#1973-74 Serie A

[fortunaestalta]

[humanoidhistory]

Production art for Star Trek: The Animated Series, 1973/74.

[soranatus]

Star Trek: The Animated Series, 1973-74. Art director Don Christensen. Animators included Reuben Timmins & Bob Kline

[yama-bato]

Tree: A journey (1973-1974) from the Tree: A journey series 1973-74 John CATO

[disease]

ULAY | S’HE SERIES [1973-74]

[chernobog13]

Batman and Manhunter (Paul Kirk) by Walt Simonson.

This version of Manhunter has a rather confusing history. Originally, Paul Kirk was a private investigator, created by Ed Moore, who starred in his own serial in Adventure Comics (vol. 1) starting with issue #58 (January, 1941). The feature was titled Paul Kirk, Manhunter, but that was just a description of the job he did, not a nickname he used, nor was he ever called that.

The Paul Kirk, Manhunter feature ended in issue #72.

The final appearance of Paul Kirk, Manhunter, from Adventure Comics #72.

Adventure Comics #73, April 1942)* saw the debut of a new, costumed Manhunter feature by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby.

The new Manhunter was Rick Nelson (no, not Ozzie and Harriet's kid), a former big game hunter who decided he should put his skills to use hunting down criminals. He donned a costume and began his career as a crimefighter.

The cover of Adventure Comics #73, the new Manhunter's first appearance, and page 8 from his initial story. Obviously, no one at DC editorial knew that Manhunter had a blue face mask, which is why the colorist went out of his way to create a mask for the character.

Adventure Comics #75, wherein everyone is finally on the same page about the mask, except now his ear is blue as well.

As you can tell from these images, the new Manhunter definitely was in no way related to the previous feature with Paul Kirk.

Except by his second appearance in Adventure Comics #74 the character's name was changed from Rick Nelson to Paul Kirk. I don't know why made that decision, although many sources point the finger at DC's editorial staff. Anyhow, that led to the original Paul Kirk getting completely retconned out of DC continuity.

Simon and Kirby left the Manhunter feature after Adventure Comics #80 (November, 1942), although they were still doing the Sandman feature in that book. Manhunter's final appearance was in Adventure Comics #92 (June, 1944).

Writer/editor Archie Goodwin and artist Walt Simonson revived the Manhunter character for a series of 8-page back-up stories in Detective Comics (vol. 1) #473 (November, 1973).

The new Manhunter by Walt Simonson. The figure is from a DC house ad.

This new Manhunter was a revived and revised Paul Kirk. Kirk had given up the costumed crimefighter gig and returned to big game hunting. He was mortally wounded during a hunt, and that would have been the end of him. But an organization called the Council found him, used their super-science to heal him, and gave him a genetic enhancement that gave him advanced healing. They also cloned him enough times to create a small army, of which Kirk was leader.

Goodwin and Simonson were going to make their Manhunter a completely original character. However, they used Simon and Kirby's version of Paul Kirk so that they did not have to spend their limited comic book pages to create a back story for their hero.

Kirk eventually realized the Council was up to no good and began working to take the organization down. He gained some allies along the way, including Batman. Together they brought an end to the Council, although Kirk lost his life - for good this time - when he caused the Council's HQ to explode.

Jack Kirby tried to revive his Joe Simon's version of Manhunter in 1st Issue Special #5 (August, 1975).

The main character was Mark Shaw, not Paul Kirk, but the costumes were very similar. Jack also established an ancient organization that picked worthy individuals to act as a Manhunter to take down the criminals and gangs that the police could not - or would not - touch.

Unfortunately, Jack never got to finish that story. Instead, Steve Englehart took the concept and ran with it in a totally different direction during his brief tenure as the writer on Justice League of America.

That was not the end of the Manhunter character, of course, which has been revived several more times (including twice by surviving clones of Kirk). But that's a post for another day.

(* In March, 1942, one month before Simon and Kirby's Manhunter debuted, Quality Comics introduced their own Manhunter in Police Comics #8.

This guy was Dan Richards, a police rookie who graduated at the bottom of his academy class. A friend of his got framed, so Richards donned a rather dull costume (sometimes without pants, and the footprint chest emblem didn't last long) to fight crime. He was assisted by his faithful dog, Thor.

This Manhunter outlasted DC's version by a good stretch, until August, 1950's Police Comics #101.

Shortly thereafter, DC bought all of Quality's characters. Eventually all of them were incorporated into the DC Universe. The two different Manhunters finally met, post-Crisis On Infinite Earths, in All-Star Squadron #31.)

