Martinex1: Hey gang, I've got a couple of questions for you to ponder! I'm curious what you have to say and how similar our answers may or may not be. Your comments drive the discussion today so let's get started.
Question 1: If you were stuck on a desert island and could only have one comic book series (in full), one television series (in full), one movie, one Greatest Hits music record, and one type of food - what would they be? Five answers (or less) for this question.
Here is my response for Question #1:
1) Comic Series: The Avengers (of course)! The Thunderbolts did leap to mind as a fun read and I considered Dr. Strange because I have really not read much of that series at all. I also thought about the Doom Patrol, but I am an Avengers fan tried and true.
2) Television Series: St. Elsewhere. I've been thinking about this series a lot lately; it was quite enjoyable and innovative back in the Bronze Age. It was strange and twisting and had a lot of hidden television references. It also featured many future stars like Denzel Washington.
3) Movie: I am going to go with Pi by Darren Aronofsky. I just want something a little more challenging and flawed; I'd probably watch it a couple of times and turn on St. Elsewhere again.
4) Greatest Hits Record: I am taking Roxy Music. Not a popular choice I am sure, but lately I've been listening to them a lot as I drive and haven't gotten tired of the band yet.
5) Food: I am going to enjoy endless Thai Cuisine. It is something I can eat every day, though the spices may eventually do me in.
Question 2: What was your biggest miss in comic book collecting? What special book could you have purchased, but you did not pull the trigger and spend the money?
My response is that I once skipped out on buying a battered copy of Avengers #4 (the return of Captain America) for four dollars. Big mistake. I was too young to know it was a steal and an important issue.
Now it is your turn. Let's hear what you have to say! Cheers!
19 comments:
The first question is similar to the topic of the most recent episode of the Planet 8 podcast (featuring our own Karen Walker!), about desert planet picks for favorite TV series and movies. It's a really tough choice.
Anyway, here's my attempts to respond to your Question 1:
1. This may be surprising, but I'm going to say the Fantastic Four - there's other series I liked better, like X-men most notably, but the quantity of stories I like there is smaller; with the FF, there's a long series with a variety of good runs and writers and artists - so it's plenty to keep my mind preoccupied all alone on the desert island (Avengers or Spider-man would be second choices).
2. If it counts, I'm going to say all of the Star Trek series (TOS, TNG, DS9 and Voyager; pass on Enterprise); if this isn't allowed, then the Simpsons, just because of the sheer quantity (that's the only thing that knocked Monty Python's Flying Circus from the running).
3. One movie?! I don't know, The Fisher King is one of my favorites, and it'll contrast to the light-heartedness of the Simpsons. Or maybe Miller's Crossing...
4. Too tough to make an intelligent decision; I just did an "eeny meeny miny moe" in my head and came up with Santana.
5. Oh, cool, we can pick a whole cuisine and not just one dish. Since tacos came to mind when I first read the question, I'll say Mexican.
Question 2: it's not one that I passed on buying, but one I missed because it never appeared anywhere I bought comics at the time: the Superman vs. Spider-man treasury edition.
Question 1:
1. Like Marti, I'd pick Avengers. Overall, so much high quality reading.
2. TV series? Tough call, but Edo picked well, so Simpson's.
3. Film: 2001:A Space Odyssey. Each viewing would be another opportunity to reinterpret it.
4. LP- probably Beatles Red and Blue Albums, for the quantity of material. But Moody Blues Greatest would be sorely tempting.
5. Food: Italian, definitely.
Question 2- 'the ones that got away were Amazing Fantasy 15 and Spider-Man 1. Both on sale at our town's comic shop when I first started collecting, for 25 dollars each. Still way too much for an allowance-bound 13 year old.
Due to my desert isle circumstance, I'm going to go with length playing a larger factor than it might otherwise in a different environment.
1. Action Comics (Superman). This is not only for length, but also I think that it would be a good way to track all the developments within comics over the years.
2. Doctor Who. Length again, plus I've been checking out the marathon on Twitch, so it's at the top of my head at the moment.
3. Lulu. (Louise Brooks). It's a desert island and if I have to be on a desert island, I'm being on a desert island with Louise Brooks. Plus, it's a good depiction of how nasty people can be, so I might miss being around them less.
4. Legend by Bob Marley. If I'm stuck on the aforesaid desert island, I might as well have some reggae to console myself.
5. Caribbean Indian. Spicy. No Marianne, but it does have ginger!
Cheers!
Question 1;
Either FF, ASM, or... Goden Age The Spirit or Golden Age Daredevil and The Little Wiseguys. I'm leaning towards the GA at this second.
Probably X Files
Casablanca
Like Red: Beatles Greatest or Moody Blues
French of course! What variety, what flavor, what nutrition!!!
Question 2:
Nothing got away but I profoundly regret taking scissors to both ASM and Hulk first appearances of Punisher and Wolverine to make a poster when I was around 14!
Fun questions Marti. I was torn on what tack to take to answer the questions. Length? Depth? Breadth? In the end, I went for stuff I never get tired of now. I mean, I am deserted right?
