Goodbye, City Life!

Andrew doesn't live here anymore. He packed up his stuff and moved to:

http://www.armagideon-time.com/

So, like, update your bookmarks and feeds and links and stuff, okay?

and we can't build our dreams

(from Captain Marvel Adventures #113; October 1950)
B.E.F. - Suspicious Minds (from Music of Quality and Distinction, Vol. 1, 1982; collected on The Best of B.E.F. 2002) - In which the Ware and Marsh production team (previously of the Human League, and the heart of Heaven 17) reimagine one of The King's finest works with the help of tarnished glam idol, Gary Glitter. ("Because I love you too much, baby..." Major contextual eeeeew, there.)

"We can't go on together with suspicious minds." Too true, which is why there are major developments in the pipeline concerning Armagideon Time.

Stay tuned.

you treat me like a dog

(from The Witching Hour #49; December 1974)
Duke, the Action Dog!

When some woefully unprepared suburban adventures try to scale the slopes of Mt. Avalanche in mid-January....Duke is there!

When Mommy is sleeping off a hangover doesn't notice little Timmy's excursion into the abandoned Black Lung Mine...Duke is there!

When the enemies of Freedom^TM need a little impromptu menace to the genitalia to keep them in line...Duke is there! (Though he will deny any knowledge of it at the court martial proceedings.)

When your fancy dinner party is regrettably free of submissive urination incidents...Duke is there!

Duke's life may seem like a charmed one to many of you, what with the action, adventure, cool gadgets, and all. He even had his own secret headquarters (sold separately) kitted out with a periscope and the finest computer technology the punchcard and tape drive era had to offer.

While that's certainly a step up from usual makeshift lair under far end of the dining room table (strewed with cat food cans and fast food wrappers stolen from the trash, of course), all the fancy gear and accessories were merely futile attempts to fill the gaping void in Duke's inner being.

Duke wants YOU to be his MASTER...because without your firm guiding hand, Duke's life would be just an endless sea of emptiness and self-doubt, devoid of any meaning or purpose. He's a typical canine in that regard.

Dark ruminations about forgotten playthings aside, I wonder if it isn't time to revisit the "heroic pup as toy franchise" model, only with a 21th Century spin. My proposal has been prepared and is currently awaiting approval from the relevant powers that be...

The advances in electronics and toy design over the past three and a half decades mean that the Oscar the Pughuahua toy will include a voice activation feature, where certain key words and phrases will cause him shake off his inertial topor and prance around the house on little chicken legs. In case you were curious, those phrases will be "out," "mashed potato," "beef jerky," "go to bed?" and "donut." And, yes, there will be a variety of accessories (sold separately, of course).

Dr. Alimantado - Tribute to the Duke (from Best Dressed Chicken in Town, 1978) - When he wasn't zipping over chasms or hauling around his Rescue Rickshaw^TM, the Action Dog spent his downtime napping in front of the space heater in his secret HQ and dreaming to the sweet sounds of well-crafted reggae.

Depeche Mode - Master and Servant (from Some Great Reward, 1984) - Love in the Age of Thatcher.

nothing you can touch

Find a gap in the market and fill it, preferably in a more efficient manner than your competitors can manage.

That axiom might seem straightforward enough, but it can be highly problematic when applied to industrial capitalism's economies of scale. While you might make terrific profits upon unleashing a new must-have commodity, there comes a point where sales stagnate in the face of market saturation, and demand based on consumption and attrition falls well short of your corporate target.

If you have a stove in your home, you're not going to buy another unless it stops working somewhere down the line. Perfectly logical....until you consider that economy is driven by consumption, or more accurately the assumption of ever-escalating rates of consumption. Zero sum is a heretical concept and plateaus are where the losers go to die from falling share prices.

This is why there is such a thing as marketing. Not marketing in the simple sense of letting potential customers know what you're offering and where to obtain it, but marketing in the high-powered, arm-twisting sense of creating urgent demands where they wouldn't otherwise exist. There are many tools in the overarching arsenal -- such planned obsolescence (which has worked so well for the automotive industry and -- hahahaha -- BluRay), presenting minor tweaks as essential features (Hello, consumer electronics biz!), and broadening the perceived functionality of a product in a way that will convince folks to buy even more of it.

That last one is an especially favored tactic of the fine folks in the food industry. These purveyors of processed palate pleasers have never passed up a chance to turn an iffy medical study into a full court "this shit essential for your health" press or an opportunity to present some product-intensive nightmare as the cutting edge of suburban ranch home cuisine...

...which brings us to this ad from the late 1970's:

Yep, that's right. Miracle Whip Popsicles.

