Golden Sunsets - 50 Years Of Memories - Part 25 - 1991

This time two comedy legends create the funniest sitcom ever made...

1991:

The trivia:

• When robbers broke into the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam thanks to help from one of the security guards, they made off with 20 carefully chosen paintings worth a fortune. Unfortunately their careful planning was hampered by their main getaway car having a flat tire, causing them to abandon a stolen guard's car and flee - leaving all the paintings inside. Everything was recovered safely just 35 minutes after the initial theft.
• The record for the most people on a single aircraft was set in 1991 by an El Al Boeing 747 during 'Operation Solomon' when 1,086 Ethiopian Jews were evacuated from Addis Ababa. to Israel. The plane landed with 1,088 passengers as two babies were born during the flight. 
• "Kentucky Fried Chicken" officially changed its name to "KFC". A conspiracy theory of the time claimed that this was because they were not selling actual chickens, but cloned headless chicken bodies. 

The memory:

Bottom

So at last we come to my favourite comedy TV show of all time - the one that stands head and shoulders above all others. It's the culmination of all the work that Rik Mayall and Ade Edmonson had done in years past with "The Dangerous Brothers", "The Young Ones" and "Filthy, Rich & Catflap". It's bleak, violent, chaotic and incredibly silly. It's their masterpiece and I just bloody well love it.

Richard "Richie" Richard (Mayall) and Edward Elisabeth "Eddie" Hitler (Edmonson) are two layabout perverted nutters who live in Hammersmith, London. Eddie mostly thinks about drinking and  and Richie is desperate to meet a woman and finally "do it". They hate each other but seem doomed to be stuck together, wishing for better things but never achieving them. As many have observed, it's Samuel Beckett's "Waiting For Godot" with plenty of added extreme "Tom and Jerry" style slapstick violence to go round. A frying pan in the face usually.

Each week would see the pair of losers make some attempt to improve their lot or fill the void of their meaningless lives - and usually fail. Whether it was trying to attract "birds" down the "Lamb & Flag" by wearing a pheromone sex spray, stealing the gas supply from next door just as the gasman arrives to read the meter, the pair indulging in a chess game using some frozen prawns, a potted cactus, a bottle of ketchup and a large Spider-Man figurine, or Richie deciding that he was the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary due to some dodgy Christmas gifts, it was all side-splittingly funny.

There were also some memorable guest stars. Brian Glover was suitably menacing (yet tender) as Mr. Rottweiler next door. Helen Lederer was rich aristocrat Lady Natasha Letitia Sarah Jane Wellesley Obstromsky Ponsonsky Smythe Smythe Smythe Smythe Smythe Oblomov Boblomov Dob and of course Stephen O'Donnell and Chris Ryan apperaed several times as Eddie's best fiends Spudgun and Dave Hedgehog. But many of the episodes featured just Rik and Ade for the full half hour doing what they do best - insulting each other, and committing the most awful violent acts.

The really important thing about the series though is that if  the mutual enjoyment of "Mr Jolly Lives Next Door" had brought my much younger sister and I closer together, "Bottom" was the thing that really cemented how much we had the same sense of humour. Our parents didn't get it and our brother could take it or leave it., so this was *our* show and we were utterly fanatical about it. I bought all the VHS videos and the "Bottom Fluffs" out take compilations, Episodes such as "Smells", "Gas", "Apocalypse", Digger" and "Terror" were watched over and over again and the brilliant lines were endlessly quoted between us.

We were also lucky enough to get to see three of the live stage shows. The first tour in particular I remember being an incredibly hot evening in the theatre and Rik and Ade were constantly having to wipe themselves down (ooo-err). With the hilarious script (much ruder than the TV version) plus the constant ad-libs, mucking about and trying to put each other off I think I nearly passed out from laughing so much. The first two shows are the best in my opinion, but any chance to see the geniuses at work up close was worth it.

Even now birthday or Christmas cards between us always end with "Love from all the lads on the Ark Royal". A compliment sometimes gets an added "..and may I just say what a smashing blouse you have on?". Sometimes we just shout "Gasman!!" at each other. We spent one memorable New Years Eve texting each other trying to see who could recall the most quotes (it was a draw). I even have a mug which proclaims I am a "Sad old git". Our shared love of a daft TV programme has endured.