1. So many choices but quickly settled on Spider-Man.
2. Mash
3. Animal House
4. I like Red's answer of the Red and Blue albums but if the letter of the law is just one then how about Beatles 1.
5. With Edo - immediately thought Mexican.
Comic collecting miss...for me it's not so much a particular issue but rather a decision I made as teenager short on funds that probably derailed my collecting before it got started. I had a buddy who back in the mid 70s decided he was going to get all of the Spider-Man back issues. That was too ambitious for me. He suggested a shorter series, like Captain America since he didn't get his own book until 1968. So I bought CA #100 and the next dozen or so for what was surely a lot of money to high school me (and especially to high school me's parents). So I only needed some 40 or so back issues to catch up to the present - but I stopped. Seemed such an arduous task then. Seems like nothing now. Ah well...that's my one(s) that got away.
Tom
1. As big a Hulk fan as I am, I would probably defer to the Avengers run for desert island reading. Hulk would be #2; Spidey #3.
2. I'm reeeeeally liking the "All Treks" option; Dr Who maybe less-so, because it can be kind of tough to binge watch a whole lot of the first 100 years or so of that beloved series. You kinda get burnt out on plucky rebel-undergrounds and planets that all look like the same abandoned quarry. . . SO-- give me Northern Exposure, yeah?
3. Gonna stick with IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, yep.
4. Ha! Redartz beat me to the tape w/ the Beatles Red & Blue albums! It was the FIRST thing I thought of.
5. Spaghetti. I don't even have to expand to a cuisine. Give me spaghetti. In my teenage youth, I once famously had spaghetti 32 days in a row. (Wouldn't be surprised if I've mentioned that here at some point...)
Missed opportunity: Summer of '89-- a friend's brother BROUGHT an old Avengers #1 to his table at a local small convention specifically for me to buy for $50--- and I ultimately declined, as it was still more than I could sink into a comic book as a very recent newlywed. This was the right decision for the time, though, no question-- I can't say actually regret it, it just would have been nice to be able to swing that transaction.
HB
Hmmm, interesting question. If you ask me next week, I'll probably have different answers, but at the moment:
1) Amazing Spider-Man
2) Yeah, the "allTreks" thing would work for me. If that's out, I might go with something like Futurama, which I could endlessly analyze.
3) Well, not much point picking one of the Star Wars movies if I can't have all of them, so I'd go with either Breakfast Club or Princess Bride.
4) I'm not sure on this one. Probably some kind of mixed album, something with a lot of different bands on it like those old K-Tel records.
5) Does "Mediterranean" count as a cuisine?
As for what I missed as a kid, I always felt a bit cheated at not being able to get Direct-Only titles like Infinity Inc or Moon Knight.
I like CH47's choice of The Spirit for my series. I've read a few of the strips (Thanks Warren), but just enough to want more.
I would have to go with Gilligan's Island....not really, but I would have to do a comedy series....Sanford and Son or WKRP in Cincinnati......BTW Ginger as a high schooler, Mary Ann as an adult. :)
My movie choice would be Rio Bravo.
Album would be Anyway The Wind Blows by JJ Cale
Good choice would be seafood. Should be readily available.
The biggest miss I had was missing out on about 90% of Neal Adams' runs on Batman and GL/GA. Just didn't know any better.
Kudos to Karen and the guys at the Planet8 podcast. That is a great new podcast. They beat me to it for sure - go take a listen. If you frequent our site, I think you certainly will like their show. It reminds me of a fun old time radio show that focuses on the things we all love. Just the opening to the show is awesome.
Thanks all for your comments. In no particular order...
I love the idea of Dr. Who. I hadn’t thought of that. But plenty of shows to last a long time. Enough variety in style and time periods and characters. Good choice.
I don’t know if I could eat spaghetti all the time. I love it. But I’d need a whole style of food. Although I do eat cold spaghetti for breakfast.
WKRP is another great choice. Been watching some on MeTV. It holds up well. Still hilarious.
I like the Beatles a lot - and I thought about the red and blue too - just wasn’t in the mood for some reason when I wrote this. Wonder what makes me stick with a group for a period of time and then move on.
I really like Infinity Inc ( what I’ve read of it).
Avengers 1 ... I do wish there were time machines.
French Food - we should do a restaurant recommendation post. Maybe we should resurrect “Five Guilty Pleasures”
Tom - I like your Cap story. I can relate.
Cheers all!
Mediterranean counts!
Edo - FF is a great selection. I hadn’t thought of that but it may convince me to change. With the FF, I love the stories I read but there are so many issues (large swaths of issues) that I have not ever read. Not so with the Avengers. And thanks for pointing out the Planet 8 podcast - it’s like a companion piece to today’s first question. Cheers!
addendum:
I had spaghetti topped w/ a Boca "Chicken" patty for lunch. . . just had a bit of cold spaghetti w/ cold sauce as a bedtime snack. . .!
HB
From Terry in Virginia
Fun questions! I’ll play!
