Comic Cuts - The Panel Show
A show about comic strips, comicbooks, & comic characters. Each guest brings a panel from a comic. The panel try and guess where it's from, then talk about it. Hopefully we all go away learning something about comics we didn't already know, or maybe we've just showed off a bit. Hosted by Kev F Sutherland, writer & artist for Beano and Marvel, now busy adapting Shakespeare into graphic novels.
Comic Cuts - The Panel Show
Scott Agnew & Mitch Benn
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Comedians Scott Agnew and Mitch Benn bring in panels from a British classic and something rare and obscure.
See the images from the episode here (they're also in the podcast artwork).
Video version of the episode can be seen here.
Every episode, the guests reveal a panel from a comic, we try and guess where it's from, then we chat about it. Half an hour later hopefully we've learned something, or just shown off and had fun along the way.
If you've enjoyed this, why not buy us a virtual coffee at Kev F's Ko-Fi page.
Your host, and series creator, is Kev F Sutherland, writer and artist for Beano, Marvel, Oink, The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, and most recently author and artist of graphic novels based on Shakespeare. kevfcomicartist.com
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Hello and welcome to Comic Cuts The Panel Show. I'm Kev F. Sutherland, the bloke who writes and draws comics for Beano and Marvel and now adapts Shakespeare into graphic novels for kids. And also has a hand in the Scottish falsetto sock puppet theatre. This is your favourite podcast, which has an occasionally remote connection to comics. Don't worry if you don't know or care anything about comics, half the time, neither do any of my guests, and it doesn't hurt. My guests have brought with them a panel from a comic or something close, and we're gonna see if we can identify it and talk about it. Maybe we and you will learn something about comics we didn't already know, or maybe we'll just show off a bit and have an enjoyable chat. Let's see. Joining me today from the world of comedy, we have Scott Agnew and Mitch Ben. Comic Cuts. So the panel sees a panel and we talk about the comics from the panel we discuss. We call it Comic Cuts. I've asked everyone on the panel to bring in a panel to the panel. You can see these images on the show page and on the artwork for the podcast episode, depending where you get your podcast from. If you can't see it, say you're driving or some such thing. Don't worry, because we're gonna describe them. But first let's describe ourselves. If you don't know my two guests, well, what's wrong with you? You should. Scott, um, you are most recently known to the radio listeners from Dead Man Walking. Oh no, Dead Man Talking. There you go. Talking, yes. You got it wrong already, which sort of describes what it says on the tin, but could you give them a bit more detail of what you mean by that?
Scott Agnew:Uh I I am officially better than Jesus. I've come back from the dead three times. Um I I've caught COVID. I self-isolated for 10 days. My first day uh out um out of self-isolation, I put a bit of a sore chest, uh, sat down, had a fag. Uh just uh I thought, you know, that'll help it.
Mitch Benn:Um die for you, right then.
Scott Agnew:Yeah, never before. Um and yeah, it turned out I was having a massive, massive heart attack, and I died three times in the back of the ambulance uh between my local hospital and the the Golden Jubilee, which is the best hospital. Because apart if you're gonna have a heart attack, the place to do it is in Glasgow because that's where the world trains, because we have more heart attacks than anywhere else. So genuinely, the Golden Jubilee in Glasgow is where like the Mayo Clinic, all your big American private places, they all train there. So um, yeah. So I end up with a five centimeter stent. Um, and and I'm here. And I've this is terrible because I kinda I assume when you put a cardiac nest three times in a row, you're probably not much longer for this earth. So I've kind of half-assed my rehabilitation because I thought I feel um five years later, you know. Christ, I might actually love to normal Glaswegian age now, you know.
Kev F Sutherland:As long as you make it to the end of the podcast, that's gonna be good enough for me. And Mitch, we are always delighted to see you. But from the Radio 4 listeners' point of view, and I hate to bring it all back to Radio 4, we're not on Radio 4, but neither am I for a for a while for nearly 10 years now, and nobody's noticed. Well, for a while you disappeared, and then when the the show that had ridiculously dispensed with you, they had you back for their final episode because they it turned out they couldn't survive without you.
Mitch Benn:It was no, it was it was it was not quite the final episode. During that final run, which is must be um coming up on two years ago now, when it when it when they they finally uh pulled it. Um we're talking about the now show the now show, which which it ran from 98 until about two years ago, and I was on it from 99 until 2016, which in retrospect is far too long, and I should have quit after about 10 years, because I think I basically probably I probably screwed up my own career by sticking with that show as long as I did, because I'm sure there were opportunities that came and went that I couldn't do anything with because I was signed up to be on that thing forever, you know, and and and also, you know, I'm not honestly that surprised they got rid of me when we did when they did, because the sheer relentlessness of having to produce material to a decent standard that often, that frequently, and with that little notice. Because, of course, a topical show you have to kind of leave it's you know, I'm a terrible one for leaving things to the last minute anyway, but when you're doing topical stuff, you kind of have to leave it to the last minute because events, you know. Um, you know, you could there were times, you know, because we had that that that 24-hour gap between recording it on Thursday nights and it going out on Friday nights. Sometimes something would happen Friday daytime, which would require dumping a massive chunk of the show because something you know went from being funny to just not funny anymore, you know. Um, but yeah, and I it's it's it's they they they they had a final run and they got us all back for one. So I was on one of them, Marcus is on one, uh John Holmes is on one, you know. Everybody from from what I like to call the rumors lineup of the now show. I love the fact that I don't have to explain that. We don't have a certain vintage, that's what I'm the rumors like we know, not the original, but possibly the definitive.
Kev F Sutherland:Anyway, but you know, but but uh I'm gonna say, Scott, that you're not a stranger to topical comedy. Of course, you do breaking the news.
