Farewell Geoffrey and Carlos

Yesterday was a rotten day for the announcement of deaths. First came the news that Geoffrey Hayes, long time star of "Rainbow" had passed away aged 76 before rumours of legendary Spanish comic artist and "Judge Dredd" co-creator Carlos Ezquerra's death started to appear online. These were two very different people that, in one way or another, shaped distinctive parts of my adolescent life so to lose both in one day was awful.

Ezquerra had one of the most distinctive styles of drawing around and could make even the dreariest stories come alive although he found much more interesting jobs under Pat Mills and John Wagner on titles like "Battle Picture Weekly", the controversial "Action" (where the unfortunate colouring of a copper's hat of his "Kids Rule OK!" cover lead to outrage in the papers and the immediate watering down of its content) and the all new "2000AD" in 1977 where he got to work on characters like Dredd, whose initial design he had created and continued to develop through epics like "The Apocalypse War" saga. Later for short lived sister title "Starlord" he and Wagner went on to devise another iconic world as Johnny Alpha and his band of mutant bounty hunters made a name for themselves in "Strontium Dog". Ezquerra's art really was like nothing else I'd seen in comics with a mix of cartoonishness, elaborate shading and a perfect eye for staging his characters to look like the most battle-scarred, action packed bastards you'd run a mile from in the street.

These words barely scratch the surface but there are so much better tributes by Lew Stringer here, comics guru John Freeman at Down The Tubes and 2000AD themselves. Keeping with the theme of baffling old tat we usually have here, here's a few adverts for 2000AD from 1977 and 1994 respectively...



I don't recall seeing this one at all. Strange also that they'd spend on a TV campaign when the following year would see a Judge Dredd-movie inspired refit of the whole comic with most of those characters axed, plus a short lived "Lawman of the Future" comic for younger readers.



And here's a ten year tribute to Tharg's mighty organ filmed in 1987 (although I'm buggered if I can work out what for? A Comic-Con?) which sadly doesn't feature Carlos but does a pretty great job of dragging in everyone else important in its then-history, including noted miserable bastards Pat Mills and Alan Moore. Who didn't do the interview and wasn't there when it didn't happen.

 

The death that undoubtedly hit people of a certain generation hardest however was Geoffrey who had been a comforting and dependable presence throughout countless children's upbringings. I still remember the drama when it was axed and brought back without him, the papers having a field day with the fact he had to get a regular paying job as if it was something to mock. Eventually he waited long enough for the nostalgia for his old work to kick in and hopefully made a good living with TV appearances, spin-off items and a billion student discos. Friends who met him paint an image of a lovely, enthusiastic man who kept smiling despite constantly having to put up with boring arseholes coming up to him saying "LOL ZIPPY SMOKING A DRUGS" and "IT WAS A METAPHOR FOR PENISES" for the last three decades of his life thanks to, in part, the now infamous "Twangers" video which was recorded by the cast full aware and tongue-in-cheek for a internal Thames TV end of year party tape which Victor Lewis-Smith presented on "TV Offal" as a failed pilot - a fact many dimmer viewers took as gospel - especially now depressingly divorced of context on YouTube.

Here's Geofrrey in earlier days as a barman in an advert posted up by the internet's leading Rainbow aficionado Jenny Morrill of the always fun World Of Crap.



And here's the whole cast having a great time managing to be effortlessly funny ("That was before the Ayatollah, Bungle...") and knowing without being snide or selling out the conceit in a 1989 interview. Not sure about that bloody song though...



Finishing off, here's a clip that is very dear to me. Geoffrey, who could have been incredibly bitter about his recent sacking, instead turns in an absolutely storming appearance on Lee and Herring's Radio 1 series "Fist Of Fun" in 1993 sending up the whole idea that "Rainbow" was anything less than TV's first "fly on the wall" documentary series. Its hysterical without needing to resort to "LOL, I bet Zippy smoked a weed!" gags and a perfect example of how tuned in to its audience Lee and Herring were back then.



R.I.P. Carlos and Geoffrey. Thanks for the colour you brought to our lives.

Happy Birthday 2000AD: Madness In Mega City One

Depending on whether you believe the actual release date or the one if the cover, its generally round about the 40th anniversary of 2000AD, a comic it took my younger mind a long time to get into the spirit of, especially when compared to the slightly more sedate sausage-snaffling and smacked slippers antics of DC Thomson characters. Even the slightly more chaotic characters of 2000D's publisher IPC (later Fleetway) couldn't prepare me for the sheer amount of ideas going on in an average issue, not to mention the bafflement at the long-running sagas of the likes of Celtic warrior Slaine, batshit good vs. evil to the extremes battler Nemesis The Warlock and future robot soldier action in ABC Warriors.

