing with psychic espionage. These are combined with characters that feel deep and real. O’Donnell’s writing and Holdaway’s art also come together to give a really cinematic presentation with a real eye for direction.
The Daily Express’ James Bond strip: A more old fashioned kind of spy story
Whilst it can often feel like comic books lag behind literature (most science fiction strips seem to be barely coming to grips with the Golden Age), Modesty Blaise often feels like it is closer to the new wave of British espionage literature. Rather than the old-fashioned heroics of James Bond, Blaise owes something to the George Smiley tales or The IPCRESS File, with a certain level of cynicism about intelligence operations.
Modesty comforts Weng after he shoots his sister
The prospects for the film seemed good at first. Peter O’Donell wrote the initial story for the film, although it was changed significantly for the screen (his novelization is based on his script rather than the finished product) with the main writer and director representing a reunion of Joseph Losey and Evan Jones, the team behind the brilliant Hammer Film The Damned.
So, I went in to see it on the first day of release quietly confident…
An Outrageous Mess
Modesty Blaise Titles
…and I am honestly not sure what I got. It is almost like every scene was made by a different director, none of whom talked to each other, and all footage edited together in five minutes at midnight.
It is quite an experience to watch and hard to believe it was ever released. Is the intention meant to be satirical? Artistic? Serious? I cannot see it particularly working with any reading.
Just a few of the numerous outfits on display (along with her magical color changing hair)
If I were to praise anything about it, it is the look. The design work in it is beautiful, taking full advantage of being in colour to showcase bright locations and fashions. But even that gets wearying quickly. I believe Modesty changes outfit in almost every scene, only briefly wearing her iconic comic outfit for the sake of a cheap joke about how to change out of it. At times it feels less like they consider Blaise to be a spy than a model for Marissa Martelli’s designs.
Rather than the serious tone of the newspaper strip, Losey’s film has a large dose of comedy inserted into it. Some is absurdly silly, some is satiric, some is very dark. None of it really landed for me.
One of the core points of Modesty's character is how skilled a fighter she is. Here the only evidence we see of that is a really poorly choreographed fight scene. For much of the film she is reduced to being a damsel in distress. This is a common problem in British media, I am aware, but that doesn’t make it any less disappointing to see here.
Modesty and Willie discuss their romantic feelings through the medium of song.
Willie now seems to have transformed into some Alfie-like lothario in a modish bachelor pad rather than an ex-criminal who runs a pub. They also break one of the most interesting elements of the original strip by involving them in a romance. Inexplicably told through musical numbers taking place in between or during action scenes.
Gabriel was previously a Moriarty style figure with an enlarged forehead and walked with a limp. Much like Lex Luthor is to Superman, he seems designed to be the brain to match Modesty and Willie’s brawn. Yet in the film he just appears to be an eccentric, upset about any snag in his plans whilst launching rocket missiles that shoot lasers.
The movie also uses scenes from the original comic but without any real explanation or context. The opening scene appears to be taken from The Gabriel Set-Up but whilst there it is a key plot-point about a device to extract people’s secrets, in the film it appears to be an advanced printer which, in another attempt at humor, is unable to give information she requires and has no relation to the rest of the story.
At the start of this section, I said trying to get a read on what this film is trying to do is tough. As an adaptation it has barely any faithfulness. As a silly comedy the jokes are not directed well enough to land.
If it is a satire I am not sure what of? Imperialism? It is more imperialist than anything. Spy films and TV? The meta-fictional jokes don’t really make sense for that. I never thought a problem with all the espionage thrillers coming out is that they have obvious continuity errors, break out into musical numbers at random or even that they take themselves too seriously. The awful carry-on films do a better job at mockery of popular media than this.
I have heard it is trying to be artful but, honestly, I am not convinced by that either. I am fan of the cut-up approach of Burroughs, Ballard and their ilk but they do this to tell a story as a whole in an interesting way, not to make something non-sensical. Whilst we can debate the true value of Duchamp’s Fountain, I can see the point he was making. The only point here seems to be it is a plainly bad film.
The End…Thankfully
As the Sheikh’s troops advance on Gabriel’s stronghold, Willie and Modesty sing once again.
I do not even know if you can truly rank this on a star system. I cannot even be sure what I just watched was actually a film. The only evidence seems to be I paid money to see it in a cinema. The whole thing, whatever it is, is almost worth seeing in order to appreciate how bizarre an experience it is.
However, I come down on the side of staying at home instead. There you can spend your time reading O’Donnell and Holdaway’s wonderful comic strip in comfort. Find out if a newspaper anywhere near you is syndicating it, I hear that it has been picked up all over the world and it is one of the true greats.
Not since The Chatterley Trial has there been a piece of media more debated in the UK than Peter Watkins’ The War Game. After being pulled from the air in October I finally managed to see it at the National Film Theatre last night.
Before I get into my review, I think we need to look back at how a 48-minute BBC pseudo-documentary about one of the most discussed contemporary issues became involved in such a storm of controversy. For that we will have to start by travelling back over 300 years to the fields of Culloden.
Culloden
After doing a series of well noted amateur short films, Watkins came to general attention with his 1964 BBC documentary\reenactment\drama Culloden. It is extremely hard to define precisely as it is a style I have not seen elsewhere before. Whilst going into a historic event, he presents it as if it is a contemporary documentary on the event, combining narration, action and scripted interviews with various people involved in the battle.
In itself this would be enough of a leap to get it on people’s radars, but Watkins also went further. Firstly, he used an all-amateur cast, in order to get a sense of reality into what we were seeing. Secondly, almost all the shots are done with a handheld camera, getting us further away from the idea we are watching a carefully staged play. Next, he refuses to sanitize the level of violence, both in explaining in the events and showing us the gore of those wounded in both the battle and its aftermath.
Perhaps, most radically of all, he does not give it a comfortable narrative. Among Scottish Nationalists it is often seen as the last flowering of the independent Scotland. Among Unionists it is often seen as the last rebelling of an invasion or major insurrection on British soil. This goes to lengths to show us this was a horrendous situation, where ordinary people were often press ganged into fighting, generals made an awful mess of every decision and so many suffered for pointless reasons.
It is a really affecting piece of television and received both a BAFTA and a British Screenwriters Award. So, it should be no surprise the BBC were interested in getting more work from Mr. Watkins. Though, given the contents of Culloden, they really should not have been surprised at what they got next.
A Political Game?
Peter Watkins in full director mode
Watkins’ next project was to try to move away from his historical critiques (aside from Culloden, his short films include such subjects as The American Civil War, World War One and The 1956 Hungarian Uprising) to something more contemporary, a realistic account of what would actually happen if Britain were attacked by a nuclear strike, rather than the government propaganda films or SF adventure stories.
Apparently originally designed for the 20th anniversary of Hiroshima, it was then scheduled for an October broadcast, then unceremoniously pulled from our screens. The reasoning being that:
the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting.
This has raised some question as to whether this was legitimately the reason. On the face of it this film is genuinely horrifying and, whilst the BBC has also broadcast material that could be argued to be equally harrowing (e.g., the aforementioned Culloden or their recent documentary on Belsen), there is always a difference between what has happened historically and what could happen to the viewer next week.
However, what else did the BBC expect from a project Peter Watkins would do on nuclear war? Why not demand changes earlier? Or air it in a late-night slot with a warning beforehand that it is not for those of a weak disposition?
Whilst the Prime Minister has fully denied any government involvement in the House of Commons, many people (myself included) fail to believe there is not either some political pressure put on the BBC or self-censorship on the part of Director-General Sir Hugh Carlton Greene.
Either way, some of us have been lucky enough to see the final product, thanks to a limited theatrical release. It is both exactly what you would expect and something even more amazing.
A Different Frontier
In science fiction there has been a tendency to treat the result of nuclear war as a chance for a new kind of western or sword & sorcery tale. Consider, for example Andre Norton’s Star Man’s Son or George Pal’s The Time Machine, where the destruction of civilization allows for a form of old-fashioned adventure not available in contemporary society. Even two of the bleakest post-nuclear films so far fall into this trap.
In On The Beach, the destruction of the rest of the world allows for a kind of morose luxury, as those last survivors expecting to die are allowed to choose how things would end and what they want to do with the remainder of their lives. We never see the effect of the radiation clouds coming on the survivors, instead the film merely cuts from people in the streets of Melbourne to their absence.
Whilst in Panic In Year Zero the family are already outside of the cities when the bombs fall, manage to eke out a survival in the wilderness and then are able to rejoin society afterwards. You could easily make a few changes to the script and make it about a settler family travelling west in the 19th Century.
