Strangely, I remember it vividly. It was the summer holidays and I wasn’t feeling very well, so I was still in bed sometime after 9 am. Being eight years old, this was a rare occurrence when normally I’d be out throwing rocks at a tortoise or whatever unpleasant things grubby eight year olds do. To entertain me, my mum brought me breakfast in bed along with a comic. Brilliant. I was a comics obsessive and grabbed any new title I could get my hands on. Little did I know that the two-tone periodical I’d just been handed was resolutely not for me. Hell, it even said so on the cover. But how was my mum to know what Viz comic was?

As I flicked through its contents (“My Top Ten Sizzling Love Tips By The Queen”), it dawned on me that this was something I shouldn’t be seeing and like a fool I told my mum, who had assumed my Dad had got it for me as she’d found it in the kitchen that morning. After that, I was obsessed with Viz – to the point of utterly torturing myself over it, especially when my friend Chesh nicked some off his stepdad some years later. Eventually, I just gave in and bought the damn thing – well, my mum did. But I’d asked this time. And that issue still rests in my collection with a full set of Viz annuals, spin-offs and waning-era merchandise….well it would hadn’t my Uncle Craig nicked it…but nonetheless it cemented me as a lifelong fan of Fulchester funnies. So who better to choose ten interesting issues in the life and times of Britain’s most impressive organ (fnarr)…

Issue 1 (December 1979)

Originally put together as a local scene fanzine to help Chris Donald, the soon to be regular editor of Viz get in with the slightly cooler blokes who ran Anti-Pop Records, a local Newcastle bunch who put regular punk nights on at nearby haunt The Gosforth Hotel, which is where the nascent Viz (then titled simply ‘The Bumper Monster Christmas Special’, although published by ‘Viz Comics’) would be launched to bemused patrons on Monday December 10th, 1979. Priced 20p (or 30p to students), the 12-page black and white comic was the first proper publication Donald had put together after early one page photocopied efforts “Arnold The Magazine” and “The Daily Pie” had gone down well with friends. Initially 150 copies were printed at the local Free Press at a cost of £41.52, meaning Donald lost money on every copy sold. Still, each one came with a free ice cream as a sales point (or at the very least a lino-cut printing of an ice cream) and soon the comic would become a local student phenomenon…

Issue 13 (August / September 1985)

And a jump of six years as after a dozen of sporadically released local issues produced from the relative comfort of Chris Donald’s Jesmond bedroom, Viz is signed up by John Brown of Virgin Books to be produced on a bi-monthly National basis. Many of the comic’s most popular characters had already made their debuts within its monochrome pages by this point, including Roger Mellie The Man On The Telly (Issue 6, 1981), Biffa Bacon (#7, 1981), Sid The Sexist (#9, 1982), Billy The Fish (#10, 1983) and Johnny Fartpants in the previous issue from 1984. The team had a lot to live up to and as such, needed their debut comic to go exactly according to plan. It did not go exactly according to plan. A parody of teen girl mag photo stories about a pair of star crossed lovers running away to London against the wishes of their parents did not go down as well as hope – mostly because the lovers in question were in fact toddlers. Despite being completely obvious in its intent to satirise similar strips with over the top silliness (such as them being offered a bottle of heroin), rather than encourage child endangerment, Lew Baxter of The Sunday Mirror found the material perfect to get angry about and shock his readers with as part of their “Drugwatch” campaign – completely out of context, of course. The resulting hoo-hah stirred up by Baxter and the article lead to the comic being pulled from Virgin Megastores throughout the country, as reported gleefully by the Sunday Mirror the following week (“Heroin Comic Ban”). For the team’s first issue under the Virgin banner, it wasn’t the best of starts.

Issue 17 (April / May 1986)

The crispy battered cover. As Chris Donald says in his essential Viz history “Rude Kids”: “After a couple of issues John [Brown, then-publisher of Viz] expressed the opinion that my cover designs all looked a bit too similar. In response to this I decided to make Issue 17…look totally different by coating it in crispy batter. There were no illustrations and very little text….the resulting magazine was virtually unrecognizable and only the most determined or perceptive readers were able to spot it on the shelves. Consequently sales of that issue were disastrously low, and John kept his ideas to himself for a while after that.”

Issue 38 (October 1989)

An otherwise average issue of the comic, soon to celebrate its 10th anniversary and biggest ever monthly sales (1,366,350) the following issue, bar a very small “Top Tip” which had been published that number which police felt “might constitute an incitement to commit an offence” - strongly enough to bring in John Brown to Scotland Yard for questioning in December 1989. Naturally Brown did what any publisher worth his salt would do – he denied everything and shopped the Viz editorial staff instead. Chris Donald was eventually questioned by the Anti-Terrorist Branch some days later and luckily released without charge. And thus the matter was closed…until two years later, when editing the 1991 compilation annual “The Sausage Sandwich” Donald forgot the controversial hint and included it for publication. Luckily, the books were caught before they went out to suppliers and replaced with the following sticker…

Issue 44 (October 1990)

One of the first issues of Viz I ever read at my friend Chesh’s house and without a doubt the strip that stuck most with us was the tongue-in-cheek “The Thieving Gypsy Bastards” – a tale of stereotypical Romany types which despite pleading from John Brown was published in issue 44 (on page 3 no less.) The team knew they were probably in for a bit of stick with it and thus included a slightly shorter three panel strip on the following page entitled “The Nice Honest Gypsies”. The tact didn’t work (although the Viz office only received four complaints) and the comic was soon contacted by the President of the Romany Union in Texas to accuse them of inciting racial hatred and demanding a retraction. Still, it was a really very funny strip…

Issue 71 (April / May 1995)

Since the start of its creation, Viz had always very clearly been influenced by the Beano and Dandy comics of the team’s youth and on occasion this became slightly more direct with spoofs such as Desperately Unfunny Dan (1988), Black Bag The Faithful Border Bin Liner (also 1988), The McBroons (1990), Roger The Lodger (1992), Little Plumber (1993) and Arsehole Kate (1994) – all of which had received rather sharp “cease and desist” warnings from publishers DC Thomson, with the latter in particular being the last straw for the Scottish magnate. Naturally, the team immediately stopped doing DC Thomson parodies…until issue 71 anyway, when “Wanker Watson – The Champion Masturbator Of Greytrousers School” was thought to good not to use and duly published. This time the lawyers weren’t going to be sated; they wanted the issue withdrawn from sale immediately. To ease the situation, a formal contract was written up which would prevent such parodies ever happening again, which the team were not in the least bit angry or bitter about. And when new character “D.C Thompson, The Humourless Scottish Git” appeared in issue 73 getting angry at anyone referencing words from popular comics (such as a fruit shop selling “little plums”), it was almost certainly a co-incidence. Snigger.

Issue 82 (February / March 1997)

The first issue I ever bought. Ok, well maybe that one is only interesting to me…

Issue 85 (August / September 1997)

When the Princess of Hearts tragically snuffed it that night in a Paris underpass eleven years ago, “Your Chance To Romp With a Naked Princess Di” was probably not the best thing the comic could have had on its front cover. Mind you, it’s probably better than “Frankenstein Must Di” that had appeared on the previous issue, complete with mocked up Royal monster. The issue would eventually be withdrawn from sale and returned to shelves without the offending line. And all was well again in the land of the Diana mourning….

Issue 91 (August / September 1998)

…until this issue, anyway. With the first anniversary of Di’s death looming, the fairly self-explanatory but light hearted photo-story “Randall and Diana (Deceased)” appeared in the pages of Fulchester’s finest. Amazingly only those bastions of justice The Sunday Sport took up the story (“Diana Ghost Joke Fury”), which naturally was ignored thoroughly by the masses.

Issue 100 (February / March 2000)

The first comic of the millennium saw the comic in disarray – Chris Donald had stood down as editor, sales had dropped to less than 300,000 a month and worst of all, they’d sold the rights to make a film based on The Fat Slags (although that couldn’t *possibly* happen surely…?) completely against the wishes of their main writers Graham Dury and Simon Thorp. And it was to get worse, IFG (run by Loaded founder editor and all round wanker James Brown) would eventually buy out the comic from publisher John Brown (along with Bizarre and Fortean Times) for £6.4 million – a sum total of none going to the creative team themselves. Soon the regularity of the comic was pushed from six to eleven issues a month, and with it, in many reader’s eyes, the quality went down rather considerably (Drunken Bakers anyone? Sorry, cheap shot.)

