CALLING NURSE ABBOTT!!

Just purchased this off eBay – how could I resist?!? I feel your pain little boy … also I think I’m in love with Nurse Abbott!

VINTAGE COVERS VI + 24fps: HENRY V

Last cover dump – slighty more racy than the others but what the heck we’re all grown ups here!

Anyone know where I can find more of these – I’m addicted to covers!?

Did I give you a clue about Movie Night during the week? I think I did. Well if you’re English you don’t really need to have any excuses for liking this movie adaptation of Shakespeare’s celebrated play. If you are not English and you need convincing then just try stepping back from the subject and look at the technique. The transition from the spit and sawdust playhouse where Olivier is playing a rather timid actor in roll of the king to the rolling green fields of France where the real king of England has replaced his cypher is breathtaking. Plenty of films from the period use painted backgrounds but never before has a film purposefully directed your attention to the fact and used it as part of the narrative. I can’t think of anything quite like it and when I do try all I come up with is Pulp Fiction and Memento – films that have their structure up front and in your face. As film-making goes this is about as modern as you get. I’m reminded of what little I learnt about art history and the ‘fact’ that there is no real distinction between classical and modern art. This is an idea I favour which takes the point of view that if you’re still looking to the Mona Lisa for inspiration that alone makes it Modern Art rather than classical art. Which makes this film as watchable today as it was in the forties. I don’t like Olivier’s shakespearian acting that much to be honest and the scene I love falls a little flat for me now – however I’ll never stop marvelling at the audacity of the technique. And if anyone could steal a show it would have to be Robert Newton who could out-over-act anyone!

Is this scene above the origin of the old joke that always begins “There was a Scotsman, a Welshman, an Englishman and an Irishman…”

VINTAGE COVERS V

I’ll let you tell me why you couldn’t call a magazine of this sort Wink today.

GREAT BRANDING + VINTAGE COVERS IV

It is with some sadness that I have to annouce today that the word ‘Great’ in Great Britain has been sold to France in order to keep our economy going. We are now just plain old Britain and our nearest and dearest neighbour has become La Grand France. Ah well, the Lion has been tamed. Nothing left for us now but a slow slide into dribbling dotage. Good job my blog’s around to save a nation eh! In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man as modest stillness and humility, But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call’d fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game’s afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’

Not the current Harry of course – that would be silly. Meanwhile back at the local news vendor I can’t quite make my mind up … Whisper or Titter?

Titter it is. May I help you with that hook madam?

VINTAGE COVERS III

I’m not convinced the title of Eyeful is subtle enough for the period! Still I hope my newsagent has reserved this week’s copy of Phwor Blimey Gov’nor! subtitled You don’t get many of those to the pound do you?

VINTAGE COVERS II

Here’s a selection of what? Glamour magazines? I don’t know. I’m not old enough to remember what these magazines contained. That, and I’ve never been tall enough to reach the ‘top shelf’ anyway. Still these are terrific painted covers with a really wicked sense of humour about them. It all seems fairly harmless fun now doesn’t it? No? Suit yourself.

VINTAGE COVERS I

Some of you will recall my blog before this one, where I started off by posting some vintage covers I’d found on the net a few years previously. I came across those covers while cleaning one of my external drives and I thought I’d just dump them here over the course of this week. You might also know that I am ‘between employers’ at the moment, so I’m sure you’ll appreciate my blogging might become less than it might be over the coming weeks. If I have anything really important to do blogwise then I’ll certainly be around to do it, Zuda reviews and stuff, Friday movie night, Beryl on Saturdays etc, will continue as normal but if I appear distracted for a while it’s because I have other priorities and the Devil is most certainly driving right now. Meanwhile I hope you enjoy the crap I post. I enjoy it. Next week, expect different crap, OK?

The covers presented over the next few days all have one thing in common – you guessed it – dames! Sometimes provocative, sometimes spunky, sometimes in distress, but always kinda lovely looking! Click on the pic for the full resolution image (still kinda tiny but I believe it was the days of dial-up when I got ‘em).

MR “E” AND FRIENDS

Take enough drugs and you too can imagine a scene like this. You’ll probably be so zonked out you’ll need legend that is George Tuska to draw it for you but that’s no bad thing is it? I think it’s fair to say you wouldn’t get away with the title Mr “E” in the UK without a friendly visit from Mr Plod the policeman to check you weren’t actually dealing.

Mr “E”s mysterious power seems to consist of asking an ancient statue to give him a hand every now and then when on undercover missions for the police department. This ancient and most powerful statue/god by the name of King Kolah usually sends a couple of blackbirds to help Mr. “E” which then turn into pixies who generally trip and hinder the villain known in this issue as the Big Ear until the story reaches it’s ridiculous conclusion. It makes no sense whatsoever to me. It comes from Dynamic Comics #19 (1944) from Harry ‘A’ Chesler and it’s barking mad. Proof you say? Here’s the cover to the previous issue. Explain the propellers on this monster’s hat! I dare you! More nonsense tomorrow!

As for points, the lion’s share goes to Paul (500) despite being wrong (and correct in another way) with El Santo (250) and newbie Sean (250) sharing the rest. The rest of you, for shame and passivity, get nothing. Join me tomorrow for another Golden Age challenge.

EXPOSED – THE MISSING WORDS

Here it is – EXPOSED! The cover of Exposed #1  (1950) from D.S. Publishing. I’m not sure that “you’re killing me” qualifies as nagging but they were strange days the fifties – I remember them well!?

Those words! They're killing me!

As you can see the actual words though amusing to me at the time have been rendered completely ordinary by your crazy suggestions. I don’t know how you do it. Available points go are shared between Sam, who now has a rival in El Santo. Take 300 points each. Rob and Paul 200 a piece this time. I hope someone is keeping a tally?

By the way the cover relates to the story inside ‘Death Thumbs A Ride’ but only very loosely, as the killer is a much younger man, the lady is beaten to death not strangled, the stream is irrelevant and Death himself is merely metaphorical. So, great cover! The interior art was nothing to shout about either though as the following panel proves. The Captain’s done pretty well for himself considering his unfortunately physical shortcomings… that or he’s put both arms down the same sleeve!?

Make sure you’re around tomorrow for the next big Golden Age Challenge entitled Don’t have a Cow, man!