I am a man who likes his mayonnaise (with which Miracle Whip has a tenuous and contentious familial relationship). That mix of egg white, oil, and vinegar adds just the right tangy zing to a chicken or turkey sandwich, and when I was a wee lad, my favorite snack was mayo smeared on a slice of Wonder Bread. (Don't judge until you've walked a mile in my boots, 'kay?) I also know people who use mayo or Miracle Whip in less orthodox culinary ways, like as a dessert garnish.

That said, I can't imagine what it would be like to snack on a frozen block of mayo substitute crammed with frozen strawberries and mini marshmallows. I definitely do not want to imagine how such an unintuitive concoction would handle the long (or maybe not so long) trip through one's gastrointestinal tract.

I want to assume the strawberries would mellow the oil-vinegar melange, but given that someone thought that faux mayo-sicles would appeal to the masses, I can't assume anything. To paraphrase Bruno Bettelheim, "the cultural history of the 1970's is a nightmare from which we have just begun to awaken."

Psychedelic Furs - Pretty in Pink (from Talk Talk Talk, 1981) - The 80's, however, were pretty cool once you got past the rise of Big Conservatism and the constant fear of nuclear armageddon. The music was certainly better, at least during the first half of the decade.

(Note: I must confess a certain nervousness about composing today's post, as there is evidence that making fun of misguided foodstuffs from previous decades can turn a person into an unfunny, self-righteous, batshit foaming-at-the-mouth right-wing ideologue. I'm trusting that you, my dear readers, will hold an intervention should I start to succumb to that malady.)

parade of sub-stellar objects

Oh, how I miss those comics anthology series of yesteryear.

When I first started collecting comics, many moons ago, no trip to the flea market quarter bins (which is where the bulk of my childhood collection came from) was complete without an issue or three of Marvel Premiere, Marvel Spotlight, Marvel Presents, or any of the reprint-heavy "100 Page Giant" books DC put out in the early 1970's. This was before peer and industry pressure imprinted themselves on my tastes, and the criteria for selecting which comics to buy was based entirely on my own childhood whims. Thus my formative comics-reading years featured a parade of of d-list (or lower) characters...and as the twig is bent, the tree is inclined.

That the stories were utter crap for the most part didn't matter as much as the gnostic aspect of being the kid who eschewed Superman (boring) or Batman (tired) in favor of an optimistically-branded "sensational new character find of 197x" or a back-bencher given some solo face time. There's something magical about that mix of youthful enthusiasm and gullibility, where you're eight years old and totally jazzed about owning the first appearance of 3-D Man or The Torpedo. While there's always a chance that such affections can calcify into an unfortunate state of fan-entitlement and delusions of "ownership," that sincere fascination with the excitingly stupid and absurd is fandom's unpolluted state of grace.

It's not about collectability, speculation, or gratifying the yearnings for vicarious bad-assery -- it's about enjoying entertaining nonsense for its own glorious sake.

Comics publishing has changed since then, and despite calls from the usual armchair quarterbacks, the anthology format is a non-starter in the current evironment. Readership has contracted across the board, and publishers have retreated to the security of proven franchises. The days when straight-ticket Marvel or DC buyers could float a solo appearance by Woodgod or Monark Starstalker are unquestionably over...if it was even feasible to begin with. I didn't realize it back then, but the quarter bins I dug through in the early 1980's were filled with the previous decade's unsold stock.

The growing shift toward trades as long-term revenue generators has effective killed the incentive to publish one-off slush pile stories featuring obscure characters. If a franchise is deemed strong enough to merit publication, prevailing wisdom demands going with either a prestige format one-shot or a limited or ongoing series better suited for publishing in collected format.

While it saddens me that scattershot risk-taking wide-tapestry approach of thirty years ago has gone the way of the dodo, it is difficult enough these days to sustain sales on proven properties. Quality titles outside the major franchise boundaries (Manhunter, Blue Beetle, etc.) are lucky if they clear the two-year hurdle before their cancellation is inevitably announced.

Sure the next generation of pre-adolescent quarter bin divers won't have the joy of discovering the 21st Century's answer to Woodgod, but then again, what kid reads superhero comics these days?

The Innsmen - Things Are Different Now (from a 1967 single; collected on Green Crystal Ties Vol. 8, 1998) - Here's another fine piece of midwestern garage rock, this time from a Michigan outfit unafraid of letting the bassline call the plays.

your kiss is not on the current agenda

This man is clearly a visitor from an alternate universe.
Things that need doing, abridged version:

- get Super Lumina's brake pads replaced
- scale the cherry tree out back and unhook the windchimes before the bad weather starts
- clean off and store the patio furniture
- figure out what I'm going to do with pronounced WOO-BIN
- get my Christmas shopping sorted out before things go crazy
- migrate Armagideon Time to a Wordpress setup on my own webhost
- dig out the sumacs that have snuck their way into the raspberry brambles
- get a haircut
- mail out some packages to my friends
- complete the articles I promised for other sites
- finish sorting and cataloging my popcult archives
- quit kidding myself that making lists will aid me in getting any of the above items done

The Blue Things - You Can't Say We Never Tried (from The Blue Things Story, 1993) - I suppose it depends of what you definition of "tried" is. Mine might be a little more generous than most, and encompasses those transitory flashes of obligation I feel while playing videogames or otherwise procrastinating.

