Golden Sunsets - 50 Years Of Memories - Part 19 - 1985

An absolute cornucopia of different things captured my interest in this year, so this is going to be lots of little look-backs rather than one big one. It was always going to be a comic in the top spot, but with so many excellent and innovative titles published, which one to choose?...

1985:

The trivia:

• Rome and Carthage officially ended the Third Punic War between the two cities in 1985, when the mayors signed a peace treaty. it had been running for over 2,000 years.
• Toy manufacturer Matell introduced a new character to the He-Man universe with an unusual power. Stinkor was essentially a humanoid skunk with the ability to release a toxic odour from his body that immobilised his foes. Matell mixed patchouli oil in with the plastic mold to give the toy a unique aroma...
• In the Culinan Premier Mine near Praetoria, South Africa, miners found the worlds largest diamond weighing 755.5 carats. The "Golden Jubilee Diamond" cut from it (545.67 carats) is currently estimated to be worth around US$ 12 million.

The memory:

Moonshadow

Marvel's 'Epic' line had produced some excellent creator-owned titles already, particularly "Dreadstar" and "Coyote" - but the comics world had never seen anything like "Moonshadow" before. I'd never seen anything like this before. The titular character is the child of a hippie named Sunflower and a grinning ball of light (which kidnapped her from Earth). After growing up in an alien zoo, Moonshadow is thrust out into the big bad universe with only his mother, his cat and a faceless hairy sex obsessed creature called Ira for company.

Moonshadow stumbles about encountering love, death, lust, horror, adventure and more death - all the while searching for enlightenment and a sense of belonging. It's a coming of age tale where the universe is strange and unpredictable but also full of wonder. Jon J Muth’s watercolour artwork is incredible and turned him into a superstar. The ethereal work combined with J.M. DeMatteis’ haunting, lyrical, literature infused script transforms "Moonshadow" into something frankly astonishing. 

The last few issues of the 12 part series took forever to come out, and the ending was somewhat confusing (at the time anyway) but I loved every minute of the journey. It resonated with me in a very special way and made me into a life-long fan of both men's work. It was also the first comic where I bought the individual issues *and* the collected edition, just so I could have three new pages to enjoy. A sequel "Farewell, Moonshadow" followed many years later. More of a prose novel with illustrations, it's still a moving, heartfelt tale, and shows that no matter what occurs in life, the journey to understanding never truly comes to an end

Honourable mentions:

• No Surrender - a one-off comedy drama by "Boys From The Blackstuff" author Alan Bleasdale, starring Michael Angelis as the manager of a run-down social club in Liverpool. He realises that the previous owner has not only booked two opposing groups of Irish Catholic and Protestant pensioners on New Year's Eve, but also a homosexual comedian, a useless punk rock band, and a magician with stage fright on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Plus a fancy dress competition with no prize. Typical Bleasdale, this is darkly comic stuff with a heart of gold and a twist of surreal anarchy, and deserves to sit alongside his other classics. I had it on VHS recorded from the TV for years, but I wasn't able to get a DVD copy until 2011.

• Real Genius - One of a number of teen science fiction films around at the time, "Real Genius" is not as well remembered as "Weird Science" but I'd argue that it's actually a lot funnier. It helps to have a barnstorming performance from a young Val Kilmer as Chris Knight, the genius university slacker tasked with secretly creating the power source for a laser super-weapon for the CIA - so his university professor can take it easy and steal the glory (and the project funding to renovate his house). There is the usual group of oddballs rounding out the cast - the 15 year old genius, the kooky but sweet girl, the bullying arse-licking toady, etc, etc. But the film is so much more than the usual college comedies that forever follow in the wake of "Animal House". These "nerds" are not in competition with the "jocks". Sure they might be unlucky in love and have similar neuroses and problems, but they are comfortable being who they are and enjoy life - even if that is turning the dorm corridors into an ice rink or (at Chris Knight's insistence) holding "mutant" hamster races or Madame Curie lookalike contests. It also helps that the film might be one of the most quotable on the planet, 90% coming from Kilmer. Even today I find myself referring to the need to do something as a "moral imperative"...

• Scout - I was already a fan of Tim Truman's art on First Comics "Grimjack" and his separate graphic novel "Time Beavers", but this series allowed him to write for the first time. It's a dystopian 1999 and the U.S.A. has collapsed both economically (due to embargoes by other nations) and ecologically - most of the country is a barren wasteland.  Enter Native American Apache Emmanuel Santana (Army Ranger codename: Scout). He sees what is really happening - the President is an evil presence aided by four monsters out of Apache legend - and Scout is tasked by his spirit guide with killing them. But are they real, or is he just a hallucinating terrorist?, "Scout" drew on Truman's love for Native American culture and the western genre and is full of gritty action, mysticism and subtle commentary on the geopolitical fears of the day. It also featured a lot of blues music, so much so that issue sixteen came with a free flexi-disc (remember those?) with a two song "soundtrack". Truman even produced a full LP alongside his band "The Dixie Pistols" which contained a "Scout" mini-comic detailing some of the events after the end of the first 24-issue series. I still have both. Over time the storyline expanded further and two bridging mini-series and a second volume, "Scout:War Shaman" followed. I must get the issues out of storage and re-read them sometime soon.

