3-Day Weekend Matinee - Far Beyond My Time

As previously noted, excepting the original presentation which ran in Heavy Metal back in '79, i completely missed the Buck Rogers revival comic strip from Jim Lawrence and Gray Morrow. There was another Buck Rogers comic back then which i did catch, though most folks in the USA may have missed it - even though it was based on the US television series starring Gil Gerard and Erin Gray:

Look-In is a UK magazine which featured comic series often based on tv shows. The issue in which Buck debuted also featured comics starring Benny Hill, Charlie's Angels, The Smurfs, Mork & Mindy, and the now largely forgotten Sapphire & Steel. (And, no - I can't read those old Benny Hill strips without hearing Yackety Sax) These were typically serialized stories in short 2-page chapters.

Before we get to our main feature, of course, we have our ongoing serial - Twin Earths from Oskar Lebeck and Alden McWilliams.

Previously on Twin Earths: Vanna is a defector from Terra - Earth's more technologically advanced twin in the same orbital position hidden by the sun. Having allied herself with the FBI, she has been educating her liason, agent Garry Verth, and his team about her culture and science. After revealing the existance of "Space Islands," what we would call Space Stations, Vanna helps them to create a detection system. Meanwhile, the FBI has discovered a "telviphone" - a combination telephone and television - and is attempting to learn more about it and the technology involved...

Twin Earths - Chapter 12

To Be Continued...

Our Buck Rogers tale is written by Angus P. Allan, with artwork from Martin Asbury. Angus was the sole writer for the series, but there were three artists who rotated over the not-quite 2 1/2 years the series ran, with two of the three returning for a second engagement.
The story that kicked off the series: The Praxonian Conquest -

 

As noted above, the continuing adventures (and so the next two tales) were presented in full colour.
Here's the cover of the issue in which the series premiered:

Oh... If you were wondering about that title "Far Beyond My Time" - Buck Rogers, like M*A*S*H, was a tv show that used an instrumental theme song which had featured lyrics in the movie version. And, with both shows, i got a lot of weird looks when i sang along with the theme. (The lyrics to Suicide Is Painless certainly didn't help) The theme for Buck Rogers was titled Suspension, by Kipp Lennon. The lyrics -

Far beyond the world I've known, far beyond my time
What am I, who am I, what will I be?
Where am I going and what will I see?
Searching my mind for some truths to reveal
What thoughts are fantasy, what memories real?

Long before this life of mine, long before this time
What was there, who cared to make it begin?
Is it forever or will it all end?
Searching my past for the things that I've seen
Is it my life or just something I dreamed?

(Instrumental break)

Far beyond this world I've known, far beyond my time
What kind of world am I going to find?
Will it be real or just all in my mind?
What am I, who am I, what will I be?
Where am I going and what will I see?

art from Twin Earths newspaper strips (1952) and Look-In v10 #s 43-39 (1980)

Sincerely Flattering Flash

We previously looked at a few Flash Gordon parodies from back in the 1940s & '50s, but we only stopped due to the growing length of the post, not lack of material. Satires continued over the decades, sometimes tucked away in odd little corners, like this tale from the 2nd issue of Drag Cartoons back in '63. The story was published without art credits, but when the original art showed up for auction it was attributed to Mel Keefer -

From the 1970s, let's look over in one of our favorite old fanzines, the Rocket's Blast ComicCollector. In RBCC #134, Ron Wilber took part in the Flash Gordon celebration that filled the issue with his own satirized take...

Even as 1980 rolled around, Flash was still getting spoofed, as here by Dave Angus & Kevin O'Neill in 2000 AD -

Of course, once the Sam Jones/Queen version of Flash Gordon hit the theatres later that year, parodies naturally experienced a resurgence in popularity once more. Here's Paul Kupperberg and Bob Camp's version of the film, sporting a cover painting by Bob Larkin...

By the way, that story from the RBCC that we opened with came with a pretty cool Flash Gordon illo from Steve Fabian (Whom we somehow have yet to get around to featuring even though i started tucking things away for posting over a year ago) on the cover -

We'll be back this afternoon with another batch, and even a little bit of Buck Rogers, too.

page art from RBCC #134 (1977), 2000 AD #181 (1980), Drag Cartoons #2 (1963), and Crazy #75 (1981)

A Day Adrift

As mentioned this morning, there was another Caza tale already prepped and ready to run, so let's use that for a bit more substantial post today. Last time we looked at Philippe Cazaumayou's work, we saw Marcel, his recurring Everyman character.
The other primary character appearing in his tales is his Artistic Self, who is featured in this story. (Though he can be seen in the previous tales, too)

With my main computer having sunk and finding myself adrift today, Shipwreck actually seems like a quite appropriately chosen strip -

Have i mentioned how much i love Caza's use of colour?

Alas, my lovely lady of the sea dwells nearly 3000 miles away, so i won't be following his course while adrift.

pages by Caza, from Heavy Metal (June 1980), translated from the original in Pilote Mensuel # 37 bis (1977)

Pas De Repos Paisible Pour Marcel

Pauvre Marcel, si fatigué qu'il entrevoit au-delà des illusions de sa réalité...

J'adore Caza.

the works by Caza, from the English translations in Heavy Metal #s 37 & 83 (1980, 1984)