Not that effort automatically equals success, as Kansas's The Blue Things (later "The Bluethings") discovered when their rather nice Byrdsean sound failed to propel the outfit out of the midwestern regional market. Oh, well, there are worse fates than being a well-regarded 1960's garage rock obscurity.

to the vanquished, the spoils

Combining historical accuracy with cultural sensitivity!
Here is the scenario:

Your side has just been decisively defeated by the opposition. While the rout can be credited in part to the superior leadership, organization, and tactics of the enemy, the unfortunate (but entirely forseeable) consequences of your side's ideological and policy decisions were also a major factor.

Even after launching every weapon in your arsenal and mobilizing your most loyal and reliable ground forces, you had to fight (and lose) on fronts that you hadn't even anticipated from the outset.

So, faced with such a colossal rebuke of your strategy, tactics, and global vision, do you:

1. Humbly reflect on the errors in judgement that caused your loss and recalibrate your focus?

2. Brazenly attempt to dictate terms to the victorious side while refusing to acknowledge the reasons for your defeat?

If you answered "2," you could have a great future ahead of you as a right-wing op-ed columnist.

Manual Scan - American Way (from a 1982 single; collected on This Is Mod v.6: The United States of Mod, 1999) - "Never apologize. It's a sign of weakness." If there's one thing I've learned as an American, it's that sociopathy and arrogance are more socially acceptable behaviors than signs of "weakness" are.

Don't let the compliation title fool you -- this cut may be mod revival by association, but the postpunk influences (Gang of Four and Pylon, specifically) are unmistakable.

you always leave a stain

I've made many bad decisions in my life (usually involving proper dental care), but the one I'm currently regretting most was choosing to include this bit of music hall fare repurposed as British Invasion pop...

Herman's Hermits - I'm Henry VIII, I Am (from The Very Best of Herman's Hermits, 2001)

...on a three-disc compilation of 50's and 60's tunes I assembled for Maura a few years back. I found the set up in the attic when I was looking for our copy of Total Coelo's greatest hits . Maura, who is going through an oldies phase at the moment, had gotten sick of Pandora's unusual definition of the genre (REO Speedwagon? Journey? Really?) brought the set into our shared office for workday listening.

It was fine for the first week. When I burned the discs, I slipped in some personal selections amidst Maura's requests, which meant regular doses of Eddie Cochran and other rockabilly artists to balance out the cheesier stuff. Even the shallow hippie twaddle of Friend & Lover's "Reach Out in the Darkness" becomes tolerable when followed up with "Twenty Flight Rock," but there is no mitigating the damage the trauma caused by repeated listenings of that Herman's Hermits track.

It is an earworm of the most insidious order, burrowing deep into the mnemonic pathways and lodging itself as firmly as a deer tick. It haunts both my waking hours and my dreams, its infectious refrain surfaces unbidden during moments of weakness.

Nothing in my archives has been able to exorcise this pop demon. The best I've been able to manage are brief periods of remission achieved through liberal doses of the most potent concoctions in my musical pharmacy -- songs like this incredible slice of New Orleans punk rock...

The Manic Depressives - Going Out With the In Crowd (from the 1980 Silence on the Radio EP)

It's a fleeting, bittersweet respite, but it will suffice for now.

take a look at this from top to bottom

A friend pointed this site out to me the other day, with the comment that I "shoulda done this." I get respectable number of emails every day hyping and promoting some band or another. Some are slick PR pieces, complete with attached digital presskits, whipped up by professional promoters. Others are sent directly from the bands themselves. Even though most of the material really isn't to my tastes or not easily contextualized as an annotation to an old Captain Marvel story, it's flattering to be noticed...though given recent events, maybe willful obscurity is a wiser course of action.

In any case, I've never been able to bring myself to publicly pillory any of these desperate contenders for my listening attention, no matter how lousy the music or how overblown the hype. (Well, except for that one time where I redacted the names of the parties involved.) As I said then, and many times before, I am not an arbiter of public taste. Do you really need me to tell you that jam bands are antithesis of all that is good and decent?