• Young Sherlock Holmes -  Yes it's cheesy and Americanised and tries to turn the world's greatest detective into Indiana Jones, but I still have a soft spot for this film. Part of it is the fun central performance from Nicholas Rowe and part comes comes from spotting the nods to Conan Doyle's work. A guilty pleasure perhaps.

• Crisis On Infinite Earths - Every character in the DC pantheon in one multiverse-shattering epic! What's not to love? This was personally the culmination of the first phase of my love for DC Comics and their characters, which I had been exposed to gradually over the previous few years, and succeeded in getting me to pick even more titles than before. It's career-defining work from Marv Wolfman and George Perez and  the impact it has had down the decades is incredible. I loved it at the time, even though I never had an issue with the multiple Earth's idea anyway.

• Looking back now I have a slightly different opinion. Whatever DC may have gained from "Crisis" and despite their multiple revisionist attempts over subsequent decades, I think they lost more than they gained, particularly in terms of the great legacy of the DC Universe. I am of the opinion that having a proper Earth-2 with an older Superman, a dead Batman, the All-Star Squadron fighting in WWII and the JSA growing old and giving way to Infinity Inc would still work and is the way to go. To be honest I wish they would stop trying to "fix" things and just stick to one continuity. They have just made their long history even more complicated than the perceived problem that created the need for a "crisis" in the first place. Still a great comic book event though.

• Back To The Future - Just perfect in almost every conceivable way. Definitely up there as one of my favourite films of all time and the sequels aren't too shabby either. Thanks to the stewardship of Bob Gale and Robert Zemekis, we will never see a crass reboot or reimagining to sully the legacy, at least in their lifetimes.

• Longshot - Now more widely known as a member one of the endless iterations of "X-Men" teams, the artificially created humanoid with probability altering powers first appeared in his own six issue mini-series. It's a great story with a ton of unique characters, but the real draw was the debut of Arthur Adams on art duties. I'd never encountered anything like his attention to minute detail - the attractive women, the original looking aliens - his work practically shines off the page. Instantly recognisable, his name on a project means that it's a guaranteed must-buy as far as I am concerned.

• Starquake / Nodes of Yesod - Two ZX Spectrum games with a similar feel, but which were still so addictive that I played them for hours on end. Both feature a protagonist searching through hundreds of screens of caves and tunnels for various objects to either combine together or complete a quest. Certain objects (access cards or a rock-chewing mole) give access to other parts of the map. A vast array of alien lifeforms while either zap your health or cause you to bounce around. In concept both were variations on "Underwurlde" from gaming legends "Ultimate Play The Game", but with enough of a unique spin to still be great games in their own right. Amazingly I now have a version of "Nodes of Yesod" on my iPhone!

Starquake

Nodes of Yesod

• Tales of the Beanworld - Billed as "A most peculiar comic book experience", there is nothing else quite like Larry Marder's mythological, ecological fantasy adventure. It's a singular vision which has been published only sporadically over the last thirty years. I can't say I totally understood it on first reading back in the 80s, but the experience of reading something utterly unique means that it has stuck in my memory longer than many other titles of the period. Annoyingly, a new collection of stories snuck out in 2009 (with a fourth volume due in mid-2017) and I missed it completely. It's long out of print and commands a hefty price now, so I guess I'll have to satisfy myself with the digital edition - but my collectors gene  would still love a complete set of hardcovers.

• Brazil - Terry Gilliam's masterpiece and a film which is probably even more relevant in today's world than it was back in 1985. A science fiction satire which did a version of "steampunk" years before anyone else, it has pitch black humour and one of the darkest endings ever - yet is still full of wonderful absurdities and memorable characters. I love to watch it again and again. 

• Miracleman - After the demise of Warrior magazine, Eclipse comics picked up the rights to publish "Marvelman", now renamed to avoid any lawsuits from that other publisher. At the time the continuation of the story after the reprints was *the* big thing, but I couldn't help but be disappointed by the switch from the sublime Alan Davis art to the less than stellar Chuck Beckum. Thankfully his stay was brief. As good as the subsequent issues are - and trust me they are *very* good, I kind of wish that it had ended at issue 16 and been just another entry in Moore's body of work. The Gaiman follow up's were good for sure, but the decades long wait for a conclusion and the lack of a decent collection (until recently) just lent the whole thing a historical weight that it can never live up to. Moore and Gaiman both went on to do better things and frankly I'm really not that bothered if we never see the planned ending. Heretical I know.

Golden Sunsets - 50 Years Of Memories - Part 18 - 1984

"Tuesday evening, after tea and compulsory prayers, the last mouse on Earth tried to hide from mankind inside the machine"...