Desert Island:
Comic Series: JSA from 1999-2006. This ran 80-some issues, and all but the last half dozen were great -- the return of Hawkman and the original Hourman, the Black Reign and Stealing Thunder arcs, and many other good stories of the Justice Society in the modern world. This is barely edging out Avengers by about half a percentage point….
Television Series: Battlestar Galactica from 2003-2009. I’ve watched the DVD box set of the entire series three times. I’ll probably go back to it again in a couple of years. There might be better serious dramas, like Hill Street Blues, but BSG (rebooted) for me…
Movie: Avengers: Infinity War. Although The Valley: Obscured by Clouds (French, 1972) is a close contender.
Greatest Hits Record: Hot Rocks by the Rolling Stones. I’m mostly not a fan of Greatest Hits records -- I prefer to have the original albums as the material was released. But this anthology covers 1964-1971 pretty comprehensively.
Food: Chinese. Just saying that lets me cheat by having a broad variety (shrimp, beef, lamb, etc.)
Biggest miss:
Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76. Although I had a “Good” copy already, I saw this nice “Very Good” or so copy for something like $95 about 4 years ago. I was vending my own comics around the corner at the small local convention. I didn’t have the cash on me because I’d just bought a Batman #232 from the same guy. Fifteen minutes later I decided I just HAD to buy it with a credit card, but by the time I got back to the seller it was GONE! Sad but true story. All this after I’d sold my own Very Fine copy a few months earlier….sigh…
Question #1:
1. Comic Series: Amazing Spider-Man. Most other comic series I have only certain eras that I really like, but I pretty much love all of ASM (except for the more recent stuff).
2. TV Series: Batman The Animated Series. It's a show that I can watch multiple times and still enjoy. Two very very close runner ups are Columbo and Monk.
3. Movie: "Chocolate" (No, not the Johnny Depp flick). The film I'm talking about is a movie from Thailand about an autistic girl who basically has the same powers as Taskmaster and can learn and mimic any skill she sees perfectly. (She watches a lot of martial arts movies, btw) As a result she becomes a baddest ass who ever lives and sets out a mission of revenge against the Thai mob for her cancer stricken mother. (And yes it's as awesome as it sounds).
4. Greatest Hits Record: Gotta go with "Decade" by Neil Young. Probably my single favorite album of all time.
5. Food: My first choice is endless pizza. Especially if I could have different toppings every day.
Question #2:
Back when I was amassing my Amazing Spider-Man collection I used to buy a couple of back issues every week at my LCS. I was in the early 100's and working my way up (most of those issues then were only going for around $2.00-$4.00 each). Well by the time I worked my way up to issue #129 (the first appearance of the Punisher), it had suddenly jumped up in price to around $100 for a mint copy. I was like "What the hey?!!" I was then told by my LCS guy that the Punisher had suddenly become super popular because of the Mike Zeck mini-series that had come out around that time. So, I ended up having to pay $60 for a non-mint copy. If I had just jumped ahead of my schedule and bought that book a month or two earlier I could have scored a mint copy for like $4.00. I was none to happy.
For question #5, I didn't know we could pick an entire cuisine. So, I'll go with Italian (which includes pizza).
Man, I love spaghetti, too. And Martinex, cold - or even reheated - spaghetti for breakfast is awesome (almost as good as cold pizza). Sometimes I like to fry up and egg or two to eat on the side.
Columbo is another good choice for a TV show, William.
Man, NOW I'm getting all reminiscent about spaghetti--!
Back in, like, 90/91-- the very early years of marriage-- we'd bought our first little house, and were of course being quite mindful of our spending. I found you could make an unexpectedly palatable homemade meat sauce out of those INCREDIBLY cheap, off-brand chicken hot dogs, diced up and fried with diced mushrooms and onions, and then simmered into a couple of cans of whatever the cheapest, generic canned spaghetti sauce was which happened to be on sale. Canned sauce is about 10 rungs below even the cheapest jarred sauces. Liberally coated with added Italian Seasonings. There was, no kidding, just about a week's worth of sodium compressed into that one meal. Especially if I made it w/ Ramen noodles rather than spaghetti. . .
And still, every so often, my wife cops to having a nostalgic craving for it, cheap & semi-toxic though it may have been. . .
HB
1. Fantastic Four (esp. if I could include MTiO and the Thing solo series)
2. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, probably - but Columbo would be a close second choice
3. Star Wars
4. I hate greatest hits records.
5. a whole cuisine? Puerto Rican food then - I am gonna assume my deserted island is in the Caribbean so I will have most of what I need.
As for comics nearly gotten. . .
This would be more recently. When I was hunting to complete the X-Men run that corresponded with my hardcore reading as a kid, Uncanny X-Men #221 keep eluding me. I had a chance to get it for closer to ten bucks and didn't and ended up paying $20. That may not seem like a lot, but for a guy who make a point of never paying more than $5 for a comic, it was painful.
You can read more about my X-Men hunt here.
Post a Comment