This is all ground I've covered before, except for one enigma which I finally believe I have resolved. An astonishing number of the acts represented in the promotional emails hew very close to the AOR template established by the Dave Matthews Band/Maroon 5/circa 1996 Goo Goo Dolls. I find that style of music to be aggressively bland and unlistenable in the extreme, but that's beside the point. What baffled me was that someone would be actively and unironically pimping the spiritual heirs of Phil Collins and Michael McDonald to the hipster-heavy music blogging scene. Or that anyone would earnestly hitch their wagons to that particular tired genre star in the year 2008 in the first place.

It eventually dawned on me that what I was seeing were working bands, ambitious lads and lasses with residencies at the local college bar or crab shack, seeking to crack into the big time. It's an understandable dream, but while their inoffensive sound might go well with a plate of softshells, a bottle of microbrew, and some inane conversation, it doesn't carry well to the world outside the realm of soft rock radio.

It's like choosing practical over theoretical study -- the former will likely net you steady work, but the latter offers the better chance of making a massive breakthough and universal acclaim. There is no shame in choosing either path, but transitioning between the two can be difficult. Easier, I think, to just accept the situation and carve a profitable niche in Mix 98.5's AOR ghetto*. Today's hipster darlings are tomorrow's forgotten heroes, but Michael Bolton's stream of royalties is eternal.

If folks do intend to keep sending me info about new artists, however, here's a prime example of what I am interested in listening to...

Statues - Living in Lines (from New People Make Us Nervous, 2008; also available on eMusic) - Top-notch Canadian punk/power pop pointed out to me by a reader (to which I will forever be grateful). The rest of the album is in the same fist-pumping, boot-tapping vein and fills my bitter heart with hope for the future of hooky, well-crafted power pop.

If you go the eMusic route in picking this one up, swing by and nab the Tranzmitors' eponymous 2007 album for more killer punk pop from the Great White North...or if you're low on downloads for this month, just pick up "Alma Blackwell." You won't be sorry.

*I will always remember Mix 98.5, one of the Boston market's many lite rock stations, for the TV ad they ran featuring Janine Turner a few years back. In the spot, the GOP shill-slash-actress let potential listeners know that the station playlist did not contain "lyrics that will embarrass you in front of your kids." Y'know, the same kids who are grooving to "Do Me in Da Butt," by Ephebe Jailbait. Come to think of it, the ad might have been for Magic 106, after all...

the turd in the punchbowl

It was supposed to be a golden moment in American history, and indeed it was. The realization that I was witnessing something very important happening, on so many levels, managed to cut its way past decades of cynicism born of thwarted idealism and swell my heart with pride.

I went to bed last night giddy with hope and schadenfreude, and though I still feel the warm buzz, it has since been harshed by events in California, where it looks like the ban on and possible nullification of same sex marriage has been approved.

While I was, and still am, thrilled about the symbolic and historical significance of Obama's victory, Proposition 8 is something that has a direct and immediate impact on people's lives. That some of these people are good friends of mine made it especially personal is beside the point -- it's more than a matter of seeing my friends have equal rights and protections under the law, it's a matter of basic fairness for all regardless of my personal connections to the parties involved.

I'm a pragmatic idealist. I am more than capable of bending my principles for the sake of incremental or less than perfect gain, and am willing to hold my nose and play the crooked game if it brings progress in the now, rather than staking my hopes on a millennarian sea change in some imagined future. I realize that might make me look a bit...unsound...to some of my more uncompromising comrades even if I share the same grand ideals.

I cannot, however, bring myself to bend on the subject of egalitarian principles. Everyone should be granted equal rights, responsibilities and protections under the law. That's a no brainer. It's the cornerstone of any just society. So how could anyone with any sense of fairness or justice of conscience presume to dictate something as personal as the bond between two consenting adults?

Because it's an easy target, sanctioned by social, cultural, and theological prejudices and given the opportunity to single out a perceived "other." For what? Smug satisfaction? Anticipation of some spiritual award? Simple mean-spiritedness?

That's utter bullshit. As I said back when similar nonsense was going down here in the Bay State, the only people who can "protect" or "devalue" marriage are you and your spouse. I don't conduct my personal relationship with Maura by looking over my shoulder at what other couples are doing, nor would I even deign to dictate terms of matrimony to other grownups. To think that such deeply personal matters ought to be subject to referendum is obnoxious in the extreme, leaving things in the hands of some petty-minded assholes on the other side of the state to legislate.

Look, folks, if you want to parade around in your vestments of smug righteousness, confident about your reserved place in the heavenly host, more power to you (though I suspect you might be disappointed in the end). Just keep your fucking noses out of other people's personal business, right? Don't you have some quasi-incestuous Purity Ball to plan for or something?