1984:

The trivia:

• Walt Disney's Donald Duck had become part of the U.S. army war effort back in 1942 in the cartoon "Donald Gets Drafted". He then appeared in a number of short features during World War II, including "Commando Duck" where he was parachuted in to the Pacific Theatre to fight against the Japanese. However he never officially left the army, so by his fiftieth birthday in 1984 - when he had been serving for over forty years - the military arranged a full parade and sent a  four star general to simultaneously promote Donald to "Buck Sergeant" and grant him official retirement.
• Scientist, astronomer and personal hero Carl Sagan shared a jail cell with Martin Sheen when the pair (and others) climbed over a chain-link fence at the Nevada Test Site to protest at the United States continued development of nuclear weapons.
• In July of 1984 President Ronald Reagan called ice cream "a nutritious and wholesome food" and established National Ice Cream Month. A man after my own heart.

The memory:

Deus Ex Machina

By 1984, the Sinclair ZX Spectrum was *the* home computer of choice (at least in the UK). Yes it only had 48K memory and could only display 256 colours, but as I have mentioned previously, those limitations helped produce some of the most innovative and ground breaking games ever made. Anyone and everyone could become a programmer, create a software company and enter the big time with a release that took the enthusiastic community by storm. Games could be (and frequently were) about anything.

At the forefront of this innovation was "Automata UK". Established in 1977 as one of, if not the first ever British video games company, It was run by the guru's guru Mel Croucher (Robert Rankin's Hugo Rune has nothing on this guy), aided by his long time collaborator and programmer Christian Penfold. Automata were pioneers in self-distributed, resolutely non-violent games on the black and white ZX-81. However it was with the release of "PiMania" in 1982 that they really took off.

An electronic take of the famous "Masquerade" book from the late 70s by Kit Williams, "PiMania" was billed as the first ever real life treasure hunt computer game. Hidden somewhere in the UK was a golden sundial worth £6,000 - yours if you could figure out the incredibly cryptic clues hidden within the game. A surreal text and graphics adventure full of lateral thinking puzzles and starring Piman, the company's pink, huge-nosed  mascot , it was launched in a flurry of publicity on several different platforms but it's fair to say that the ZX Spectrum version was the most popular. 

Making the most of the fact that the "PiMania"was loaded from a cassette tape, Automata UK bundled it with a B-side - a bizarre yet hilarious song of the same name with music and lyrics by Croucher which sounded like it was composed with a Bon Tempi organ and a kazoo. He was like an 8-bit Frank Zappa or Neil Innes. I loved it.

A second prize game followed in 1983 - "My Name Is Uncle Groucho, You Win A Fat Cigar" - along with another song. By now Automata UK had taking over the back page of "Popular Computing Weekly" (PCW). Starting off as standard if anarchic adverts, the page then began to feature the comic strip adventures of Piman and his cast of supporting characters drawn by the brilliant Robin Evans. Gradually over the months the strip took over and for many (like me) it was the main reason we brought the mostly text based magazine. The team also became regular fixtures at the Alexandra Palace computer fairs, holding court from a large stand with Croucher as Uncle Groucho and Penfold cavorting round in his frankly creepy looking pink Piman costume. It was part sales pitch, part entertainment show and the crowds lapped it up.

I guess that if Croucher was a visionary leader and innovator, you could say that my brother, friends and I were his"acolytes". We had become quite friendly with him and were warmly welcomed when we turned up at the 'Ally Pally' Microfairs. At one point my brother created a stuffed soft toy version of Piman, and for several years it sat in the front window of the Automata UK shop in Portsmouth like some deformed hairless Bagpuss. There's a picture of it somewhere on the web that I know I've seen, but can't seem to find at the moment.

Branching out using other external programmers, Automata UK released a whole series of "Pi" themed games, each with their own musical b-sides. A full album compilation of the expanding catalogue were produced on cassette, and I still have it (and the sequel) to this day. Songs such as "Donkey Hotay","Leader of the Pac" and "Piballed Blues"  became our soundtrack as we indulged in long hours of gameplay.

Then in 1984 via the PCW back page, the company announced that they would be producing a game unlike any other - their magnum opus - "Deus Ex Machina". It was Crouchers' personal project in conjunction with wunderkind programmer Andrew Stagg  - the culmination of his journey to produce a unique integrated multimedia blend of music, graphics and gaming, pushing the boundaries of the humble ZX Spectrum to their limit. Along with the game cassette would come a complete synchronised musical sound-track featuring voice-overs and singing from Croucher, along with Donna Bailey, Ian "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" Dury, comedian Frankie Howerd, and most excitingly, former "Doctor Who" Jon Pertwee. 

Sold for the price of £15 (high for the time, when most games were between £5 and £10), this was not so much a game as an event, and was trumpeted as being the next big thing - as important as the first graphical adventure game of "The Hobbit" that had defined the ZX Spectrum's early years. Naturally when it was launched we all went along to the next Microfair and shook Mel by the hand, and parted with our cash, taking home the huge plastic case with it's double cassettes, poster and complete set of lyrics. We couldn't wait to get home and start the adventure.