Then to top it all, IFG was bought out by Dennis Publishing in May 2003 and slowly, the charm and character that once made Viz such an exciting, naughty read was sliding ever further into the distance. I still buy every issue anyway. I can’t not. For every rotten issue, there’s invariably something utterly golden within its increasingly sex-line filled pages that makes whatever ridiculous price it is that week completely worthwhile. And as “big jobs” come, buying the “flagging organ” every time isn’t such a “hard one” to “pull off”…erm…Fnarr…

But, however you look at it, its a long way since that tiny bedroom in Jesmond, Newcastle…

Ben Baker suspects he wont be doing another comics week again in a hurry. Go buy “Rude Kids” already..

When people start nostalgising about comic strips of yesteryear, it’s usually either about those that were aimed at young children, or 2000AD, which was as much aimed as adults as it was its supposed target audience. So what of strips intended for the slightly more intellectual subset of eleven year olds and upwards? Well, to be honest it used to be quite hard to get them to read comics, so a couple of titles like Hotspur, Countdown and Tiger aside, they were often catered for (when they actually were, that was) with a single strip hidden away somewhere in the middle pages, which may as well have had ‘please keep reading our comic’ scrawled over every frame. Then again, it has to be said that there was never really much imagination put into such efforts, and the writers tended to adhere stricltly to a small handful of themes…

…SPORTING HEROES SUCCEEDING AGAINST THE ODDS
It has to be said that something doesn’t sit right logistically about all-conquering sporting stars finding themselves unable to progress past the lowest possible rung in their chosen sport, but that never stopped the writers of a phenomenal number of strips. Billy’s Boots (Tiger) related the adventures of one Billy Dane, an ordinary schoolboy who stumbled across a pair of football boots that once belonged to the legendary ‘Dead-Shot’ Keen, and found that whenever he donned them, he somehow absorbed the late player’s ball-kicking skills. If you were thinking this sounds like an extremely limited format, you’d be exactly right - the boots were constantly endangered by being given away to a jumble sale by his unwitting Gran or else thrown in a river by the time-honoured ‘naughty boy’, and at one point they threw in the towel completely and had him chance upon a pair of Dead-Shot’s cricket shoes and go on to score a double century.

…GLOBETROTTING SECRET AGENTS WITH A ‘TROUBLED’ PAST
There’s probably a hefty thesis, or at least a BBC4 documentary, in the strange preponderance of hard-bitten demon-haunted espionage-friendly tough guys in seventies entertainment, and comics were no exception. Death Wish (Tiger), for example, related the adventures of a disfigured and enigmatic former stuntman who concealed his facial injuries - and indeed his ‘feelings’ - behind a heavy-looking iron mask not unlike something from an ancient sci-fi film, somewhat strangely offset by a tracksuit. An interesting enough premise, but one that was slightly spoiled by the fact that it always seemed to take place in the jungle and to involve attacks by ’soldier ants’ (which surely couldn’t get past his mask anyway?).

…WARTIME MAVERICKS WITH SLIGHTLY DUBIOUS POLITICAL LEANINGS
Once the average age of the comic reader progressed past the point where any of them could actually remember World War II, the escapades of ordinary soliders dishing out pastings to ‘Jerry’ could no longer cut the mustard. Instead, it became de rigeur to embellish wartime exploits with the presence of sundry oddballs and eccentrics. One such individual was The Wolf Of Kabul (Hotspur), better known as English nobleman Bill Samson, who roamed occupied Burma on a motorbike, accompanied by loyal manservant Chung, whose weapon of choice was a cricket bat - or, as he had it, ‘clicky ba’ - as they fought for liberation and the right for Rory Bremner to do rubbish satirical pop singles.

…SUPERNATURAL ANTHOLOGISING
There’s always an element of risk with introducing new regular characters, as after all there’s no guarantee that they’ll catch on with readers. One way around this is to simply have them appearing in a couple of frames, introducing a standalone story invariably with some sort of sci-fi/horror/thriller theme. Despite his uncanny resemblance to electric grooming product magnate Victor Kiam, The Collector (Eagle) was a distinctly creepy individual who delighted in showing readers items in his collection relating to tales of alien abduction, zombie dogs out for revenge and, erm, a lot of gardening. What was more disturbing than the stories themselves, however, was the fact that the objects must presumably have been acquired at a time when he could have stepped in and saved the hapless unfortunates…

…MYSTERY MEN OF POSSIBLY EXTRATERRESTRIAL ORIGIN
The problem with ordinary human sporting, wartime or indeed collecting heroes is that they are limited by the mental and physical constraints of their species. No such trouble with the likes of Wilson! (Hotspur), a mysterious ‘man in black’ athlete whose exploits basically involved a combination of breaking sporting records (to the vocal delight of suspiciously well-spoken crowds), saving orphanages from closure, and remaining suitably enigmatic about his origins. However, even these achievements were but as naught compared to his near-supernatural ability to provoke outbreaks of sniggering in the Private Eye production office.

…ANIMAL DERRING-GO IN BLEAK SURROUNDINGS
If you’d already overstuffed your publication with the above, animals were also a useful substitute - their comparative lack of intelligence made it easy to depict them as ‘brave’ and ‘loyal’, and their differing agility allowed for all manner of clifftop rescue scenarios that you would have been hard pushed to involve Billy Dane in. King amongst these was, of course, Black Bob (The Dandy), the famously Viz-lampooned Faithful Border Collie who was forever having to compensate for Shepherd John Glenn’s disturbing ability to get knocked unconscious at the nearest available opportunity - rounding up the sheep, warding off predators, and completing his accounts with minutes to spare. No, seriously.

…PUBLIC FIGURES IN INEXPLICABLE SETTINGS
On the other hand, obtaining the ‘rights’ to use some sort of celebrity in comic strip form is hardly an ideal solution, as… well, once you’ve got them, what do you do with them? ‘Be very silly indeed’ is usually the answer. The Fantastic Adventures Of Adam Ant (TV Tops), for example, dispensed with all of that highly recognisable and near-universally popular stuff about dandy highwaymen and Diana Dors in favour of creepy sub-Sapphire & Steel tales about brainwashed schoolchildren, possessed chess sets and plenty more oddness besides. Still on an eighties pop theme, Bucks Fizz (Look-In) had to contend with fugitive safecrackers and time-travelling ghosts, though Haircut 100 (also Look-In) fared a bit better with endless tales of Nick Heyward getting ‘the’ girl. If anyone knows of some obscure comic that featured Belouis Some running a ramshackle bakery where anything could happen, do let us know.

…HI-TECH ANTIHEROES
It’s an old thematic device, from Raffles to Captain Jack Harkness and doubtless before long Sylar from Heroes too - scarily technologically skilled bad guy ends up working for the good guys. Favouring the not exactly popular goatee-beard-and-wesuit look, The Black Sapper (Hotspur) was a master criminal who had somehow constructed a giant underground drilling vehicle named The Mole with which to burrow into bank vaults, but after a crisis of conscience decided to throw in his lot with the authorities and use his powers to curtail the activities of rival bank robbers. And you’ll never guess how he always thwarted them.

…LO-TECH ANTIHEROES
Then there were their close contemporaries who had followed much the same career path, only relying on ordinary household objects and their so-called ‘wits’ for the execution of their inspired crimes and indeed counter-crimes. Former conman Luke The Book (Tiger) pursued the bad guys whilst posing as a weedy bespectacled bookseller, only his hollowed-out tomes were as likely to conceal handy gadgets like radios, lock-picking implements and what have you as they were any actual text. Wonder if Russell T Davies has thought of that yet?

…PLOTLESS SITUATIONISM
If all else failed, it was always possible to fall back on surreal whimsy and combine two unlikely culturally-clashing lifestyles for a bit of comedy drama. There is no finer example of this than Mandarin MacDuff (Tiger), a salt-of-the-earth Scot living as an oriental nobleman with hilarious consequences. No doubt it all seemed very Python/Milligan to whoever thought it up, but in a strange way it’s actually far more reminiscent of something Billy Connolly would have come up with during one of his all-too-frequent flights of fancy.

