It was Gil Kane - Oct 9 1977

I was right, it was Gil Kane! 37 years later I'm vindicated. Well, 37 years later I can be sure of what was already bleeding obvious to me when I was 15.

I'm drawn this centrespread, copying from an illustration in a Marvel weekly reprint. And, as you can see, the editor had credited it as being by Jim Starlin and Klaus Janson. Whereas, as any fule kno, it's very clearly a Jim Starlin drawing, inked by Klaus Janson.

I marvel to this day that I can recognise these things at first glance, but that's what comic readers of my generation can do. We can tell which producer has made a record, we can identify individual guitarists playing the solos, and we know our comic artists at a glimpse. It is nigh on impossible to mistake Jim Starlin for Gil Kane, George Perez for Neal Adams, Barry Smith for John Buscema, Gene Colan for Jack Kirby, and so on. If those names mean anything to you, you're probably in the same boat. If they don't, well that's the shame of twentieth century art history, that comic books never got taken as seriously as most other art forms.

Mind you, as geek pedants go, I'm hardly in the highest echelon, as you can see from my spelling of "Dr Who". I was clearly all about the visuals.

Records For The Day: Golden Earrings by The Enid,Love Bug by Tina Charles, Live In Trouble by The Barron Knights, Rocking All Over The World by Status Quo, and Sleeping Late by Dr Hook.






Because there's been interest in using some of my childhood diary spreads in a BBC TV show called the Peoples History Of Pop - my Records For The Day caught the eye of a researcher - I've dug a few more out and put them up here on the My 1970s Diary. (I kept the Picture Diary from 1974 to 1978 but to date have only found a couple of volumes from 1977).

Hattie Hayridge - the First Monkhouse 21 Sept 1987

The Monkhouse comedy club launched on September 21st 1987 at the Magazine Pub, Newarke Street, Leicester, Don't look for it, it's not there anymore.

For the first and only time Alan and I took out an advert in the Leicester Mercury. And for the first and only time nobody turned up. Although the Monkhouse was going to go on to great success over the coming two years, its opening night was a washout. I have memories of us sitting round chatting with Hattie Hayridge - who come to play at the massive expense of £25, the going rate for headliners in 1987 - and Arnold Bolt, local comedy hero, who was probably playing for a doorsplit.

This wasn't our first effort at staging comedy shows at the Magazine. It had formerly been known as The Magazine Jokespace, run by The Great Alphonse and the Handsome Herbert, two actors who had been working at Phoenix Arts, across the road. Alan and I discovered it in the summer of 1984, and started appearing regularly in the Autumn of 84, when it was being run by Cathy Dunning, who went on 15 years later to co-create The Weakest Link. After Cathy moved on, the club was run by Julie Jokespace (whose surname I have only ever remembered as Jokespace) under the name Witsend. How successful those shows were I can't recall, but if this poster designed by me is anything to go by, it's amazing that it dragged in more punters than the fabulously well-promoted first night of The Monkhouse.

Neal Adams - Aug 6 1977

Man I loved my Marvel comics when I was fifteen, and no artist beat Neal Adams.

Okay, there was Gil Kane, whose figure drawing I spent the next 30 years copying, and Gene Colan, whose realism I could only ever dream of aspiring to, and Jack Kirby the godfather, and the people I guiltily took for granted like John Buscema and John Romita who turned out to be greater than I realised. Oh and of course Barry Smith, whose Conan I turned into a mural on my bedroom wall and which is still there all these years later.

But whatever, I loved Neal Adams, as these two pages from 1977 - and all those artists who draw DC comics now, in 2015, pretending to be him. You know who you are.

These Records For The Day are an arcane lot, wouldn't you say? Who remembers Marcella by The Beach Boys? Probably not even a Pointless answer as I doubt it troubled the charts. Neither, I'm guessing, did High School Dance by The Silvers, Seaside Lady by Wales O'Reagan (are we sure I didn't dream that up?), and does that say Hairy Sundown by The Outlaws?