Scott Agnew:Uh uh, but my background, I was a journalist before I was a stand-up, so news is always I've always been a bit kind of news junkie, anyhow. Uh and and you know, I I can't, I actually can't believe myself now, um which says a lot about how thoroughly miserable the world in the news cycle is that I can barely bring myself to watch a news programme anymore. Um it's just it's it's just yeah, it's just relentless. But yeah, I never thought I could ever have got bored of the news. Not bored of the news, but scared of the news and performing. Yeah, yeah.
Kev F Sutherland:They're talking about doing, well, I believe they are doing Saturday Night Live over here. The Americans have always had a different relationship to topical comedy. I get all my news from topical comedy shows over there. Yes, it's uh dying art.
Mitch Benn:Well, I mean, there was um because I remember um we were that was a conversation that we were always having um in the sort of the 90s and noughties, you know, why can't you do the daily show here? Why is it impossible to do that? And there were attempts, you know, Marcus didn't think of the late edition, which which didn't really take in sort of the early noughties. Yeah, part of the problem used to be you could possibly do it more easily now and not for uh good reasons. Part of the problem used to be that there's an inversion again between America and Britain between um the way their news media works and the way our news media used to work, which was that their print journalism was all very sober and responsible, whereas their TV news was just spittle-flecked infective, you know what I mean? Uh, and and and and ridiculously and proudly biased. Whereas our TV news, until about five years ago, was you know quite you know, sober, reflective, and even the ones that, you know, were part of uh, you know, and again, this is why, and I used to bang the drum a lot for the BBC. I bang it somewhat less enthusiastically these days because in particular their current affairs has gone horribly, horribly sort of polluted with kind of Tory cronyism, and and you know, which is a discussion being had at length elsewhere, we need not trouble these good listeners with it. Um, but I think the mere presence of the BBC in our news marketplace kept our TV news fairly sober and responsible because they'd always have that to be judged against. Whereas famously our press, our our our print media is again spittle-flecked invective and and open and badly biased. And the thing is, what that meant was if you actually used to watch the daily show, particularly when it was at the absolute height of its powers in the first Jon Stewart era, most of what they did, it wasn't so much about the events, it was about the coverage of the events. Because, and that was what Jon Stewart had that we never had, which is Fox News shoveling material at him on an hourly basis. Because how could you not find something to grab onto when you've got you know Sean Hannity's head just spouting this bizarre BS on an hourly basis? Whereas we didn't have that. Now we've got it now. Um, to what extent it's I mean, obviously, I've I've only ever watched GB News under the most extraordinary duress, um, and for as as little as time as possible. But to what extent it's as richly lampoonable as Naughty's Fox News was, I don't really know.
Kev F Sutherland:Do you know what? Talking of changing the subject, we're here to talk about a very old medium. Um well, we're gonna springboard from it, the medium of comics. You've brought in a panel each. We're gonna have a look at those, we're gonna guess what they're from, and then we'll see where that takes us. And Scott, I'd like to look at the one you've brought in first. Listeners at home, you should find this on the show page. You should find it on the holding image for wherever you get your podcasts, but don't worry about that because we're gonna describe it. Uh, Scott, it's your image. So, Mitch, can you describe what you see before you?
Mitch Benn:What I'm saying is um a man who appears to be wearing either a policeman or possibly more security guards uniform. He's wearing like a sort of uh short-sleeve blue pilot shirt, but with kind of epaulettes and some kind of um slam brown belt, which makes it look very much like a sort of a military uniform. But it looks like either a sort of, you know, a summerweight American cops uniform, or more possibly a security guard uniform. He is a big burly chap. He's got a kind of flat top couka and a little 90s beard, which suggests to me that we could be looking at something 90s here, purely on the basis of the facial hair. And he is what all we can see of the room is there is a shelf of books behind him. There is what looks like an open hatch in the ceiling. I have no idea what's going on up there, and he is angrily brandishing a huge red book in a manner suggestive that he's about to smash you in the face with it. And the book is it's one of those huge ones with like a gold clasp holding it shut, like a sort of an uh, you know, a medieval Bible. But legibly on the cover of this book, it is called Haunting Memories of My Favorite Cemeteries, and that's the American spelling of favorite and cemeteries. So we're in North America somewhere, and and the big guy, as he's about to smash her in the face of that book, is saying in a joint speech bubble, I'm gonna throw the book at you. Hey, what's this? So evidently he has been interrupted in his book slamming pursuits by some unforeseen circumstance which we haven't got to see yet.
Kev F Sutherland:And from my guesswork, based on looking at the line work and the drawing style, the colouring is old-fashioned almost as if it's been done with watercolour rather than later computer artwork. The line art has an inking style. Again, you're right. I nail that to the 90s or the late 80s. And Scott, you shared us a whole page. I've zoomed in on that one image, but I'm now going to zoom out and have a look at the whole page that you shared, which I think will give us a little bit more information. We're now looking at the whole page of Comic Strip. The panel we just looked up in close with the guy waving the book over his head, is the third of four panels on this comic strip page. And I now think I start to recognize the drawing style. Mitch, do you?
Mitch Benn:Um, well, no, I mean it is, you know, classic American sort of um line drawing uh block colour, but as you write, the colouring has a sort of rather more subtle. It's not that kind of really primary colour 70s DC block colouring, you know. Um there's an interesting effect in the top panel of suggesting incredibly rapid movement. That we now see that security guard guy is fighting a guy who's wearing what looks for all the world like a WWE wrestling costume. He has just thrown him on his head, and but there are but we see like transparent images of two previous stages of this battle, which is quite a nice, you know. There's oh uh I think comic books uh techniques for depicting action, be it with sort of you know, manga lines or sort of they they started to add fake digital blur in the noughties, didn't they? But what they've done here is quite nice. There are three different stages, as in sort of WWE guy's shoulder charging security guard guy, he has intercepted that. He has then sort of managed to judo lift him and now he's body slamming him. So all three of those are depicted in the same frame, but the previous two are just in in transparent line drawings, which is a really nice way of conveying that that happened really quickly.