Peter Watkin’s The War Game does not allow for any shred of optimism. The situation is that China invades South Vietnam, this in turn results in the US threatening to use nuclear weapons to stop them. In solidarity the East German government blocks off West Berlin. As tensions rise, we follow a town in Kent as they first try to cope with the evacuation of women and children from the cities and then the effect of nuclear attack on the area. It shows the full impact this may have, physically, mentally, and socially before what will probably be their inevitable demise.
In itself this would be harrowing enough, but this goes further to really ram the message home to those watching.
No Comfort, Only Fallout
Resident of a housing estate being interviewed on the fire from a nuclear attack.
The first elements Watkins uses are the stylistic techniques he used in Culloden. Filming in handheld style and doing interviews with non-actors (both real members of the public being asked questions about the possible impact of nuclear attack and the non-actors being hired to act out scripted sections) there were also great touches to make this feel real for example one woman when told about needing to barrack people in her house asked if they will be “coloured”, showing the level of pessimism that Peter Watkins has for humanity and also giving a sense of realism to the film that we're watching.
Doctor interviewed on the categories of injuries in an overburdened hospital.
It takes great pains to show us that the sources for this production are based in reality, both in terms of predictions, such as NATO mock battles and expert panels, and in historical examples, particularly concentrating on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and the firebombing of Dresden. What is more it makes sure to say this is modelling a better case scenario, and that the bombs used could actually be significantly more powerful.
A lorry full of corpses being driven away.
One area where I could understand some of the criticism of the suitability of the viewing of this film on television would be with some of the actual gore that is shown. This is not to say that it is gratuitous, rather it is showing the real impact of nuclear weapons on members of the general public. For example, it does not vary considerably from the images that have been shared on the victims of the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
One of the real quotes used between images of nuclear attack.
It also then works to counterpose this with the standard ways in which ordinary people are used to encountering talk of nuclear war, in order to show how unrealistic and glib they are in comparison to what we see unfolding before us. This is also demonstrated in the choice of Michael Aspel as the narrator, primarily known to the British public for his commentaries on Come Dancing and The Eurovision Song Contest, helping to make someone that would usually be cozy and comforting into something terrifying. For American readers, try to imagine how unsettling it would have been if Panic in Year Zero not only contained teen idol Frankie Avalon, but also had Roger Miller playing the misanthropic father instead of noir star Ray Milland.
“Orphans of the Attack”
All of this combined gives a truly haunting impression that lasts with you long after you have finished watching it. There are so many little moments that burrow into your mind that I could use 2000 words to just list them, and I would still have many sections left to describe. Whether it is the Christmas Church Service at the refugee camp, seagulls squawking as people are shot, or a nurse breaking down as she tries to discuss casualties, it is hard to go away unaffected by the experience.
Critical Targets
An “expert” cut to for further explanations.
There have many criticisms launched at The War Game, so I want to spend some time addressing a few of them.
The first of these is factual. Whilst Watkins and his team have gone to great lengths to ensure a realistic portrayal of a nuclear attack on Britain, there has still been criticism of their predictions. One in particular is that a nuclear attack would not likely take place in such a short space of time, allowing people time to prepare and civil defense authorities to carry out their duties fully.
The response to this is surely to look at the Cuban Missile Crisis a few years ago. Though it is true that it did evolve over some time and we did come perilously close to nuclear war, none of these plans were instituted. As such the preparations will likely only start when it is too late. Further, The War Game goes to great lengths to show that even those able to carry out these plans would not be helped in the long term.
Policemen shooting people with more than 50% burns to alleviate hospital pressure.
Another is that narratively it does not have enough impact because of the various tragedies piled on top of each other. For example, it has been argued, that if the sandbag defenses are ineffective, why should we care about the fact that there would be panic buying, scalping and lack of supplies? Or if millions have died, why should it bother us they would have to incinerate piles of corpses in buildings and only identify people via buckets of wedding rings?
I find this critique to be at best facile, and at worst lacking in real humanity. The fact that common human decency also gets lost, and the standard functions of civil society are so lost is what compounds the tragedy of the nuclear death and makes it so terrible. The fact that the extinction of almost all life in Britain is shown to be the inevitable result of what is unfolding does not mean what happens along the way is any less important.
Food control centre used primarily for law enforcement being raided by ordinary people.
The final area is political. I am not talking about the criticism from church groups or police about their depiction (criticisms which I do not feel are worth devoting time to) but rather the political impact on the public. The film is so unrelentingly terrifying it could well reduce sentiment in favor of nuclear deterrence on the Western side, whilst it is unlikely to be available in places like the Soviet Union or China.
My response to this is twofold. First, if there is to be a true belief in the value of freedom in the western democracies, it must allow for truth, however unpleasant. Otherwise surely the whole exercise of battling ideologies is nothing more than football teams demanding the loyalty of their local supporters.
But, more importantly, maybe this isn’t a bad idea? If the NATO nations begin to disarm, maybe others will too? Anything that could avert the destruction of humanity is surely a positive step.
End the MADness
Anti-Nuclear march in London, 1961
With the war in Vietnam continuing to escalate and more nations developing their own nuclear capability, the scenario outlined in this film becomes more and more likely.
My only worry is that the limited theatrical release will limit the impact this essential piece of cinema could have had. It is one I would want to be shown everywhere, from schools to retirement communities, to both educate and promote debate on where the world is going.
Five Stars and a request that after you have seen it, you share the message with your friends.
We may not have much time to prevent from this becoming a true documentary…
Whilst the comedy double act has been popular since the days of music hall, they seem to be having a moment on British Television.
Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise are probably the biggest draw, with their ATV series Two of a Kind being more widely known simply as Morecambe and Wise.
Whilst the BBC’s primary double act are Mike and Bernie Winters who have just concluded Blackpool Night Out and we will soon be getting The Mike and Bernie Show.
There are, however, others coming up as well. In particular, the irreverent Peter Cook and Dudley Moore are currently in the second season of Not Only… But Also, which has been getting great acclaim, as well as a strong following among younger viewers.
The format tends to work on having a funny man and a straight man, in order to play off against each other. The books from two British Veterans I picked up looked like they could be their own comedic duo, however they might end up getting booed off the stage:
The Not-so Funny Man:
The Richest Corpse in Show Business by Dan Morgan
The outside of this books gives next to no detail about the plot. The Keith Roberts cover sketch of a bearded man gives nothing away. Instead, we get a warning notice on the front:
WARNING! Earnest students of SCIENCE FICTION who deprecate hilarity on the subject should avoid this book like the plague.
Is this a marketing ploy? Absolutely! But an intriguing enough one to catch my attention.
At the same time Dan Morgan had always been one of the stronger of Carnell’s set but he is also much less prolific than many of his counterparts. As such I usually look forward to whenever he finally does publish something.
So, what would Mr. Morgan be writing? Perhaps a madcap adventure, like a cross between Jerry Cornelius and Bill the Galactic Hero? A comedy about a zombie who becomes a pop star? Disappointingly the whole affair is rather more pedestrian.
It tells of Harry Trevey, the producer of Just Folks at Amalgamated Tel. This seems to be a kind of documentary show following real-life subjects throughout their entire lives. This is an incredibly important part of Amalgamated Tel’s line-up as there is currently a long-fought and bitter actors' strike going on, meaning that scripted programming is not available.
At the start the terrible news emerges that their current star, door-to-door salesman Carmody Truelove has died of a heart attack. However, the biggest initial concern is he died off-camera, and no one seems to know him well enough to try to do a memorial show afterwards. Now, Carmody would appear to be the titular “Richest Corpse” and it would seem that the story was going to be about finding out his past. But this plot turns out to be only so much pre-amble for the main story and frustratingly just fizzles out about a third of the way through the book.
It turns out the meat of the story is actually about what will fill Just Folks after Truelove’s demise. They decide to use a hunter (the fellow pictured on the cover), who has a licence to hunt down humans and get him to announce his next victim on the show. Things finally appear to be going Trevey’s way until he is selected as the victim and has to fight for his life against one of the most skilled killers in the world. He will be paid incredibly well, though, for being the star of the series, making him The Richest Corpse in Show Business.
Anyone who has read Robert Sheckley’s Seventh Victim will probably recognise this plot. Morgan does attempt to put his own spin on it by using it to skewer the media’s desire for increasingly sensational content (also demonstrated by the character of Dick Gordon, who is trying to setup his own network of pornographic stations) but it is all done very bluntly and clumsily.
It also doesn’t help much that everyone in it is very unpleasant, although Trevey himself most of all. At one point he even attempts to rape the main love interest. This happens for no good reason I can fathom other than to justify the claim on the back that it contains a:
…a deliciously amoral line in sex…
I know there are still some fans that like this kind of thing. For example, John Christopher’s much praised Death of Grass features a gratuitous rape scene that seem to be there mainly to show how bad the world is. Or in Robert A. Heinlein’s Let There Be Light the protagonist forces a women into a literal shotgun wedding.
