A Novel History of Spencer Gifts

A Novel History of Spencer Gifts

If you're a Baby Boomer, then you must remember Spencer Gifts. If you went to any shopping mall in the US during the 70s and 80s, you likely had a Spencer Gifts there, and you likely went in......you'd be hit with the overpowering smell of incense while you checked out the bongs and water pipes and bowls and pipes for sale, the tee shirts, the posters, the cheesy gag gifts, the even cheesier 'adult' gifts............ all the cheap crap that marked the pop culture of the time.

Over at the Mental Floss site, Jake Rossen has an interesting history of the chain (which persists nowadays simply as 'Spencers'). 

Older Woman by The Bugaloos

'Older Woman'
by The Bugaloos
1970

The Bugaloos was a live-action TV show produced by Sid and Marty Kroft; 17 shows were aired on Saturday mornings on NBC during the 1970 - 1971 season. 'Older Woman' was performed on the show's 7th episode, 'Lady, You Don't Look Eighty'.

The show took advantage of the co-opting of the hippy aesthetic by the popular culture in the late 60s and early 70s, when kids TV shows like The Banana Splits and H. R. Pufnstuf gleefully presented themselves as 'trippy' and 'psychedelic'.

The Bugaloos cast was made up of four British teens; Joy, who wore a pink tutu, was played by the 20 year-old UK actress Caroline Ellis. She sported a stunning 'shag' haircut.

Most of the episodes featured the Bugaloos singing (or, rather, lip-synching) to at least one pop song. A playlist of all the songs from the show can be found here.

The performance of the song 'Older Woman' can be found here. It's undeniably a catchy song, but it also has an........undertone.......... that, while perfectly acceptable back in 1970, may evoke vague feelings of...... creepiness............?   nowadays. Whether this segment would be allowed in any contemporary kid's TV show is open to debate.

But, watching Joy boppin' and groovin' while her three male co-stars revolve around her is a priceless moment of early 70s cheese.......it just didn't get any better for kiddie entertainment back then !

Colored Lights by Ben Katchor

'Colored Lights'
by Ben Katchor
from the December 1978 issue of Heavy Metal magazine

Book Review: Experiment at Proto

Book Review: 'Experiment at Proto' by Philip Oakes

3 / 5 Stars

Philip Oakes (1928 - 2005) was a UK reporter, poet, and writer; 'Experiment at Proto' was his only sci-fi novel. 'Experiment' first was published in hardback in 1973; this Avon paperback was published in April, 1975. The cover artist is uncredited.

The novel is set in rural England in the early 70s. Mark Barrow, a zoologist, and his wife Biddy have just arrived from California; Mark is taking a position at the Proto Animal Nutrition Corporation. Although Proto's profits come from sales of its animal feeds, Barrow's job is to assist with Proto's distinctive research unit, labeled 'Contact', which enjoys private funding by a wealthy widow named Monica Deely. 

Widow Deely, it seems, is obsessed with teaching chimpanzees to speak, particularly her former pet, an older male chimp named Otto. With Deely's bankrolling, the Contact group is a recognized world leader in research into the nascent field of human - animal communication.

The narrative, while easily moving from one character to another, primarily focuses on Mark Barrow's adventures working under the direction of Contact's esteemed director, Dr. Francis Hoover. As Barrow begins experiments to determine if the chimps housed at Contact are indeed capable of speaking, he finds himself drawn into administrative rivalries and office politics, endeavors that are passionately pursued by Proto's senior personnel.

The narrative spends nearly as much time covering the domestic dramas endured by Biddy Barrow, who, as a new, 'stay at home' mother, is obliged to interact with the wives of the other Contact researchers.

As the plot unfolds, Mark Barrow discovers that his predecessor, a man named Ryman, was dismissed from Contact under mysterious circumstances. Ryman, however, is not content to go quietly into the night, but in fact may be deranged, introducing an element of danger into the goings-on at Contact. 

Complicating matters is the antics of a crusading Member of Parliment, who seeks to investigate accusations of animal abuse at Proto. 

Mark Barrow finds himself having to put out figurative fires both in the workplace and in his home life. But the biggest drama of all has yet to play out, for it seems that Otto may not be the ordinary chimp everyone assumes him to be...............  

I finished 'Experiment at Proto' with mixed emotions. The sci-fi elements of the novel are superficial, and the Big Revelation that is promised by the cover blurbs is underwhelming. 'Experiment' is at heart a melodrama about the wives and lives of research scientists and company administrators; it's not a subject I would find particularly engrossing. However, author Oakes writes about these topics with a smooth, sophisticated style that mixes in enough glimpses of dark humor and (later) sharp violence to keep the narrative from becoming overwrought.

Summing up, if you're willing to read a character-driven novel that adroitly captures life in the UK in the early 70s, then 'Experiment' is reasonably engaging. Those hoping for a UK version of Paddy Chayefsky's Altered States, or Michael Stewart's Monkeyshines, likely will want to look elsewhere.

