Pictures of tourists who accidentally stumbled into Dave's quiz

Stroppy Canadian biddies asking Dave to turn down the theme tune to Lost In Space...

Shut it Zelda!

Later: Confused Spanish tourists are ordered to hold up a sheet of Doctor Who monsters...

before doing a runner...

We got a team together (Thanks Mr Wheatley, Gareth and the cuntishly funny Duncan) sadly we finished last. Oh well, at least I knew that the full name of Mr Sin is in fact Mr Sin AKA The Peking Homunculus. This makes me better than you.

I hope there will be a quiz next month, (c'mon Dave, you know you want to), I'll keep you posted.

Racism in football

I've got mountains of new American comics to read, so what am I doing? Kicking back with some bad British comics from the 1970s of course! What else are Sunday afternoons for, eh?

My comic of choice today is The 1976 Smash Annual, which is pretty grim, even by late '70s standards. It's littered with racist nastiness, nowhere more so than in a football story called The World-Wide Wanderers, one of those text pieces that filled the pages of British hardback annuals back in the day.

The World-Wide Wanderers is a tale about the greatest football team the world has ever seen, a crack unit who also happen to be a a bunch of racial stereotypes.

Oh dear.

Anyway, so good at the beautiful game have The World-Wide Wanderers become, that their own fans have grown bored of watching them routinely annihilate the opposition. Faced with falling crowds, millionaire owner Harry Kraft, turns to computer Whizz, Aristotle Smith who feeds a copy of the rules of Association Football and a bunch of info about the Wanderers players into a super computer that comes up with a new exciting way of playing football based wholly on racial stereotypes...

HUZZAH!

Thus in the Wanderers next match against the (I kid you not) European All-Stars they set out to bamboozle their white opponents with a uniquely offensive brand of football...

Fats walks the ball into the net. The All-Stars complain. Unfortunately for them, the referee is from Tibet and waves their complaints away with the following explanation...

Ah yes, no gentlemen in Tibet, just a bunch of skull-kicking nutcases. The fellah who wrote this should be working for the Chinese government. But I digress, on with the game, and time to shine the spotlight on Moto, Wanderers' Japanese star...

Two-nil. Yay for the unstoppable foreign footie machine! Roared on by their demented crowd they swing into racial overdrive...

Two penalties follow, the first dispatched, kung-fu style, the second...

Half-time and the score is 6-0. Second-half starts with Bulgy the Turk cutting a square of turf out with his dagger, plonking the ball on it, waddling up the field and placing it carefully in the All-Stars goal...

And so it goes on, we get goal number eight when Fijan keeper, Sharky sneaks up the field and scares the All-Star keeper off with "a ferocious cannibal yell" before hiding under his cap, taking a backpass from the All-Star keeper whipping off his cap to reveal his "grinning black face" and backheeling into the net.

Number nine arrives courtesy of Bandy the Indian. Intoning a sacred Hindu incantation, he whips out a piece of rope from under his shirt, throws it in the air, where it magically stiffens allowing him to Climb above the All-Stars defence and head Chang the Afghan's cross into the net.

The game moves into the last minute, and it's time for Wanderers captain and only white player (obv) Carruthers, to put the icing on the racist cake. Surrounded by his racial inferiors he runs unchallenged, monocle string flapping in the breeze, to plant number ten in the old onion bag...

Stitch that. A thorough hiding for the European All-Stars. What a rip-roaring yarn. Who the fuck came up with that one eh?

Scans from Smash Annual, 1976. Writer and artist uncredited.

Final Reminder

Busy, busy, busy. Just enough time to throw one last reminder into the ether - SUNDAY IS DAVE F's NERDGASM QUIZ!

It kicks off nice and early - 6.45pm

Venue - The Green Man and French Horn

MAP HERE

You've been told!

At all day Stag Do tomorrow, so no posting from me.

Childcare

My son Jack learning how to care for comics and identify the costumed vigilantes found inside.

Educational content courtesy of The Essential Amazing Spider-Man Volume One

The state I'm in

The Missus and I were discussing the possibility of having another sprog last night. Nice idea on paper, but I fear any further spawn would spell the end for my comic collection. We're fortunate to live in a place where I get a whole room to dump my tat at the moment, the appearance of another child would call the feasibility of that into question.

I suppose I could get rid of a bit of stuff, just enough to free up one longbox to use as a cot. Bit of a sacrifice though. No, best to stick with the one child I think. Anyway, all the talk of doing away with my comic room prompted me to retreat from reality and give the old lair a good tidy. Here's what it looks like after a clean...

Shelf One: Bit of manga, some old SF mags, my Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf books, a few trades waiting to be read and a couple of (gasp) non-comics related items.

New cubes: The missus just bought the lad a wardrobe, meaning that I inherited the old IKEA cubes we were using to store his clothes in.

Top shelf: A few hardcovers, booze, Christopher Reeve postcard, Starro Heroclix and Starro Slaves!