William F. Temple wrote an editorial in New Worlds saying that having women in SF stories directly was the problem:
Bring women into it, and they gum up the works.
The solution, as I see it, is to try one’s best to leave women, as characters, out of the plot if possible.
I would disagree with both of these sentiments. The issue with the women in The Richest Corpse is not that they are present; it is the fact that Morgan writes them in cliches and uses them as tools for Trevey’s story, instead of showing them as people in their own right. Even Isaac Asimov (who is infamous in fan circles for his treatment of women) managed to create the wonderful Susan Calvin. If people like Mr. Morgan are scratching their head, why not just try talking to a woman and asking her opinion on a scene? Even if you lack female friends or work colleagues, maybe you have a wife, a mother or a sister you could go visit and listen to?
But, perhaps, the biggest issue is I simply didn’t find it funny. From everything involved in the promotion of the book I expected it to be a laugh fest but it doesn’t even appear to be written as such. Maybe it could be said to try to raise a smile, like The Midas Plague, but even in this aspect it doesn’t really achieve its goal.
Overall, it is just a mid-level satire of the entertainment industry. Not truly terrible but certainly not destined to be the next Space Merchants either.
This story may be familiar to SFF magazine readers as this was previously published as Equinox in New Worlds in 1964.
Although, confusingly, the second part of the Equinox serial from New Worlds is named The Illuminated Man in the book format, which is the name of a similar story in F&SFin the same month, also about a petrified forest and likely set in the same world. This has led some people to conclude this is actually a fix-up story. However, this is not the case as far as I can tell.
Putting them side by side my copy appears to just be an expanded version of Equinox. Specifically, with additional conversations throughout and two new chapters:
Chapter Three – Mulatto on the Catwalk: A chase scene in Port Montarre.
Chapter Eleven – The White Hotel: Whilst staying in the chalet they become acquainted with an abandoned hotel and former leper colony.
I would not be surprised if these were simply excised for space from the New Worlds version as neither add anything more to the conclusion of the tale.
The Crystal World seems to be part of his continued look at elemental catastrophes. We had air in The Wind From Nowhere, water in The Drowned World and fire in The Drought, so it makes sense to complete the set with an earth based catastrophe (or crystalline at the very least).
These seem to be somewhat in vogue right now, as Disch’s debut novel The Genocides is about a tree-based apocalypse and Aldiss’ Earthworks is about an environmentally damaged Earth. Is it a sign of increasing environmental awareness since The Silent Spring was published? Or does the New Wave just not like nature?
Anyway, the text itself. As those of you who read the New Worlds serial or Mark’s excellent write ups will probably recall it concerns Dr. Sanders and his running around a crystalline landscape near Mont Royale getting into various scrapes and lots of discussing what it is all about. In less skilled hands this could be a terrible book. But as this is Ballard, he manages to pull this one off…just.
Predominantly this is because this is not so much a book about ideas and events as one about atmosphere. The mystery of why the jungle is crystallizing and the gun toting antics are not why you should read. Rather it is for the dream-like and magical feeling you get as you go through this environment, along with the word-for-word quality of Ballard’s writing. For example:
In a few places the affected zone had crossed the highway, and small patches of the scrub along the roadside had begun to vitrify. Their drab leaves gave off a faint luminescence. Suzanne walked among them, her long robe sweeping across the brittle ground. Sanders could see that her shoes and the train of her robe were beginning to crystallize, the minute prisms glancing in the moonlight.
Few other writers can create an atmosphere as beautiful and written with such style as J. G. Ballard and it is why he remains a master of the field.
We have to address the big elephant in the room when it comes to this story, colonialism. Ballard seems to have taken a lot of influence from Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. However, he is taking on many of the mistakes Chinua Achebe critiqued in his modern classic Things Fall Apart.
The African characters seem to be treated as incidental to what is happening and throughout rarely even have names, referred to instead with terms such as “The Mulatto” “The Negro” or “Natives”.
I don’t think it is beyond the scope or capability of contemporary western science fiction writers to address these kinds of themes with more thoughtfulness. After all, they are able to handle making critiques of colonialism through extra-terrestrial cultures, such as in Aldiss’ The Dark Light Years or MacLean’s Unhuman Sacrifice. So how about we make sure to use the same care and attention when writing about real people on our own planet?
Overall, I think that this is a readable but flawed and unnecessary publication. It is still better than a lot of science fiction out there, but one I would only recommend for Ballard completists.
And we’re off! We are officially in general election season as British Prime Minister Harold Wilson hopes to gain an increased majority for his Labour government.
Harold Wilson meeting miners in the ’64 election campaign
Wilson is touting his achievements of helping to bring about social equality by such measures as the repeal of the rent act, moving towards comprehensive education and the race relations act.
Heath, on the other hand, has been concentrating “equality of opportunity” proposing to put more restrictions on unions to strike, reforming welfare to target the most in need, controlling immigration and entering the EEC.
Labour is, however, also using their budget preview to make the economic case for getting an increased majority, pushing for an increase in exports, making it easier for people to get mortgages and a plan to introduce decimal coinage by 1971.
Edward Heath campaigning in his own constituency
The Conservative’s main objection is that these measures will likely result in a weakening in pound sterling which should be the government’s first priority.
The other main flash point is over the Rhodesian crisis. Whilst Heath wants to resume talks with Ian Smith’s government and stop economic sanctions, Wilson believes that only keeping up pressure will end their racist policies.
Former Avenger, Honor Blackman, campaigning for Liberal candidates in London
The biggest question remains what will happen to the Liberal vote that seems to be in decline. With in-fighting and a lack of funds a survey has suggested up to 35% of voters are now undecided. Will these middle-of-the-road and anti-establishment voters be more interested in Mr Wilson’s interventionism or Mr. Heath’s free market approach?
Mr. Heath doesn’t appear to be helping himself so far on the campaign trail, not being able answer legitimate criticism. For example, when asked about one of his candidates being accused of taking funds from a racist organization and making inflammatory speeches, the Conservative leader simply responded that he had made his views clear and local MPs were allowed their own opinions.
Christopher Soames, Conservative MP for Bedford, (L) & Brian Parkyn, Labour candidate (R)
For myself I am out campaigning for Labour candidate Brian Parkyn to attempt to unseat Conservative Christopher Soames. All of us in the local party know it will be an uphill struggle. Soames is Shadow Foreign Secretary and Bedford has been almost continually Conservative since 1922 with a brief one term Labour MP during the 1945 landslide winning by just 288 votes.
But we still all fired up for this campaign. For many of us it is about trying to move the country forward whilst the current Conservative policies seem more interested in returning us to Victorian era.
This brings me to ABC’s latest television series, which is distinctly Victorian and is definitely not the better for it.
Mystery and Imagination
Mystery & Imagination Titles
The idea behind Mystery and Imagination seems obvious. ABC’s Armchair Theatre has been a successful fixture of the ITV lineups for the last ten years showcasing a number of great plays (including the pilot of Out of This World). However, it can only run for so many episodes a year and something needs to fill the slot for the other half of the year. Last year we had a combination of mystery and suspense anthology series, none of which seemed to capture the public’s imagination.
SFF anthology series such as Out of the Unknownand import The Twilight Zone have been critical successes. Even Doctor Who to a certain extent works on an anthology format, simply having the regulars go into totally new situations each week thanks to the TARDIS. At the same time gothic horror is doing well at the cinema thanks to Hammer and Amicus productions.
Fontana’s tie-in Anthology
And Mystery and Imagination seems to have been a ratings success, with a second set of stories commissioned for later in the year. They even have released a book with a selection of stories related to the series.
However, as an audio-visual experience it was terrible. I found it even less watchable than ABC’s SF thriller, Undermind, they aired last summer (one of the few pieces of British speculative television I gave up on before the conclusion). This had all the ingredients to make something I would adore. So, let us look at the ways it went wrong:
Failure of Imagination 1: Richard Beckett
David Buck as Richard Beckett in Fall of The House of Usher
The use of a regular character to go through the series is, in itself, not a bad idea. Much like with Doctor Who, it allows for a connective thread and a reason to keep watching week to week.
The problem in this show is they do not seem to know what to do with him. Sometimes he arrives and is a passive observer of what happens, sometimes he gets involved, others he just does a Rod Serling style frame to the tale. None of these arrangements prove satisfactory. It possibly doesn’t help that David Buck does not have magnetism of either Serling or Hartnell to draw us through the tale.