Tim Worthington did not hit Roland Rat with ‘clicky ba’.

Are you excited by the trailers for that new Batman film yet a bit apprehensive about reading the comics as there is way too much convoluted continuity there? Well never mind, help is at hand in the shape of this guide to essential Batman books (or graphic novels if you like) that you can buy and read without any prior fanboy behaviour. You have to wait until Friday to get your filmic Bat fix, so in the meantime, how about visiting a bookshop to get the pre-Dark Knight excitement going? In a sort of chronological order except where continuity has been re-written too many times to be precise I present ten of the best…

Year One by Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli:  An inspiration on all future Bat tales and movies (including a failed-to-be-made Joel Schumacher interpretation), this rather obviously tells the tale of Bruce Wayne’s first year in the Bat costume, with a focus on Gotham’s corrupt police force’s reaction to a vigilante with pointy ears sorting out the baddies. Writer Frank Miller (Sin City, 3000, Daredevil, Elektra) is in his element, ably assisted by his Daredevil partner David Mazzuchelli on art. Buy it if you like you comics with a touch of pulpy noir or would like to read a comic book equivalent to the Batman Begins film which is, like the film, considerably updated in tone, style and chronological setting to the original origin that was published in 1939’s Detective Comics # 27. Bloody hell, he’s been dressing up like that for almost 70 years! 

Dark Victory by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale: If you’ve seen the first series of cult US effort Heroes, then you’ll have seen all the paintings the man with the funny drug face did. Well, in reality they were done by a gent called Tim Sale and quite by chance, he also did the art for this too. Set in Batman’s third year as a man in a bat suit, and introducing a boy named Dick who became a Robin, buy this if you like the classic epic comic book detective style. Robin was originally introduced just under a year after Batman’s debut, in 1940’s Detective Comics # 38 but the continuity has been re-written many times since then due to pesky comicbook time running much slower than the real world. A pensioner Robin just wouldn’t work, although it would probably be preferable to the best-forgotten one from the Joel Schumacher movies era.

Gothic by Grant Morrison and Klaus Janson: It’s one of several choices by Grant Morrison (See yesterday’s post for more on his work), because I like him, and it’s a little bit mental, which is helped by Klaus Janson (Daredevil)’s art. This story was first published in 1990 and is Morrison’s second big Batman story. The first one will undoubtedly crop up somewhere on the list and it is made extra relevant due to Morrison being the current lead Bat scribe in the comics. No spoilers here, just buy it if you like a bit of horror with your Bats. And there are bats in it too!

The Killing Joke by Alan Moore and Brian Bolland: Widely regarded as the best Joker story, with comic icons like Alan Moore (League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen) on writing duties and Brian Bolland (Camelot 3000) doing the art how could it possibly fail? A nasty, twisted, psychotic story that all future Joker stories were compared to. Batman’s arch enemy first appeared in 1940’s Batman #1 and has been portrayed over the years as a vicious killer, a dedicated criminal, a clown (both in comics and the 1960s TV series) and a Jack Nicholson Meets Ronald McDonald with a predeliction for random sadism. The character has had many origins but most of them end with him falling into a vat of chemicals, which is nice and consistent.

Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean: Morrison has a crazy imagination and Dave McKean (most famous for his Sandman covers) paints insanity better than anyone so a tale involving Batman and the famous mental institution has got to be an obvious choice, right? The book’s full title is Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth but that’s just too long to type. The building that the book is named after (and how many graphic novels are named after buildings, eh?) first appeared in 1974’s  Batman #258 and was originally known as Arkham Hospital although seeing as it was full of mentalists the readers got the general idea. Buy it if you like reading, it’s that essential a purchase!

Broken City by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso: Like Gotham City at night? Love gangsters? Go “ooh” at those gritty scenes of tormented men with guns getting all frustrated in the rain? Want to get acquainted with some of the more ‘hands on’ members of Batman’s rogues gallery like Killer Croc and The Ventriloquist (sadly not an acid-scarred Keith Harris)? Then this book is for you as it’s all rather noir. Just like you would expect for the first major superhero tale from the creators behind such dark comics as 100 Bullets and Hellblazer.

Secrets by Sam Kieth: A lesser-known story, but Sam Kieth  is another one of those great all-rounder creators. It’s a bit crazy and very pretty to look at. Buy it if you want something a bit different, or just like paintings of people with really big feet. Kieth is most famous for his comic The Maxx which is rather difficult to explain here as it involves imaginary worlds created by severe mental trauma, spirit animals and plenty of head-scratching deep psychological stuff. I’ve not put you off, have I?

Face The Face by James Robinson, Don Kramer and Leonard Kirk: Batman and Robin return to Gotham after their year away (not in Thailand with rucksacks, honest) only to find that leaving a cured Harvey ‘Two-Face’ Dent in charge might not have been the best idea. Buy this if you want to forget about Tommy Lee Jones’ role in Batman Forever or have already enjoyed James Robinson’s exceptionally good writing when he created Starman, which I also cannot highly recommend enough as it is one of the lesser known modern classics of its genre. Two-Face first appeared in 1942’s Detective Comics #66 and his origin has pretty much remained the same: District Attorney gets acid in the face (well, half of it) and develops a second more sadistic personality, flips a lot of coins, does crime depending on coin results, runs into a certain Bat-inspired crime fighter… did I mention that he is also in the new film?

Batman And Son by Grant Morrison and Andy Kubert: The current version of Batman from the comics, with Morrison spewing out endless ideas all over the place, as usual. This is the first volume of an ongoing series being worked on right now (!) and the title gives a big hint as to the story. Buy this if you fancy some new interesting approaches to classic characters from two comic legends. These classic characters include several from the 1970s era including Man-Bat (yes, really. First appearance in 1970’s Detective Comics #400) and Talia al Ghul (first appearance: 1971’s Detective Comics #411) , the latter of whom might sound familiar to fans of 2005’s cinema franchise rebooter Batman Begins. One of these people is the mother of the titular boy, can you guess which?

The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller: Future Batman goes all Clint Eastwoody in the original scary dark future Bat tale. Not the story that inspired the forthcoming film with the similar name but a damn good read none the less. It was released in 1986 at the height of the craze for gritty comics and its preoccupation with a media-obsessed world is still as relevant today. Buy this if you are intrigued by an elderly (but not infirm) Batman of the future.

Dan Hollingsworth didn’t include any inter-company crossovers as they are mostly too baffling for even geeks like him.

Comics. When most of you hear the term, you’ll probably either think of UK stuff like the Beano and the Dandy or you visualise superheroes running around in pervert suits saving the world from the Hoosiers. Possibly. But it doesnt always have to be flying around and repeatedly kicking giant battery-operated dinosaurs in the face (although that IS awesome…) One such member of the non-Superhero fraternity is comic legend Grant Morrison’s The Invisibles, which is instead about saving the world by a different means - that of um, shooting people in the face. More of which I propose to tell you about in about three paragraphs time…

So what’s The Invisibles then, and why should I care?

Ah, you cheeky young scamp. Ask your questions with more respect or you will feel the back of my cold metal hand.

Yes. Very good, dear.  Now be a love and tell me about this comic.

Oh all right. The Invisibles is a three volume comic series released by DC Comics imprint Vertigo between 1994 and 2000, written by a Scottish chap called Grant Morrison. Drawn by a vast array of artists including Jill Thompson and Phil Jiminez, it takes its reader by the hand, grins at them then shoves them into a labyrinth of conspiracy theory, transvesticism and battles against ancient indescribable evil. And just as they think they’re getting a handle on what’s happening it throws some time travel and a few predestination paradoxes in there as well whilst laughing at them. The Invisibles frequently asks its reader “Whose side are you on?” which is a really good question, considering that a good chunk of the regular cast never seem entirely quite sure themselves.

What sort of conspiracy theories does it cover?

Well, by the time you reach the end of the book you’ll have learned why the world is full of cities, what really happened at Roswell, where the US government plans to put political dissidents, the truth about time travel, why Lady Diana was really killed and where the new world order keeps their HIV vaccine. Morrison has stated that Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s mind-bending science fiction novels The Illuminatus! Trilogy were apparently a strong source of inspiration for the book and that becomes obvious very quickly. If you’ve read it obviously. Which you probably haven’t. Or you would be reading this now really. Sorry about that.