Inserting the first side of the game into our trusty tape players (with the volume set *just right* so that we would not get the dreaded "Tape Loading Error") we watched as the introductory graphics appeared complete with 8-bit representations of the key performers (unfortunately Mr. Pertwee's name was spelt wrong as "John", which was slightly amusing. (It was corrected for the Commodore 64 version). Then having begun to listen to side one of the music tape, we were kindly told by the Third Doctor "I want you to pause after I count you down and recommence playing at the screens request...". A similar countdown was initiated on screen. This insured that the soundtrack was (mostly) in sync with the graphics on screen. Thus the story begun...

In a Big Brother-esque 1994, players had to take part in the epic life story of an accidentally created artificial life form and guide it from birth to death via a series of connected mini-games, loosely based on Shakespeare's 'Seven Ages Of Man'. Pertwee was the narrator and guide, Howerd played the part of the authoritarian Defect Police - out to stop the creature -  and Dury the initial sperm that becomes the lifeform.(there's nothing quite like hearing Ian Dury uttering the immortal line "Wotcha cock! I'm a fertilising agent...my brothers are all wriggly.") Each of the stages required you to perform some kind of action to move yourself (the 'accident') through your life cycle and to keep your percentage score (the "degree of ideal entity") as high as possible. Success raised the score but mistakes cost you percentage points.Lets take a detailed look at the main sequences...

You begin by helping the machine create a baby through a series of repeated cursor touches - manipulating DNA helix's and keeping them spinning in the void, nurturing the early cells and allowing the machine to steal an egg before bringing it together with a spermatozoa  All the while the Defect Police are out to get you and stop the aberration before it can be born.

"At first the infant, mewling in the test tube's neck..."

The embryo lives. You protect it by keeping the outer cocoon intact before the baby is released spinning from the Incubator.The eyes of the Defect Police are watching and capture is unavoidable, but as it has been born with powers of telepathy and telekinesis, you can help this new life deflect the physic probes.

"Then the whining school child, with cassette and shining morning face. Creeping like a snail unwittingly to databank..."

This imprisoned spinning form grows from child into man as the voice of Donna Bailey sings. Using it's mental powers the defect absorbs information and learns. To start with it is innocent and loving but as time goes on it is corrupted and becomes cruel and hurtful. Part one end as an electronic eye sheds a single tear.

"And then the lover, sighing like a furnace, with a woeful video made to their lover's hologram"

As part two begins, the voice of Jon Pertwee has changed. Now it is authoritative and commanding. The noise of battle echoes in the background of the Overlevels. It's time for war. The fully grown lifeform follows the orders of the Defect Police and runs across a desolate landscape. Players have to take control by jumping over chasms and deflecting weapons and walls of fire. The soundtrack to this element brings to the fore Croucher's strong personal views about the evil of violent computer games. Ian Dury and Frankie Howerd verbally spar in rhyme as another battle ensues for the conscience of the soldier. Does you blindly follow orders or resist and rise up against your oppressors?

"Then a soldier, full of strange oaths. Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel, seeking hi-score, even in the laser's mouth"

Ultimately the Defect Police are defeated and you now rules the Overlevels. But life goes on and as you becomes older and more corpulent, you must make the right decisions by jumping over the good things and stamping evil out underfoot. Every false move means a part of the empire collapses in the distance and the Machine begins to regret ever having made you.

"And then the Justice, in fair round belly and eyes severe and clothes of format cut, full of wise words and machine code..."

As old age approaches and life reaches it's sunset, all the player can do is trace the line of the heartbeat and try and disperse the clots that float through your bloodstream...

"The Sixth Age shifts into the lean and skippered pantaloon..."

Life ends and the Machine takes you home. But the end is the beginning . Your life is expressed as a percentage score. Imagine if this was nothing but an electronic game, and you could begin your little life all over again...

"Last scene of all, the ends this strange eventful history is Second Childishness and mere oblivion. Without keyboard, without monitor, without power supply"

Okay, so clearly looking back now from our modern shiny CGI, 1080p, photo realistic graphics world, that all looks incredibly basic and probably quite dull - and yes I'll admit that it's not the most rewarding game to play. But the point is that the player interaction wasn't the thing  - it was the truly original combination of electronic music, poetry, dystopian lyrics and unusual visuals. "Deus Ex Machina" was as much avant garde  / prog rock concept album art installation as game - something you experienced as well as participated in. The soundtrack could be listened to in it's own right - in fact it was never off my Walkman - and was full of great performances, humour and subtle digs at the establishment.

Donna Bailey is a revelation and both Dury and Howerd perform their parts well. But as the Storyteller, Pertwee really seems to get into the spirit of things and enjoy himself (this is even after he had apparently fallen off his motorcycle on the way to the recording studio!). He and Croucher became good friends from this project and later released a comedy quiz book together.

