Gobbles?

Here we are now... Part Five (or six or seven or eight or whatever) of the multi-part "look at" the various adult comics that Galaxy Publications "put out" in the late Eighties and early Nineties. And how about that, it's December and we've got to a title with "turkey" in its name. Talking Turkey is what this one is:

This one started in 1991, and lasted for eight issues under the editorship of Ross Gilfillan - and I'll get this bit out of the way first: Talking Turkey has stuffing so far up its own arse that it's more or less inside out. The letters pages are full of the sycophantic drivel that can bring vomit to the mouth, and there's not even all that much original content in there. There's a BIT, obviously, but mostly Talking Turkey is reprints of American underground stuff, translations of European comics and highlights from Knockabout's Crack Editions. But for all of that... I really, really, REALLY like it. Each issue is 48 pages, only one of which (the back cover) is an advert. I'd be all over it if something like this was being printed today - it's best to think of Talking Turkey not as an "original title" in the grand scheme of it all, but as a "best of" in "alternative" (urgh) comics in general... Shall we begin?

Things for December

Christmas... The time of year when you just want five sodding minutes of peace and bloody quiet to yourself, and traditionally there's no better or easier way of putting that message across than burying yourself in a big fat book. I did a similar post to this a few years ago, but here we are in an odd moment of motivation, and so it is - the "best" books a comic-liker could hope to find themselves reading over the festive period and beyond.

Apologies for this terrible picture - my camera's died, so this is the best my phone can offer.

The majority of these books can be found for a few pennies on Amazon Marketplace, but some of them you might have to look a bit further for... They're all definitely worth it though (if you like this sort of thing).

The Adventures of Miss Sapbody

Over on the Facebook group (have you joined yet? No worries if not, it's your call), BP Johnson asked about a page from an annual he used to have, which featured a "chaotic, anarchic school room scene with lots of naughty kids freaking out". Peter Gray (of Peter Gray's Comics - which now also has a Facebook thing) quickly identified it as a page from the 1987 Dandy book... And because I'm nice, here are the pages in question, and all the other related bits too. It's called The Puddlewick Playgroup, and it's unlike anything else in the Dandy at the time...

(Click them to make them bigger, obviously)

Drawn by Henry Davies, looking like something halfway between Steve Bell and Tom Paterson... the 1987 annual's full of it! Carry on below to see the rest, if you're up for it.

Mandatory October post

Here's something, just something... Anything! It's worth it, really. One of the most genuinely creepy comics I've ever read, for this miserable October evening. It's by Richard Corben, it originally appeared in Skull Comics #3 in 1971, and here it is as taken from Nasty Tales #6 in 1972... It's Horrible Harvey's House!

It's got everything you'd want from a good slice of horror - a couple of naive teenagers, thunder and lightning, a creaky old house, gratuitous nudity, even a jump-scare of sorts... Read on, and maybe keep a clean pair of underwear nearby, perhaps.

A small, noteworthy note

In the past few minutes I've tentatively started a Facebook "page" for TwoHeadedThingies (this website), with the idea being hopefully to fill the silence between posts here, maybe get some sort of dialog going, and being one step closer to becoming the worldwide media empire that TwoHeadedThingies was always destined to be.

So, go on that Facebook thing and search for "Twoheadedthingies" if you "like" that sort of thing.

See how it goes and all that.

We have calamari and macaroni

Credit where credit's due and all that... For a publishing house whose main output was of the top shelf variety, Galaxy Publications put a LOT of effort into their comic-based endeavours, which would maybe explain why it's taken me so long to cover all of their various "things" - Almost two years so far (!!!). There was the "Trying-to-be-OZ-in-the-Eighties" Brain Damage, the "Initially-ripping-off-Viz-but-then-turning-into-something-halfway-decent" Gas, the "We've-got-some-bits-left-over-from-the-other-comics-so-let's-put-them-in-a-new-comic" Elephant Parts... And then there was this one:

A bit more like what would be expected, right? From the people that brought you Fiesta, here's Fiesta Comic Strip. Emphasis on STRIP because it's got nipples in it and stuff, get it? Needless to say but I'll say it anyway, this one has a big fat NSFW warning on it.

