InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "You said you love me."

volksjager (volksjager) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-07-02 20:55:00

Current music:	Clubfoot Kitty "I preffer Cancer"
Entry tags:	char: baron blood/john falsworth, char: captain america/steve rogers, char: union jack/joseph chapman, group: invaders, publisher: marvel comics

The orign of Baron Blood...

Brian Falthsworth, the dandy vampire...

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	jlroberson 2009-07-03 01:19 am UTC (link)
	I had this. Vampires on the cover? Nazi vampires at that? In the 70s you could have gotten me to buy Little Dot with that. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	volksjager 2009-07-03 01:39 am UTC (link)
	Roy Thomas knew just the right levers to pull. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

jlroberson
2009-07-03 05:15 am UTC (link)

And Jaysis, those upper-class rabbit teeth. Between that, and the part of the 70s this came out, I'm surprised they didn't go all Nosferatu with his teeth. But MAN is he feral-looking. Particularly that one close-up in Lady Falsworth's bedroom.

And how the heck did you end up with my entire childhood comics collection? This is one reason I follow your posts. It's downright weird.

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	volksjager 2009-07-03 12:54 pm UTC (link)
	You can thank my two older brothers :) (Reply to this) (Parent)

	ashtoreth 2009-07-03 05:15 am UTC (link)
	So Captain America was to be a symbol to inspire, but Union Jack was to 'strike terror'? He's Batman! (Reply to this) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-07-03 06:59 am UTC (link)
	It makes sense, actually - the British got hit by both world wars much more seriously than the Americans did. It makes sense that their living national symbol would have a direct military application, instead of the more theoretical purpose that Captain America served. (Reply to this) (Parent)

icon_uk
2009-07-03 08:53 am UTC (link)

Bear in mind the difference between the wars too. Captain America was designed from the outset as a PR weapon too, to appear in publicly shown newsreels at the like.

Union Jack was around in WWI and predates that concept. He was there as a functional soldier and bogeyman for the enemy, with no time for posing for the cameras (Which Cap did, as he understood why he had to, though never at the cost of a mission obviously)

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	jlroberson 2009-07-03 11:52 pm UTC (link)
	With a dandy target on his chest. In fact, on both sides, I think. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	lissa_quon 2009-07-03 05:20 am UTC (link)
	I love how he didn't develop the hilarious buckteeth until AFTER he became a member of the undead. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	fredneil.livejournal.com 2009-07-03 05:51 am UTC (link)
	The buckteeth were fake, to cover up the fangs. I think there's a scene in that issue where he actually takes them out. Maybe I just would like that scene to exist. I'll have to dig up my copy and check some time. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	icon_uk 2009-07-03 08:55 am UTC (link)
	Curses they're close to discovering the truth about the legendarily poor British dentistry (Which I never understood myself, it's no worse than the completely unnatural sahdes of white that show up in US media stars gobs, but I digress), we're really ALL wearing fake teeth to hide our vampire fangs. They must diiiiiie! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-07-03 11:54 pm UTC (link)
	It's too late. I've seen MacGowan. Besides, the paleness is a dead giveaway. Now you're unmasked, you'll be needing this: (Reply to this) (Parent)

	halloweenjack 2009-07-05 02:02 am UTC (link)
	You even got Monty Python in on it, you bastards... (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-10-12 03:41 am UTC (link)
	Know what's funnier? There really WAS a Baron Blood. Or, rather, a baroness. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Blood,_Baroness_Blood And it appears she did a lot of good, as it happens. (Reply to this) (Parent)

psychop_rex
2009-07-03 07:04 am UTC (link)

Someone should really do a miniseries about the original Union Jack. I mean, he was the first guy to use the identity, he went up against Baron Blood back when he was just starting out, he was in an Invader-like superteam of his own, only one in which there were - Gasp! - NO AMERICANS to be seen, and he didn't even have the low-level super-strength that his son wound up with - he survived on wits and training. I'd say there's potential for a story there.

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	jlroberson 2009-07-03 11:49 pm UTC (link)
	Maybe Paul Cornell can try it. I hear he's available. Dammit. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-07-04 12:07 am UTC (link)
	Why the 'dammit'? Isn't his being available a good thing? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-07-04 12:34 am UTC (link)
	No. Remember why he's available. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-07-04 01:04 am UTC (link)
	I don't know why he's available. That's why I asked. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-07-04 05:14 am UTC (link)
	Because Marvel are bastards and cancelled Captain Britain just as I'd discovered it... (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-07-04 05:55 am UTC (link)
	Ah, OK. Well, look at it this way - they may have cancelled the title, but the character is still out there, and the early trades have just now become available. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-07-04 06:06 am UTC (link)
	No no, I never cared about the characters as such, it's what Cornell was doing with it I dug. (Though this exact story with Spitfire and all being something I remembered from childhood was a hook; between that and Drac, I get the feeling Cornell and I read the same comics as kids) The "Vampire State" thing was what reeled me in. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-07-04 06:23 am UTC (link)
	Well, I haven't gotten into it yet, because I have the first volume on order, and I hate to have any major spoilers for something I'm about to buy - but at the VERY least, if you haven't read the 'Jasper's Warp' storyline, you should. Alan Davis, Alan Moore - classic stuff. (Reply to this) (Parent)

jlroberson
2009-07-03 09:32 am UTC (link)

I really love this style, which is the Franks Robbins & Springer, and I always liked Robbins better as an artist than a writer. All these loose, slashing brush blacks, that really barely should hold together. It gives the figures the impression of always being in motion, and it's a kind of looseness you don't see in mainstream comics anymore. (and can I just say, Frank Springer's one of those invisible supermen of comics; he's the it's-that-guy of the medium, and he may seem sedate but the man did O'Donoghue scripts, for godsake)

But at the same time, I remember finding it initially off-putting as a kid precisely because it looked so different than everything else. But, again, Nazi vampires.

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