This show isn't just something I enjoyed watching. It hasn't just seeped into my consciousness. It's welded itself inextricably to my DNA.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Honourary mentions:

• G.B.H. - Alan Bleasdale's  political drama about the rise and fall of a militant left Labour city councilor is full of pitch black humour, farcical behaviour and rage against elitist society, but he also manages to imbue all  his characters with a complexity and depth that no matter how nasty they might be you still feel for them. Robert Lindsay is a revelation as the angry, womanising Michael Murray who wages a war against Michael Palin's special needs teacher - each of them on the verge of a nervous breakdown. As revelations about his childhood are constantly on the verge of being revealed, Murray descends into a accumulation of  tics and jerks, likely to randomly shoot his arm up in a Hitler-like salute at the oddest moments. The political edge may be blunted somewhat to modern audiences, but I remember at the time being gripped by all seven episodes. All this and part of one episode is set at a "Doctor Who" convention !

• The death of Freddie Mercury - The sad demise of the "Queen" front man was the first celebrity passing that really affected me (the other was naturally Rik Mayall). I didn't know Mr. Mercury personally of course, but his distinctive voice had been part of the soundtrack of my life for so many years and even decades later I still think about the wonderful music that we never got to hear. When it was announced that Freddie had gone and the TV channels first showed the stark black and white video for "These Are The Days Of Our Lives", I had floods of tears running down my face. The vibrant star looked so ill and he must have known that it was to be one of his final ever performances. There is a look that he gives to camera at the end as he quietly states "I still love you". It gets me ever single damn time.

• Imajica by Clive Barker - The fantasy / horror maestro's largest book, and in my opinion his best. The Earth is one of five Dominions, collectively known as the 'Imajica', overseen by the Unbeheld Hapexamendios.  However our sphere  has been cut off from the other four for thousands of years by the 'In Ovo' void. Those who practice the ancient magical arts (known as Maestros) have repeatedly tried (and failed) to reconcile Earth with the other Dominions. The last attempt two hundred years ago resulted in the death of everyone involved and led to the formation of the Tabula Rasa, a secret society tasked with preventing any further use of magic.Into this scenario are thrust a seemingly normal human man and his ex wife, her poet lover and a mysterious assassin - but this is just the tip of a an insanely huge iceberg. Calling This novel epic just doesn't do it justice, and every one of its thousand plus pages (it later had to be split into two volumes) is needed to handle the complex plot and the mind-warping concepts. Truly brilliant.

• Defending Your Life - Albert Brooks plays Daniel Miller, an advertising executive who dies in a car accident. He finds himself in the pleasant modern surroundings of 'Judgement City' where all humans must stand trial to see if they have matured enough to pass to the next phase of existence, or return to Earth for another try. During this he meets and falls in love with Julia (Meryl Streep) who has led a life of generosity and courage, while Daniel's actions have always been ruledby his own insecurities. The events of the film are full of wonderful gentle performances from the two actors, plus great support from veteran Rip Torn as Miller's defence lawyer. You wouldn't think that a young man in his twenties would like an American romantic comedy full of musings on the nature of existence and how as human beings we are all basically ruled by fear. But something in this whimsical fantasy drama touched me and it's remained a pleasant memory ever since I first saw it.

• Doctor Who: The New Adventures - I have an admission to make. I was never really into these books when they initially came out. Oh I bought the first half a dozen along with my friend Ian, but when he carried on to collect the full set, I abandoned them. My interest in "Doctor Who" had waned significantly by this point and there was just too much other non-TV-related fiction to read instead. Such was the case for over a decade. Of course when the new series arrived in 2005 I made up for it by purchasing the whole lot (at great expense sadly). "Stories too broad and too deep for the small screen" the blurb on the back covers proclaimed and yes, there are many things which even in today's progressive society RTD or Moffat could't get away with in a prime-time family show. My reading speed has ground to a crawl in recent years (I need sleep more) but I still harbour an ambition to read all the Seventh Doctor adventures in a long marathon sequence...

• Hudson Hawk - I don't care that almost no-one else seems to like this film. I love it. It's surreal, crazy, over-the-top, inventive, outlandish, often doesn't make sense and just damn good fun. It's not an action movie (which was part of the problem with the marketing). It's a crime caper cum spy film like the 1960s "Our Man Flint" but seen through a 1990s lens  - it even features James Coburn in a supporting role and *that* telephone ringing noise. Richard E. Grant is also hamming it up for all he is worth. By all accounts it was hellish to make but the pain for those involved was worth it. Bruce Willis is more like the charming, wisecracking detective from "Moonlighting" than tough-as-nails John McClane from "Die Hard", and that's all the better as far as I am concerned. I'm going to go and watch it again right *now*.