Judge Dredd was always incredibly simple to understand though. There were bad guys and then there was Dredd. Occasionally you might agree with the reasons behind what the bad guys were doing  - its tough, after all, living in a future dystopian USA (now named Mega City One) where residents are crammed into "blocks" up to 50,000 at a time, all named after ridiculous famous types (real and fictional) - but you knew ultimately that in the end, they were still bad guys and Dredd was...Dredd. No contest. Justice always prevails. And if you knew all this and feel like you're being told how to suck off your grandma's eggs (NB: check phrase before publishing) then congratulations, five years into the Iso-Bins, you grud-sucking Bennett Beany wannabe.

Ultimately, whilst more outright comedic strips like Ace Trucking Co and DR & Quinch were my real entry point over into the 'Greatest Comic in the Galaxy' through reprints, one of the biggest influences on me becoming interested in 2000AD to begin with was none other than Suggs. No, not Mean Machine's beloved Sarah "Seven-Pound Sadie" Suggs but Suggs. Off of Night Fever. And the "Full House" advert ("and puzzles all for 40p!") Oh and ska pop legends Madness, who were the first band I became absolutely obsessed with thanks to their fun easy-going singles that everyone in my family seemed to adore and were about to make a big comeback with the "Divine Madness" compilation and return of "It Must Be Love" to the top ten.

When reading one of the many articles heralding their return I learnt that Suggs and Chas Smash after the Madness split had done a one-off 2000AD themed single in the mid 80s. The idea baffled me even when I learnt that the band had started its own Virgin Records sub-label "Zarjazz" in 1984 named after a term used in the comic by its fictional editor Tharg The Mighty to describe something excellent. When I saw the characters the pair were meant to be dressed as, I was even more confused...

"Mean Machine" and Fink Angel (the duo on the right of the above foursome) were two of the nasty low-down rotters that made up the Angel Gang, a family of variously mutated criminals that live in the post-apocalyptic Cursed Earth, distinguishable by, in turn, a dial on Mean's forehead that controls his anger and a green skeletal look from a life spent living in holes away from the family home. So, how did that translate to the ex-Nutty Boy cosplayers? You decide.

Personally, I think its surprisingly decent for 1985 (if a tad Wurzel Gummidge in Space) with Suggs quoted as saying "we wanted as much as possible to make it like the comic, not just a record by a couple of out-of-work pop stars" and even seemed to stand up to the stresses of performing. And boy, did they perform! A lot! Popping up on kids programmes all over, such as this truly strange "Saturday Starship" appearance...



Or for a bit of additional wire-work and break dancers (!), there's the slightly hipper "ORS'85" (the new name for the pop 'n' issues for YOUNG ADULTS series The Oxford Road Show) that cuts back to an out of character pair at the end, which seems a bit of a swizz after the previous clips' commitment to the full character bit.



As for the song itself, its a fun if not exactly Cursed Earth-shattering bit of electro pop with hip hop beats, brass and lots of catchphrase bellowing just about passing in places for rap. "We wanted to make an electro/hip-hop record like the ones we'd heard in the New York clubs", Suggs told Smash Hits. Whilst you cant imagine the hippest denizens of NYC grooving down to the Judgin' jives, its also nothing like their former band and had they made one of the oft-mooted Dredd movies in the 80s, it would've fit perfectly over the end credits.

There were other songs based in the big Meg, such as the slightly point-missing "I Am The Law" by The Human League from the massive "Dare" album, "Judge Y'Self" by the Manic Street Preachers (demoed for the movie but unfinished until 2003 due to 2000AD fan Richey's still unsolved disappearance) and the popular but dreadful Anthrax who wrote a song absolutely packed with knowledge about the strip but also filled it with lyrics like:

They call him Judge, his last name is Dredd

So break the law, and you may wind up dead

Truth and justice are what he's fighting for

Judge Dredd the man, he is the law

Yeah. Tell 'em Steve-Dave.

Sadly "Mutants In Mega City One" was far from a (Chas) Smash, peaking at 50 in the charts on 16th February 1985 and staying in the top 75 for just four weeks. A disappointment after so much publicity - and no more so than in the pages of 2000AD itself which even permitted an exclusive Brian Bolland-painted cover of Dredd as the single artwork - but a noble endeavour entered into with full gusto by two men who clearly genuine fans of the thing they were promoting. As Smash said "For anyone who had any interest in the Marvel comics when they were young, they just didn't change over the years. Nothing really happens....I think the very real appeal of 2000AD is that it turns everything upside down: heroes may die and things aren't always as they seem". In today's climate, where comics are mostly bags of toys tied to a licence and pop is Chris Martin dueting with Chris Martin in honour of the late Chris Martin, we could definitely use a little more of that uncertainty, experimentation and - dare I say it? - madness.

Happy birthday 2000AD. Here's to 40 more zarjazz years.