Get on with it. Now, that’s a lot of conspiracy theories. This comic book sounds weird.

Oh, it is - even reading it through with the rather excellent companion book Anarchy for the Masses (which is like those books you used to get at school that told you what Shakespeare meant and where he was using iambic pentameter, only interesting) to hand, you’ll still probably take a while to put the various pieces together and work out what order the narrative actually goes in. [Sounds a right laugh - ED]

This sounds like the sort of book that could cause some controversy.

How right you are, nameless and faceless questioner. Yes, one of the earlier storylines featured the principle characters getting stuck in the world of the Marquis De Sade’s book 120 Days of Sodom and DC’s editorial team got nervous. Any reference to children in that section was changed to “lost souls” (and if you’ve managed to stomach De Sade’s book you’ll understand why) and clothes were added to characters that were originally drawn naked. Oh, and lines such as “Walt Disney was a shit” in later issues were also censored. In fact prior to issue 1 even being released, principled egotist George Galloway demanded the book be banned due to the language (citing specifically the introduction of main character Dane McGowan whose opening line is a hearty elongated F-word). One wonders if he had a deeper read through of it at some point and then realised the language was the least subversive thing on offer.

There can’t have been that many people reading it if it’s this odd.

You’re very insightful. At one point DC was looking at cancelling the book as the aforementioned Marquis De Sade plot line lost them a lot of readers, being as it was a fairly major shift from the style established in the first few issues. Morrison’s response to this was typically odd - in the letters pages of the comic he explained the principles of sigil magick, a form of magic involving mystical symbols. He then went on to present a sigil designed as a request for sales of the comic to increase… and to help it along asked the readers to masturbate whilst thinking about it on the night of Thanksgiving. Whether the magick worked or people heard about the request and decided to pick up the book to see what the hell all the fuss was about, sales increased and the threat of cancellation disappeared.

Oh, wait, wasn’t there a TV series? With that bloke from Buffy and the Gold Blend adverts.

No. BBC Scotland WERE looking at doing a TV series and even got Morrison to write the first couple of scripts but eventually bottled it - presumably because some of the later story arcs are utterly unfilmable. Why the Beeb then chose to use the title in 2008 for a series about elderly catburglars is entirely beyond me.

Hold on, isnt this Batman Week or something? What’s this got to do with him?

Well since you ask, The Invisibles was written by the aforementioned Grant Morrison, who also wrote the really rather excellent Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth one-shot back in 1989 which was illustrated by Dave McKean. He’s also the current writer of the monthly Batman comic. So there.

Hang on, you’ve actually told me nothing about the story!

No, you’re right, I haven’t. To be honest, I have no intention of doing so, as with any luck you’re allready intrigued. It really is a series best experienced with very little idea of what is going to happen in it - frankly you’re likely to come out of the other side knowing just as little in any case. And that’s exactly what THEY want…

Phil Catterall says he wants a revolution. Or was that last week?

We all have a favourite childhood comic character - be it Dennis the Menace, Desperate Dan or Dirty Alan, The Grubby Window Cleaner And His Singing Beagle Mitch. So, to celebrate the new Lovely Dead Old Heath Ledger (Also: Batman) film “The Dark Knight” opening on our shores this Friday, I’ve decided to let the more comic-obsessed faction of the TATP staffers have a week to themselves for out and out gigantic geekery, nihilistic nerdism and all out, cult comic collecting cun-[*some text missing*].

However, being a true British repressed type myself, I won’t be allowing the site to fall to Johnny America all week as there’s still plenty of comic fun courtesy of ol’ Blighty itself and where better to celebrate it than with this week’s “Talk About The Greatest” vote, for which our voting panel chose their favourite childhood comics, excluding those filthy commie American comic books and adult comics, such as Viz and its point-missing rivals Zit, Flapz and Ngggghhhh Squeeze Plop Ahhh. So grab your best hooped jersey, hide your catapult from Dad and prepare for the slippering of your life as we go picture panel crazy…

Number One
2000AD

Or 2000AD and Tornado, 2000AD and Starlord, 2000AD and The Halifax Evening Gazette…as a publication its fair to say that 2000AD has seen off a lot of rivals, even more trends and currently celebrates 31 Earth years of trading since issue one (with free Space Spinner, but minus key character Judge Dredd who would appear the following week), dated 26th February 1977. Indeed, its one of only three comics in this top 10 that still survives in any form, outlasting even its own futuristic-in-1977 title. The real joy of 2000AD is in its anthology format, with (usually) five stories jostling for attention, of various styles and genres – don’t like one, you’ll probably like the next – and as such, its been a constant breeding ground for the cream of British writers and artists, from the founder members Pat Mills and John Wagner (creator of the aforementioned Dredd), to varied names such as Alan Grant, Mike McMahon (this writer’s favourite comic artist), Massimo Belardinelli, Carlos Ezquerra, Cam Kennedy, Grant Morrison, Brian Bolland, Neil Gaiman, Garth Ennis and everyone’s favourite miserable old bastard, Alan Moore. Oh, and Editor-In-Chief, Tharg The Mighty, the Quaxxann legend himself, of course, who has overseen the comic’s running since those very first days. Splundig Vur Thrigg.

Number Two
The Beano

Celebrating seventy years of quality menacing and mayhem next month, The Beano retains a special place in many hearts in a way that its predecessor The Dandy never quite managed to capture, thanks to its myriad of memorable characters and strips that have graced its pages since it first tottered onto newsagents next to its sister paper at the end of July 1938. Granted, that first issue (slightly more staidly titled in full “The Beano Comic”) may have lead with one of the most tedious characters in the comic’s history – Big Eggo, an easily-vexed ostrich who got into “scrapes” – plus a troublingly racist watermelon-chomping black mascot – but the comic was soon a big hit. Well, wouldn’t you buy a comic that came with a free Whoopee Mask? Whatever the fuck that is… It’d be a further 13 years – until the issue dated 17th March 1951 to be annoyingly precise - before the spiky haired lad who would become the comic’s flagship character, as well as being its longest running strip, would first appear. That’s right, I am of course referring to Big Eggo 2000 Extreme. Sorry, I meant to say Dennis The Menace, created by Davey Law, who would eventually claim his front cover crown of then-champion Biffo The Bear (who himself booted off that bastard ostrich in 1948) in September 1974. Other favourites would follow – Roger The Dodger (1953), Minnie The Minx (also 1953), The Bash Street Kids (initially drawn as highly detailed one frame cartoons, under the name “When The Bell Rings” in 1954), The Three Bears (1959), Billy Whizz (1964), Baby Face Finlayson (1972), Ball Boy (1975) and Calamity James (1986). The Beano’s reign as a humour comic in these tawdry TV-tie in times is impressive, with each issue still selling a respectable amount (An estimated 74,419 copies in 2007) without having to turn into a dangerous plastic attack weapon or whatever the kids are into this week. Everyone we know loves The Beano!

Number Three
Whizzer and Chips

A surprisingly high position for a comic which sadly seems to be all but forgotten in modern times – a real shame for something which sported one of the most bizarre and yet utterly gripping gimmicks in comic history. The comic, launched in October 1969, was split into two bitterly rival sections – “Whizzer” and “Chips” – and as a loyal reader, you had to choose which you read and as such, whether you were a Whizz-Kid or a Chip-ite. You COULD NOT read the other section, as it would be an treachery beyond belief – and so, Whizz-Kids would get to enjoy strips like its lead character Sid’s Snake (the tale of a boy and his um…snake), idle bastard Lazy Bones, creepy shape-changer Odd Ball and the sugar-obsessed Sweet Tooth. Whilst Chips readers would be greeted by their leader Shiner – a lad forever getting black eyes to the eternal chagrin of his mum, Dallas-thefting JR - Junior Rotter or exercise-obsessed Phil Fitt among many. Of course, you’d be an idiot not to read both halves of a comic you’d just shelled out for, so there was always the thrill of “spying” on the other side. All in all, Whizzer and Chips had a good run in its twenty one years – incorporating rivals Knockout in 1973, Krazy in 1978 and Whoopee! in 1985, before the inevitable happened and come October 1990, the Whizz-Kid and Chip-ite favourites were to be forced to live together under the Buster banner. Oh and I was a Chip-ite, if you were interested…

Number Four
Oink!