Trunks, tails, ears, eyes, tusks, feet, mouths, and wrinkly grey skin

Not the Michael Nesmith film, but another Galaxy/Tristar comic - Elephant Parts is what appeared on the shelves instead of the fifth issue of Brain Damage's third year (1991), hence the odd numbering of its first issue:

Three cheers for Ben Baker for spotting Oink! co-creator Patrick Gallagher on the cover there.

"Incorporating The Damage" it says, but far from it - Elephant Parts is printed on cheaper paper with mostly black-and-white pages (or spot-colouring at best), and it does away with (almost) all the political parts that made Brain Damage that much more "interesting", and instead goes for a more "surreal" tone (so a bit like Gutted, but only slightly). As with most things that set out to be deliberately "weird" it's mostly a disaster, but there's also a few odd bits of genuine "goodness" - read on to find out, if you're up for it...

Well there's Flo on my left and Mary on my right

Told you I'd been busy...

The last few weeks have been of the travelling variety - this time last week I was in Glasgow, my first ever trip north of the Wall, which was a lot of fun. Couldn't go to Glasgow without meeting up with that chum-of-chums, Mr. Adam Smith (you know, him from Khaki Shorts and so on). Along with himself he brought along fellow member of the Khaki Khollektive, Mr. Rob Miller, and I was given a "tour" of Hope Street Studios, owned by Jamie Grant and the former home of Northern Lightz and Wasted - much original artwork was perused over, from Miller and Smith and also Shug 90 and the indescribable John G. Miller (including an exercise book full of his stuff from when he was still in school, of a Scottish Tijuana Bible-quality, if that can be imagined).

The other Miller (as in Rob), ever generous as always, gave me a few bits as souvenirs, including the hefty tome above. John Miller's stuff really is like nothing else, and there's three big collections of his stuff available from Braw Books - go and seek! Think I've got nearly everything they've published now, whoops. 

Also in my goody bag was The John G. Miller Scrapbook...

As if his comics aren't nuts enough, this is a collection of clippings, ramblings, rantings and imaginary (or not?) newsletters:

"Recommended". 

Finally, from the Miller called Rob, there's this:

Big Moff - Strap On Japan, telling the tale of Aidan Moffat and Malcolm Middleton (of Arab Strap fame) on their farewell tour of Japan... If you've any idea what all the references mean, you'll "love" this one:

The whole thing's one of the funniest books I've read in ages, had me giggling all the way back to Merseyside, so it did. As did this attractive looking pub situated opposite Hope Street Studios:

From Hope Street, we trekked across town to the Briggait, home of Wasps Artist's Studios, where we had pizza and beer and met three more Scottish folk and one Canadian. One of them pulled a big pile of papers from a drawer and handed them over for perusal purposes - top of the pile being this nice bit of original Dudley D. Watkins Oor Wullie-based fun:

The rest of the pile (hundreds and hundreds of bits of paper) was all original Frank Quitely stuff - he's a bit of a "big deal" nowadays what with all his X-Men, Batman and Superman shenanigans, but all the stuff we were looking at was from the GOOD kind of comics, including tons and tons of his stuff from Electric Soup - including one of my all-time favourite comic pages (scan from Electric Soup shown here, not the original):

It was only as myself, Miller and Smith were saying our farewells before going our separate ways that they thought to mention that one of the guys we were sitting with was Frank Quitely himself... So at least I didn't show myself up being all "I love your work!" and so on, hey hey!

