memories of when the new world opened up

[sergebroom]

I had been reading science-fiction and fantasy since before I knew how to read (*), but my first English-speaking con was not long after I turned 24... It was 1979's Maplecon, in Ottawa. Not big by modern standards, but it opened a whole new world to me (**). My most vivid memory of it was of wandering around the con late at night, of walking by the movie program, where they were showing The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao. It was the scene where the Loch Ness monster had escaped from its fish bowl and, his roar like an army of bagpipes, was chasing after Royal Dano. Like I said, a whole new world...

(*) Thru the 'funnies' in our newspaper's Friday edition. How I'd wait and wait and wait for it (yes, outside, and in the snow) with impatience, should it be late.

(**) And, in an extremely convoluted way, led directly to my meeting - 5 years later - the woman who'd become my significant other.

Comments

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

How come your paper didn't have Sunday comics?

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

No idea why. There were the daily strips, and my favorite was Mandrake the Magician. The funnies, for reasons unknown, were included with the Friday paper. Ah, the Phantom, Buck Rogers... Good stuff...

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

It just seems a little unusual. I never saw Buck Rogers in the paper. The Phantom and Mandrake, yes.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Maybe those were the last days of Buck's adventures and very few newspapers were carrying it. A few years ago, I saw some reprints and, for once, the art looked as good as I remembered. And the stories weren't bad either, probably because some were scripted by Harry Harrison. If you showed me that strip circa 1960, I probably could pinpoint the sequence where I suddenly realized I could understand the words.

The funnies also introduced me to Tarzan, by the way.

Oh, and some weekly introduced me to Brick Bradford, but very few SF people seem to remember him or his Time Top.

The papers we got

[miltonthales.livejournal.com]

seemed to be heavy on Mark Trail, Gil Morgan MD, Mary Worth, and Apartment 3-G. I do remember seeing Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon, though, as well as that hardy perennial (it's still in my Sunday paper!) Prince Valiant.

Re: The papers we got

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Our paper also had Mark Trail and Mary Worth. And some other things I've never seen any reference to anywhere else in the USA, so I assume that those must have been Italian strips translated into French.

And what about Brick Braford? Nobody in the USA seems to remember him.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Alas, I can't either.

In Spanish, btw, Mandrake became 'Merlin el mago moderno' (Merlin the Modern Magician). (LJ isn't allowing me to use acute accents. Ugh.)

I always wondered how the Phantom got his suit on. Especially before the invention of Spandex.

Re: The papers we got

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

*Rex* Morgan MD.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Heck, the first Phantom is supposed to have been going around since the 1600s, I think, way before spandex. Maybe he wore tightly woven wool. In Africa? That must have been fun. That being said, I liked the 1997 movie. Stupid villain. Too comic-booky in the bad sense of the word. Still, I liked it. And I loved what they did with the costume, giving it all those weird patterns.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

I thought the best part of the film was Patrtick Macgoohan as the ghost of the previous phantom.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Ah yes...

I also liked how the Phantom's whole body language seemed lifted straight from the old comic-strip. As for the villains... Treat Williams was painful enough, but when the modern-day pirates showed up, dressed like they were auditioning for DisneyLand's Pirates of the Carribean, that was even worse.

At least, there was the animated series Phantom 2040 in the early Nineties.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

True. Treat Williams was awful, and the pirates were even worse.

Re: The papers we got

[miltonthales.livejournal.com]

Right. Gil Morgan MD is a trained ophthalmologist who never practiced the trade because he went on the PGA tour instead.

Re: The papers we got

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

Fair enough! (I remember a 'Rex Morgan' story-line back in the 70s that involved an Indian woman doctor, her name: Indira).

Re: The papers we got

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

And what about Doc Kildare, gentlemen?