But perhaps a bigger problem is that he is not allowed to develop from his adventures. Whilst The Doctor is not the same person in Ancient Rome as he is when he is trying to murder a caveman, Beckett feels like he is cut from the same cloth throughout these episodes. He is merely a foppish idiot stumbling between weird circumstances and adds nothing whether he is in the tale or merely introducing it.
Failure of Imagination 2: Poor Direction
The Open Door
Whilst this may be a series of plays, I think it is the role of a great television director to bring us into the story and make us feel like we are seeing into the world that the characters inhabit. For a fantasy tale this is even more important, in order that we can have a willing suspension of disbelief.
Unfortunately, I was so far outside of these tales, I almost wondered if it was a Brechtian experiment. The shots are arranged like they are on a stage, all the actors' performances are generally pitched far too over the top (even for a gothic tale) and the pacing is glacial without being intriguing.
I was surprised to find this was a significant issue as many of the directors have done work on The Avengers which has always been very good at making the action exciting and the world seem to be more expanded than the three walls of a studio set.
Failure of Imagination 3: No Atmosphere
The Lost Stradivarius
When making gothic horror, the most important feature is surely atmosphere. Few people would read The Castle of Otranto if it was just the mystery of death by a giant helmet. Rather it is the atmosphere that Walpole creates which makes for an intriguing reading experience.
Unfortunately, Mystery & Imagination has little to none of that. The setup feels more like I am watching an episode of Code of the Woosters, wondering if it is meant to be played for laughs. The only acknowledgement for horrific setup is the music, which is near-constant, blaring and more distracting than anything else.
Rather than terror, the only emotion it evoked in me is boredom.
Failure of Imagination 4: Unimaginative Reinterpretation
Roger Corman’s version of House of Usher vs. Mystery & Imagination’s interpretation
Perhaps the biggest issue of all is that no real effort seems to have been made in reinterpreting these stories for the screen. The original pieces are usually very short, rich on atmosphere but not so on character and plot. If you are not able to do any good with the direction or feel, you at least need to make sure there is enough happening to fill up the 50 minutes we are meant to be paying attention. Instead characters regularly repeat themselves, wander around the same sets and just seem to be killing time until the next occurrence in the script.
By comparison Roger Corman has been spending this decade adapting Poe’s stories, but he has been combining them, changing them and giving us new ideas based on the texts whilst still staying true to their spirit. Hammer has also been at its best when it is willing to take risks with its monster stories rather than slavishly following the originals. Maybe the writers of Mystery & Imagination could try taking some lessons from the silver screen?
Neither Mysterious nor Imaginative
And so I remain fully unsatisfied by this run of episodes. Beckett will be returning later this year to lead us through another set of gothic tales, but I do not believe I will be watching. Saturday evening we will instead turn off the box after Morecambe and Wise and settle in with some good books.
May I suggest people pick up M. R. James’ original Ghost Stories of an Antiquary or Panther’s collection Tales of the Supernatural? Try reading read some of the original masters of horror and hopefully these books will scare you with quality writing, rather than merely deafen you with blaring music!
The Journey is once again up for a Best Fanzine Hugo nomination — and its founder is up for several other awards as well! If you've got a Worldcon membership, or if you just want to see what Gideon's done that's Hugo-worthy, please read his Hugo Eligibility article! Thank you for your continued support.
On the Ecuadorian coast, the Valdivia archeological site is creating a great stir in the academic world. Renowned American archeologists Clifford Evans and Betty Meggers (along with colleagues from the Smithsonian) have put out a paper in Scientific American claiming the artefacts on the site bear a strong resemblance to those from Japan in the same period (c. 3000 BC).
Meggers (L) & Evans (R)
This conclusion is disputed by other archeologists, who claim the finds are of native origin, but whichever is the truth it is likely to rewrite our historical understanding. If the site is Asian in origin it shows both an advanced degree of navigation and Asian influence on the development of the Americas millennia before the arrival of Europeans.
Is this parrot figure a result of Japanese or native Ecuadorian culture?
Alternatively, if the site is indeed of native finds it will add to the continued evidence of a thriving advanced Americas at a time when Egypt was still trying to domesticate the camel.
Trying to rediscover and reinterpret is just as important in science fiction as it is in archeology. As such I was excited to discover Irene Shubik was reviving the format of ABC’s Out of This World for a series on BBC2, under the new title Out of the Unknown.
Travelling Into The Unknown
There are a couple differences between Unknown and World I want to point out before we start. Firstly, there is the obvious format point, that there is no longer a presenter to introduce each story as we usually expect on these anthology shows (although apparently a robot was considered for some time). More importantly are the stories themselves. Whilst World tended to choose faster paced stories more likely to entice the casual viewer (e.g. Asimov’s Little Lost Robot and Dick’s Impostor), Shubik seems to have selected more slower and meditative pieces, to really explore concepts.
As this is an archeological dig, I want to divide this series into three periods:
Episodes 1-4: An Emerging Concept
No Place Like Earth by John Wyndham – Unscientific but poignant
I think it is appropriate to start with the opening shot of the first episode (No Place Like Earth) of a lone human sailing across a sea on Mars to visit a native Martian. This divided viewers with some annoyed that the series was taking such an unscientific approach, whilst others loved the fairy tale quality of this fable. Personally, I was in the latter camp, just enjoying seeing something very different from the usual.
The Counterfeit Man by Alan Nourse – Tense but uninspired
For those unimpressed with Wyndham, they got to enjoy The Counterfeit Man, which felt like a hangover from Shubik’s previous series. It is a tense tale of an alien impostor on a spaceship heading back to Earth and the attempts to discover who it could be. But there seemed little point to it other than atmosphere.
A Stranger In The Family – An original play by David Campton – A source of nihilism
The same can be said of the first of the two original contributions to the series, A Stranger in the Family, which would probably not feel out of place in New Worlds magazine. Telling of a teenager with incredible psychic powers and the corrupt means to which they are put. It is certainly unnerving, but comes to naught except showing the corruption of power.
The Dead Past by Isaac Asimov – A talky but loyal adaptation.
The final of this early quartet is The Dead Past from Shubik’s favorite writer, Issac Asimov. In this we get one of the best encapsulations of the strengths and flaws of the early period. It is a faithful adaptation of a problem story with a twist in the tail and gets across the themes of nostalgia and privacy, with good actors bringing it to life. However, it does not stray from the text by more than half an inch and the episode is largely just people debating ideas in front of dull backgrounds.
It is notable that with these four stories together you get many of the standard concepts used in science fiction writing. An Earth apocalypse, alien worlds, oppressive society, doppelgangers, spaceships, psychic powers, time travel, dangerous inventions and more.
If nothing else this gives viewers the vocabulary to help them through what is to come.
Episodes 5-8: The Dark Ages
Sucker Bait by Isaac Asimov – Dark in more ways than one
Unfortunately, this is where things start to go wrong.
There are some technical issues we need get out of the way. Halfway through the transmission of Time In Advance the broadcast cut out, and we were instead treated to some Joan Baez music whilst we waited for the problem fixed. Also, the lighting in much of Sucker Bait was just abominable, even on the new 625-line broadcast resolution, it was impossible to tell what was going on in some sections. I found I had to rely instead on the dialogue and I had trouble really understanding what was happening on screen.
Time in Advance by William Tenn – A story that ends up being rather basic
However, the real problem with the stories selected and the direction the production team take them. Time In Advance by William Tenn is an inherently silly concept to begin with. What if you could serve time on a hazardous planet in exchange for a free pass for a future crime? The conclusion being, maybe the crime you committed wouldn’t go as planned. And whilst the technical issue above may have resulted in things being missed by myself, the whole logic played out in front of us seemed contrived.
Come Buttercup, Come Daisy, Come….? – An original play by Mike Watts – Not Firmly Rooted
The second original play also seems to have no direction to it. Come Buttercup, Come Daisy, Come…? is the story of a man obsessed with his tropical flowers, sent to him by a mysterious advert, which may be eating people… or he may just be mad. Neither conclusion would be satisfying nor make much sense. When silly spy comedy The Avengers does something better with the concept, you probably should take another look at your scripts.
The Fox and The Forest by Ray Bradbury – A significant lack of growth
However, the two worst offenders are from the two biggest names, Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov. Neither The Fox and The Forest, nor Sucker Bait have enough in the original text to justify their inclusion here. Bradbury’s piece is barely more than a vignette and Terry Nation seemed to think the best solution was just to keep stretching the plot out until the conclusion without adding anything more.
Sucker Bait, on the other hand, is a long novella, but the story is largely told through arguments in small rooms on a dingey spaceship. Whilst this may be fine for a piece of text (although I personally dislike the magazine serial) it does not make for compelling television. What is worse, the main character is a human computer, meaning most of the expositing we are getting is from someone meant to lack normal characteristics and mannerisms.