The Adverts - New Day Dawning (from a 1978 b-side; collected on The Punk Singles Collection, 1997) - I had been planning to repost my post-Election 2006 miniplaylist today, because it has been two years and there's no topping perfection. Events being what they are, however, I'm not up for unbridled joy, so we'll go with the most ambiguous (and sinister) selection from that day.

For the record, here's what I had on repeat last night when I was in full-on happy mode...

a historic moment

More when I can form a coherent thought, but....

HOLY SHIT, IT REALLY HAPPENED.

night turns to day

Election 2008 -- this time it's personal.

It's not about validating a flawed system of governance or overreaching hopes for meaningful change or some lingering vestiges of patriotic idealism.

It's about spite, an opportunity to flip the bird at the sanctioned looters and their legion of sanctimonious thugs which have run roughshod over everything that is sane and decent for the last eight years.

That's more than enough for me.

A Popular History of Signs - Land of the Free (from Comrades, 1984) - I suppose I could have went with Arcadia again, but why settle for post-Duran leavings when this New Order-y slice of obscure synthpop will suffice?

A final note to my readers in the Golden State: You are voting "no" on Proposition 8, right?

wake up

Orbital - Choice (from the US version of Orbital, a.k.a. the "Green Album", 1991) - The lines have been drawn. The soul of the nation hangs in the balance. Get off the fence and join the election year rave. The party won't stop until the last ballot drops.

tired of being upset

It's been a while since we checked up on Senator Psycho Man. I wonder what he's been up to these past few weeks....

Meanwhile, back at the McCain campaign headquarters.....


November 5th can't come soon enough.

The Buzzcocks - Everybody's Happy Nowadays (from Singles Going Steady, 1979) - It must be true, because I saw it in a poll.

today I need some hate

I'm feeling a little woozy from all the candy I ate last night and still have a ways to go getting the house in order before the wife gets home, so here's an All Saints' Day linkblog post in lieu of actual content.

The best political commentary of this election season.

Satire is not only merely dead, it's really most sincerely dead.

Dorian celebrates Dario Argento's works in all their uneven glory.

Bully explains why ham should not be served at weddings.

Speaking hilarious truth to geekdom.

...and, finally, some sad news that I didn't get chance to address during the Halloween Countdown:

Teenage Head frontman, Frankie (Kerr) Venom, died from throat cancer at the age of 51.

Teenage Head - Picture My Face (from Teenage Head, 1979) - Punk at its purest -- hooky, snotty, and exuberant.

Friday Night Fights: You Curl My Toes

(from The Sensational She-Hulk Graphic Novel, 1985; by John Byrne & Kim DeMulder)
Yep, nothing kills the mood worse than cockroach breath.

Larry Williams - You Bug Me Baby (from the Specialty Profiles collection, 2006) - Not only was Larry (no relation to Barry) Williams one of the most influential songwriters of the early days of rock and roll, he also played a role in Little Richard becoming a born again Christian...by attempting to shoot the Georgia Peach over a drug debt.

(It was too magnificent to last forever.)

Halloween Countdown: October 31 - catch the horror train

We've reached the end of 2008's Halloween Countdown, and all that remains to be done is to crown this year's groovy ghoulish track of honor. The past two winners have been sedate, atmospheric affairs -- "Unexpected Guest" by UK Decay and "A Forest" by The Cure -- but this time I've chosen something a little more uptempo...but no less befitting this day of fiendish delights...

The Damned - Nasty (from 1984's "Thanks for the Night" single)

This hard-to-find gem, recorded shortly before Captain Sensible's long departure from the band, was alone worth the price of The Light at the End of the Tunnel box set. It's a breathtaking roller coaster ride that captures the The Damned doing what they did best -- garage rock-inflected punk with overtones both humorous and horrific.

The track was originally recorded for use in the "Nasty" episode of The Young Ones (a.k.a. "the greatest television show ever"), as seen in this fantastic clip which opens with one of the most quotable lines ever uttered...

Now that, bats and ghouls, is how you end a Halloween Countdown with style.

(If you are looking for a final All Hallows' fix, however, feel free to check out today's special Pronounced WOO-BIN post.)

Halloween Countdown: October 30 - this magic moment

I remember that day as if it was yesterday...

(From The Witching Hour #36, November 1973)
Almost seventeen years together and four years this day as husband and wife, and we owe it all to the Dark Arts!

(I kid. Maura is actually an animist non-traditional Catholic, which parses as "witch" to my Puritan-descended cognitive processes.)

Happy Anniversary, my Funky Foo! Even on those very rare occasions when things have been less than harmonious, they've always been interesting.

