Reminiscence on 'Lion' Comic

[xidrep]

Does anyone remember Lion?

I found a couple of my old copies from the early seventies, and besides the Robot Archie and similar Dan Daresque stuff, there are two particularly well-written strips: Spellbinder about an alchemist who has remained in suspended animation into the modern era, and a story about 'Adam Eterno' who is an immortal time-traveller, who wanders the time-streams, getting involved in things like WW1 trench warfare. The stories are quite well-rendered, and I thought the latter in particular was a bit Moorcockian, 'Cornelian' in fact (or perhaps more Bastable)! The comic also tended to be curious in that there was a bit of multiversal-style 'leakage' between separate stories, and occassional intrusions of 'real' (eg, the publishing staff!) characters into fictional storylines. Curious. Comments?

[Pietro_Mercurios]

Re: Reminiscence on 'Lion' Comic

Does anyone remember Lion?

I found a couple of my old copies from the early seventies, and besides the Robot Archie and similar Dan Daresque stuff, there are two particularly well-written strips: Spellbinder about an alchemist who has remained in suspended animation into the modern era, and a story about 'Adam Eterno' who is an immortal time-traveller, who wanders the time-streams, getting involved in things like WW1 trench warfare. ...

I certainly do. Adam Etetrno was a great eternally doomed hero and only gold could kill him! :D
...
There was talk of several IPC/ Fleetway characters being taken over by DC-Wildstorm and even of new stories being written for some of them, by Alan and Leah Moore! This would be v.good, as British comic paper superhero gothic is a largely unexplored realm, in my book.

I first read about it:
Fortean Times MB: IPC Comics Bought By Wildstorm: Alan Moore To Write Miniseri

And the original news announcement:
Newsarama (08-02-2004): INSIDE THE DC-IPC DEAL

Does anybody have more news?

[Jeremiah]

I remember Grant Morrison briefly resurrecting (and gruesomely killing off) several old IPC characters in his seminal Zenith strip in 2000AD.

Oh, those were the days, when a scriptwriter could in all good conscience drop a bus on an adolescent teenage Scottish superhero and nobody would bat an eyelid...

Jeremiah

[Michael Moorcock]

Although I worked on Lion for several years, and also on Lion Annual, where some of my Karl the Viking collaborations with Don Lawrence appeared, I didn't do Adam Eterno. I suspect that was Barry Bayley (Barrington J. Bayley) who was my long time friend and partner on scripts and stories for the boys' papers. I did the rather more prosaic Danny and his Time Clock (or Machine, I forget). I also did Zip Nolan, but didn't do Captain Condor (except on rare occasions). I did so many scripts for Lion that I lost track of what I did (or what Barry and I did or what Barry did -- and Barry can't tell any better than I can who did what at the time). I did the MAN FROM T.I.G.E.R. for Tiger and various other Tiger characters and also did work for Tiger Annual. Anything from around 1958 to about 1963 in the weeklies or annuals (or monthlies, like Thriller Picture Library) that looks like me is either me or Barry, who was a great influence on me, anyway. His own sf includes the marvellous Knights of the Limits and The Soul of the Robot. They are all available as POD books and I'd seriously recommend them. He also did some Warhammer books and was ripped off, naturally. Barry is probably the most ripped off writer I know -- Alison and Busby, for instance, sold several of his books abroad and never told him (pocketing the money).
Some of The Sundered Worlds (though not the multiverse idea) stems from Barry and Barry got my brain in gear to write the sf I did write. A brilliant guy. He's got a new collection of short stories coming out soon.

[xidrep]

Blimey Jings! I had no idea you were involved, Mr M! Did you ever sleep in the last four decades (plus!) :roll: . Should've guessed, I s'pose. So you were working on my brain even when it was a mere unformed embryonic consciousness, eh? I'll look out for Mr Bayley's short story collection.

'Fraid I didn't like Morrison's Zenith thing. I'll never forgive him for what he did to Archie. Too much cynicism and unnecessarily nasty remodelling for me. I don't like the tone of his work, much. I'm sure he's a very nice chap, but not for me...His website's unbearably red, too (that's red not read...well, maybe not...)

[Michael Moorcock]

Well, some people already know my image of Grant Morrison is someone wearing a black mask, flat cap, striped jersey and carrying a bag marked SWAG. Apparently he pretty much admits he's more a reprocessor than a creator. Alan Moore on the other hand brought enormous originality and creaitivity to comics.

[Typhoid_Mary]

I remember Grant Morrison briefly resurrecting (and gruesomely killing off) several old IPC characters in his seminal Zenith strip in 2000AD.

Jeremiah

Alan Moore had already done that a couple of years earlier in Captain Britain. Grant just 'reprocessed' it.

[Michael Moorcock]

Makes sense!!

[xidrep]

I suspect Mr Morrison's behaviour may be due to his being a type of shape-shifter. His name is an anagram of:

Morrigan! Snort!