It would be easy to conclude at this point the series had fallen down without hope of getting up. However, after these missteps, something wonderful happens.
Episodes 9-12: The Renaissance
Andover and the Android by Kate Wilhelm – A revelation
Andover and the Android and The Midas Plague succeed in a similar way. The writers (Bruce Stewart and Troy Kennedy Martin respectively) are much more willing to take liberties with the original stories to great effect and produce dark satirical comedies. Both of these episodes, I would argue, are better than the original texts. The Midas Plague, in particular, should be called out for its excellent use of modern maxims turned on their head to highlight the ridiculousness of our consumer society.
Some Lapse of Time by John Brunner – Dark but fulfilling
Our own John Boston gave the short story of Some Lapse of Timea four-star review and it is indeed an excellent choice to adapt, by combining a creepy atmosphere, an unfolding mystery and a single concept added into a contemporary society. However, this adaptation tightens up some of the looseness of the original story and Roger Jenkins excellent direction of the dream sequences really helps connect everything together.
Thirteen to Centaurus by J. G. Ballard – A great character study with brilliant twists
Finally, Thirteen to Centaurus is a fantastic character piece, using largely the same story as was published in Amazing (which was given four stars by John once again) albeit with a different ending, we get to see the multiple twists in the tale unfold. But the excellent performances by Donald Houston and James Hunter, elevate this story into an excellent character study where we see power dynamics invert and their senses of reality change.
A Rich History
The Midas Plague by Frederik Pohl – Join the robots in toasting a successful first series
Overall, watching this series is like reading a great anthology. Not all stories will be to my tastes, but they are varied enough to complement each other and give a good picture of science fiction. A second season has already been commissioned, and so, just like with many of the other British anthologies that are ongoing, I look forward to the next release.
One last addendum, whilst the BBC appears to be hopeful of a US sale, others are not as optimistic. Isaac Asimov writing to Shubik:
It does make me long to see the show. I am terribly afraid that you haven’t made any of them sufficiently badly to interest American TV producers.
Let us hope The Good Doctor’s cynicism is not warranted and this gem of a series can be shared with the rest of the world.
In the Middle East, there have been some fascinating archeological finds of late. Mr. Ian Blake of the British School of Archeology in Jerusalem has been exploring an area on the Dead Sea coast previously thought to be barren. In fact settlements and finds have been discovered from the late Chalcolithic until the Byzantine era.
Tel Yin’am site in Galilee, Israel
Whilst further in-land this survey found the site of an early Christian Hermitage.
At the same time, in Damascus, an excavation of the Unmmayad Mosque courtyard has unearthed an ancient temple believed to be from 10th Century BC.
The Ummayad Mosque in Damascus, Syria
The excavations have so far revealed impressive structures including a 6” 6’ diameter column and there are further hopes they may find evidence of the Temple of Jupiter which supposedly stood on the site as well.
Whilst in the Middle East archeologists appear to be uncovering old structures, nearer to home Hammer studios have been rebuilding old stories for modern audiences.
The rise, fall and rise of a Great British film studio
In the mid-1950s Hammer was primarily known as a studio making second feature Crime thrillers, with only a couple of forgettable science fiction efforts (Spaceways, The Four-Sided Triangle) under their belt. This changed with them acquiring the rights to adapt Nigel Kneale’s SF Horror TV serial The Quatermass Experiment.
Whilst many were skeptical of the changes made (including Kneale himself) the film was a big success and they further adapted both The Abominable Snowman and Quatermass 2. However, it is between these that The Curse of Frankenstein premiered and began the Hammer format as we know it.
In it they take the themes and general ideas of the book but are willing to go their own direction with the film itself. In doing so they created a unique gothic tale that manages to be true to the spirit of Mary Shelley’s books without being a simple retread of what came before. It also established the two great stars of Hammer, with Peter Cushing as the titular Frankenstein and Christopher Lee as his creation.
This formula was continued to even greater success with Dracula, with Cushing as Van Helsing and Lee as the titular count. It is a dark gothic take which really outshines any previous adaptation, whilst still being free enough to be entirely its own story. Compared to the standard big monster movies that we usually saw at the cinema in the late 50s, it was astounding.
After that the studio began to produce horror takes in the same mold with a reasonable degree of quality you could expect from each release.
The Damned is, I believe, the last Hammer film to be covered by The Journey, and there is good reason for that. The studio’s output since then has been mediocre at best. The Evil of Frankenstein and Curse of The Mummy’s Tomb were terrible sequels, Kiss of the Vampire was a forgettable attempt to do a new tale in the mold of Dracula. Worst of all, is She. An attempt to film new version of the H. Rider Haggard story that should absolutely have never seen the screen.
It would have been easy to think the studio would never recover from this and continue a downward spiral of subpar efforts. However, they have started this year with a brilliant pair of screamers.
The big selling point of Prince of Darkness is the return of Christopher Lee as Dracula. Whilst this is the third film in the series, the second film did not contain Lee at all, so this return 8 years later is a welcome one.
Knowing this anticipation Terence Fisher makes a clever trick of building up the audience’s anticipation.
Not quite Dracula turns up
One of the best is when we are given a full build up to what we believe is the reveal of Dracula waiting in the darkness, but it turns out to be his servant Klove, with Philip Latham given the outline of Lee’s Dracula from the first film.
This then elevates the scenes when Dracula finally appears halfway through the film, even then he is used sparingly and feels like a dangerous force of nature rather than Bela Lugosi’s evil count. Instead, he is silent, almost animalistic, and unbelievably powerful.
Dracula exerts his influence on Diana
One thing I struggle with is that I do not wish to spoil the film’s conclusion. But it is also one of the best parts of the story. So, I will just say that it makes fascinating use of the vampiric mythology and the character of Diana gets a wonderful moment that feels fully earned by the script.
It is not perfect though. It may seem like a small point, but the setup of it all does feel cliched, with the tourists finding a strange old dwelling and get caught up by the threatening denizens within. With the other ways the film goes in new directions, I wonder they could not have done something different?
Hammer has done vampires, werewolves, mummies and even a gorgon, so it was inevitable they would do their own zombie film. Of course, as is the way with this studio, they like to put their own twist on the theme.
Instead of the Caribbean, Plagueis set in Cornwall. As the title suggests, a mysterious illness is running rampage through a small town and the local Doctor cannot understand it. When he sends for Sir. James and Sylvia Forbes, they attempt to disinter their bodies but discovers the corpses are missing.
Cornered by zombies
Andre Morell and Diana Clare make a great father and daughter investigative team for this story. They manage to tread a careful line between displaying the warmth of their relationship without making it feel out of place in a gothic horror. Sylvia needs to be called out for being able to really drive the narrative along and being a fully rounded character, so often missing from women in horror.
In spite of it being a gothic period piece, it also feels very contemporary. Throughout the whole film the themes of class are front and center. From Claire trying to save a fox from the local hunt, right to mine workers being exploited at the end.
This should not be seen to mean that there are not any scares in here. In fact, there are some excellent scenes of terror. I would say it takes a gentler approach to horror than the creeping dread on display in Prince of Darkness, but it is rare to see a horror film succeed so well as both a piece of social commentary and deliver gothic scares.
Necessary drums?
There is the obvious question that must be raised, of the use of voodoo in this film and whether it is still appropriate to show it in this way. For me it is interestingly done as the threat is not from Haitian people but from a white person exploiting these traditions for his own unscrupulous ends. However, perhaps in future films it may be worth excluding these elements altogether? Just a thought.
Overall, this is a much deeper horror film than it first appears and a real jewel for the studio.
A solid four stars.
Hammering It Home
I believe these two pictures are among Hammer’s best output so far and definitely far ahead of what we have seen coming out over the past couple of years. Hopefully, this is a sign of what is to come soon.
The studio has already filmed two other originals for release later in the year, The Reptile and Rasputin, The Mad Monk, along with an adaptation of Norah Loft’s The Devil’s Own. If these match the quality of these two movies, the studio can be said to have had a spectacular return to form. I am looking forward to what we will see.
One final recommendation, if you are interested to know more about Hammer’s films, I would highly recommend this radio show, which gives great reviews and behind the scenes details on the studio’s output.
Across Britain, there has been a recent explosion of road signage. These are designed to establish safer traffic rules and to give people direction on how to use the area who would otherwise be unfamiliar. The one flaw with this is most people are confused as to what they mean.
No overtaking…or dual carriageway?
In a recent survey only 60 percent of road users knew a black and red car in red circle meant no overtaking, with others believing it meant things like dual carriageway or overtake on the inside.
No entry…or cross here?
Pedestrians do not fare much better. Only a small fraction knew that a white bar on a red circle means no entry, with many believing it meant something different, such as a pedestrian crossing.