Despite being easily the shortest running of all our listed titles – May 1986 to October 1988 – Oink! holds a very special place in the hearts of those who read it, due to its sheer anarchy – themed issues, a bit of blood here and there,  cheeky parodies of other comics and pig puns as far as the eye could see – they all added up to a child favourite that the parents most definitely would approve of. Created by cartoonist Tony Husband with comedy writer Patrick Gallagher and Mark Rodgers, and featuring regular contributors such as Marc Riley (do I still need to say he was Lard on Radio 1? I mean, you think they’d know by now…) and the beloved son of Timperley himself, Frank Sidebottom, there’s no doubting that there was more than a hint of “Viz for kids” about the whole enterprise. (Especially ironic considering IPC turned down the opportunity to publish Viz some years previous, saying it was too rude for National audiences.) Oink! was run by the ruthless Uncle Pigg who would pop up throughout the early issues, usually taking on the comic’s biggest adversary, the busybody Mary Lighthouse. Sadly, sales never really took off majorly which in part was due to stockists not knowing where to place it, not to mention it being initially fortnightly, before becoming weekly and then going monthly for its final death throes. Eventually, like our previous title it merged with Buster, who took on characters such as the unfortunate Pete And His Pimple, brainless bully Tom Thug and the self-explantory Weedy Willy. But somehow the spark had gone. Not that the creators themselves were TOO concerned as they’d just sold the idea of a TV version of Oink to Children’s ITV, which would emerge as similarly anarchic kids favourite Round The Bend the following year.

Number Five
Buster

Initially pitched as “Son Of Andy Capp” and tabloid-sized for some bizarre reason, the initially quite Northern Buster was a poor lad with a giant (never removed) cap and a lot of big ideas. Whether one of these ideas was “be the figurehead of an amazingly successful Fleetway / IPC comic for nearly forty years” is unknown, but that’s exactly what he managed. Mixing adventure strips with the more standard funnies to begin with before concentrating more on the latter, Buster would inevitably be the place where other titles went to die (eleven in total), accruing quite an impressive roster of characters along the way, such as the grotesque “boy of a thousand faces” Faceache drawn by Ken Reid in 1971 and endlessly nosy get X-Ray Specs. The comic would also feature the wonderful work of the late J Edward Oliver in the form of Master Mind and Cliff Hanger, both of which combined standard comic adventure with a series of ingenious puzzles. As he’d been such a key figure in the second half of the comic’s lifetime, it was only fitting that he get the last ever new Buster strip, in its final issue dated 22nd December 1999, in which he finished off the storylines for all the popular characters and revealed that Buster always had to keep his cap on due to the shock of spiky black hair he had, identical to the front-man of a similar children’s publication…

And the rest…

And number six is THE BEEZER (1956-1990), which seems a bit lost without its usual sidekick The Topper (1953-1990) which didn’t make the top ten – indeed both would merge in 1990 to little avail in a rapidly declining comic climate – The Beezer was fronted initially by Ginger, a boy who was…um, ginger. At seven, its dashing British space adventures and jolly good showmanship with THE EAGLE (1950 – 1969), in large part to its lead hero Dan Dare, who was initially dubbed Chaplain Dan Dare due to in part to being created by Frank Hampson on the behalf of entrepreneurial Reverend Marcus Morris. However, due to the age of our writers, we suspect is more the second attempt at The Eagle which ran from 1992 to 1993. In case you were concerned we were all in our seventies….At eight, comes KRAZY (1976–78)/ CHEEKY WEEKLY (1977-1980), two publications which really belong together as the latter was a direct by-product of the former featuring Krazy’s gap toothed comedian Cheeky as he pottered through the week’s issue, meeting his friends, introducing strips and just generally getting on people’s tits really.

At number nine, DOCTOR WHO WEEKLY (1979-80) which saw the TATP perennial Time Lord brought to the newsagents shelves by Marvel Comics no less. Sadly, this meant it was invariably full of other Marvel reprints and thus in September 1980, the comic went monthly, increasing the article side of things (“The Doctor Faces The Dominators!”) but always making sure we had plenty of sexy William Hartnell pin-ups to see us through the Winter. And finally as number ten is THE DANDY (1937 – 2007) or ‘Da Dandy 2K Hyper X 3000 Mega Sk8 Rock Woooo!’ as its better known now (Dandy Extreme, thank you – ED). Its sad that in order to rebrand, the comic has lost so much of the charm that made it so popular in its heyday. Also it costs £1.99. You have to go out to stab and old lady and rob her purse just to be able to afford comics these days. Grumpy old man, me? Ha. Bloody kids with their PlayBox 360s and their digital watches and their grumble mumble a hush push leopold…

Ben Baker thinks the Zig And Zag Zogazine wuz robbed…

They said it couldnt happen. They said people would never stand for it. They said “um, what…oh right yeah, the thing with the connections in it.” But from beyond the grave, it returns! A bit.

Yes! “Talk About The Connection” has been powered up, rebooted and had some stickers we got free in a packet of Sugar Puffs shoved on the side. And all so we can bring you a very special Beatles special…special, in which two of our TATP writers take each other on in a battle to the factual death linking two individuals by the least direct route possible, with the most interesting diversions being judged by our resident moderator robot, the ever high-tech Judgebot #3000.

And now our first challenger, in the red corner, weighing in at over twelve pounds fifty, welcome Justin Lewis as he finds a path between JOHN “Tedious” LENNON and PAUL “Dinners” McCARTNEY…

One quarter of The Bottles (sic?), and four-quarters of John Lennon, JOHN LENNON took a five-year sabbatical in 1975, mainly to spend quality time with new-born son Sean. Shortly before he died, he revealed in a Playboy magazine interview that one of his inspirations for venturing back to recording was the self-titled debut album by Georgia fivesome, THE B-52s. As well as containing enduring classics like “Rock Lobster” and “Planet Claire”, The B-52s brought down its curtain with a suitably outré remake of “Downtown”. First recorded by PETULA CLARK in 1964, who in doing so became the first British woman since Vera Lynn to top the US singles charts, the song was both penned and produced by Stoke City FC fan TONY HATCH. Hatch also conducted the orchestra in 1966 when Tony Hancock made his live stage comeback at London’s Royal Festival Hall, and in the ‘70s became well-known to TV viewers as a ‘straight-talking pundit’ (trans.: ‘sometimes gave budding acts no points on New Faces’).

With his now ex-wife Jackie Trent often acting as lyricist, Hatch composed many themes for television, including Crossroads, Neighbours and Mr. & Mrs. The couple also wrote the stage musical The Card, adapted from the novel by Arnold Bennett. When it premiered at the Queen’s Theatre in July 1973, its cast included Jim Dale, Millicent Martin, John Savident, Eleanor Bron and, already 67 years of age, JOAN HICKSON. Hickson is best-known, probably, for playing Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple in the BBC detective dramas of the 80s and early 90s. I’ve never sat through any of them. I have seen her, though, in lots of comedy cameos, from her inability to stay in Mrs. Stimpson’s car throughout 1986’s Clockwise, to… oh check IMDB, where the tally surpasses a hundred with terrifying ease. (Gawd, was she really in Confessions of a Window Cleaner?) For the purposes of this associative game, though, let’s focus on Hickson’s supporting role as Mrs Groaker in the 1954 film of Doctor in the House. Starring as Simon Sparrow was, of course, DIRK BOGARDE, whose long cinematic career needs little introduction. What is perhaps less well-known is that he was part of the on-air roster of launch presenters on the UK’s second local commercial radio station, Capital Radio. Doubtless approached by the station’s then-chairman Richard Attenborough, Bogarde began a series of Saturday afternoon music shows on 20 October 1973, four days after Capital first went on air. Details of the programme’s music policy are unknown. Maybe he was the first person in Britain to play the New York Dolls. Other personalities who joined the Capital fold in its early years included Kenny Everett, Tommy Vance, Michael Aspel, Gerald Harper and, from 1975, GRAHAM DENE, who promptly became host of the flagship morning breakfast slot.