I make no secret of the fact that I am very biased in favour of Mel Croucher's output and his extraordinary vision. The title of this very blog is named in honour of some of his magazine columns. However as much as I loved "Deus Ex Machina", it failed terribly. It gathered good reviews and won an industry award as program of the year, but sales were awful. Part of this is due to the fact that many casual gamers just didn't "get" it, having been conditioned on a diet of "Jet Set Willy" and "Knightlore" which were technically more polished and more playable - and they were being asked to pay £15 for an hour or so's "experience" - far higher than they could buy games for from WH Smith.

But more importantly Automata UK were sadly a victim of the success of the UK gaming industry. With titles being more and more sold in high street stores as retailers wanted a piece of the mail-order / Microfair turnover, large distribution companies got in on the act and *they* got to set the price points and choose which titles were allowed onto shelves. As a little company trying to take their puck rock attitude and buck the trend, Mel and Co were doomed to fail.

Automata UK never really recovered from the losses of "Deus Ex Machina" and Croucher walked away in 1985. The UK computer industry had probably disillusioned him, but it was a sad loss. It would be years before he stepped back into the arena in any major way - although he did write dozens of columns for industry magazines. He also managed a number of media companies with both corporate and celebrity clients. But in 2012, he launched a new version of the company "Automata Source Ltd" and successfully crowd-funded "Deus Ex Machina 2" featuring the voice of the legendary Christopher Lee. Even thirty plus years later Mel is still innovating, still creating and still producing great music. This post is dedicated to him, with huge thanks for the years of fun and laughter.

Honourable mentions:

• CRASH - no post relating to the ZX Spectrum can pass without mentioning the most popular computing magazine of the day - at one point selling over 100,000 copies a month. CRASH was known for the distinctive cover art by Oliver Frey, who also contributed to the "Terminal Man " comic strip inside. Full of irrerervant news, reviews, playing tips and cheats, it developed a unique style and became the go-to source if you wanted to know anything about Spectrum games. I had almost every issue. The physical copies are all long gone of course but thankfully they are now available online. CRASH deserves a much more in depth look from me. One day...

• Sherlock Holmes - The definitive period version of the world-famous detective. Benedict Cumberbatch may have won tons of awards but for many Jeremy Brett *is* Holmes in a way that has not been bettered before or since. Across 36 episodes and 5 feature length specials, Brett and his two Watson's (David Burke for series 1 and Edward Hardwicke thereafter) starred in the most faithful adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories - praised for their high production values and attention to detail. I had become a fan of the original adventures when I read the complete works a few years earlier and my whole family never missed an episode. It still stands up today as a high watermark in television drama.

• The Saga of the Swamp Thing - Okay, so this title had been running since 1982 and featured some sterling work from writer Martin Pasko and various artists, but we all know that it was when Alan Moore took over from issue 20 (and particularly #21's "The Anatomy Lesson") that everything moved onto a whole new level. Moore was relatively unknown in the U.S. and was given free rein to revamp the title to save it from cancellation. The rest is comic book history. There have been millions of words written about the importance of Moore's stint on the title so I don't intend to repeat them here, but it did usher in a new maturity for mainstream comics and paved the way for the "Vertigo" imprint. I'm slightly ashamed to say that I didn't start picking up the comic until issue 28 on the strong recommendation from my local comic shop owner and had to scrabble around for many months finding the back issues as prices started to soar.

• Robin of Sherwood - Written by Richard "Kip" Carpenter, whose work I had previously enjoyed on "Catweazle" and "Dick Turpin", this is another example of a TV interpretation  which has yet to be bettered. Combing authentic production design and real locations (so you felt that the outlaws really did live in a forest) with genuine history and elements of pagan myths, I lapped up this series as it appealed to my love of both classical heroes and fantasy. Michael Praed was a perfect Robin of Loxley and his not so merry men were also well cast. The addition of Nasir the Saracen has had such an influence that it now seems to have always been part of the legend. However let's not talk about season three. As far as I am concerned Robin dies at the end of "The Greatest Enemy"...

• Mage: The Hero Discovered - The first part of writer / artist Matt Wagner's epic trilogy of the life of Kevin Matchstick, wielder of an enchanted baseball bat that turns out to be Excalibur. Part examination of the power of myth, part autobiographical allegory and all whole lot of fun, I loved the lush artwork and somewhat humorous take on the Arthurian legend (not to mention the triple gatefold panorama in the final issue). It took until 1997 for the second chapter "The Hero Defined" to appear and the final part, "The Hero Denied" will at last be released in July 2017. It will undoubtedly be worth the wait and I intend to re-read the whole series before then. Oh and that black T-shirt with the white lightning bolt that Kevin Matchstick wears? I had one of those and wore it proudly for years.