A couple of weeks BEFORE Glasgow, I found myself working the floor at the Manchester Film & Comic Con, where I first met a Mr. Gary Whitlock (of Acne, Gutter and Adroit fame - my issue of which I shamelessly brought along for him to sign) - from Gary I got one of his new books, Creatures of the Weirdieverse:

From Whitlock's Monkeyhound Studios, it takes its inspiration from Ken Reid's Creepy Creations and World Wide Weirdies, and my current favourite amongst Gary's lot is this one:

Later on in the day, I met Mr. Lew Stringer, who's been in most comics by now. An affable chap, he already knew my name which threw me a bit, and I felt a bit "special" when both Lew and Gary said that they read this blog thing here (hello you two!), so that was a nice chit-chat. From Lew, I got one of his new books, Brickman Begins:

Being a "digest-sized paperback", I can't fit this one under my scanner without wrecking the book, but it's definitely worth "getting" - there's a few new comics in here but it's mostly a compilation of all of Brickman's appearances from 1979-2005, from the pages of such publications as Fantasy Express, After Image, Metamorph and various small-press things, plus guest contributions from the likes of Mike Higgs, Hunt Emerson, Kevin O'Neill, Ian Churchill, Dave Gibbons and so on... I like it muchly, I do.

Whatever you take from this lot, at least it's proof that I HAVE been busy, yes?

An explanation, of sorts...

"Do you have someone who looks after you? Could I see them? Because I need to read your meter..."

Finally, finally, here we go. Part two of the extended "look at" the various adult comics put out by Galaxy/Tristar Publications during the late Eighties/early Nineties. Only... Fifteen months after the first part. 2015 was a busy year, what more can I say? And so on. Anyway, back in 1989, Galaxy Publications (of Fiesta fame) decided to have a crack at the Viz-like-comic market, initially with Brain Damage (see part one), a smart, politically-charged thing filled with quality stuff from the likes of Borin Van Loon, Hunt Emerson, Kevin Woodcock, the mysterious "Lucian", and several dozen more. At the same time, they also put out Gas, a more blatantly obvious Viz clone (but with the same editor as Brain Damage - "Big" Bill Hampton). Initially dodgy and not-all-that-good, by its demise in 1991 Gas had evolved into something fairly special - and that's what's getting looked at here today. Hang onto your bandwidths, there's over a hundred-and-fifty scans on this one...

Serious Biznezz

"Mini Comix"... Know anything about those? I didn't until a few years ago, when I got a close-to-900-page anthology of the things (this one). Small press stuff (which is always fun to investigate), on a TINY scale. Cheap, too (mostly). Got a couple of issues of one such article in the post a couple of weeks ago, No Funnies by Jason Walter (of Augusta, Georgia stock). He also emailed them to me as well, which is just as well - getting good scans of these wouldn't be any fun at all (how apt!):

The actual size of the thing is one sheet of A4, folded in half three times then stapled (so about 4.5" x 2.8")... I'm wittering about the size a lot here, it's all about what you do with it (or so I'm told) - plenty to behold within!

The contents are odd, intelligent and fast-moving - witness the career of the Pubescent Godlike Ninja Ducks:

The Hellish literary analysis of 2 Dawgs In Hades Discuss James Joyce:

The heroic adventures of The Amazing Cat Hand:

And the ongoing obsession with space whales:

No Funnies - they're fun, cheerful and cheap. Find Jason on Facebook and for $1.98 he'll send you two issues in an envelope (that's in American money, same price for anywhere in the world). It's this "anyone can do it" thing that I love and it makes me hate myself for not doing it too, instead of just reading and writing about them (although that's enough fun in itself as well). I've got a few Biro pens and a pack of paper and plenty of free time, why not?

Repeat procrastination until the End Times...

Belated Bowie 'Bituary

Well if that's not a terrific way to start the new year, I don't know what is, bah... It's been a LONG time since the death of a musician has affected the world in such a way, so it only seems right that Mr. Jones be remembered in these quarters too - and with thanks going to Mr. Ben Baker for the suggestion, we return once more to Zig and Zag's Zogazine, from the second issue dated November 1994 (the scratch 'n' sniff issue) - this highly referential and gag-filled number from Kev Sutherland and John Moore...

Count the references!

For more Bowie-based comic-stuff, have a look at Mr. Baker's write-up on the whole Bowie/Viz connection here and here.