NINETEEN SEVENTY SIX DEGREES

It lasted for a month, the heatwave of 1976, a whole month, and it was great. There wasn't any hysteria just a lot of people making the most of it. It seemed to me at the time that this was an opportunity to get out and about, shirtless, seeking fountains and ponds, listening out for the chimes of the Ice Cream van and hanging around in the park seeking distractions and mischief.

It was almost a national celebration despite the water shortages, and tales of Queen's Guards collapsing. The papers and TV were full of people adapting to the scorching temperatures and the mood was light. Being a kid at the time, for myself and my friends it felt like the summer of our lives. Days were very long, evenings bright and sleep hard to get but well deserved after a day of travelling around the city.

This time around, our two day heatwave is in the context or aversion  to risk and the associated potential problems of having the windows open. Maybe it's an increased awareness of the harmful nature of exposure to the sun and extreme heat. Or perhaps because we have been and are still living in a Covid world. One things for sure is that it cannot be as much fun as that glorious summer of 1976

BOB & BROOKE A STRANGE RELATIONSHIP

Bob Hope, a Londoner born in 1903 and Brooke Shields, born in New York in 1965 shared a working relationship that bordered on the bizarre. A new starlet ascending the Hollywood ladder and a legend considered passé often pictured together, usually with Bob wearing outfits and wigs of varying degrees of silliness. For some reason Brooke consigned the relationship to the dustbin when recollecting her journey to stardom, perhaps reflecting that on the way up Hollywood demands that you step over those on the way down.

 

SHEER SHARK ATTACK!

Sharks and comic books have a long and glorious partnership. A shark on a cover is visual dynamite and when combined with a muscular hero or svelte heroine you should have a publication that flies off the shelves.

My all time favourite comic cover is Guns Against Gangsters number 6 by legendary artist L.B. Cole which is peak Shark Comic Cover. The frightening jaws of doom menacing a fearless femme fatale brandishing a knife and Red ankle-strap Stilettos.

The glory days of Shark Comic covers was the Fifties when pulp titles went for sensation on the cover to sell the contents within and these covers have a raw power that has been diluted through commerciality over the years.

It was inevitable that with the growth of Marvel and DC we would see the humble shark adorning all sorts of covers in all sorts of situations.the art, probably more polished, the colouring more expansive due to technological advances but for me, you just can't beat the old covers where the apex predator shared top billing with the star

JAMES CAAN

The actor James Caan sadly passed away and perhaps he is best known for his role of Sonny Corleone who perished in a hail of bullets, or Jonathon E the anti hero of future violent sport Rollerball. His turn as the author beset by a super fan with an obsession verging on lunacy in Misery or his many muscular and intense performances will be remembered with respectful pleasure.

For me, his turn in Michael Mann's Thief (1981) as the main protagonist Frank, is his most important role. Important as it's the defining and most influential Neo Noir performance of all.

The Neo Noir aesthetic showed early signs of definition in the seventies but really became identifiable in the eighties Frank in Thief is almost a blueprint for what followed with the likes of Drive, Heat, Payback, The Grifter, Momento and many others.

Caan plays an antihero of real intensity who gets caught up in a web that he has little control of. His performance as the existential protagonist struggling to complete his journey is superb.

With Thief James Caan may very well be the godfather of Neo Noir.

James Caan 1940-2022

THE JOY OF BOOKS

I am going on holiday. Not earth shattering news I know, but for me, it's the first holiday in two and a half years due to a number of conspiring factors. This time around I'm taking books, plenty of books. No electronic media for me. I may take one of the books I read again every couple of years;

I might buy something new, or borrow a book. I may opt for something I've never got round to reading but always wanted to. I might even buy a trilogy or collection. I do like a good biography and might need to spend an afternoon browsing in an actual bookshop.

One thing I do know, is that when I lay down in the warm Mediterranean sun and open a book I will be transported to another place, the stresses and worries of recent times will be temporarily lifted and I will feel relaxed, at rest and very happy. That, dear reader, is the joy of books

TIM SALE

Tim Sale, the noted Comic Book artist died last month at the  age of 66. The thing about Sale's style is that, in an age of conformity in illustrating comics his draughtsmanship was clearly identifiable as his. Sales' work on Batman is as defining of the character as anyone's and he was jointly responsible (with Jeph Loeb) for my favourite Batman story, the complex and highly original The Long Halloween.

Sale also provided the artwork for the revolutionary NBC series Heroes along with work in the Independent Comics world as well as the mainstream. I'm not going to say much more about Sale. I'm going to let his art speak for itself.

RIP Tim.