Do Da Robot!

Fantastic archive footage from That's Life (of all programmes)

Make Love Not War

The Second World War is over. Soldiers know how to kill men, but they have forgotten how to woo women. Stravon publishers are on hand to ease the transition from battlefield to bedroom...

CLICK THE AD FOR BIG LOVE

1945 comic Book ad, reproduced in Hey Skinny: Great ads from the Golden Age of comic books

A couple of quick reviews

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1

Time travelling Batman fights cavemen. Best comic I've read in yonks! I love it so much, I've read it three times. It's perfect. Bruce Wayne as some bare-chested Charlton Heston type figure. The nods to Kubrik's 2001. Vandal Savage as pimped up caveman sloping off to his wigwam with a couple of neanderthal hos. Stone age Robin! This is Grant Morrison on top, top pop-culture-referencing form. It's Chris Sprouse laying down the fine-lined chiseled jaws and heaving pecs. It's fat sequential beats and beautiful splash pages. It's GOLD I tell you, GOLD!

The Flash #2

Geoff Johns and Scott Kollins' run on The Flash is one of my all-time favourites, so it pleases me to say that, two issues into this newly numbered book, the ingredients that made that run so good all seem to be in place here. I'd probably have been happier if Wally West had kept the costume, but the return of Barry Allen isn't that much of a drag. At the end of the day, you get a geezer bombing about in the red suit fighting baddies and saving people from collapsing buildings and you get it in a cartoony, kinetically charged style that suits the character down to the ground. Credit to Francis Manapaul for that, he's a very different artist to Kollins, but he shares the ability to put movement and energy down on the page. That's something that was clearly missing from the turgid over-rendered art that we got in Flash: Rebirth. I don't dislike Ethan van Sciver's stuff, but I didn't like what he did on Rebirth, it was just too grand, too static. The same could be said for the writing. I had no idea what was going on in Rebirth. With this new series, everything seems to have been boiled down to basics: Flash running about fighting The Rogues. KERCHINNG! It's great.

NerDgasm VI

In an effort to pull in the norms to Big D's NerDgasm Quiz, The Pillars of Hercules have done a bit of creative rebranding...

Anyone who turned up expecting questions about Kramer vs Kramer or Terms of Endearment would have been sadly disappointed, but no matter, I'm sure they would still have left happy, because it goes without saying that last night's quiz was a treat. New faces, old faces, an argument over the original Defenders line-up (whatever anyone says, John B was right - The Silver Surfer wasn't on the team), a chance for me to discover that I've stored the theme tune to TJ Hooker in some dark recess of my brain, prizes for everyone, (we scored some fine second-hand FF books and a vile statue of a barbarian on a mound of severed heads), and, above all, laughs. Lots of laughs!

A couple of people saw the plug on The Gosh blog, turned up, teamed up (with Dave's brother, Little Ad') and won! One fella wandered in from the coffee shop next door and enjoyed himself so much that he left vowing to bring new recruits to the next one, and the LLC sponsored team boasted a record seven members.

Given that it was pissing down with rain, turnout was good. Hopefully even more of you will come to the next one. As ever, I'll let you know when it is.

It really is a spanking night. In what other drinking establishment can you sup your ale to the strains of C.H.I.P.S. and The Gonk?

Spotted today

Gold raygun bolted to the door of a derelict electricity sub-station in Hackney...

NerDgasm VI is this Sunday!

Only one man asks tougher questions than Big Dave F...

And he's dead, which makes Dave Number One!

The last NerDgasm was a blast. This one promises to be even bigger. There's nowt interesting to do at home on a Sunday night anyway, so come on: get yourselves down to The Pillars of Hercules and pit your wits against London's most ripped quizmaster!

It all gets going at 7pm. See you there!

Suddenly!

Scan from Starlord Annual 1981