Kev F Sutherland:Now, before Scott reveals uh what he knows about this to us, I'm gonna start having a guess at things because I think the colouring puts it in the 1980s before they had started using Photoshop on everything. I think the line drawing suggests that it's been drawn by Steve Ditko, the artist who created Spider-Man and Doctor Strange. And this is some of his later artwork from the 1980s. And something that Mitch said that I hadn't even thought of. I thought this is just some security guard guy, and this is some guy in a black outfit I've never seen. I think you've nailed it with the wrestling costumes. I think this is some sort of wrestling comic. And those are both wrestler characters, which is why, in the picture we first looked at, with the close-up of the guy waving the haunting memories of Favourite Cemeteries' big red book, it's a quite realistic rendition of his face that's been redrawn by someone, probably not Steve Ditko himself, to look like this guy because he's a real guy. Uh Mitch, do you want to have more of a guess before Scott tells us?
Mitch Benn:No, I'm just wondering where the um wrestler guy's left leg has gone in that bottom panel.
Kev F Sutherland:Yes, it's disappeared. That's a that's a real cock up. The guy standing full on the ground, his leg goes from his pants down to his thigh.
Mitch Benn:The other guy's leg and then doesn't re-emerge from below. Brilliant.
Scott Agnew:Well, yeah Scott, tell us. Well, got well, you you your your detective work is is is pretty much bang on. Um this is from uh WWF Battle Mania series of comic books. Um and you're slightly you're not far out. I I believe this was a 1991 production. Um I don't think there was an awful lot of them because I only remember have I only ever remember having one of these uh comics because I think they were they were relatively difficult to get over here. I don't think there was I don't think they were um I remember have I remember getting one of them and never been able to get the remainder you know the other ones uh that were associated with it. Um but yes, the the the two the the that that is two wrestlers um the the guy in the cops outfit is the big boss man and and the other one is uh the legendary Undertaker.
Kev F Sutherland:So uh the Undertaker I've heard of, he was an answer on Only Connect last week.
Scott Agnew:The Undertaker that was uh so this this was in his this was the he'd only just appeared in the WWE F about 1990, and this is when he played essentially a dead man um who you know couldn't be hard, couldn't be you know so they were all very, very cartoonish, and uh the big boss man was uh a correctional facilities uh guard who strangely was kind of dressed up like a cop um from Cobb County, Georgia. Um and yes, and he I have to say that the the artist has been very generous to him because he was a fat man, but this is quite a muscular guy.
Kev F Sutherland:If my experience of licensed comics is anything to go by, the person who's being drawn had a say in that. I worked for a while when I was working for Marvel. I worked on Star Trek. We were drawing classic Star Trek with uh McCoy, uh sorry, Nimoi and Shatner in, but I knew the guys who were doing the Star Trek The Next Generation and John Luke Picard or um Patrick Stewart famously contacted them through Marvel Comics and Universal Studios and or Paramount and asked if he could be made to look less bald. So this guy asking for a few pounds to be trimmed off, not unusual.
Scott Agnew:Not unusual. Well, this is knowing the WWF at this time, because it was of course it was uh Vince McMahon um who was the master and commander of that world. Um and let's just say in in in recent court finals, it turns out he's got a bit of a thing for his men being muscular. So it's likely Vince McMahon is the owner of uh WWF, probably would have asked for that rather than necessarily the performer themselves.
Kev F Sutherland:Was Trump involved in this wrestling world at this time?
Scott Agnew:Yes, he would have been Trump uh because WrestleMania four and five were at the Trump Plaza in um Atlantic City. So Trump and uh McMahon have been involved since the sort of mid-80s, and then later, I think it was WrestleMania 20 that was the Battle of the Billionaires where uh McMahon and Trump picked um interestingly uh two ethnic minority wrestlers to fight one another as their proxies, right? And the the loser would get their heads shaved. Um so obviously it was McMahon that that that his wrestler lost, and McMahon uh had his head shaved. But that's also if you see you've seen the meme where uh Donald Trump clothes lines a guy outside beside a wrestling ring. But this is this is why there's there's lots to be suspected about the Trump movement and the MAGA movement being very, very much influenced by what happens and how how wrestling portrays itself, the idea of kayfabe, things that are possible real but not real. And you just always play with that idea of reality. And also the call and response stuff, those having having three line slogans that people can chant backwards and forwards, how you get people booing for someone is all straight out of WWE.
Kev F Sutherland:So wait, the playbook for modern politics is from wrestling.
Scott Agnew:I would I uh me and and and a few other I'm not the first person who had that theory. A few folk have had that kind of theory. Even I mean, even down to the notion that some people, some people say, and I'm going to use a Trumpism, some people say that him being shot in the air was was staged, it was false, you know. And and and and it's uh you know, for wrestlers that are trying to simulate, you know, having been cut open, they would blade, they would blade in the ring, they would take a little uh little razor that they kept concealed somewhere on their person. And and and some would say that that what happened to Donald Trump's ear kind of looks like a pro-wrestling blading.
Kev F Sutherland:Well, remember where you heard it first.
Mitch Benn:An extraordinarily perceptive and not in the least bit comforting insight, Scott. Thank you.
Scott Agnew:I know. As I say, some people might say, I'm not saying I see it.