Combustible Edison - Bewitched (from the Four Rooms OST, 1995) - I don't particularly care for Tarantino's body of work, as I also possess worn copies of the Psychotronic movie guides and familiarity with the films he liberally cherry-picks his gimmicks from. I do appreciate fine vintage and contemporary lounge music (while despising the obnoxious lounge revival subculture), and this soundtrack album delivers the retrolicious goods.

Siouxsie & The Banshees - Spellbound (from Juju, 1981) - The creative wheels fell off the band with 1986's Tinderbox LP, but not before Ms. Sioux and Company recorded an impressive body of goth-pop-adelic gems which still stand the test of time.

Halloween Countdown: October 29 - think about it

Back in my junior high days, my friend Brian and I would hike up the Middlesex Canal path to the (now defunct) Northeast Trade Center whenever Jolly Jim's Flea Market rolled into town. A three dollar admission fee (if a friend wasn't working the gate that day) would grant one access to a hundred or so stalls filled to the brim with overpriced crap...and the one dude in the far corner who sold comic books.

Brian was an early adopter of the comic collector ethos that stresses bags, backing boards, and buying multiple copies of a book for investment purposes. For him, these trips were joyless exercises in speculative accounting where he'd blow ten bucks on two "hot" comics that he'd never actually read.

For me, though, it was all about the quarter bins, which in those days were packed near to bursting with overstock from the previous decade (i.e. the 1970s). Three dollars would net the ambitious longbox digger a dozen issues of disposable entertainment -- reprints of Silver Age DC sci-fi stories, random issues of Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Two-in-One, and books involving obscure bits of trivia gleaned from my (then) incomplete run of the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe.

None of the comics I purchased could even remotely be classified as "money" books -- though that hasn't stopped some of the sleazier comics stores from slapping a ten dollar price tag on the Monark Starstalker issue of Marvel Premiere and seeing if some fool will take the bait -- but I didn't get into the hobby to see a return on my investment. I got into it because it was dumb escapist fun.

That's how I ended up with a complete run of the "It! The Living Colossus" stories from Astonishing Tales. They aren't especially good or groundbreaking or intellectually stimulating, but they entertained me.

It! (the exclamation point signifies a clicking sound, as per the language of the African bushmen, I assume) originally debuted as "The Colossus" in Tales of Suspense #14 (February 1961), back in the days when Marvel's bread and butter were improbably named monsters bent on terrorizing the world. The Colossus was an example of the socialist Realism aesthetic gone horribly wrong -- a hundred foot tall stone statue commissioned (under threat of death) to celebrate the power of the proletariat.

Unfortunately, the Marxist concept of historical inevitability did not take into account the possibility that a crab-like alien creature would appear, merge with the monument, and go on a rampage behind the Iron Curtain...

...which offered Jack Kirby the opportunity to re-imagine The Amazing Colossal Man as Cold War agitprop. Damn cool, indeed.

Though the story ended with the promise of a new age of global peace and understanding, The Colossus returned in Tales of Suspense #20 (August 1961), in which the Soviets decide to ship the now-inert statue to Hollywood as a "gesture of peace." The alien crabmen, having backslid from their previous state of enlightenment into a warlike state, once again seized control of the Colossus, resulting in another stone cold rampage. The American military fared no better than its Warsaw Pact counterparts in stopping the carnage, and even the mighty beatniks were helpless in the face of the stone titan's wrath.

It was left to Bob O'Bryan to save the day, and the unappreciated set designer concocted a plan to lure the aliens out of the Colossus and into a bigger, meaner looking statue loaded with high explosives and a remote detonator. O'Byran's quick thinking earned him the renown long denied him as well as the affections of starlet Diane Cummings.

The Colossus, now sporting the "It!" moniker, returned in the pages of Astonishing Tales #21 (December 1973) as one of Marvel's many attempts to dress up superhero material in monstrous clothing. Bob O'Byran, having been upgraded to a crack special effects man during the interim, decides to put the Colossus to use as the star of a sci-fi blockbuster. His work is interrupted, however, when a ham actor rival for Diane's affections causes an accident that leaves O'Bryan confined to a wheelchair and trapped in a perpetually surly mood.

Bob's rants about the cruelty of fate are interrupted by a bunch of goons seeking to abscond with the Colossus, and in his impotent rage discovers he has the power to telepathically control the statue. He also discovers that animated stone constructs are vulnerable to nerve gas -- despite having neither lungs nor nerves -- and the Colossus is hauled off to the lair of Dr. Vault, a mad scientist of the most generic variety.

Vault has a hankering for a strong, new body and thinks that a bald, granite statue with no genitalia would be perfect for his purposes. He is not as keen about the size, though, and uses his mad science prowess to shrink the Colossus to a more strip club-friendly eight feet tall. The process is interrupted around the thirty-foot benchmark by O'Bryan, who reasserts control and smashes up Vault's hidden lair. Filled with a renewed sense of purpose, Bob spent the next three issues fighting various scale-appropriate fellow monsters from Marvel's pre-superhero days in between indulging in bouts of typical four-color melodramatic angst.