Frankie Goes To Hollywood - If one band came to define the mid-80s for me it was "Frankie". Hugely successful  - especially after lead single "Relax" was banned by the BBC leading to it hitting the number one spot for five weeks - hugely influential, and more than a little racy, the provocative nature of their singles and first album meant that the country (and I) became obsessed with everything they released. "Frankie Says..." T-shirts were everywhere. They became only the second act in the history of the UK charts to reach number one with their first three singles. Even now I still think that "Two Tribes" (and it's multiple remixes) is one of the best records ever made. It became a ritual to go to my local "Golden Disc" record shop every Thursday lunchtime to pick up the latest 12", and when the double album "Welcome To The Pleasuredome" (with a cover you  really couldn't show your mother) was first on sale, the queue was out the door. I bought everything in every format including the rare picture discs and trust me, those are one of the few pieces of vinyl I'll never throw out. Alas the follow up album " Liverpool" was a disappointment (I personally liked "Rage Hard") and by 1987 after internal disputes the band was no more. A real shame.

• There are a couple of other comic books which were very important to me that were released in 1984. However I want to do more in depth lengthy posts in the "Collector's Dream" segment  on these. Watch this space...

Golden Sunsets - 50 Years Of Memories - Part 16 - 1982

"Know you now of days long past. The time when the world was young. When sorcery thrived and wild adventure was forever in the offering..."

1982:

The Trivia:

• For one scene in his film "Dragon Lord" which required him to kick a shuttlecock, director / star Jackie Chan apparently did over 1,000 takes.
• The CGI pioneering film "Tron" was not nominated for an Oscar for visual effects because using computers was considered "cheating".
• Hollywood writer Chuck Ross redrafted the script to "Casablanca" and submitted it to over 200 agencies under the title "Everybody Comes To Rick's". Dozens rejected it as not being good enough.

The Memory:

The Sword and the Sorcerer

All kids of a certain age will remember their local "video shop". Much like comic book stores full of back issues, video rental shops had their own particular smell, their own ambience. Cheap carpet tiles, an ancient looking television set, the 'adult' section shoved ungainly in a rack in the corner. If films were your drug of choice, the guy behind the counter was your dealer.  I'm not talking the glossy, brightly lit branches of a "Blockbusters" - these were the places that some village entrepreneur decided to open up to provide surrounding residents with VHS copies of the latest Hollywood movies (along with a tiny sample of Betamax format films before that format died an unloved death).

You have to understand that in the 1980s (in the UK at least) it could take up to five years for a film to make it's way from the cinema to the three terrestrial channels (Channel 4 didn't start until November of 1982). If you didn't get to the two screen Odeon or single screen ABC cinemas in the nearest town, that was it in terms of seeing the film until BBC 1 showed it at Christmas or Easter. Sure home taping had begun to take off as the price of video cassettes tumbled - by this point I was regularly recording "Doctor Who" and a whole host of other things off of the television - but *new* films? -  the video shop was really your only option (unless you had access to "pirate" recordings, often from a man driving around honking his car horn and then opening his boot to show the few meagre cassettes he had available. I vaguely recall getting to see an appalling copy of "E.T." this way).

The thing is, local shops didn't have the cash to buy many copies of the same film. If you were very lucky they would have two or three of a brand new title, but more often than not there would just be a single solitary plastic box on the shelf in the "new releases" section - and that would obviously be missing too if someone had already rented the cassette. You could hang around in the vain hope that someone might return the film while you were there, or be told by the proprietor to pop back in a couple of hours on the off chance that the current renter returned it on time. Either that or choose a different film to watch.

(My local video shop after it had closed. That parish office used to be a betting shop!)

My local video emporium was where I first got to see teen sex comedies such as "Porky's" and "Screwballs", classics like "The Blues Brothers", action films like "First Blood" and horror fare such as"Alien" (naturally I had to get my dad to rent those ones!). This was before the infamous Video Recordings Act of 1984 which saw a whole host of titles classed as "video nasties" and banned. Softcore porn sat side by side with titles like "Driller Killer" and "I Spit On Your Grave". There would always be a copy of "The Warriors" or something starring Chuck Norris - plus a plethora of weird and wonderful titles that you had never heard of but whose cover illustrations and blurb on the back enticed you in. "Rent me" they pleaded. "I'm not crap, honest".

The early 80s was when "sword and sorcery" movies hit it big. We'd had the wonderfully cheesy "Hawk The Slayer" at the start of the decade followed by "Dragonslayer" and "Excalibur". 1982 was dominated by the Arnold Schwarzenegger starring "Conan The Barbarian", but that wasn't my favourite. Not even Marc Singers "The Beastmaster" came close. No, the 80s best S&S movie  by a country mile was aptly named "The Sword and the Sorcerer".

Okay, so anyone seeing the film for the first time will clearly realise that it's a *bit* of a rip off of Conan. The young child protagonist who sees his family killed by an tyrannical invader and vows revenge - growing up in exile to be a muscly rogue mercenary. The evil wizard with his own agenda. The scantily clad beautiful women. The rampant violence. Even that poster above could have been ripped from a Frank Frazetta book cover. So far, so cliché.