• Sega Mega Drive - This was my first games "console" - as opposed to the ZX Spectrum which was more of a home computer. For various reasons I only ever bought half a dozen or so games for it but, of course the original "Sonic The Hedgehog" was my favourite.The thought of the lava and underwater levels still gives me palpitations...

Golden Sunsets - 50 Years Of Memories - Part 21 - 1987

By my early twenties I was fully immersed in the comics industry - both as a reader and as a retailer. But an encounter with one of my customers lead to the discovery of a different kind of super-heroics...

1987:

The trivia:

• By 1987, due to poaching, lead poisoning and destruction of their natural habitat, there were only 27 California Condors left on the planet. All of the huge birds, with their 3 metre wide wingspan, were captured and placed in the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo to help preserve the species. Thankfully due to a successful breeding program there are now over four hundred - many living wild.
• Chicago businessman Steve Rothstein purchased an unlimited first class American Airlines ticket for US$ 233,509. During the more than 10 years he owned it, he travelled in excess of 10 million miles, made over 500 trips to England and apparently cost the airline US$ 21 million. The pass was terminated in 2008 due to "fradulent behaviour".
• 19-year old German amateur aviator Matthias Rust managed to fly his small Cessna aircraft all the way from Helsinki to Moscow and land illegally near Red Square. Despite being tracked several times by Soviet air defence, he was never shot down. Although originally sentenced to four years in prison he only served a few months and the incident allowed progressive Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to dismiss many of his harshest military opponents.

Okay so I guess before I start with the memory proper, I should provide a bit more context to that comment at the top of the page about being a comics "retailer". This might take a while...

By the mid-1980s I was getting my regular comics from specialist shops rather than newsagents. It started with all those trips to "Forbidden Planet" in London, but as I left school and (after a brief period in market research) started working in Southend-on-Sea, I switched to getting my weekly fix from the local independent book shop in the Victoria Circus Shoping Centre - known rather generically as "The New Bookshop" (I never did discover where the "Old" one was).

The two rather mature gentlemen who ran the shop were always friendly and I became a regular customer. Their shelves were crammed full of all the latest Marvel, DC and independent titles. Each week I would pick up the current releases (almost everything to be honest) which they had put by in a hi-tech filing system of brown paper bags with your name written in marker pen. Thanks to these lovely fellows I discovered comics from First, Comico, Capital, Eclipse and a vast range of other titles. More and more of my meagre wages was being spent on four-colour adventures (well I was still living at home and couldn't drive, so had very little outgoings). I reunited with some old friends in the shop as we all started to hang out there and met some new ones along the way - including a very young Warren Ellis.

Then to my delight, a proper specialist comic book store opened on the ground floor of the shopping centre. "Collector's Dream" was run by run by local writer, artist, musician and sometime shoe salesman Gary Spencer Millidge. Gary would become well known in comic circles in later years for his seminal series "Strangehaven", but when I first got to know him, he was focused on the new shop and associated mail order subscription service. "Collector's Dream" became the new place for us comics fans to hang out, and it was in Gary's shop that we saw him work on the famine relief title that became 1985's "Food For Thought" (way before Marvel and DC produced their own titles). I was there when he unboxed the first issues of "Watchmen" and "The Dark Knight Returns". My younger brother even worked there for a while when he first left school. Those were great times.

But at some point not long after this (and here my memory gets slightly hazy), Gary decided that he needed to down-size and move the shop to smaller premises. I really wanted to get into the industry in some way and convinced my brother and a friend that we should buy the "Collector's Dream" mail order service and run it ourselves. With a cash loan from my father, we did just that and from my bedroom we somehow managed to run a small business on a complete shoestring.