Subvert Comics issue 2

Trashman
by Spain Rodriguez
from Subvert Comics, issue two
Rip Off Press, 1972

This Trashman story from the second issue of Subvert comics is one of the highlights of the entire Underground Comix movement.

While he was not as adept a draftsman as the artists in aboveground comics, Spain Rodriguez showed considerable talent and ingenuity in applying a mixture of Zip-A-Tone effects, panel framing and composition, and intricate penciling. The creativity of his work on this strip arguably matches up well with any then appearing in the black and white Warren and Skywald magazines.

In his depiction of a dystopian, near-future cityscape marked by the presence of colossal industrial structures and a discarded corpse lying amidst mounds of trash and rubble, Spain prefigured the post-apocalyptic imagery that would be essential to later 70s mainstream comics like Marvel's Deathlok the Demolisher. 

An argument could also be made that with Subvert, Spain also was prefiguring the Cyberpunk aesthetic.

In a 1998 interview with John Ascher, Spain remarked on this aspect of his Trashman work: 

A: Your brand of political satire in a post-nuclear world pre-dates many works with similar traits. The 1983 Ridley Scott film "Bladerunner" contains futuristic imagery strikingly similar to yours, and Frank Miller’s 1986 graphic novel "The Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller for D.C. Comics was a story of Batman, set in the future, that satirized and criticized American society under Reagan during the cold-war. Do you see your work as being influential in pop-cultural works such as these and others?

S: That’s hard to answer. It’s certainly flattering to think so, but we’re all a product of these cultural forces. I may have gotten there first; certainly a lot of people thought that "Road Warrior" was resonant of the third issue of Subvert Comix- "Highway Zero," that sort of thing, and maybe it was. These ideas are out there. The artist pursues a cultural thread, and there are other people pursuing that cultural thread as well, so you exchange these ideas, they’re thrown back and forth, amplified, then the cultural thread goes underground, then it pops up again, often.........I see myself as having part of a very specific cultural thread. It’s interesting, ‘cause when we did underground comix, the thing that developed was putting a lot of detail, just packing the panel with detail. I saw this thing about film noir, and one of the techniques was that they had this full focus, where they’d focus on stuff in the foreground and stuff in the background. This was a completely unconscious thing that spontaneously happened.

Prisoner of the Stars by Alfonso Font

Prisoner of the Stars
by Alfonso Font
IDW Publishing, 2008

Alfonso Font (b. 1946) is a well-regarded Spanish-born artist who has illustrated comics in a variety of genres for publishers in the US and Europe. In the US, he did artwork for the Warren and Skywald magazines.

In 1982, Font wrote and illustrated a Spanish sci-fi comic series titled El Prisionero de las Estrellas ('Prisoner of the Stars'). The English translation was a long time in coming; not until 2008 did IDW release this 104 page trade paperback that contains the complete adventure.

The story takes place in the not so-distant future, when the Sun begins to go nova, turning the surface of the Earth into a scorched wasteland peopled by outcasts and bandits.

The remnants of civilization have taken refuge below the Earth's surface, in underground cities marked by overcrowding and social tensions.

As 'Prisoner' opens, a ragged and scruffy man is fleeing the authorities, heading for the surface and a faint hope of freedom. He does not know his name or his identity. After various adventures, he does achieve his goal of attaining the surface, and befriends a well-built young woman.

[This female lead likely is modeled on one or another well-known actress or model of the era......I'm thinking Brigitte Nielsen, but I could be wrong.]

Together, the duo team up to find the mythical 'city of the domes', where humans still are able to live on the Earth's surface in some degree of safety and comfort. But getting to the city of the domes won't be easy.............for the surface and the underground are filled with scavengers and thugs who are more than happy to make an example of anyone who strays into their turf.........

If you are at all familiar with the black-and-white art styles of the sci-fi European comics that appeared in Heavy Metal magazine during the late 70s and early 80s, then you will instantly be at home with 'Prisoner' and its artistic style, which can veer within the space of single page from meticulous, intricate artwork, to renderings that are sketchy and rather improvisational in nature. 

There is also a hefty helping of softcore cheesecake (the women of the surface all seem to have C-cups, and to enjoy wearing see-through tops......but then again, this is a Eurocomic, after all...........)

That said, Font does a good job of presenting his vision of a post-apocalyptic Earth burnt by a pitiless Sun, and his ability to draw faces and expressions with a minimum of linework serves him well in a comic with plenty of characters and scenes of dilapidated ruins.

The plot of 'Prisoner' is not the comic's strongest point; it runs in fits and starts, and at times relies on quite a bit of coincidence to stay coherent. But the ending stays true to the overall story arc and avoids contrivance.

Summing up, I can't call 'Prisoner of the Stars' a must-have. But if you happen to run across a copy that is reasonably priced, and you're a fan of sci-fi Eurocomics, then picking it up is worthwhile.