But the thing that sets "The Sword and the Sorcerer" above many of it's contemporaries it that much like the Dino De Laurentis "Flash Gordon", it never takes itself too seriously. The hero Talon is witty and intelligent (if rather boorish) and more in the mold of the swashbucklers of the early days of cinema, rather than the hulking brute who just uses his strength. He's also refreshingly honest - agreeing to help the rebellion against nasty Titus Cromwell not for gold or power, but because it will gain him a night of passion with the lovely Alana. The company of "heroes" bicker amongst each other, and it's this kind of knowing, wink-at-the-audience "yeah we know it's a bit cheap but it's a hell of a lot of fun" attitude that makes the film so entertaining. It also had a lot of influence on later entries in the genre. You can probably trace a (wobbly, meandering) line from here to the "The Princess Bride" five years later.

I can't talk about Talon without mentioning his sword - after all it get's top billing in the film's title. This is not just any normal broadsword. It has three blades, two of which can be fired at the opponent via some sort of compressed air technical doohickery. Plus it has another knife hidden in the hilt. Back in the day I thought this was one of the cleverest things ever. Utterly impractical and you never see Talon having to go and retrieve his blades by yanking them out of someone's skull, but hey, it's still mightily impressive. It's also enchanted apparently, though how and by whom is never explained as far as I can recall.

So what about the Sorcerer then? Well his name is Xusia of Delos and he's a particularly ugly looking specimen - but then so would you be if you had been entombed after using banned dark magic and then resurrected centuries later by Titus Cromwell's pet witch! Xusia aids the evil ruler in finally conquering the kingdom of Ehdan  - but his reward is a literal knife in the back and he flings himself off a cliff, while Cromwell goes on to consolidate his stranglehold over Ehdan across many years. It's a swift end for one of the supposed main characters you might think.

But after Talon and his friends have fought Cromwell to a standstill, there is a massive twist towards the end of the film, as the kings sour faced adviser Count Machelli - standing in plain sight all the time - reveals himself to have been Xusia in disguise all along and with plans to take control of the kingdom himself.

"He's a sorcerer. Of course he can use illusion to conceal himself". Ah, but it's not the fact that Xusia was camouflaged that is the memorable moment from this movie - it's how he reveals himself. Machelli literally tears his own head in half, slime oozes everywhere and the hideous visage of the sorcerer struggles free of his meat-suit. It's one of those images which you never forget. Visually impressive in a film which had such a small budget but also genuinely disgusting. This is the part that all my school friends talked about when news of what a great film it was started to spread around the classrooms.

After this stunning revelation. the final battle features lots of clashing swords and gritted teeth plus further triple blade action and more hidden weapons than you can shake a Cimmerian at. Cromwell get his just deserts, Xusia is finally killed (twice) and Alana is saved from a huge snake between her legs. Yes this film is also full of incredibly thinly veiled innuendo. Following a night of celebration, feasting and not forgetting sex with the princess, Talon rides off into the sunset with his band of mercenaries.

"Watch out for Talon's next adventure - Tales of the Ancient Empire - coming soon" we were promised. But despite keeping an eye on the video shop shelves for the next few years, it never materialised (apparently it was eventually released a staggering 28 years later in 2010, with a totally different cast and only a cameo from Talon. I've never seen it. One reviewer's comment was that it's only redeeming quality was that it was laughably short. Ouch.)

Overall then "the Sword and the Sorcerer" is camp, low budget, has some terrible dialogue and some even hammier acting. But it's full of fun ideas, great action, visceral special effects, blood and gore (Talon is even crucified at one point) and some mild nudity. What more could a teenage boy have wanted? Its "don't care" attitude and word of mouth about how enjoyable it was meant it became a cult classic, not just amongst my friends at school , but also in the wider world. It made near ten times it's original budget and was the most successful independent film of the year.

Having looked at the home media version for the film that is available now, I see that it is rated 18 in the UK - which makes me wonder how on earth we were allowed to rent it back in 1982. I know that the clampdown was not in place for another couple of years but even so, this was not a film that my parents rented for me - I just went and picked it up of the shelf. Perhaps I just looked older than I really was. It's years since I have seen it, but this look-back just *might* make me search out an old DVD copy on eBay...


Honourable mentions:

• Star Fleet - This fondly remembered science fiction puppet series was (as far as I know) only shown the once on Saturday mornings at the end of 1982. But this was not a Gerry Anderson show (no strings here) and for most children was probably their first exposure to some of the prevalent themes of Japanese anime. It featured a 24 episode long story arc, huge spaceships weird aliens, an ancient looking sailing ship in space and of course the heroes craft combining together to form an awesome giant robot - the Dai-X. We had never seen anything like it before. The UK version is also justly famous for the great theme tune which was later covered by Brian May from "Queen". The DVD box set has only recently arrived on my shelf, so I can't wait to watch it again. Now if I can only find those comic strips from "Look-In" magazine...

• The Dark Crystal - another fantastical story featuring puppets but a far cry from "Star Fleet" or "The Muppet Show". The designs by Brian Froud are wonderful, the themes are surprisingly adult and as other have commented it's a magical, dreamlike film that casts its spell from the very first frame. I must have watched it dozens of times in the decades since and even now the Skeksis are a little bit scary. I sincerely hope they never maker a sequel as some films deserve to stand alone as examples of how to make a truly original piece of art.