Typing up the monthly order catalogues on a Commodore 64 computer, printing them out and pasting them together to then be photocopied, we wrote semi-humourous editorials to accompany the listings. We started with the customer list we had purchased from Gary and then expanded it by handing out flyers at the Westminster Comic Mart's - which looked great thanks to a custom piece of Alan Davis artwork we had got with the business purchase,  Deliveries from Titan Distributors became a weekly occurrence along with regular trips to the warehouse itself in Mile End for single issues (the minimum pre-order was two copies). All of our spare time was spent wrapping parcels, collating orders, banking cheques and keeping things afloat - all this while holding down regular jobs. It was hard work but hugely exciting. We made lot's of contacts, learnt a huge deal and of course bought a *lot* of comics for ourselves at trade prices!

One of our regular overseas customers was a young guy called Philip Chee who lived in Hong Kong and he often sent us long letters with his large order, chatting about his love of science fiction and fantasy and comics. Over time we corresponded back and forth and developed a good relationship with this fellow fan who was half a world away. Then one month Philip mentioned that he was going to be in London visiting family - did we want to meet up with him for lunch or something?

Arranging to meet outside Tottenham Court Road tube station in the West End, the three of us waited somewhat nervously until approached by a young dark haired gentleman in glasses. Yes, this was Philip and after a few minutes we found ourselves getting on really well, even if he did come across as very excitable and a definite comic book expert. We made a tour of all the London comic shops within walking distance (Philip wanted to stock up on back issues) and ended up at the flagship "Forbidden Planet" store, which as well as comics had the best selection of SF and fantasy novels that we knew of.

Perusing the lengthy low shelves for anything new, Philip picked up a US import book with a somewhat lurid purple-ish cover and a shining logo.. "The secret history of our times revealed" it claimed. "Had I heard of "Wild Cards" before?" Philip asked. I shook my head and he thrust the book into my hands. "You should try this series, it's really good" he replied (or words to that effect). Not wanting to appear rude - and to be honest open for something new to read - I took a look at the blurb on the back. What I saw was enough for me to plonk down my cash - and a nearly thirty year love affair was about to begin...

The memory:

Wild Cards

This was a world parallel to our own - a history in which an alien virus struck the Earth in the aftermath of World War II. Thousands were killed, but a handful of survivors were endowed with strange superhuman powers. Some were called 'Aces', gifted with extraordinary mental and physical abilities. Others were 'Jokers', cursed with bizarre mental or physical disfigurements Some turned their talents to the service of humanity, some used them for evil - and the Wild Cards 'shared' universe was born.

So this might have sounded like your typical Marvel or DC super-hero universe in prose form. But the difference was that these were "mosaic" novels (although the first book was more district short stories). Each unique character was created and written separately by a leading science fiction author, but formed part of a jigsaw whole, shepherded and edited by some guy I'd never heard of called George R.R. Martin. These weren't your traditional throwaway stories either. Following the 80s trend towards more realistic portrayals of super-heroes, these characters were fully three dimensional. They changed and adapted and faded in out out of the narrative like real people and even died, sometimes in violent pointless ways. The authors involved include Walter John Williams, Roger Zelazny, Melinda, M. Snodgrass, Stephen Leigh and Daniel Abraham. Even "X-Men" scribe Chris Claremont had an entry, but there are many many others.

The first volume chronicled the events from World War II to the present day and showed the emergence of the Aces and Jokers and the effect they had on world events. In addition there were many allusions to real-life celebrities being affected by the virus. Mick Jagger was a werewolf. Jim Morrison really *was* the Lizard King, etc, etc Most importantly we were introduced to many key players in the Wild Cards series as the decades passed:

• Doctor Tachyon -  a flamboyant Takesian who tried to prevent the detonation of his races virus bomb and now attempts to atone for their mistake by staying on Earth.
• Croyd Crenson "The Sleeper" - cursed to fall into a coma and wake up in a new body every few months. Sometimes an Ace and sometimes a Joker, he never knows what will happen when he falls asleep.
• The Great and Powerful Turtle - possessed of the world most powerful mental abilities, he hides inside a metal shall constructed from an old VW Beetle
• Fortunato - the supreme sorcerer on the planet who recharges his powers via tantric sex.
• Captain Trips - a burned out hippy biochemist who can call forth five different super-powered persona through the use of drugs
• Puppetman - a politician able to control the minds of anyone he touches and feed off their negative emotions? How could that  not be a bad thing...