(YouTube and the internet have drawn a blank on the existence of Wales O'Reagan and his Seaside Lady)

Because there's been interest in using some of my childhood diary spreads in a BBC TV show called the Peoples History Of Pop - my Records For The Day caught the eye of a researcher - I've dug a few more out and put them up here on the My 1970s Diary. (I kept the Picture Diary from 1974 to 1978 but to date have only found a couple of volumes from 1977).

Conan & The Hawk - August 4th 1977

My figure drawing wasn't perfect when I was 15, was it? So, I obviously thought, why not demonstrate that by putting one of my figures directly opposite a copy of a drawing by Barry Smith?

Peter Cushing's 1954 version of 1984 was on the telly. Was that the last time it was shown (no, I now find, it was repeated in the 90s and again in 2003)? I know there's some sort of dispute stopping it being available on DVD. Whatever, I remember watching it in 1977, and very impressive it was too.

Another show was on that night that they won't be repeating in a hurry - Top Of The Pops was presented by Jimmy Savile. See this page on the BBC's Peoples History Of Pop.

And more long-forgotten Records For The Day, I see. Dark Side Of The Moon by Trammps, Hard Rock Cafe by Carole King, and Tentacles by Patrick Moraz? Actually I may be one of the few people in this country who bought, and thus still remembers, Welcome Back by John Sebastian. It was the theme tune to Welcome Back Kotter, which was never shown in the UK.


Because there's been interest in using some of my childhood diary spreads in a BBC TV show called the Peoples History Of Pop - my Records For The Day caught the eye of a researcher - I've dug a few more out and put them up here on the My 1970s Diary. (I kept the Picture Diary from 1974 to 1978 but to date have only found a couple of volumes from 1977).

Farrah Fawcett's Hair - July 21 1977

This diary entry covers most of what I did in the summer holidays, watching TV, drawing my diary, visiting Steve in Bristol and buying comics (check out how many comics you could buy for a quid in 1977). Meanwhile the band's taking a rest because Nick's living the high life in Lowestoft. How the other half lived.

Another arcane selection of Records For The Day. Alongside what were most likely my first ever hearings of Life In The Fast Lane and Nobody Does It Better, we have some songs that posterity hasn't had a lot of time for: Watching You Grow by Spartacus (nothing on Youtube for this one), I Can't Stop The Rain by David Ruffin, Why Do Fools Fall In Love by Summer Wine and Vitamin U by Smokey Robinson? Me neither.

Chandler Noir - July 17th 1977

Because there's been interest in using some of my childhood diary spreads in a BBC TV show called the Peoples History Of Pop - my Records For The Day caught the eye of a researcher - I've dug a few more out and put them up here on the My 1970s Diary. (I kept the Picture Diary from 1974 to 1978 but to date have only found a couple of volumes from 1977).

 Here we see the first of many pieces I've produced influenced by Jim Steranko's pioneering graphic novel Chandler: Red Tide, which I'd clearly just bought. I went on to produce an entire comic of my own, Mr Hawk, in the same format, once I got to art college.

The Records For The Day are, as always, intriguing. Quite why I chose three Bee Gees records is unclear, could it be that the promotion for Saturday Night Fever was kicking in? And Mike Nesmith's Navajo Trail is just one of many tunes that I must Google on Youtube*, having not heard them in the intervening decades.



*UPDATE: Found it.

Brown Starksy - July 5th 1977

Yes, doesn't Starsky have an unusually brown face in this picture? I've long struggled with colour, it would seem. And this was the day I bought BC: Life Is A Fifty Pence Paperback. How many other books must have to change their title every time they're reprinted?

Records For The Day: That's What Friends Are For by Deniece Williams and People In Love by 10CC.




Because there's been interest in using some of my childhood diary spreads in a BBC TV show called the Peoples History Of Pop - my Records For The Day caught the eye of a researcher - I've dug a few more out and put them up here on the My 1970s Diary. (I kept the Picture Diary from 1974 to 1978 but to date have only found a couple of volumes from 1977).