Compartment A: Indie stuff that won't fit in boxes, Lovecraft stories, SF novels

Compartment B: Starman Omnibus 1-3. Yankee comics waiting to be filed.

Compartment C: Copies of Back Issue and Alter Ego. JSA trades. Old Comic Buyers Guide

Compartment D: Wednesday Comics. Some Yankee comics which are waiting to be read.

Compartment E: Gravel. Unclassifiable tat.

Compartment F: More unread Yankee filth.

Compartment G: Bags and Boardzzzz. Empty Starro Box.

Compartment H: More exciting tat.

Longboxes: This is where I entomb my single issues.

The wardrobe: Here be Eagle, Scream, Crunch, old 2000ADs, boardgames, dust, spiders etc.

Three more longboxes: One of filed stuff, two of stuff waiting to be crammed into alphabetical order. I really can't be arsed to do this at the moment. The 2000AD inheritance: Crated this up and put it in order last night, fucking dirty, sellotapey, dusty job it was too. I now know exactly what issues I need to complete my run of the first 600 progs. It ain't that many.

Altar of The Man-Toys: Shelf of Heroclix topped off with original Shaun Phillips page from Marvel Zombies #1, Marvel postcards and tank of rotting Sea-Monkeys.

Shelf Two: The bulk of my trade collection. Top shelf contains all the EC Archives, The Creepy and Eerie Archives and various Jack Kirby omnibuses. Second shelf is a hotch potch. Third shelf is all Showcases and Essentials. The rest is a fairly chaotic jumble.

And that's it, your exclusive tour of the LLC Lair. Exciting stuff!

Laters.

Day Of The Dead

A day of torrential rain in London yesterday. I decided it was perfect weather for a family outing to a museum, the British Museum to be precise and their Day of the Dead special. Lots of Mexican music, dancing, dressing up and scary masks. Woohoo!

Sadly, thousands of other people also thought that the event sounded like fun - cue a hideous crush as the hordes fought to get good vantage points for the mariachi bands and brightly paited floats. It really was an uncomfortable and chaotic squeeze. Here a mustachioed skeleton collides with an unsuspecting lady...

Luckily I was on hand to record the moment of impact for posterity.

Anyway, long story short it was a bit shit. The boy seemed to enjoy looking at all the people, but laughter quickly turned to tears as he soaked himself falling in a huge puddle outside the museum. A fine day to forget to pack a spare outfit. No matter, his mum was more than happy to accompany him to Baby Gap in search of new trousers, leaving me free to make the short, soggy trip to the comic mart at The Royal National. WOOT!

The appalling weather made for a sparsely attended event, which was a shame for the dealers, but good news for those of us who did make the effort. It was nice and easy to get to the comics, not too many hard-to-move stinkers in front of the long boxes, no stampedes for the 25p single issues etc. Smashing.

I headed straight for the backroom where the British comic dealers had gathered, spreading out their issues of Hotspur, Battle, Warlord, Victor and Commando on fold-out tables, each one a splendid riot of faded colour. Magical stuff. First stop, this stall...

2000AD heaven, baby! Hundreds of issues going right back to prog 40, all in excellent condition, and all priced at £1 a piece with discounts for bulk buys. I picked up 23 issues, took a £3 discount and left the blue altar of happiness a satisfied man.

Had a chat with fellow shopper Mike Leader, who was buying some nice cheap EC reprints, before heading for the main room where I snagged two more 2000AD progs, including #38 for 50p!

From there, a quick squizz at Heroclix man's stall, but nothing really called out to me, (not at the prices he was charging anyway), so on to Krypton Komics's bargain buckets where I snagged a badly beaten up copy of Locas, the Love and Rockets omnibus. It's got no dust jacket and has a huge dent in the bottom, but at £4.95 for 700 pages of comics that normally retails at £36, I still reckon it was a bargain.

I was about to leave Mr Krypton and start my traditional hunt for cheap Wolfman and Perez Titans comics, when I spied this atrocity...

£1? It had to be bought, if only to compare Lord Hurk's unofficial Minder comic with the "Authorised Edition". Having done so, I can confirm that both are excellent reads but that Hurk does a much better Arthur Daly than the uncredited artist from the annual...

That's the worst drawing of George Cole I've ever seen - and, as a collector of George Cole portraits, I can tell you that I've seen thousands. Can't knock his Dennis Waterman though.

After buying that, there really was nowhere left to go. Did in fact manage to find a couple of cheap New Teen Titans issues (5 and 9 at £1.50 a pop, for any weirdos who actually give a fuck) but with that monster copy of Locas and all those 2000ADs already threatening to tear a hole in my soggy nerd sack, I felt it best to make an exit.

Paused briefly to marvel at the return of the long box of X-Men Annual 10...

...before making my way back to normality.

A fine mart. A fine haul. Good times!

Attention Lord Hurk!

You want this!

A small taster of what I picked up at yesterday's truly wondrous mart.

Full details later today.

Now I must go and clean the fridge.

Scan from Minder Annual, 1980