This responses to the signage is similar to the relationship between science fiction readers and the new wave. For some they are stories full of meaningless symbols that go nowhere, for others it is an essential step in moving science fiction forward. And right at the centre of the new wave is Michael Moorcock.
Michael Moorcock at LonCon this year
In spite of being only 25 years old, Moorcock is one of the core figures in British science fiction. He previously edited both Tarzan Adventures and The Sexton Blake Library before taking over New Worlds magazine last year. For the last 5 years he has been a regular contributor to Carnell’s trio of magazines and has published books before such as The Stealer of Souls.
With Roberts & Vinter Ltd. taking over the magazine and wanting to launch their own paperback publishing arm, the way had been paved for an explosion of Moorcock books on to the market.
However, his output has been of variable quality, so I have decided to rank them from worst to best.
Moorcock is on record as a big fan of Edgar Rice Burroughs, stating one of the first books for adults he read was The Master Mind of Mars. So, it should be no surprise he would write his own version of the Barsoom stories. In these Michael Kane is an American physicist who is transported to Mars in the past and then goes through a series of swashbuckling adventures on the Red Planet.
From what I have heard, Moorcock sat down and wrote the entire trilogy over the course of the week and, unfortunately, it shows. They are horrendously overwritten. Just a sample passage:
His skin was dark, mottled blue. Like the folk of Varnal, he did not wear what we should think of as clothing. His body was a mass of padded leather armour and on his seemingly hairless head with a tough cap, also of padded leather but reinforced with steel.
His face was broad yet tapering, with slitted eyes and a great gash of a mouth that was open now in laughing anticipation of my rapid demise. A mouth full of black teeth, uneven and jagged. The ears were pointed and large sweeping back from the skull. The arms were bare save for wrist-guards, and strongly muscled on a fantastic scale. The fingers were covered – encrusted would be a better description – with crudely cut precious stones.
This level of description just goes on and on. There is also no real depth to these stories, just jumping from one encounter to another.
I suppose this may appeal to the Barsoom fans. But given how regularly Burroughs books are reprinted, why wouldn’t you just pick up the originals?
One star across the whole trilogy
4. The Best of New Worlds, Ed. by Michael Moorcock
Rather than a novel, this is an anthology he edited (although it does indeed include two of his own stories as should surprise no one). Unlike its title might suggest, this is not so much the best across all of New Worlds' history; rather, it acts as a comparative collection, with 6 from the end of the 50s and 9 from around the recent handover between Carnell and Moorcock’s editorship (3 from the former, 6 from the latter).
As such, what it really provides for an interesting look at how New Worlds has changed over time and the significant difference between James White’s Sector General tales and Hilary Bailey’s The Fall of Frenchy Steiner. Whilst not the best stories themselves it is an interesting concept, nonetheless.
This collects the remaining four Elric stories from Science Fantasy, meaning between this and The Stealer of Souls you can now own almost the entire Elric saga (the final story published in Fantastic is available in the Carnell anthology Weird Shadows from Beyond, published by Corgi). In these final tales we get the albino Elric's battles against the forces of chaos, as order and chaos battle for domination of the world.
The ideas in Stormbringer are not new and there are solid shades of Howard, Tolkien, and Anderson throughout. A couple of things raise the stories up. Firstly, here Moorcock manages to make his descriptive style evocative without becoming stodgy, really elevating the mood. Secondly, there is the cosmic level these stories go to. More than any other fantasy story we get a sense of scale I have yet to see achieved, reminding me more of Star Maker than Conan.
In the underground city of Switzerland, elections for the solar government are taking place. Yet, in the lower levels a prophet known as The Fireclown is preaching a return to nature. Is he mad, a danger to mankind, or its saviour?
There is definitely something in the air right now with political distrust and the desire for a strange outsider to save us. Maybe it is the political scandals that have been emerging with increasing frequency. Maybe it is the emergence of demagogues like Barry Goldwater. Whatever the reason, this is reminiscent of Reynolds’ Of Godlike Power and Ellison’s Repent Harlequin…
However, Moorcock goes in his own direction with this idea, adding political intrigue, weird philosophy, and a general distrust of everyone in authority. Graham Hall dismissed this as hack writing. If so, then I am happy to see Moorcock continue to hack away.
This is fixed up from two tales from the end of Science Fiction Adventures, Carnell’s magazine for longer fiction. In fact, the second half appeared in the final ever issue of that great publication. In this story the whole of reality is at threat of collapse and is up to the psychic Renark to seek out the problem. He travels to the Sundered Worlds, a system outside the normal rule of time and space, and must fight to save humanity.
When I think of Moorcock I think of the weird and conceptual, and this is certainly that. This story is frenetically paced, throwing you through multiple ideas, challenges, and worlds, not allowing you to catch your breath. But I never felt myself being let down or confused by any of it. Instead I loved the intense journey I was on. It is not even one I can easily summarise; it has to be experienced.
This is going to be a controversial choice for my favourite of his works as I have heard it loathed by some as obscure and incoherent, but I consider it to instead be astounding and challenging. An amazing trip to go on.
Five Stars
More Moorcock Please!
Whilst his work is not always to be my tastes, when he is willing to try to be ambitious, this young talent is able to create some truly astounding works that may well be considered future classics. With these writings, along with his editorship of New Worlds, Moorcock seems to be pushing science fiction in an interesting direction. And I look forward to what he puts out in the future.
But, if you wouldn’t mind, Michael, no more Kane of Mars stories…
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It may be a product of my age but I think cinema peaked in the early fifties, when I was just exiting my teenage years. Back then studios were willing to put out quiet meditative films. Today it is hard to see anyone making films like Harvey, The Day the Earth Stood Still or The Bishop’s Wife.
Then came the rise of television and the Cecil B. DeMille response. Since The Greatest Show On Earth, most science fiction and fantasy cinema seems to have moved away from doing anything deep or meaningful in favour of a spectacle of flashy explosions. The closest we have got are probably the bomb films like Dr. Strangelove or The Bedford Incident, which are only science fiction by the tiniest margin.
As such, when a good friend of mine got tickets to the Ninth London Film Festival, I wanted to see if there was anything I could see that would convince me that cinema still had the power to be a great speculative medium. Thankfully two European Films were able to do just that.
Alphaville: A Strange Case of Lemmy Caution
Jean Luc-Godard seems an odd choice to be doing science fiction, with his previous work always being much more centred in the real-world. I am primarily familiar with him from his crime thrillers, the très chic Breathless and his tongue-in-cheek The Outsiders, which speak to someone of a high cultural awareness but with little interest in the speculative side of film making.
“Everything weird is normal in this damn town!”
As Alphaville starts, it seems like it could be a standard spy thriller. Lemmy Caution arrives in Alphaville and checks into the hotel under a false name, claiming to be a journalist from the outer countries. The woman in the hotel room offers to sleep with him but he refuses. A man tries to kill him but he sees him off. So far, so Danger Man. Then things start to get stranger…
First off, the woman reveals herself to be a level-three seductress. We then just get causally dropped in:
Something was definitely awry in this galaxy’s capital.
Putting us straight into the science-fictional realm but said in a way that we might expect Bogart to reference New York or LA.
Lemmy receives a call telling him a Natacha Von Braun is here to be of service to him. Pulling out two photos we see one of them has written on the back:
Professor Leonard Von Braun inventor of the death ray and Alpha Rays. Must be brought in alive. Must be killed.
And a second photo is of a Henry Dickson with an address attached. He gets Natascha (Leonard’s daughter) to take him to Alex’s address
Lemmy finds him at The Red Star Hotel. Henry explains that people who cannot adapt to Alphaville are killed by the authorities or kill themselves. Enquiring about Alpha 60, we learn it is a supercomputer but incredibly more advanced governing Alphaville entirely by logic. Finally, we learn Leonard Von Braun was formerly an agent like Dickson and Caution, but he is now a “slave to the logic”.
Whilst a huge amount of heavy lifting is done by this conversation, it doesn’t feel like we are being spoonfed, rather just like two agents talking to each other. We also get put in the mind of 30s and 40s noir with both the intense dialogue and the agents having names from media of the period.
Going forward from here, it is largely a battle of identities between Leonard’s vision of a completely computerized society, Lemmy’s romantic vision of the importance of art and freedom, and Natascha somewhere between the two. In the end Lemmy kills Leonard, disrupts the control of Alpha 60, and helps Natascha leave Alphaville, hoping that it can become a happy place once again.