Kev F Sutherland:Some people might say you're saying this is 1991. You're just reminding me of the comic that I did in 1992. I watched uh uh it was a TV show I wouldn't have been watching myself, but I watched it with some cousins and I saw for the first time gladiators. And I thought they would make superheroes. So I did it somewhere on the shelves behind me. Uh is Gladiators Comic. I got I went to LWT, I had a publisher who I'd been working with, I brought them along with us, went to LWT. We got the license to turn gladiators into a superhero comic. So all the gladiators were given superhero powers. Their pugil sticks were, you know, lightning would have lightning coming out of it. The Atlas Spheres, they would uh fly round in these Atlas Pheres. We commissioned the artwork for three full issues and a little bit more. Uh they published two, then realized they were losing tons and tons of money, so stopped it. I lost a fortune and uh well, a small fortune, but certainly I lost my income really badly at the time. And uh yes, we didn't publish any more of those comics. But yeah, at the time, what a great idea.
Scott Agnew:You know, maybe, maybe the fact of a homosexual, there was something that appealed to me about muscular men and speedos and baby oil and like that. I don't know, but I certainly I connected with it at 12 years of age anyhow.
Kev F Sutherland:The appeal is widely clear. The the idea of spin-off comics, that was something that I think people still think that might be a a thing, but gladiators get back, you should get in there.
Scott Agnew:And it wasn't until later on in life I realized so I I I loved if you remember the Thundercats, the Thundercats cartoon. Yeah, I do the Thundercats cartoon Mask, which was a kind of yeah, I loved Mask. And I remember having I remember having spin-off uh comic books of those cartoons, and then I realized they weren't sort of based from anyone's imagination, it was just Hasbro or whoever the toy manufacturer was, kind of went, We need a big series of toys, you know, and they needed a cartoon to sell the toys as opposed to the cartoon you know, the toys were on uh spin-off from the cartoon, you know. And and I remember these like the Battle Mania comic feeling dead, dead exotic because it had a door sign in the front, you know, and it was and I was which was which would have been unusual. And I thought, oh nobody else will have had this because it's it's been thrown in, especially from America for me.
Kev F Sutherland:Well, how fantastically exotic that was WrestleMania, the spin-off comic, drawn as far as we can tell, by Steve Ditko. Of of whom I assume, Scott, you know little and care less.
Scott Agnew:Um no, I have I I I I've I rather embarrassingly found myself at a pub. I was doing a gig in Money I've um and the in the bottom in the face borders direction.
Kev F Sutherland:Yeah, I think I know where you're going.
Scott Agnew:Uh and I was and I can actually remember the night. Um uh Tyson Fury was fighting Clitch School and it was on the TV, we're all kind of crowded. We were doing a gig in the next room in this uh I think it was the Glondark Hotel, that might be taking the high road, but anyway, uh and I get chatting to this this nice man, and somebody kind of went, You do know who he is, don't you? I went, no idea. That's well, I I think it was Alan Grant then was because I was told that's a guy that does Judge Dredd, you know. And and so I was sort of oh right, because I I I briefly flirted with Judge Tread in the in my kind of later teens, but never quite got on board, unfortunately.
Kev F Sutherland:But we're gonna have a look now at what Mitch has brought in. Mitch, I've zoomed in on a small bit of the panel you brought with us.
Mitch Benn:Not like a combination cultural, but you know, whatever.
Kev F Sutherland:Well, let's have a look at the zoom in before we we pull back. Um read listeners at home, you'll be able to see this on the show notes and blah blah blah. Scott, tell us what you see.
Scott Agnew:Oh, this well, this looks quite dark, quite demonic. It's it's black and white. It looks like a kind of almost like an ink print. Do you know what a screen print, I think. Um I'm trying to say it looks like yes, it kind of looks like a head, but with possibly a fin or a scale where an ear would be. Is this is this right? It looks as if it's there's been some kind of impact because there's a lot of blowback, you know. It looks like the the you know, GFK assassination at the back there, on the right hand side of the panel. There's lots of bits and pieces flying out. Um it looks at a very nice, you know, depending on your viewpoint, there's like some kind of like oh what would you call it? Uh a trap, an animal trap, but but used as an accessory. So very gay. Um that's like on a sort of shoulder pad sort of thing. Uh yeah, I think that's but I don't know entirely what I'm looking at.
Kev F Sutherland:Well, that's a grill where a face should be. It is unfair that I've cropped in so close, but when you see the wide picture, you'll see why I've done it. Now, I know what this is from, but for the benefit of the listeners at home who can't see it. What we look what we're looking at is something like a biker's helmet, only the guy has got a grill in the front with vertical slats instead of anything you could see through. It's got wings on the side like bat wings. There's a hole being punched through this biker's helmet by, when you look closely, you can see a fist with gloves on. Uh the guy wearing the biker's helmet has got big shoulder pads in, which do look like they've got teeth that would form a man trap. And you know, when you're talking about the uh bondage gear and when you're talking about the leather and padding, uh, I think we know where you're coming from. We're gonna have a look now at the wider picture and see if this gives you, Scott, more information. What do you think you're looking at now?
Scott Agnew:Ah, well, right, okay, right. It all makes perfect sense. So it is Judge Dredd fisting somebody.
Kev F Sutherland:No, and that goes into the trailer.
Scott Agnew:Oh, well, it does say gaze into the fist of dread. I mean, just arrange those words. Um gaze into the fist of dread.
Mitch Benn:But um it's a bit gay, you're laughing, yeah.
Scott Agnew:So yeah, we'll get punching somebody right in the right in the pus. Um you know, so hard that his his fists come right through the back. Um, I don't know who the other character is. I mean, it's a gorgeous bit of art, it's very kind of uh it's got that that kind of communisty Soviet kind of feel to it, hasn't it?