I loved the first book and immediately went back and brought the following two. Set in the then current late 80s, each one dealt with a particular threat but sub-plots and continuing threads were interwoven and carried across between the novels, although generally each three books formed a loose trilogy. Between 1987 and 1993 there were twelve books published and "Wild Cards" straddled a host of different genres from political thriller to detective mystery to space opera. A  universe of different heroes and villains were introduced and like the best comic multi-part stories, sometimes it took several volumes for good to triumph over evil - and sometimes the bad guys won and people died. I couldn't get enough. This was my comics world though an adult lens. It was violent, sexy, horrific, thought provoking and overall brilliant.

Around about book six, a UK publisher (I think it was Titan) caught onto the "Wild Cards" phenomenon and they re-issued the books with new Brian Bolland covers, US publisher Bartam Spectra responded with their own new covers by "Grimjack" artist Timothy Truman, who continued with the new releases, and it's those that adorn my copies of books seven to twelve.

With a new trilogy starting in volume 13 came a new publisher - Baen replacing Bantam Spectra - and Barclay Shaw took over from Tim Truman as cover artist. Released a mere month after book 12, "Card Sharks" was subtitled 'Book 1 of a New Cycle'. A conspiracy tale involving a deadly "antidote" to the Wild Card virus known as the "Black Trump", the set of three also brought a number of character arcs to a conclusion and wrapped up things pretty neatly for the series as a whole. It would be seven years before I would get to read a new story set in this universe.

2002 brought "Deuces Down". Published by iBooks, the long-awaited sixteenth volume in the series was almost a companion piece to the first, as the reader was presented with an anthology of individual tales spanning four decades from 1968. However this time it was viewed from the sidelines as the focus was on those less well known members of the Wild Card saga, the 'Deuces' - those whose powers were almost negligible and often more trouble than they're worth. It's an interesting book but I wanted things to move forward in the main timeline.

Four years later I got my wish in "Death Draws Five", a novel written solely by John J. Miller. An apocalyptic thriller with religious overtones it featured the welcome return of favourite characters such as Carnifex, Mr. Nobody and Fortunato plus new female bad-ass Midnight Angel. But iBooks were about to go into bankruptcy and a new publisher was needed yet again. 

Enter Tor Books, who have released a further six new novels so far, with more to come - plus reprints of the originals, some with extra stories added. There have been many new characters, many new writers brought into the "Wild Cards Trust" and many new Jokers, Aces, Deuces and villains. 

Turning things almost full circle, there have been two comics versions (Epic did four issues in 1990 and the Dabel Brothers  / Dynamite six in 2008), plus role playing games, audio books, online short stories and translations into several different languages. There (predictably) is even a live action TV show in development. 

Why do I love the books so much? Certainly regular superhero comics have caught up with some of the storytelling techniques used ("Astro City" springs to mind) but I think it really comes down to two reasons. Firstly it's that things really do change within the in-novel universe - unlike the transitory illusion of change with mainstream comics (at least from the big two publishers). "Wild Cards" has been running for thirty years with nary a reboot or reality altering event in sight. Secondly it's that there is a real weight to the characters (probably because they are always written by their creators) which means you care about what happens to them. The "Wild Cards" universe looks certain to continue for many years to come and I for one can't wait to get each new release.


Honourable mentions:

• Filthy, Rich and Catflap - At a mere six episodes, this series was kind of the bridge between the anarchy of the "The Young Ones" and the sheer slapstick brilliance of "Bottom" that was to come. Rik Mayall played Richie Rich, a talentless out of work actor, Nigel Planer his sponging agent Ralph Filthy and Adrian Edmonson was Edward Didgeridoo Catflap, Richie's violent drunken minder. Treating the Fourth Wall as if it just didn't exist and frequently taking the piss out of Z-list celebrities and their huge egos, I found the show not quite as enjoyable as it's predecessor but still worth tuning in for the relentlessly manic performances.

• Green Arrow The Longbow Hunters - After "The Dark Knight Returns", this was DC's second "prestige" format mini series and for my money one of the finest Green Arrow stories ever told. I was already a fan of writer / artist Mike Grell from his time on "Jon Sable, Freelance" but the quality of his work here is on a whole other level and succeeded in getting me seriously invested in a character which I had never really been that bothered about before. By stripping away the trick arrows and bombastic villains, acknowledging his age and grounding things in a more realistic environment, Grell turned Oliver Queen into an urban hunter and these three issues paved the way for a fantastic seven year run as writer and occasional artist. I still don't think Green Arrow has been written better.