“Sometimes reality can be too complex to be conveyed by the spoken word”
Writing this synopsis doesn’t really do justice to this film. It could easily have ended up as a forgettable sub-Orwellian thriller, but instead is more like seeing Orson Welles adapt a Philip K. Dick Novel. There are a few reasons for this:
Eddie Constantine is excellent as a cynical hard-edged agent. He is angry at the injustice around him and unwilling to play by the rules of Alphaville. He is very much playing by Raymond Chandler’s much quoted maxim:
…down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean
But then he is also both our entry point into our world and the mouthpiece for the idea that art and love are more important than technological progress and logic.
Now there are many science fiction stories at the moment on the theme of the danger of a highly computerized society. But Godard manages to strike the balance well enough that you can treat it as being critique of a number of areas. Specificity of allegory can be a curse, as there is a tendency to see the story as just a mystery to be solved. By keeping it wide Godard allows for multiple interpretations of the piece.
Finally, I have to mention Godard’s direction which manages to create an amazing sense of unease throughout. I believe this is by constantly counterpointing everything we see to balance between the familiar and the strange. The music played often being the opposite of the mood of the scene we are watching, characters shake their head for yes and nod for no, and the we see technology that is both contemporary and futuristic side-by-side.
If I have one critique of this film, it is that most of the women are treated like possessions. However, as this is so literal, with women being in glass cabinets or having catalogue numbers shown I feel this is a definite attempt at satire.
I would give this a full five stars and also be willing to say it is my favourite science fiction film I have ever seen.
The other film I saw was one that may well be that in the realm of fantasy.
The Saragossa Manuscript
Unlike Godard I am completely unfamiliar with Wojeich Has’s work, nor do think have I seen a Polish film before. However, this is film impressed me greatly with its richness and complexity. I will definitely be looking out for others from Has in future.
"I don’t know where reality ends and fantasy begins"
During the Peninsular War two soldiers find a book that the Captain says it is about his grandfather, Count Alfonse Ollavedez.
Ollavdez is finds an abandoned inn, Venta Queneda and is brought to a palace in the mountains. In the cave he meets two Tunisian princesses, who claim to be his cousins. They wish to marry him but only if he agrees to convert. After drinking from a skull chalice he awakes outside. Ollavdez tries to go to the palace again but only finds a small cave filled with bones and rats.
Riding on, he then comes to a small chapel with a hermit. Ollavdez tells how his father met his mother in these mountains. We also meet Pacheco who tells of a similar experience to Ollavdez’s at Venta Queneda.
After a night in the chapel, Ollavdez travels on but is arrested by the Inquisition. As he is being tortured, the princesses come to rescue him and they all flee back to the palace. The princesses then ask him to take their throne but a Sheik enters and he says he will kill him soon, telling him to once more drink from the skull chalice. Again, Ollavdez finds himself outside, however a Kabbalist is also there.
In order to avoid the inquisition, the Kabbalist says they should all head to his castle nearby.
That is where part one leaves off. Whilst this first half feels like Gawain and The Green Knight, the second half is closer to a Shakespearean comedy.
"Frasquetta told her story to Busqueros. He told it Lopez Soarez, who told it to Senor Avadoro. It’s crazy."
At the castle, Ollavdez looks through the library and finds a book illustrating the princesses (the same illustrations we saw in the original frame). Separately the Kabbalist is annoyed the book has been left open and worries if Ollavdez has read to the end, it will all be meaningless.
Then, a group of travellers arrive, led by Avedoro. His very intricate story will make up most of the second half:
It primarily concerns Lopez Soarez who is in love with Inez Moro, the daughter of a banker whom his father has an intense rivalry with. His friend Busqueros tries to help him out first by telling the story of Frasquetto whose, husband has her lover killed, and who she then attempts to scare to death until he is killed by a man hired by her lover before his death.
Next he attempts to sneak him in her window but instead he finds the wrong window and convinces an old cavalier he is being haunted by a ghost. Finally, when Lope Soarez comes to town they manage to engineer a situation which causes his father to forgive him and settle the disagreement with the Moro family.
Avedoro concludes his tale and The Kabbalist tells Ollavdez there are important matters he must attend to and so he rides out. Ollavdez follows a rider in black, but ends up back at Venta Queneda again.
Inside the place he finds the princesses and the Sheik. The Sheik reveals he was disguised as the hermit before but is actually the family Sheik. The princesses are pregnant with his children and everything he experienced was a test to see if the last male descendent of the line was worthy.
He drinks from the skull chalice one final time and awakes the book from the Kabbalist’s library. Back in a village, Olavdez writes his tale in the front of the book. However, he sees the princesses again out of the window in a mystical position summoning him.
In triumph he throws the book away (leaving it in the inn where it is found at the start) and rides back to the mountains once more.
“When a decent man is telling you a fascinating story you shouldn’t interrupt”
As you can probably tell this film is long and very complicated. Yet it never feels boring or contrived. Instead it is like an intricate watch put together in front of you. Even the depth of frame and questions of unreliable narratives never get confusing.
You could read the truth of the story in multiple ways because we do not truly know what happened. It could all have been Ollavdez’s dream from reading a book, it could be a plot engineered by The Sheikh, they could be evil spirits tempting him, perhaps he himself died and is in purgatory, or maybe he is just a Baron Munchausen teller of tall tales?
But it does not matter really as they are all interesting stories that add something to the narrative. Even Pacheco’s tale which we are explicitly told is untrue and does not seem to match the other facts as we know them. But it is still a great horror story that helps mirror Ollavdez’s experience and adds peril to the main tale.
Another element that has to be mentioned is the cinematography throughout the film is truly beautiful and I could have simply filled this review with hundreds of stunning photos and arresting images. Yet unlike other directors, such as Fellini, Has does not make it feel like he is doing so just in order to show his skill but to really tell a story and create an atmosphere.
The sense of the uncanny in this is incredible. During some scenes I was genuinely unnerved and unsure what was real. I don’t tend to be afraid in horror films but ideas about life and death, or the nature of reality are areas where I can encounter existential terror.
The soundtrack is also a really effective tool for displaying mood and period, helping us to be both reminded of where we currently are in the narrative and to move between humour and terror quickly.
This is truly one of the most literary films I have watched and an amazing work of fantasy. Five Stars.
The Future of fantastic cinema?
Going into the festival I worried that we would never see great speculative material on the silver screen again. Coming out of it I am very optimistic for what the future may hold.
I am not sure either of these are likely to appeal to a mass audience but they may well influence other film makers who can make interesting pieces. I hope so as these pictures show that the potential of great cinema is still alive.
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We are now well into the autumn here in Britain. Leaves are turning brown; the nights are getting colder and the shops are getting supplies in for Guy Fawkes Day.
Old Cartoon of Guy Fawkes Day
For those unfamiliar with the British tradition, we celebrate the foiling of a 17th century plot to blow up the king and parliament. The festival is not without controversy, where in some place effigies of the Pope are still burned. Debates are often had in my family, both from the rightness of the festival and those members who find the fireworks bring back terrible memories of the blitz.
As we are preparing to celebrate a 360-year-old event, the future is slowly coming into our everyday lives. A woman in New York has been charged with traffic offences through a computer program. Whilst in Britain an official recommendation has been made for use of more audiovisual equipment in higher education.
This can also be seen in our entertainment this Autumn. On TV we not just the return of Doctor Who but the exquisite new shows Out of the Unknown and Thunderbirds. In the cinemas we have two excellent scientific disaster films, The Crack in the World and The Bedford Incident. On the book front, I am looking forward to the upcoming releases of John Brunner’s The Squares of the City and Thomas M. Disch’s Genocides.
There is one pleasure I have not mentioned before. That of going down to my local corner shop and picking up the latest British comic books.
Comics do not get anywhere near the praise that science fiction in other media does. In an interview before his passing, C. S. Lewis said:
One thing that weighs against us heavily is the horrible shadow of comics.
However, I contend they are an important part of the field and Britain is producing some of the best right now.
Pre-War Origins
Whilst satirical cartoons have been around as long as printing presses have been setup in Britain and newspaper strips and text comic publications have been around since the 19th century, the story of comic books as we know them today came about over the last few decades.
Earlier this century, the most popular reading material for juvenile boys and girls were story papers. These were low cost productions featuring illustrated text stories, typically in the bent of Victorian adventures.
The Union Jack story paper featuring the extremely popular Sexton Blake.
At the same time there were a few successful annuals published of characters who appeared in newspaper strips, such as Daily Express’ Rupert Bear.
The first Rupert book from 1936
Dundee based publisher D. C. Thompson combined these two ideas together and began producing what we would now see as the typical British humor comic book. With single- or double-page comedic stories, like watching a satirical sketch show. Whilst the story papers tended to be upper class adventure stories, these new comic books had a more anarchic and working class bent.
First issue of The Dandy, beginning DC Thompson’s foray into comic books..