Kev F Sutherland:I'll tell you who the artist is. The artist is Brian Bolland, who has been a guest on this very podcast. Listeners, you can check it out in the season one. Uh Brian Bolland was a guest and see what he brought in. He drew this picture about 1979, I'm guessing. Uh well, Mitch is gonna fill us in with the details. Uh, the guy who's been punched in the face is, I know, a dark judge. There's four or more dark judges. I think they're based on the old horseman of the apocalypse, but they're from Judge Dredd's science fiction world. And yeah, the lines of that drawing, they are like, they're like a Jura etching, aren't they? They're like a medieval lino cut or woodcut print. They're not drawn that way, they're drawn with a hand and a brush on Bristol board, I should imagine. Um, but such a crisp, powerful bit of artwork. There's no messing around, is there? It's dynamic, he's got extra dynamic lines coming in from the front. Uh, that voice bubble, I can even tell you, I think, who lettered that voice bubble. I think he's lettered by a chap called Tom Frame. Back in the days when your voice bubbles were done by hand by a chap who sat in the corner of the office in King's Reach Tower in London, where they I visited them at the time about the time as a kid. Um, and this is from Judge Dredd in 2000 AD. Mitch, tell us more.
Mitch Benn:Uh, like I said, I thought I I could try and be niche and culty and catch us all out, but then when I saw that Brian Bolland had been a guest on this podcast, I thought I'm gonna go with what is widely considered to be the single greatest frame in comic book history. Um, I couldn't give you the exact date. I think it was a bit later than that because I was slightly well ever so slightly late to the party 2000 AD was I didn't get it into it until 79. It began famously at the beginning of 77. I got into 2008 in the big in the middle of 79 when I was nine years old. The guy who got me into 2008 was a school friend of mine who you may have heard of, um, Steven Brotherston. He's half of Scarred for Life. Yes, yeah. You know those guys who do those books about paralyzingly terrifying children's TV from the 70s and 80s that there's our entire generation up for the for the rest of time. Well, Steve was at um Dovedale County Primary School with me in Liverpool in the 70s. Stephen, although he keeps this a bit quiet, was the most naturally gifted um sketch artist I ever met. He could draw like this when we were eight. In fact, we used to do comics together when we were um when we were uh at primary school. I used to write them, we used to draw them. I don't know what became of any of them. Um, but he was the one who was always uh ranting about 2008. I don't know why it took me as long to get hold of as it was, because obviously 2008 is so what you know, particularly at the time, so much up my alley. It was everything I was obsessed with. I love comic books, I love science fiction. The formatting of 2008 was brilliant because, of course, it was it was almost like um a sci-fi TV channel in printed form. Because what you would have for start, one of the things I love, I mean, I found a colorized version of this. I thought, no, we want the original black and white line drawings. The only bits that were color were the outside covers and the center spread, everything else was black and white, and that's one of the reasons why 2000 AD ended up revolutionizing the American comic book industry, is it wasn't just that all you know, because as Brian said in the episode of his own, you know, the the money you got over here was was was nothing, and you had to sign all your rights away. So you basically weren't making anything over here. So obviously, all the best writers and artists was being sort of lured away by the sort of DC verticos of the world, and you know, that's why you have John Constantine now, you know. Um, and that's why you have so many so much of the stuff that was really good in American comics and the sort of the middle that's why you have Watchmen, you know. Um, those two, you know, Alan and Dave are absolutely 2000 AD guys, yeah. Um, but one of the things about it, of course, if you look at Brian's artwork, Brian was almost a celebrity artist even within 2000 AD um terms, because his art is so meticulous that as he pointed out on that um that podcast, he kind of ended up being can be kept back for doing cut a special occasion covers because his stuff was so meticulous, he took twice as long to draw it as everybody else did.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Mitch Benn:I thought it did make me laugh on his podcast when he's who was it who said, Yeah, well, that's why you never bothered doing backgrounds.
Kev F Sutherland:It was Kevin accusing of not doing backgrounds.
Mitch Benn:Yeah, it was I can't remember one of the other 2000 of the artists accused him of never bothering to do backgrounds. He would put so much time and effort into the figures that it would just put them against, like, as you see here, it's almost against the black void. But what we're seeing here is this is the second of the Dark Judges stories. Judge Death was introduced in a one-off story of his own not long after I jumped aboard. So that would have been, I think, about 1980. This I think is about 1981. Uh, when Judge Death, um, there is a power. This is when the first time you started to get metaphysics in Judge Dread. Heretofore it all with fairly hard hard uh sci-fi, you know. Um if you've seen either of the two movies, you get the idea of what the setup of Judge Dread is. Uh post-um nuclear war, um, the only habitable bits of America left. Bizarrely are the you know, the the the urbanized coastal areas, which of course actually would be the first bits to get destroyed, ironically. Um, if it happened, but um all the survivors are now huddled into these vast cities that go essentially go along the uh the the coast. So the whole of the the east coast um is now mega city one, the whole of the west coast is now mega city two, and the whole of the south is now Texas City, and these massive fortified conurbations, and the entire middle section is now the cursed earth and it's this radioactive desert that nothing can survive. Um, in due course, which is quite fun, you discover the rest of Judge Dredd's world, you get to meet the Brit judges, and also hilariously the Irish judges who are just um uh the Irish judges are just fantastic when you get to meet them. Um, but in this, yeah, um Judge Death sort of seeps through from some parallel dimension in which the just the judges have gone so berserk they've outlawed life. Um and Judge Death is literally this this um zombie wearing a kind of hideous mutation of Judge Dredd's own uniform, just going around sucking the life out of it. You know, they've discovered this this this parallel dimension, i.e. the dimension of the comic books, where there is still life and they've come to eradicate it from this dimension as well. And Judge Death ends up being confined inside the mind of Judge Anderson, who is the most famous psychic judge. One thing about Judge Dredd is telepathy is a thing. Whether it's