Until Chris “Everybody’s Equal/That Pop Quiz Revival” Tarrant did it for even longer, Dene’s 11 years at the Capital breakfasting helm outshone anyone who chaired such slots on deadly national rival, Radio 1, where five years was considered a maximum term. Dene was said to have been Princess Diana’s favourite DJ (apparently, Andy Kershaw was nipping at his heels, though), and unlike his Radio 1 competitors rarely ventured on to TV. Although he was on Give Us a Clue in 1979. Sod the gogglebox, though – as everyone knows, films are unconditionally better, and in 1984, Dene’s voice (as – what else? – a DJ) was immortalised on celluloid, in a motion picture also studded with such luminaries as Tracey Ullman, Ralph Richardson, a twentysomething Amanda Redman, Dr Legg from EastEnders and Giant Haystacks. The film was, as if you needed prompting, The Killing Fields. Oh, alright then, it was Give My Regards to Broad Street. Routinely tossed into a blazing worst films bin along with Raise the Titanic!, Guest House Paradiso, Johnny Mnemonic and Notting Hill (wishful thinking, that last one), Broad Street is a film I’ve never ever seen, and probably never ever will. After all, when was it last shown on television? “ITV, Boxing Night 1989, 2.20am”, is my fairly reasonable guess. Anyway, also in it and writing its score and screenplay to boot was singer, songwriter, beetle, wing, composer, vocalist, performer, songwriter, songwriter and Felix Howard-confuser, PAUL McCARTNEY. Happy Beatless, everybody!

Impressive stuff. And now in the brown corner, Ben Baker with his tiptoe between the facts connecting GEORGE “Deceased” HARRISON and RINGO “Decreased” STARR…

GEORGE HARRISON was a man of many talents, from being one of TV’s fabulous Beatles to his movie production with partner [abusive name deleted] Denis O’Brien as part of HandMade Films and in August 1971, he was responsible for organising two benefit gigs in New York’s Madison Square Garden under the name “The Concert For Bangladesh” with friend and fellow musician RAVI SHANKAR, who contacted Harrison to raise funds for East Pakistan refugees following recent military turmoil and the tropical cyclone in Bhola the year previous in which half a million had lost their lives. Still, its not all miserable as the live album of the event went straight to the top of the UK charts!!!!! It would be Shankar’s best chart position although he could take pride in one of his offspring Geethali Norah Jones Shankar (or NORAH JONES to you, squire) who managed a few of her own sales, with so far an estimated 38 million albums worldwide. Changing her name at 16 to her more familiar moniker, Jones’ first album “Come Away With Me”, released in February 2002, is currently the best selling album of the decade although naturally with this being TATP.org, I’m rather more impressed by the fact she appeared on a 2004 Sesame Street episode (series 35, no less) reworking the lyrics to her hit song “Don’t Know Why” to be about the letter Y. Awesome work.

Also making appearances on the famous American street that series were Maya Angelou, Natalie Portman (temporarily taking over Mr. Hooper’s store, no less) and SETH GREEN, best known as the voice of portly son Chris on “Family Guy” and doing that rotten animated programme on Adult Swim. Green has worked fairly consistently since he was 10, making his first noteable appearance three years later in 1987’s “Radio Days”, playing no less than the young WOODY ALLEN. Allen was slightly older when he made his cinematic debut aged 30, in “What’s New Pussycat?”, which he also scripted. Originally meant as a vehicle for sex fan Warren Beatty, he would eventually leave the project when Allen reduced his part throughout the script’s development, increasing his own in the process. Also lined up for the initial casting was Groucho Marx, in a part that would eventually be played in the finished film by PETER SELLERS, who among his many talents (and being in The Goon Show, which is rubbish) was the first man to appear on the front cover of Playboy magazine in April 1964. Sellers had many connections to the Beatles, appearing in outtakes of the “Let It Be” documentary, recording a parody of “A Hard Days Night” (see Tuesday’s post) and co-starring in the superb 1969 film “The Magic Christian” with a sprightly young gentleman called RINGO STARR who in his day job was part of TV’s fabulous Beatles.

Well that was…visible. Thank you Ben. And now for the important moderation task, we can only possibly trust the opinion of one man…well, we say man – he’s more a mechanical bleeping product from Japan which TATP accidentally won at a raffle. Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only….JUDGEBOT #3000

+++FZZT+++WHAT NOW? I WAS THINKING ABOUT SOME CRISPS+++

Why? You’re a robot. You don’t eat crisps.

+FZZZT+++A MAN’S GOT TO DREAM, HASN’T HE?+++

You aren’t a man either!

+++FZZT+++SIGH. LET’S GET THIS OVER WITH. I DECLARE THIS WEEK’S WINNER THE BEATLES. GOODNIGHT+++

No, the choice is between…

+++FZZZZT+++DOES NOT COMPUTE+++

Oh, you metal bastard.

+++I HEARD THAT+++

And now we dip once again into the alternative world of the Beatle boppers, with six more unique and bewildering cover versions of some of the beloved mop top wacky thumbs-aloft funsters’ more known musical moments, courtesy of Professor Tim Worthington of the Liverpool “Proud Home Of The Beatles” Institute For Beatlery And The Destruction Of 90’s Band SpaceTM. An advance sorry to the inevitable mp3 hunters hoping to find the tracks here, but then again half of the thrill is in the hunt, right? Especially when it comes to this little lot… 

David Bowie ‘Penny Lane’ (Music For Pleasure, 1967)
While The Beatles were living the high life and snorting LSD off Mia Farrow’s arse or something, young David Jones, latterly of failed beat combos The Lower Third and The Buzz, was so poor and starving that he had to resort to making ends meet by singing on one of those ‘not the original artists’ LPs that were inexplicably common currency at the time. Thus it was that his vocals were hilariously added to limp trots through various Monkees and Beatles numbers, though the story has a happy ending, as by the end of the year he had turned his dire financial straits into a spectacular cautionary tale called The London Boys (and, erm, one about a gnome), secured himself a new deal, and ever so slowly started to evolve into the world’s favourite distant and androgynous chameleon of rock who fell to earth.

The Many Moogs Of Killer Watts ‘We Can Work It Out/Hey Jude’ (Pye, 1972)
Time was when the dreaded synthesiser was considered not just an Exciting Musical Instrument Of The Future but also a selling point in its own right, and it seems record shops were literally awash with synth-demonstrating LPs back in the early seventies. You will not be surprised to learn that it seems to have been a legal requirement for such albums to include at least one Beatles cover, and some of them even featured nothing but. Mr. Watts’ effort is not one of the more inspired ones, it must be said, composed largely of undistinguished trots through Shadows numbers and movie themes, but there are still two fantastic tracks that make it a must-hear - Now Hear This!, which sounds like the BBC Radiophonic Workshop rebounding around a rubber room (in both senses of the word), and this lengthy Beatles medley, which binds two unlikely medley-mates together with the aid of a funky rhythm and zapping electronic tones.

Bobby Lamb & The Keymen ‘The Fool On The Hill’ (BBC Records And Tapes, 1971)
Top trombonist Bobby Lamb, along with Tony King, Dave Snell, Norrie Paramor and many other names that will be familiar to anyone who’s ever scanned the the list of ‘also available’ titles on the back of Doctor Who Sound Effects or Sing A Song Of Play School, was one of those characters that used to plug the gaps on Radio 2 caused by the Musicians Union’s stringent rules on how many commercially available records could be played per hour. Backed by a crack team of session musicians, there’s some deliciously strange covers of recent chart hits on offer here, not least this rendition of the superb song from the Dinners-Invades-The-Stage-At-CD:UK bit of The Magical Mystery Tour, which starts off all pastoral and wistful before being invaded by what can only be described as a pitched battle between Hammond Organ and flute.