However, with the advent of World War 2 and the ensuing paper shortage many story papers and comics ceased publication. Those comics that did survive, such as The Dandy and The Beano, remain incredibly popular today. Also, some of the pre-war story papers continue to be published, such as Boy’s Own Paper.
The June issue of Boy’s Own Paper
Press Outrage and Religious Revival
Just as in America, the 50s represented a drastic change in the comics market due to a panic over their corrupting influence on children. Apparently arriving as ballast on ships, US comics began to arrive in Britain after the war. These included horror and crime comics which resulted in a heavy backlash against a whole range of imported comics.
A “morally corrupting” issue of Captain Marvel sent to the government for review
Interestingly, this panic was one that seemed to be supported by all regions of society. Conservatives were appalled by their content, liberal intellectuals considered them trash not worth defending and communists saw them as American cultural imperialism. The media published lurid stories blaming comics for any act of delinquency and the teacher’s unions pushed the government to act.
There are two important results for us. Firstly, parliament passed the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act, outlawing picture stories that may corrupt a young person. Even though no one is yet to be prosecuted under this, it is still on the books and it (along with general import restrictions) has severely curtailed the number of imported comics to the UK.
Secondly, was the establishing of an alternative. Rev. Morris was an Anglican vicar running the Christian magazine, The Anvil. Seeing the American comic books coming in he was apparently impressed with the quality of the artwork but disgusted by the content. He had already been producing a small amount of comic strips with artist Frank Hampson, so together they launched Eagle.
This followed the anthology format of DC Thompson comics but with a few notable differences. Firstly, the strips tend to be weekly serializations with some stories continuing for almost an entire year, allowing for much more content and depth. Secondly, the content a mix of different genres. The comics of the first issue consisted of:
• Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future – Science Fiction
• The Adventures of P.C. 49 – Police drama
• Captain Pugwash – Humorous pirate stories
• Professor Brittain Explains – Science fact
• Seth and Shorty – Western
• Skippy the Kangaroo – Humorous big game hunter stories
• Heroes of the Clouds – History
• Discovering the Countryside – Science Fact
• Rob Conway – Contemporary Adventure
• The Adventurer – Historical Christian adventure
Finally, issues of Eagle also contain text stories, sometimes serializing memoirs of well-known figures such as Winston Churchill. This last point has helped them gain more acceptance than the longstanding humor comics.
This mold Eagle has established is the style of most comic books today. Probably the only major change recently is increased length, as many have expanded from 18 pages to 40, allowing for a wider range of content.
Not So Heroic
Unlike in America, superheroes are not common. The biggest, Marvelman (an imitation of Captain Marvel), ceased publication in 1963.
The final issue of Marvelman
Probably the closest is Garth (Daily Mirror) a super-strong adventurer whose tales tend towards the cosmic:
His stories have a John Carter or Flash Gordon feel and will probably appeal to fans of pulpy adventures.
There is one other interesting newer addition in this category, The Spider (Lion). A kind reserve Batman, he is a supervillain who uses his technical skill and intelligence to commit daring crimes:
What I like about this comic is the balance it strikes between us being horrified by his actions and still rooting for him to carry out these deeds. Highly recommended.
Journey into Space
Right from the cover of the first issue of Eagle, space adventures have been central to British comics. Dan Dare continues to be the most popular of these stories in his war against The Mekon and other space threats.
The Daleks have become a pop culture phenomenon in Britain so it seems inevitable they would get their own comic. However, splitting them off from The Doctor (who gets his own adventures in TV Comic), has created a great opportunity to explore them in more depth.
In the TV Century 21 strip the Daleks we get to see are still ruthless and evil but instead of facing off against our noble time travelers they often face off against other despicable races and are more than happy to use genocide to fulfil their ends.
The golden dalek emperor celebrating planetary destruction
What we are left with is a fascinatingly nihilistic strip that suggests that in the daleks’ part of the universe there is no place for kindness. It is only about victory by any means.
The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire (Ranger) has only just started but already looks to be an incredibly ambitious space epic. After a spacecraft crashes on Earth, Professor Richard Haddon spends his life trying to translate their language and discovers the entire history of their civilization.
This only began last month but we have already seen the Vorgs and their leader Trigo trying to build a city but dealing with the threat of the aggressive Loka:
And seems to be setting up for a grand tale of civilizations that could be on par with Asimov's Foundation. I am eagerly awaiting future instalments.
Whilst space stories may be essential to British comics, spy stories, as with every other medium, are appearing more and more.
Spies in disguise
Probably the most beloved comics today are the newspaper strip adventures of James Bond and Modesty Blaise.
But two of the best British science fiction comic strips are also spy tales.
Vic Gunn (Lion) tells the story of an alternative Britain where Emperor Rudolph has taken over as dictator of Britain and agent Gunn leads the resistance. This year’s main event has been The Battle for Liverpool
Here a resistance cell has emerged in Liverpool. Gunn is determined to make it a free city, Rudolph is determined to crush the resistance by any means necessary.
What I most appreciate is how serialized it is. Rather than Gunn simply winning week to week, the story started with Rudolph’s plan to takeover and has been a continuing battle between the two, with Rudolph winning so far more often than Gunn.
On a different note we have Lady Penelope (TV Century 21). Before appearing in Thunderbirds, she had her own strip with her and Parker’s adventures to bring down villainous threats to the future world.
What I like most about this strip are the unusual characters of Penelope and Parker. Lady Penelope is as competent as anyone in The Avengers but is unapologetically feminine and charming. Parker, on the other hand, is very much a working-class hero, a burglar who speaks in a cockney dialect which is a distinct contrast to the upper crust figures that dominate spy literature.
High Adventure
Space and spy stories are not the only kind of adventure strips that may be of interest to SFF readers.
I love a touch of Sword and Sorcery, so Maroc The Mighty (Lion) appeals to me.
John Maroc is a 13th Century Crusader in possession of The Hand of Zar, a magic amulet that gives him superhuman strength. He tries to travel back to England, righting wrongs along the way.
Although the stories will have the irritating tendency to contrive reason why The Hand will not work, they are still fun adventure stories akin to ITC’s The Adventures of Sir Lancelot.
On a more science fictional note, we have The Human Guinea Pig (Eagle). Mike Lane acts as a tester for Prof. Lively’s inventions which will inevitably have terrible results. Such as a formula that reverses evolution:
The best part is the relationship between Lane and Lively. Despite the trials they go through they remain good colleagues and are always willing to work together for scientific solutions to the problems.
Fuzzy Little Satire
One final strip I want to spotlight is Flook (Daily Mail). This newspaper strip by two jazz musicians at may seem to have little to interest the SFF fan, being the adventures of a little boy and his furry friend Flook. However, the contents of it are a sharp satire on contemporary Britain and worth everyone's while.
A good recent example is Flook having to deal with racist attacks with the Klan even trying to kill him and needing to use magic to outsmart them.
There is an incredible skill on display balancing the darkness of the material with clever humor and a lightness of touch that make it something outstanding.
In Conclusion
These are only a sample of the great comics available in the British market right now. I did not get to touch on the interconnected Gerry Anderson universe, The Iron Man (not the Marvel character), The Toys of Doom or Space Cadet.
My best advice? Go to your local corner shop and pick-up a few comic books that look to have a more serious bent. Alternatively, look at the strips in one of tabloids. There is such a variety in each I am sure you will find something to enjoy.
![[May 6, 1966] Blaise-ing Wreckage (<i>Modesty Blaise</i>)](http://galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/MB16.jpg)
![[April 14, 1966] A New & Clear Bombshell (<i>The War Game</i>)](http://galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/War-Game-1a.jpg)
![[March 20, 1966] Two of A Kind (March Galactoscope #2)](http://galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Books.jpg)
![[March 16, 1966] Sometimes Older is not Better (<i>Mystery and Imagination</i>)](http://galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/MI-Titles-672x372.jpg)
![[January 18, 1966] New Discoveries of the Old (<i>Out of the Unknown</i>)](http://galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Out-of-the-Unknown-Titles.jpg)
![[January 14, 1966] An Excellent Set of Hammers (<i>Dracula Prince of Darkness & Plague of the Zombies</i>)](http://galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Hammer-Titles.jpg)
![[December 4, 1965] A Sign of the Times (Michael Moorcock’s Books of 1965)](http://galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Michael-Moorcock-672x372.jpg)
![[November 28, 1965] A Fantastic European Duo (<i>Alphaville & The Saragossa Manuscript</i>)](http://galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/London-Film-Festival.jpg)
![[October 20, 1965] The Wonderful Shadow (A British Comics Overview)](http://galacticjourney.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Comics-Cover-Image-672x372.jpg)