meant to be some kind of post-nuclear mutation telepathy or you know, but telepathy is definitely a thing, and there's an entire branch of the judges, the side judges, devoted to developing their psychic powers. And the most powerful of them was uh Cassandra Anderson, and she ends and ends up in a sort of Father Caras from the Exorcist mode of sucking Judge Death into her mind, and then gets bind forever in this substance called Boeing. This is one thing about Love of the Darkest Elements would be combined in the same stories. Boeing had been introduced a few seen a few episodes previously, is this illegal hobby whereby, yeah, you could you spray yourself with this stuff called Boeing, and it instantly inflates and turns you into like one of those gladiators' atmospheres. So you're you are sealed inside an enormous bouncy ball, and you can then hurl yourself off. And the only place it's legal to do this is a place called the Palais de Boeing, which is essentially a football stadium-sized pinball machine that you can now hang yourself up on the surfaces of. But of course, the illegal boingers are doing it in the street and causing havoc, you know, smashing into buildings and causing car crashes. So there was a whole episode about illegal street boinging. Um, and then in in um Judge Death, um Judge Anderson sort of you know confines Judge Death's um you know essence within her mind and then gets sealed in forever in boings. It's meant to be this this great sacrifice that she's she's made. But anyway, in um the sequel, the it turns out that death is only one of, as Kev points out, essentially, the four judges of the apocalypse. And his three pals come looking for him. They being Judge Mortis, who is decay, Judge Fire, who is fire, and we see here Judge Fear, who is fear. And the way Judge Fear gets you is you can see from his helmet, there's sort of the front grille of his helmet opens up like two little gates. And the way he gets you is he just grabs you and goes, gaze into the face of fear, and the gates pop open, and whatever you see in there instantly drives you out of your mind, right? That's the way Judge Fred gets you. But of course, one of the running themes of Judge Dread is that Judge Dredd, while he is not in any respect superhuman, he has nonetheless developed superhuman levels of self-control. And there's famously an episode in which um the whole of Mega City One gets infested with these mutant fleas that can't be killed by anything. So the whole city's just plagued by scratching fits, and Dredd is just stomping around in the middle of it all. And at one point, somebody says, How come you ain't got the fleas, Judge? And he says, I've got the fleas, I'm just not scratching.
Scott Agnew:I've just listened to Mitch's description of the Palais de Boeing, and that in Scotland is known as Erdre, right? And and and those mutant fleas, they're known as midges, right?
Kev F Sutherland:And I'll tell you the other thing, Scott, Judge Dredd, Scottish, Scottish, John Wagner, the lead writer and creator, and Alan Grant, the co-writer, both Scots. And the Scottish sensibility runs through. You've got this kind of Urwali world that they live in that that plays a big part of the not taking it too seriously while also going well over the top in all those.
Mitch Benn:The sense of humor in Judge Dredd is absolutely central. That's why I still don't think there's been a definitive Judge Dread movie, because you know, when the Carl Urban one came out, we'd have gone, Oh, thank god, it's not trying to be funny. And so the trouble with the sliced alone one wasn't that it was full of jokes, it was full of terrible jokes. Well, Carl Urban one had like two jokes in it, which were quite well done. The one where like the kid points the gun at and says, Freeze Judge, and he just stands and says, Why? And that's a perfect Judge Dread response. Judge Dread was full of jokes. This this really bleak sense of humor runs through the whole thing. So, what's obviously happened here is you know, Judge Fear has confronted Judge Dredd, the mask has popped up and he's given it the whole gaze into their face, uh fear thing.
Kev F Sutherland:And Judge Dredd has just stood there and gone, Whatever, smashed and the influence that we see from these when you say about the movies that have been made, the trouble with making Judge Dread movie was the things that were made before it. Both Mad Max and Robocop were Judge Dredd. They had so much Judge Dredd, so much stuff that had come. And the creators admitted that the influence on the second uh Mad Max film, the third Mad Max film, and Rob Robocop right from the start came from these comics. And Fallout. Fallout the game, which I wasn't familiar with, but I've been catching up with Fallout the TV version that's done on Amazon. And that is for me Judge Dredd and the Cursed Earth.
Mitch Benn:Absolutely. I mean, it just is. I mean, that's one of the kind of the same problem that they used to have with Doom, which they finally got around, which is that all the really cinematic elements had already turned up in other hit movies. You know, that's the thing, all the really cinematic elements of Judge Dredd, you know, like you know, the city more or less turned up in Blade Runner, you know, the um you know, uh, you know, just just so much of it has already turned up in other movies. But I never missed one for the whole of the 80s, which is this absolute halcyon period. And you would have things like they adapted the stainless steel rap books. Yeah. I mean, that was it was really audacious, you know, but and adapted them as one of their weekly strips. So they're just doing it like eight pages at a time, but they did three, I think, of the stainless steel rap books. And they were drawn by the the great Carlos Escara, who I never met. I just missed him at um the one Comic-Con I ever went to, which I think was 2014. I just missed Carlos Escara, the guy who designed the Judge Dread costume. And and um actually, you you're right, he didn't do dread for a long time and then got back into doing dread at the end of the 80s. Um, Carlos Escara just had the most fascinating art style. You look at Brian's stuff here, Brian was the most photorealistic of all of them. Also, Brian's characters have the most magnificent range of facial expressions. Brian's characters overact better than everybody else's, you know. Um, there was another guy who did a lot of dread at the time called Ron Smith, who had a weird kind of 1950s look to his figures, but the most mind-bending cityscapes. He loved his backgrounds. So whenever you whenever you go with Ron Smith, he always got the best Mega City one. He drew the best Mega City one. And Carlos Escara, everything Carlos Escara did was dots. He looked, he painted, you know, he liked one of those guys who's lost the use of his arms and paints with his mouth. Um looked like it was all dots. Um, but in particular, he adapted the stainless steel rat. And I'm fairly sure, without asking him, cast James Coburn as Jim DeGritz. Who would I have if this is a movie? It'd be 1960s Flint era James Coburn. Right, we're giving him James Coben's head.