• Weaveworld by Clive Barker - I never got into the"Books of Blood" or the "Hellraiser" movies. Horror stories are not really my thing and certainly thirty years ago I had read only a mere handful of genre novels. However I picked up "Weaveworld" because of the more fantasy-orientated premise - and boy was I glad I did. The book revolves around the secret existence of a race of magical beings known as the "Seerkind" and their struggles to remain hidden from the non-magical world inside "The Fugue" - a separate dimension woven into the strands of a carpet. The Seerkind have to face multiple dangers from human and non-human antagonists, plus the mysterious "Scourge" which seeks to destroy all magic. Full of religious allusions and themes, a multi-facted plot and truly evil and horrific threats, the novel was several worlds away from the more traditional fantasies I had consumed up to that point and even now remains one of the best books I have ever read. I quickly became a Barker devotee as he published one excellent novel after another over the next ten years. Any attempt to turn "Weaveworld" into a film or TV series can only be doomed to fail in my eyes, as it would be practically impossible to match the imagination and power of Barker's prose.

• The New Statesman - It's Rik Mayall in a razor sharp political comedy. What's not to love? As M.P. Alan B'Stard he was selfish, devious, lecherous and out only for himself. Heaven help anyone who got in his way, and whatever schemes, crises or scandals surrounded him, B'Stard always came up as top dog. It was a role tailor made for Mayall and proved that he was not only a brilliant comedian but also a tremendous actor. I may have been  biased of course (since I already considered Rik to be my comedy god), but as well as being very funny the show was savagely cruel and irreverent to all it's targets from any corner of the political spectrum. Four series, two specials, a couple of stage shows and many newspaper columns - B'stard was a force of nature and hugely popular. Any resemblance to real politicians either living or dead was completely deliberate.

• Star Trek Next Generation - We actually didn't get to see this show in the UK until September 1990, when it started airing in its regular early evening slot on BBC2 (and then subsequently on Sky One), but I've included it here as it was first broadcast in the USA in 1987. That first viewing came at the right time for me as "Doctor Who" had finished the previous December. I quickly took to the adventures of the Enterprise D crew, and thanks to some 4 hour tapes and my trust Panasonic VHS video, I recorded up to eight episodes on one cassette in 'long play'. In later years this meant that my first wife and I (also a fan) would occasionally start watching an episode in bed, fall asleep and wake up the next morning to find that Captain Picard was still boldly going.. For a while I was obsessed with all things "Trek" and amassed a large collection of books, comics, fact files and assorted ephemera. Looking back, even if that obsession has faded and even if it doesn't quite reach the heights of "Deep Space Nine" in terms of dramatic arcs and long-form storytelling, "TNG" still has a cast of characters that I love to spend time with, and it's one of those shows where despite having seen each episode so many times that I probably know the plots off by heart, when one comes on the TV I still stop changing channels and start watching.

Marshal Law - First published by Epic Comics as a six-issue mini, before sporadically hopping around a number of different publishers and formats in the subsequent years, Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill's savage satire of the superhero genre is a classic that deserves a much wider audience. Set in the future city of San Futuro, Law's job was to take down rogue heroes, which he did with maximum force and extreme pleasure. He hated all costumed heroes - including himself - and Mills parodied pretty much all the major characters over the course of the various storylines. It's violent, funny and packed with a wide disregard for the meaningless tales of the larger than life costumed do-gooders. Match that with O'Neill's unique spiky artwork and you have something really rather special. Later odd cross-overs with characters such as The Mask and even Hellraiser's Pinhead are less acerbic but still interesting. There is a big deluxe 480 page collection available which deserves to be on your Christmas present list.

Max Headroom - The world's first computer generated TV star (sort of), it's hard to describe to people that weren't there exactly how popular Max was in the mid-80s. Star of a one-off near-future TV drama, host of a video jukebox / interview chat show, the spokesman for "New Coke" and even part of a pop song along with the Art of Noise, Matt Frewer's creation and his staccato voice was everywhere. I enjoyed all of these appearances, but it's the US TV series which is my favourite. Set in a dystopian near future (aren't they all?) where television networks rule the world, it was full of inventive imagery and storylines - at least for the time. Nowadays many of the things it predicted have sort of come true, which is kind of worrying...

By the way, there are a lot of other fantastic comics I could mention here, but I'm saving them for longer pieces further down the line. There is also this little series called "Star Cops" that deserves a *lot* of love and attention...