• The Young Ones - The anarchic show about four university students which launched the careers of Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmonson, Nigel Planer and (too a lesser extent) Christopher Ryan. After "Not The Nine O'Clock News" had finished earlier in the year, this became my favorite comedy programme and it's where I first came to adore the genius of the late Mayall (although I had seen him a year before as Kevin Turvey on "A Kick Up The Eighties". It was full of cartoon violence, surreal non sequiters, offensive talking puppets, subliminal flash frames and didn't so much break the fourth wall as smash through it with a sledgehammer (or probably Vyvyan's head). Plus a live band performance in the middle of each episode. For teenagers growing up in the 80s, this was *our* show. The critics hated it, the grown up's didn't understand it, but we could quote whole reams of dialogue. It changed the face of television comedy forever.

• Yazoo - Upstairs at Erics - The first album by synth-pop duo Alison Moyet and Vince Clarke. They were the first band I really followed - and I remember having a disagreement with my year-older cousin because he dissed them in favour of the supposedly cooler "The Jam". The combination of Clarke's synth driven melodies and Moyet's soulful voice, along with the experimental nature of some tracks was a revelation to me and the LP was never off my turntable after I saw them perform "Don't Go" on "Top of the Pops". Years later an acquaintance with his own band revealed that they had auditioned Moyet for the position as lead singer, but had turned her down for not being good enough!

• Warrior - I only came across this most important of British comic publications by chance while browsing the shelves of a newsagent. The first issue cover with the maniacal, cleaver wielding cyborg Axel Pressbutton proclaimed "He's back!", even though I had never heard of him - and by this point I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about UK comics (but not music magazines clearly). Nowadays of course Pressbutton is more of a footnote, because the anthology is famous for launching the twin Alan Moore juggernauts of "Marvelman (Miracleman)" and "V For Vendetta". My brother and I used to fight over who got to read the issues first and I met editor Dez Skinn several times either at comic marts or by visiting him at the "Quality Comics" shop in South London. As well as the Moore strips with incredibly art from Garry Leach, Alan Davis and David Lloyd, I also enjoyed the medieval demon slaying of "Father Shandor" , although that might have been due to the voluptuous females drawn by John Bolton. I never did quite understand "The Spiral Path" though...

• The Belgariad by David Eddings - A five volume fantasy series that takes many of the standard tropes of fantasy and deals with them in new and interesting ways. Prophecy and destiny are active forces, magic follows strict rules and the pantheon of local gods are real, taking direct action on the world. Eddings is adept at writing interesting and lovable characters and in the enigmatic Belgarath and his daughter Polgara he has created two of fantasy's most memorable sorcerers. Yes it's a quest story and yes by today's standards the plot might seem predictable (it's being marketed more for young adults now I think) but you want to spend time with these people - it's not just the destination but also the journey that counts. Sequel series "The Malloreon" expands on the world and follows many of the same story beats, but that's directly acknowledged in the plot as the hand of prophecy forcing things along. Two other single novels complete the 12 book saga by telling background and historical details from alternative viewpoints. Good fun and a great start for someone into the fantasy genre.

• Eagle comic - I knew the title. I knew that the famous 50-60s comic had featured the legendary adventures of the original "Dan Dare" (plus I'd loved his adventures in 2000 AD). but the revival was something different. Dare was there in the centre colour spread (well his great-great grandson) but surrounding him were photo strips across a wide range of genres. Robot action in "Manixx". Police adventures with "Sgt. Streetwise". Cowboy scrapes with "Saddle Tramp". Most popular of all though was "Doomlord" - the tale of an alien race judging humanity and sending an envoy to destroy us all. Despite only having a rubber mask and a few meagre special effects, John Wagner and Alan Grant managed to tell an exciting and scary adventure and kept introducing new fresh elements . I really liked the new Eagle but to be honest I still preferred the hand dawn comic strip adventures such as "The Tower King" and "House of Daemon" (especially as both featured the stunning art of Jose Ortiz) and eventually the comic switched all the stories back to this. It never supplanted 2000 AD in my affections and I stopped buying it somewhere around issue 150 in mid -1985, but those early issues contain a lot of wonderful stuff.

ZX Spectrum - There is an entirely separate (long dormant) strand that will cover the innovation, enjoyment and legacy of one of the most important home computers in the history of gaming. Suffice it to say that for a period of time the humble "Speccy" became the dominant thing in my life (and those of my friends). I spent hundreds of hours typing in code, visiting computer fairs, reading magazine reviews, buying peripherals and playing a vast number of the thousands of games available. It was incredible what could be accomplished with a mere 48K of memory. You only have to mention "Jet Set Willy", "Daley Thompson's Decathlon" or "Knightlore"  and I go misty eyed with nostalgia. Forget Microsoft, Sony or Apple - Sinclair Computing's ZX Spectrum made home consoles and video games what they are today. *Lots* more to come on this...