Ok, I'll get me coat.

[Michael Moorcock]

I thought that was a character in The Beano.
Morrigan Short, He's A Pretty Bad Sort.

[xidrep]

You clearly have not lost your talent for the comic byline! :)

MM: '..my image of Grant Morrison is someone wearing a black mask, flat cap, striped jersey...'

I thought at first you imagined him to be some hybridised Yorkshireman/ Breton onion-vendor doing a Harlequin...

MM: '...and carrying a bag marked SWAG'.

Oh....OK. :oops:

[Pietro_Mercurios]

We're well on the way to sketching out a viable comic strip character, anyway.

There does seem to be a sort of terrible 'Twilight Zone' irony to Grant Morrison being converted into a comic character by Michael Moorcock.

[Michael Moorcock]

When Will He Be Caught ?
That Morrigan Short.

Morrigan Short, He's a Pretty Bad Sport.

Morrigan Short, the Plagiarist Sort.
Everyone's Bought, that Morrigan Short.
Morrigan Short, The Turd of the Court.
Morrigan Short, Any Storm in a Port.
Morrigan Short, the World's Biggest Wart.
Morrigan Short, He Just Won't Be Taught.
The Lady Who Fought Morrigan Short.
He went back to abort -- Morrigan Short.

Morrigan Short Boasted He Would Steal the Shirt of Sir Seaton Begg's Back. Would the World's Greatest Plagiarist Succeed ?

Actually there's a worse plagiarist than Morrigan Short. I saw that someone at Book People had recommended his book today. That's D.M.Thomas, who actually stole from the dead -- plagiarising a great novel, which cost its author his health, at very least -- Kuznetzof/Anatoli Babi Yar -- in The White Hotel. I was sickened by that. As far as I know Morrigan Short has at least never taken accounts of holocaust victims and sensationalised them as Thomas did in The White Hotel. Maximof sewed microfilm of the full manuscript of the book into his overcoat to smuggle it out of Soviet Russia to the West, because he was ashamed that he had let the authorities cut his original book. It was published in English and it was from that translation that Thomas stole huge chunks, the only words that he added being those which sexualised or otherwise sensationalised the original.
Sorry for that sudden change of tone. I was just shocked to see the book back on the shelves. I thought everyone knew that Thomas had stolen great chunks of it (as he's stolen chunks from other books). It's my one regret that I ever published the bastard in NW (inc. poems from The White Hotel).
Baby Yar by Anatoli (real name Kutsnetzof) is one of the great novels to come out of the post-war Soviet Union and in my view one of the greatest to be published in the 20th century. It is actually described as a documentary in the form of a novel. Has anyone else read it ? It deserves a much wider audience than it appears to have received. Penguin published it a few years ago in its entirety (a censored version had been published in English with the approval of the Soviet authorities).
Sorry to go off subject. Today's experience at the bookstore reminded me of my anger at the praise Thomas got for work which was actually that of a very brave and troubled writer, who died young in Paris after smuggling the manuscript out.

[manmiles]

Barry, who was a great influence on me, anyway. His own sf includes the marvellous Knights of the Limits and The Soul of the Robot. They are all available as POD books and I'd seriously recommend them. He also did some Warhammer books and was ripped off, naturally. Barry is probably the most ripped off writer I know -- Alison and Busby, for instance, sold several of his books abroad and never told him (pocketing the money).
Some of The Sundered Worlds (though not the multiverse idea) stems from Barry and Barry got my brain in gear to write the sf I did write. A brilliant guy. He's got a new collection of short stories coming out soon.

I just finished The Grand Wheel and found it a rather interesting, if bizarre read.

[xidrep]

Morrigan Short - he's as bad as we thought!

How do folk who, quite literally, steal others' work manage to face themselves in the mirror? Apart from money, recognition, adulation, etc, etc....You'd think they'd just die of embarassment.

My only rather feeble experiences of having my efforts nicked are scientific ones (probably the greatest field of opportunity for plagiarism). I wrote half of a scientific expedition guide which was later published, but I discovered that every chapter I had written was co-credited to the other author (by himself) despite his complete non-involvement in those bits. He just couldn't bear to see parts of the book without his name in. Bit of a self-aggrandizement addict. Fume! And large chunks of original work I had 'pioneered' on spinal biomechanics was quoted and integrated in a paper in a major journal several years after I'd done the work - with no acknowledgement whatsoever. The authors said: 'Oh, if we'd known you were bothered, we'd have credited you'. I said: 'I'm not bothered: I just don't like having my work pinched! Aaargh!'.

I like to think I'm a fairly 'open', sharing sort who doesn't get too exercised and 'precious' about stuff I do, but the irritation the little incidents above caused made me realise how incensing it must be to have your 'creations' swiped without any attempt at permission or accreditation. Particularly when the plagiarist proceeds to make fiscal gains from his nefarious activities. It's the Butteridge Effect...