Tomorrow ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ (EMI, 1967)
Tomorrow - a band made up of no less than future Yes guitarist Steve Howe, Teenage Opera-excerpting solo superstar Keith West, and all-round Festival-hogging anarcho-hippie and general punk before punk existed John ‘Twink’ Adler - were one of the first proper psychedelic bands on the UK scene and made some fantastic records, not least the Lennon-endorsed My White Bicycle. Unfortunately, when it came to recording the album, they were apparently one song short and resorted to filling up space with this heavied-up Fabs cover with guitars replacing all of the orchestration and sound effects. It probably sounded fantastic through a haze of dry ice at the UFO club, but on record it just sounds a bit tedious. However, the joke was on them, as an angry tour promoter later forced them to do the same with Excerpt From A Teenage Opera on threat of not being paid, of which West later recalled “we did it like Strawberry Fields Forever, and they threw small hurting coins at us”.

The Eyes ‘Good Day Sunshine’ (Mercury, 1966)
And the cautionary tales continue. One of a handful of psychedelic acts who were doing the live rounds before The Beatles had even finished recording Revolver, The Eyes caused an immediate splash with their flourescent rugby shirt stage outfits and bonkers single When The Night Falls, based around a heavily distorted gong. Unfortunately this didn’t translate into chart success, and after a couple more tries, their record company forced them to record a cover of a Beatles song that wasn’t even that good to begin with. The band weren’t happy and split soon afterwards. If only they’d been pushed towards She Said She Said…

Lord Sitar ‘I Am The Walrus’ (Columbia, 1968)
Nobody seems sure who Lord Sitar was - though accusatory fingers can surely be pointed at top sixties session sitarist Big Jim Sullivan - but it’s a fair bet he wasn’t a real nobleman. He did, however, get to record an album of covers of recent chart hits, keenly sought after by people who’ve heard the demented snarl through The Who’s I Can See For Miles, and then equally keenly discarded when they discover that much of the rest of it is tepid reditions of the likes of Daydream Believer. However, it’s well worth sticking around for this out-psyching the original Beatles cover, liberally doused in fuzz guitar and shrill flutes, and as it doesn’t say ‘knickers’ it’s perfectly safe for The Light Programme to play too.

Tim Worthington would love to hear the session tape of Pink Floyd visting The Beatles during the recording of Lovely Rita. Or the session tape of The Beatles visiting Pink Floyd during the recording of Bike. Whichever’s easiest.

If you ever wanted evidence of just how commercially unassailable The Beatles were in the sixties, look no further than the sheer amount of Beatles covers that were around at the time. Just about everything the Beatles ever wrote and recorded, from With A Little Help From My Friends all the way to Love Of The Loved, was covered by somebody somewhere several times over in the usually vain hope of a little bit of chart magic rubbing off on them; even the number of Rolling Stones covers released in similar circumstances pales into insignificance. Often they were little more than cheaply done cash-in efforts that were never going to stand the test of time - who could pick Marmalade’s version of Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da out of a line-up, for example, and has anyone even ever heard The Overlanders‘ chart-topping stroll through Michelle? - but the sixties was an exciting time for exotic musical sounds even outside of George Martin’s studio trickery, and many of these covers are worth a second listen. Like, for example…

Loose Ends ‘Taxman’ (Decca, 1966)
Within mere weeks of its release on Revolver, George Harrison’s Weller-purloined moaning about having to cough up Income Tax like any old commoner becomes an organ driven exercise in slow-burning funk, packed with those mental bongo breaks that sample-crazy DJs go mental for nowadays. A big favourite on Pirate Radio, apparently, but seemingly just too wild for mainstream chart success. Nothing to do with Ned Sherrin or underachieving eighties ‘jazz-funk’ outfits, either…

The Gods ‘Hey Bulldog’ (Columbia, 1969)
When Progressive Rock came a-calling (probably over the length of a triple album) at the close of the decade, many of the early exponents of the genre decided to showcase their instrumental prowess by doing heavied-up takes on familiar Beatles numbers. Most of these were as horrible as you’re already imagining, but this hammering cover of an unjustly obscure number (relegated to an album soundtrack, and even then cut out of most of the original release prints because Paul McCartney wanted more ‘bloody stupid marching’ inserted or something) is pretty good. And - dare it be said? - possibly even a slight improvement on the original.

The London Jazz Four ‘Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)’ (Polydor, 1966)
The hip jazz community were as fond of messing around with sitars and backward tape loops as The Beatles ever were, but the London Jazz Four preferred a more traditional straightforward ‘modern jazz’ approach, which makes it rather puzzling that they recorded an album and several singles’ worth of covers of The Beatles at their most intensively experimental. Here, Lennon’s tale of being annoyed because a girl wouldn’t shag him is shorn of all sitar droning and becomes a frug-friendly vibraphone workout of the sort that would sound at home in a ‘beat club’ scene in a sixties big screen Brit-thriller. It’s a lot better than it sounds, honest.

The Score ‘Please Please Me’ (Decca, 1966)
Though some would undoubtedly get very angry at the merest suggestion that The Beatles did not invent the wheel, there was a brief period in the mid-sixties when it seemed that many of the bands hanging around London’s nascent psychedelic scene had actually leapfrogged ahead of the Fab Four in terms of far-out pop sensibility and general sonic trickery. For a particularly pertinent example, see this delieriously obscure effort drenched in loudspeaker-endangering swathes of feedback and buzzsaw guitars. Bet their light show was a sight worth seeing.

Young Idea ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ (Columbia, 1967)
Legend has it that on the evidence of their incredibly rare LP and Other Singles, this overdressed duo had designs on a more Syd Barrett/Scott Walker kind of territory, but they hit the big time with a fairly respectably done Beatles cover and that was pretty much the end of their career. It’s certainly preferable to Joe Cocker’s overwrought and overrated histrionics, but the laws of irony have seen to it that while his dreary Wonder Years-introducing tedium is still inescapable to this day, Young Idea’s version probably hasn’t been heard anywhere since the 1967 Christmas Top Of The Pops.

Enoch Light ‘Get Back’ (Studio2Stereo, 1969)
Taken from his legendary (well, with certain genre enthusiasts at least) ‘Easy Listening On The Moon’ album Spaced Out, this is a rip-roaring rampage through one of the band’s less exciting (and, it must be said, more dubiously politically-originned) chart-toppers, with brass and fuzz guitar battling it out at epic length. See, it was useful for something then. Also worth noting is the cover by avant-garde jazz-folk outfit The Liverpool Scene - as part of a live rendition of crowd-pleaser Baby on their mega-rare live album St Adrian Co Broadway & 3rd - which turns into an agressive rant against the ’send ‘em all back’ leanings of both Enoch Powell and - gulp - those loveable Beatle Boys…

Tim Worthington invites you to return tomorrow. Coming up in part two: Moogs! Sitars! BBC Records And Tapes! And, erm, snorting LSD off Mia Farrow’s arse.

The Beatles – you know, those Scouse ones with the hair - have always been an iconic band, and none more so than with their album covers, which have adorned overly organised record collections for over 40 years. And so like Weird Alan Yanksovich (of “Beating It Off” and “Fatty Fat Man” fame), TATP today turns its attentions to some of the parodies of said covers that have cropped up on fellow artist’s works, from the very best to the utterly bewildering.

There can be no place to start better than with one of the very first recognised Beatle cover parodies, from ol’ Supergrass pal himself Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, who released their own tribute to Peter Blake’s iconic “Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” LP image for their own record “We’re Only In It For The Money”, a searing parody of sixties counter-culture released just seven months after Pepper in January 1968. The Zappa cover, designed by his regular artistic collaborator Cal Schenkel was originally nixed by his record company in favour of a more standard group picture (albeit with them all wearing dresses), intended for within the LP.

However ol’ Zappa features wasn’t the only one to do a bit of Pepper parody, as the excellently matched 1998 Simpsons spin-off record “The Yellow Album” (an album so good it was finished in 1994 and left on a shelf for four years) also paid tribute - indeed, all three surviving Beatles had appeared on the show by now - with a scene originally created as a couch gag. The title would be swiped seven years later by the similarly-hued Spongebob Squarepants for another cartoon spin-off LP. Also doing the Pepper appreciation was um… “The Monster Mash Rock N Roll Party” ….yeah. Its got “13 tunes of terror”, you know…

Some albums are very easy to get right, such as the Beatles‘ swansong album “Let It Be”, performed masterly by Gorillaz on their 2005 “Demon Days” record…and slightly less masterly on Swedish death metal funsters Death Breath’s 2007 EP “Let It Stink”. Curse these foreign metallers coming over here and stealing our Beatles! Wake up Cradle of Filth! Actually, dont.