Kev F Sutherland:Looking at the um Judge Dredd, Brian Bolland pitch it that we've got here. Uh, it brings us back to one of the early observations you made, Scott, of the the homoerotic nature of this leather. And um uh there's there's iconography, which is unusual for these comics because they're made mostly by straight creators. You get a lot of queer creators and you get a lot of female creators now, but back then, mostly straight creators.
Scott Agnew:I can see a lot of Tom of Finland in that, you know, and that's a gay man's you know, eye on ridiculous overt masculinity. And I don't wonder if it's just men's idea of how they kind of perceive themselves or what they think an ideal is. I don't know, and that's that's true for gay or straight men. I don't I don't know, you know, that kind of big chest and broad shoulders and fucking tight fitting uniforms. But you know, I think I think there's a bit of a there's I think there's a weak kind of fascist on all men, you know. Generally the kind of the the idea about what gay men fetishizes is generally end up fetishizing their fears, you know. So like which is why kind of you know, like the sort of Ned's Charles Scally kind of look, you know, because those were the kids those were the kids that would have beaten you up at school, you know. So that became a big thing, and you know, what the football kit and stuff like rugby kit because those lads wouldn't have included you, you know, and and similarly so with uh sort of police and army uniforms because those are places you weren't welcome. So that that's gen is a very sort of general rule of thumb. You you fetish what you came to fear because you know we know that kind of line between pleasure and pain is uh is a very kind of sort of narrow, narrow one. So what maybe street man uh uh sees is this big strong authority figure, yeah. Well, yeah, with all the power, well then yes to do. But a gay man would look at that and go, Oh, that's all the things I'm scared of, you know. And I either need to assimilate and look like that or kind of subvert it and be me, but still look like that.
Mitch Benn:That was sort of the way the bright and gay scene adopted the skinhead look in the 80s.
Scott Agnew:Absolutely, yeah, totally. That that was that was that was entirely the reason that that kind of happened. That you know, it was like we were going to subvert that. Um and yeah, and and and the in the punk movement kind of did it as you know, we will they took that kind of the racist skinhead thing and turned it in his head.
Mitch Benn:Yeah, but one thing you do you you kind of take for granted that kind of incredible physiques in comic books, and the only time that really occurred to me was when it was at Comic Con and you realised just how terrible superhero costumes look on normal bodies.
Kev F Sutherland:Yes, oh god, have you ever seen anybody fancy dressing as asterisk or Tintin? I mean, Asterix is got a Wii dress, he's got pigtails. Tintin is ginger. I mean, it's a non-starter.
Mitch Benn:Yeah, I haven't thought about asterisk, but I have occasionally thought about dressing up as obelix.
Kev F Sutherland:But I'm going to end up with the Wii picture that I've brought in myself. Oh, we don't need to devote too much time to this, but let's see what you make of the crop tin image from this. Um, who would like to have the first go at describing this?
Mitch Benn:Okay, it basically looks like everything that you should absolutely not draw. Um alien basically look like decks with incorporated butthole.
Scott Agnew:Um yeah, I certainly if it was attached to me, I would be consulting my GP. Uh which is yeah, it's uh yeah, it looks it it yeah, it looks like in a an all-in-one Haley Bosak deck situation, isn't it?
Mitch Benn:It appears being caught off by some kind of um you know future space hero because there's a hand at the edge of the frame with a very 1950s looking laser pistol trying to fend them off. The lettering at the bottom of the frame puts me in mind of Fat Freddy's cat.
Kev F Sutherland:Well, let's see the full page because I was zooming in on a little bit of it. When we see the whole page zoomed out, we will see in contact a superhero firing at these phallic creatures. Can you guess? Uh both of you, given your day jobs, they have come across this artist. Can you guess who this might be? Oh my god.
Scott Agnew:Well, the only way I can think of Simon Donald off the top of my head, but it looks far from longer ago than this.
Mitch Benn:This is some of the. There isn't it.
Kev F Sutherland:Well, but this artist, yeah, yeah. He signed himself as Ramon, R-A-M-O-N. And the M-O-N is part of his name. He went on to become a stand-up comedian in the 1950s, working right through. I saw him perform at the Edinburgh Fringe in would it be the late 90s, when he was MCing the Comedy Awards. And um, do you want to have a guess who wrote and drew this? Is it Bob Monkouse? It's Bob Monk.
Mitch Benn:Really? Bob Monkaus, Divine the butthole circumcised cockage. This is sometime. What was this in? Where did this see the light of day if ever?
Kev F Sutherland:This is one of those small independent publishers that existed at the end of the 40s and the start of the 1950s. It was because there was a wave of comics. There was uh the stuff that was coming over from America, and we were starting to get the horror comics. I mean, you're getting the first copies of the American comics that we hadn't seen since before the war. And um, some British publishers cashed in on this, and this was a small independent publisher. There's only three or four issues of this oh boy comic, and Bob, under the name Ramon, uh, wrote and drew the tornadoed character who appears on the front cover and appears a few times. Oh my god.
Scott Agnew:Bottom right, he appears to sort of draw himself. You know, that looks fairly like King Shaw Bob, doesn't it?
Mitch Benn:It does look like the Bob he would become. Did nobody flag up what those aliens look like? Was when we were in that innocent in the fifth that nobody noticed that Tornado is fighting a horde of cocks. They were clearly innocent times.
Scott Agnew:I mean, I wouldn't like to, you know. I mean, I've got no qualifications in psychology or psychotherapy or anything like that, but I would, you know, I'd be I'd be intrigued to see what a what a professional would say about that what Bob's attitude to his own genitalia was.
Kev F Sutherland:Well, I'm very pleased to have had two professional comedians passing comment on the work of a third. Thank you so much for joining me on my little old podcast.
Scott Agnew:This has been lots of fun.
Kev F Sutherland:You gotta tell us where we can look out for you in 2026, Scott.