Viewed with a grown up's eye, the stories are pretty bland and predicable, with the beats rigidly mapped to the overused device of O'Bryan losing his connection with the Colossus at dramatically convenient moments. They also suffer from an over reliance on passing reprinted Silver Age material as in-story flashback sequences and Dick Ayers, an artist whose work I tend to like, trying too hard to mimic Jack Kirby's early 1960's style....which was nifty in 1961, but baffling and distracting in 1973.

Yet for all that, I still retain a good deal of affection for the run, because there's a point where you just have to put aside the quibbles and take the concept of a thirty-foot telepathic flying (Did I mention the Colossus can fly? It! can, and why shouldn't It! be able to?) statue that fights Giant Space Gargoyles on top of the Capitol Records building and fights Giant Chinese Kung-Fu Fighting Dragons for the absurd thing of flawed beauty it is.

That would be Fing Fang Foom, Jack Kirby's re-imagining of Godzilla as Cold War agitprop!
It! The Living Colossus's Astonishing Tales run ended on a inconclusive note with issue #24, but the dangling plot threads were resolved a half-decade later in The Incredible Hulk #244 (February 1980). Bob O'Bryan -- successful, married to Diane, and walking again -- comes out of semi-retirement to protect the City of Angels from the fury of the Jade Giant, only to have his control of the Colossus wrested away by the fiendish Dr. Vault.

Having finally gained the perfect body he'd waited so long for, Vault falls prey to excessive euphoria and tries to go toe to toe with the Hulk. It goes about as well as you'd think...

O'Bryan takes the destruction of the Colossus in stride, as he'd already moved on past the animated statue follies of youth into more adult pursuits. Comics being comics, though, both Bob and the Colossus have made the occasional appearances since then, as there is no character so obscure or resolution so final that someone won't resurrect It! out of irony...or even worse, totally sincere reverence.

Alien Sex Fiend - Get Into It (from It: The Album, 1986) - I was really into it for a year or two, then I fell out of it, forgot about it for a while, then rediscovered it.

Halloween Countdown: October 28 - Scary Birthday, 2008 edition

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MAURA!
The above is not an entirely accurate depiction of today's festivities. For one, my family members are much more terrifying than the party guests portrayed on the cover...nor would I invite any of them to our house, ever.

Also, two decades and change have passsed since Maura's Sweet Sixteen, and we had to move our serving table coffin up to the attic after I left one too many rings on it. (Drink coasters are for anti-American elitists, don'cha know. Here in Real America^TM, we put our glasses down on naked, vulnerable hardwood like true patriots do.)

There will be no disturbingly pink store-bought cake for us, either. As per household custom, I whipped up one of my own creations...

...white cake with black and orange candies whipped into the batter, with a modest glaze of cream cheese frosting and featuring some season-appropriate decorations. We do plan on using a sacrificial skull dagger to cut it, though, as some traditions are worth observing.

The Pogues - Sit Down by the Fire (from If I Should Fall from Grace with God, 1988) - The Wee Folk are coming to visit, and they're sporting blades instead of blossoms and butterfly wings.

Halloween Countdown: October 27 - derivatives of the damned

The events leading up to the recent economic meltdown, as depicted in The Witching Hour #51 (February 1975):

It sounds like a sweet deal...until you realize that you've leveraged your immortal soul for far more than it is actually worth. When the spiritual commodities market crashes, it crashes hard, and no amount of intervention, government or divine, can stem the karmic tide.

(Satan, being the wily devil he is, was able to finagle a seven figure bonus for himself from the executive board just prior to the collapse -- and government takeover -- of the Beelzebub Brothers brokerage house.)

The Misfits - Horror Business (from the Horror Business EP; collected on The Misfits, 1986) - No Halloween Countdown would be complete without something from the Garden State's unparalled masters of horrorpunk, so here is the band's loving tribute to Alfred Hitchcock, Sid Vicious, and Nancy Spungen.

Patterson's People - Shake Hands with the Devil (from a 1966 single) - Here's a dandy little slice of 60's freakbeat that proudly wears its infernal raunchiness on its sleeve.

Halloween Countdown: October 26 - it really happened

A Resurrection Plant, eh?

That reminds me of something that happened to a friend of a friend of mine a while back. This guy worked the late shift at a warehouse in North Reading, and used to drive home along Route 62 during the wee hours. Well, this one time he was making his way down the dark and lonely state highway when he spotted something really weird along the side of the road. It was a potted plant -- some kind of fern, he said -- just sitting there on the shoulder of 62 westbound in the middle of the sticks with no sign how it ended up there.