Peter Sellers’ version of “A Hard Days Night”, done in the style of Laurence Olivier in Richard III was one of many Beatle covers to chart, reaching No.15 at Christmas 1965, bolstered by this terrific cover, which is less a spoof and more just using every available Peter Sellers movie still available at the time. But you’ve got to admit it works…

And finally for now, we look at “Abbey Road” which as far as this TATP writer is concerned contains the finest twenty minutes of music ever recorded to costly disc (the last twenty, naturally) - a fact clearly shared by a lot of musicians, who did the following parodies of variable quality, starting with something for the kids - Ren and Stimpy’s “You Eeediot!” from 1993 featuring such evergreen glassics as “Dont Whiz On The Electric Fence” and the timeless “Happy Happy Joy Joy“, although many of these were re-recorded for LP to allow Billy West to re-record all lines originally performed by Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi due to his unfortunate removal from the series the year previous.

Also released in 1993 was Sesame Road, a collection of songs from Sesame Street, then in its 24th year, including “Letter B“, a Beatles pastiche recorded in the late seventies, supposedly by bug group ”The Beetles“, and voiced by legendary Muppet performer Richard Hunt who not only voiced Scooter and Beaker on “The Muppet Show” but was also the initial voice of Miss Piggy, later alternating with Frank Oz. As for the next two records, well…um, try to look impressed…

You’ll be pleased to know the former did have Ernie on it. As for the latter, well let this comment on the Jive Bunny discography (oh yes) entertain and inform: “The obvious question is, if you already own “Beatles 1,” “Beatles 1962 - 1966,” and “Beatles 1967 - 1970,” why bother with this CD, even for water aerobics? The answer is: Because in the environment of water aerobics: (a) These songs are done well enough to pass as the original songs, (b) No single Beatles CD has this many good songs, (c) Some of this CD’s songs are simply not on any of “Beatles 1,” “Beatles 1962 - 1966,” and “Beatles 1967 - 1970,” and (d) The beat is much more distinct, and the fidelity (sound quality) is better, than the original (real) Beatles recordings. “ And now you know…

But my favourite of the lot and a fitting end to this piece would have to be this from Longua de Trapo - “Vinte e Um Anos na Estrada”, which translates from Portuguese roughly as “Twenty-One Years on the Road“. Very fitting, in fact…

Ben Baker is more than aware he left out The Rutles entirely on this but you knew that, right?

Another week, another theme here at TATP and this week we’re celebrating the 40th anniversary of the “Yellow Submarine” movie premiere at the London Pavilion, attended by John, Paul and George (Ringo was sadly swallowed by a giant goose that week), on July 17th 1968, when the group were slap bang in the middle of recording their eponymous white album. It also ties in rather neatly with Liverpool’s recent inaugural “Beatles Day”, which is entirely deliberate and not at all very coincidental on our part. No. Never.

And so onto this week’s Greatest list, in which the TATP voting panel get to extend their prerogatives over the chosen subject of the week – and with the Fab Four in place, it would’ve been many things – best Beatle singles? Albums? Films? Times Ringo has said the People of Liverpool “bloody stink”? Then we had a brainwave – why not rate the Beatles themselves? And so that’s what we did. Enjoy.

Number One
Paul

Ah, Sir James Paul McCartney. Dinners ‘imself. Born June 18th 1942 with his thumbs aloft and the natural choice for number one, proving if nothing else that TATP isn’t made up of wanky student types with Lennon lithographs adorning our bedsits. Sadly more known for his marrying-and-then-divorcing-an-evil-one-legged-prostitute-allegedly antics in recent years, it’s a great shame as many of TATP’s brood are particularly big fans of his last two records – “Chaos And Creation In The Backyard” (2005) and 2007’s “Memory Almost Full”, which Paul has admitted was written half before the Heather breakup and half after – a fact seemingly borne out in the fact it was pointed out that the title was an anagram of “for my soulmate LLM” (the initials of his late wife, Linda Louise McCartney), although Paul has sensibly denied it being intentional. McCartney is listed in The Guinness Book Of Records as the most successful musician in popular music history, with 24 No.1 records in the UK and sales of 100 million singles including “Yesterday” which is the most covered song in history to date with more than 3,500 recorded versions. Not bad for a bloke who apparently died on Wednesday 9th November, 1966…

Number Two
George

The first Beatle to have a solo No.1 album and single in the UK,  despite him being just 26 by the time the Beatles had come to a close in 1970, the late George Harrison is sadly often overlooked, which makes his close fought second here something to smile about. Its fairly well established that along with having a number of huge hits, particularly “My Sweet Lord” (1970, No.1 both in the UK and US) and “Got My Mind Set On You” (1987, No. 2 UK, No.1 in the US), Harrison also co-founded one of the most interesting film producers of the 80s, HandMade Films, initially formed to finance the soon-to-be infamous Monty Python’s Life Of Brian, along with Time Bandits (1981), Withnail and I (1987), and um…Water (1985). Although I think this all pales into insignificance when put up against “I Don’t Want to Do It”, his 1985 single (a Bob Dylan cover) performed exclusively for the soundtrack to “Porky’s Revenge”, the third in the increasingly less bosom-related movie franchise. Bizarrely this was the only thing Harrison released between 1982 and 1987. He must really like them cheerleader’s boobs…

Number Three
Ringo

“How he can he be third favourite in the list, he wasn’t even the best number three favourite in The Beatles!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Right, let’s get one thing straight – Ringo Starr is a bleedin’ great drummer thank you very glad, go away and listen to Come Together or Rain and then we’ll continue. Go on. I’ll wait. Back? Ok. The final part of the puzzle to be placed in the famous Beatles line-up, post Pete Best’s removal from the group in August 1962, Ringo (real name Richard Starkey, but of course you knew that…) had met the other three loveable mop-tops in Hamburg where he was part of fellow touring band Rory Storm And The Hurricanes. Along with his musical attributes, Starr has also made a terrific actor on a number of occasions – including second billing in both 1969’s superbly vicious savagery of modern ideals, “The Magic Christian” and bizarre Harry Nilsson vehicle “Son Of Dracula” in 1974, as well as being the central character in the ever-joyful second Beatles film “Help!” (1965). Of course, it would naturally be remiss of me to miss out Starr’s fine narration work on the “Thomas The Tank Engine And Friends” series between 1984 and 1991, although this actually only constituted two series (52 episodes in total). He was replaced in the UK by fellow Scouser Michael Angelis, whilst America went slightly more left of field and employed the recently deceased George Carlin. However, despite rumours, Ringo did not get sacked due to his disparaging comments about the Island Of Sodor on “Friday Night with Jonathan Ross”. Although he does think Henry is “a bloody menace”. Probably.

Number Four
John

TATP is, it would be fair to say, unlike other Beatle-based votes when it comes the canonisation of John Winston Lennon. Indeed one voter said “Lennon gave up in 1968 and the odd single aside did fucking nothing except show off and act like a twat. His assassination was the best thing that could ever have happened to his career” which might not be to everyone’s tastes, but certainly contains more than a grain of truth. And yet Lennon’s work is seemingly always in fashion. Possibly because he’s deceased…is that cynical? (Yes – ED) Well, hey ho. A bit of mudslinging never did anyone any harm. Not least someone who’s been dead since December 10th 1980 (20 days before this TATP writer’s birth, fact fans). Lennon’s first solo release, the avant-garde “Unfinished Music No.1: Two Virgins” (the one with his cock and bollocks on the cover), recorded with Yoko Ono was released on the 29th November 1968 – exactly seven days after The Beatles released the LP that would bear their name and little else (known to many as The White Album) although its fair to say “Two Virgins” had little chance of deposing it from the top spot, with just 5000 copies initially pressed. “The Beatles” meanwhile became the group’s biggest selling album in America going platinum 19 times. Possibly something to do with not having a man’s gnarled cock and balls on the cover. Who knows? Rest in Peace, John you dead old bastard. Oh, we like him really…

Ben Baker is uninterested in 16-year old floppy-hatted Lennon freaks sending him nasty emails, mostly because he plans to send back them his own remake of the “Two Virgins” cover if they do. And this time there’s THREE testicles…