Scott Agnew:Um what we're doing. Oh, you can I've got I have my own podcast uh along with my friend who also suffers who ended up suffers from heart failure, and it's called Heart of the Matter and Other Failures. Um, so it's just like it's like people that once you've had that kind of heart issue and people expect you to be well likely in climbing mountains, and we've kind of not done it that way, that rehab thing, you know. So it's about uh you don't have to certainly become some kind of muscle-bound merry and you know, you know, outdoors freak. Uh it's about kind of making small changes and things like that. So we do that. Uh you get that whenever you get podcasts at the heart of the matter and other failures. Scott Aggut and Nathan Sparling.
Kev F Sutherland:And where do we find you? On the socials.
Scott Agnew:On the socials, um I am no longer on the the Nazi site Twitter. Uh so I've been gone away from that for a year, and it's amazing. Julia Hartley Brewer doesn't exist, nor does nor does Leo Cares, nor does Lawrence Fox. Wonderful. Anyway, um you'll just find me on um I'm AgnewSt. It was I can't remember. I'm on it, I'm on Instagram, um Agnew Scott on Instagram. I'm on Blue Sky, as good as only knows what that is, and just search for me on Facebook. That's my main one, Facebook.
Kev F Sutherland:Really, we'll find you. Mitch, what are you up to?
Mitch Benn:Uh well, I too have a podcast because it is, after all, as I heard somebody describe it recently, the ugly white guys only fans. Um everybody got a I had a podcast years ago. I've got another one now, which we got for about um nearly a year now. Uh called We Know Song About That Don't We? Um, because I've been writing comic and topical songs for 30 years now, and history has a way of repeating itself. So the format is to talk about what's in the news this week, and then I'll play you the song I wrote the last time this happened. Uh um way of getting some mileage out of the back catalogue, as I'm sure you understand. Speaking of the back catalogue, um, Kathy, my wife and I have been engaged in um a project for the whole of the last year of getting my entire back catalogue up on Band Camp. Because I had this for about 10 years, and about um, and and and she came to me about a year ago and said, How many songs have you actually written? So I have literally no idea. Um, if it's not in the thousands, it's in the high hundreds, you know. And she was like, Well, what apart from the like the 60 or 70 that are on your actual records, what are you doing with them? Oh no, just kind of sitting on hard drives, just like, right, screw that. We're putting them all up on your bandcamp site. Well, all my bandcampsite, yeah, all of them. So I've been compiling that, and there's now 126 albums and EPs on my bank, something of the nature of 1200 songs.
Kev F Sutherland:Uh there you go, listener.
Mitch Benn:If you've got a few weeks to spare, a lot of them, obviously, I didn't have decent recordings of because they're from a time before I got decent recording software. So I spent a lot of the last year re-recording all my earlier songs, much less Taylor Swift has. Uh only marker is they'll ever intersect. Live-wise, I'm about to revive an old show of mine, Mitch Ben is the 37th Beatle, about growing up in the shadow of the Beatles and having all kinds of weird little connections to them. Uh, I'm doing that twice in London, the 13th, 14th of January, which maybe uh too this may be too late for that. And then in the 24th of January, I'm doing it in Cardiff, and that one's going to be recorded. And then starting in April, I'm going to be touring last year's Edinburgh show, which, depending on your level of cynicism, is either the worst or best timed show in fringes. A show about the great American comic songwriter Tom Lehrer, who is my personal hero and inspiration as a comic songwriter, who very obligingly dropped dead three days before we opened. Um, which, you know, you've got a bit of a calculated risk putting a show together about a guy who was 97. But I've got to say, uh, the risk of being uh ruthless, it didn't do us any harm. No, I wouldn't have thought so. People are asking me, you know, have you got the same PR agency as the movie Conclave?
Scott Agnew:Um but but just remember not to get into a copyright dispute with Mitch Ben. You know what happens.
Kev F Sutherland:Well, listener, if you fancy going to the Tom Lehrer show, we'll all go together when we go. On which cheesy note, I think it's time to round up. Uh, thanks to Scott Agnew, thanks to Mitch Ben, and thanks to you for listening.
Scott Agnew:This has been so much fun, and genuinely really good fun. Uh, and for somebody who was a complete comic book rookie and knew nothing, I was expecting it to be really awkward, and it wasn't at all. So thank you very much, Kev. Thank you, Mitch. Thank you, Scott. Um Borag Thung, Kev.
Kev F Sutherland:Hey, if you're enjoying this episode of Comic Cuts the Panel show, don't forget there's an entire back catalogue in a first season for you to catch up on. My guests have included comic folk like Brian Bolland, Rachel Smith, Metafrog, Gary Northfield, Nigel Octalooney, Nigel Parkinson, Laura Howell, Sonny Long, David Leach, we've had the comics, laureate Hannah Berry, resident alien creator Peter Hogan, podcasters like Adam Roach, legendary singer-songwriter Dean Friedman, Jessica Martin. The list of comedians includes Ashley Story, Bethany Black, Will Hodgson, Paul Karenz, Izzy Lawrence, Doug Siegel. There is too many to list. And they've brought in comics from Marvel and DC to The Bunty and The Eagle, from Robert Crumb to Viz, Webcomics, Obscure Manga, all points in between. And sometimes we don't talk about comics at all. Don't forget to click and subscribe, leave a review, and tell a friend. For example, what could these two be talking about?
Hannah Berry:With a swastika on his shirt, uh, he's got his trousers down, his bum out, and he's he's standing with his feet in a bucket of pig shit on a stage. Um, there's lots of people looking behind him, and he's saying, uh-uh-uh, ah yes, I can feel it coming out now. Go on, fuck off out of it, you blasted queen.
Kev F Sutherland:And don't forget the queen is visible. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II is visible in the top left-hand corner. As the curtains part, the queen is in the royal box. So this is a royal variety performance uh for the panologists at home that study line in this.