It was late October, when the first killer frosts come to the northwestern suburbs. This guy figured that the plant would die if he didn't do something, pulled to the side of the road, and retrieved it. He wasn't the gardening type, but thought that maybe his mom or his girlfriend at the time could do something with it. Anyhow, he put it on the passenger seat of his '86 Monte Carlo and hopped back behind the wheel.

While the plant, being a plant, didn't move or say anything, the guy said he could sense a "really creepy vibe" from the potted fern. He said the interior of his car felt colder, even though he had the heater cranked to the max. (That's not uncommon for a GM car, though.) He also claimed to sense an "aura of sadness" coming from the plant and it got stronger as he got closer to the Wilmington town line.

The sensation abruptly stopped when he pulled up to the lights at the intersection next to one of the many giant luxury condo complexes recently plunked down in the northwestern suburbs. When he looked over at the passenger seat, the plant was no longer there.

He sped the rest of the way back to his apartment in Bedford. His roommate was still up when he got there and asked the guy why he seemed so jittery. The guy told about the mysterious fern, even though he knew how crazy the story sounded. The roommate didn't laugh, for he had worked part-time with landscaping firm near the area where the guy found the plant.

He told the guy about how a couple of years previous, a local nursery had gone up in flames when the greenhouse heater exploded. The force of the blast sent the contents of the nursery flying in all directions. The owner of the business decided not to rebuild, and instead sold off the property to an out-of-state residential development firm which cleared the land for a luxury condo development -- the very same development where the plant mysteriously disappeared from the guy's passenger seat.

So if you happen to be driving along Route 62 on some chill autumn night and see a solitary potted plant by the shoulder of the road, don't worry. It's just the Resurrection Plant making another sad, doomed effort to get back home....

(A little context, maestro!)

de tian - Beyond the Autumn - (from a 1980 EP) - This piece of DIY postpunk makes pefect music to haunt arthouses by.

Halloween Countdown: October 25 - comfort and joy

Given the present state of the world, it's only natural to feel a little depressed. That's why I've decided to brighten your day with some uplifting content taken from "The Day Happy Died," a heartwarming tale from The Witching Hour #47 (October 1974).

Little Rusty Boland is in a bit of a funk. His house has burned down, his parents have abandoned him, and most devastatingly, his faithful dog Happy has trotted off to Doggie Heaven.

Rusty perks up a bit when he spots what appears to be Happy's ghost wandering around the neighborhood. The poor kid follows the pooch into the local cemetary, where a (not entirely) shocking revelation awaits...

Wow! Who didn't see that coming?

Well, at least Happy is safe, right?

"That's right, kids! Not only will you die horribly and your spirit will walk the earth for all eternity, but your beloved pets will waste away and die from broken hearts! Sweet dreams, little ones!"

I know I'm feeling much happier now. How about you?

Danse Society - We're So Happy (from Gothic Rock, 1994) - It's a repost, yes, but of a very fine piece of 80's gothica that fits today's theme so perfectly that I couldn't resist.

Friday Night Frights: They Said It Couldn't Be Done

...and then there was the time when Josie McCoy was captured by a mad scientist who wanted to hack open the Pussycat's skull and make a powerful narcotic out of her gray matter...

(from Josie & The Pussycats #67, February 1973)
I miss those days when comics were wholesome family entertainment.

The Zanies - The Mad Scientist (from a 1958 single) - Promethean hubris meets vintage novelty song!

(None dare call him mad.)

Halloween Countdown: October 24 - nightmare virtuoso

From his studio lair hidden in the catacombs beneath the streets of Stockholm, the Phantom of the Pop Charts plots his next sinister move...

"Now that I've gotten Britney back in the Top 40, I shall commence work on my latest piece for Katy Perry! Revenge, sweet revenge will be mine! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Furyo - Opera in the Air (from the Furyo EP, 1984) - I haven't been shy about expressing my fondness for UK Decay, the Luton-based punk/postpunk outfit that helped launch the whole gothic rock phemomenon. Their dub-and-cobwebs classic, "Unexpected Guest." took the top slot in 2006's Halloween Countdown, and the band's For Madmen Only LP and Rising from the Dread EP make for perfect seasonal listening, be it Halloween, Christmas, or a summer holiday.

After the band's 1982 breakup, vocalist Steve "Abbo" Abbot, guitarist Steve Spon, and drummer Eddie Branch reunited as Furyo and attempted to recapture some of the old grand theatrical magic. Their efforts were less than successful -- and more than a little self-indulgent and silly --but did manage to deliver the goods in a few rare moments.