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (June 18-24, 2023)

The big news of the week, of course, was Netflix finally releasing Skull Island, the first new Monsterverse story in over two years. It's a surprisingly standalone piece, with no Monarch and minimal references to Kong: Skull Island, and going off his Twitter, creator Brian Duffield largely prefers to let the work speak for itself. I have quibbles with some of the creature designs—not enough florafauna!—and the characters can be too flippant about their life-threatening circumstances, but overall I had a good time. Annie's a great character—think Saeko from Son of Godzilla as a bloodthirsty teenager—and the obligatory Titan nemesis is a cut above most of the Monsterverse's original creatures.

As for its future, Season 2 is already written and recorded, but won't happen unless Netflix sees big enough viewing numbers for Season 1. I'm frustrated by that, especially given how many loose ends the season finale had, but it's pretty typical stuff from the company.

Dismal news about the American Shin Ultraman Blu-ray/DVD from Cleopatra Entertainment: they didn't bother to include translations for the ample on-screen Japanese text. That was enough for me to cancel my preorder; I tend to be pretty tolerant of the various unforced errors by the companies releasing this stuff, but that level of laziness (the translations already exist!) just renders the discs pointless in my eyes.

Toho is crowdfunding another Showa suit replica for a character's 50th anniversary this year... Jet Jaguar! If successful (or semi-successful, like last year's Gigan campaign), it'll feature in a new short film to premiere on November 3, as has been tradition since 2020. Interesting that they went for Jet Jaguar over Megalon; I suppose he'd be cheaper to produce, and the largest film studio in Japan seems hellbent on hamstringing these wonderful little shorts.

Godzilla: Here There Be Dragons #1 is out. Hard to judge it so far as it's mostly setup.

In other news related to Godzilla vs. Megalon's 50th, Bandai will release a Movie Monster Series figure of the 1973 Godzilla (MegaroGoji) on July 28 as a Godzilla Store exclusive. Pretty big news, as they've only released figures of the tweaked '74 and '75 suits previously, and those were back in 2003 and 2004, respectively. NECA didn't get to this one either.

[michaelcoffeysthoughts]

Columbo: Season 3 (1973-74)

This is a pretty solid season that continues the series' overall consistency. The stories move at a good pace and play with the typical murder mystery format of the series in clever ways. The series keeps many of its core elements but they are often presented in refined and exciting new directions. Columbo is given some added character depths here, which allows for some of Peter Falk's best bits in the series thus far, and the guest characters are given some nice variety. The guest actors continue to shine here with some iconic figures used in unexpected ways. The direction plays with the series' style while letting each episode stand out in their set pieces. The visuals make great use of the settings while having distinct moments for each episode. This is a fun season that matches the previous seasons and in some episodes surpasses them.

Episodes Ranked:

8.Candidate for Crime

7.Mind Over Mayhem

6.Publish or Perish

5.Double Exposure

4.A Friend in Deed

3.Swan Song

2.Lovely But Lethal

1.Any Old Port in a Storm

[justforbooks]

Born a photographer March 29, 1944. Abbas Attar was an Iranian transplanted to Paris. He dedicated himself to documenting the political and social life of societies in conflict. In a career that spanned six decades, he covered wars and revolutions in Biafra, Bangladesh, Northern Ireland, Vietnam, the Middle East, Chile, Cuba, and South Africa during apartheid. He also documented life in Mexico over several years, and pursued a lifelong interest in religion and its intersection with society.

From 1978 to 1980, Abbas photographed the revolution in Iran, to which he returned in 1997 after seventeen years of voluntary exile. His book Iran Diary 1971-2002 is a critical interpretation of Iranian history, photographed and written as a private journal.

During his years of exile Abbas traveled constantly. Between 1983 and 1986 he journeyed through Mexico, attempting to photograph a country as a novelist might write about it. The resulting exhibition and book, Return to Mexico: Journeys Beyond the Mask, helped define his photographic aesthetic.

From 1987 to 1994, he focused on the growth of Islamism throughout the world. Allah O Akbar: A Journey Through Militant Islam, the subsequent book and exhibition, spanning twenty-nine countries and four continents, attracted special attention after the 9/11 attacks by Islamic jihadists. A later book, Faces of Christianity: A Photographic Journey (2000), and touring show, explored Christianity as a political, ritual and spiritual phenomenon.

Abbas’s concern with religion led him in 2000 to begin a project on animism, in which he sought to discover why non-rational ritual had re-emerged in a world increasingly defined by science and technology. He abandoned this undertaking in 2002, on the first anniversary of 9/11, to start a new long-term project about the clash of religions, defined as a culture rather than faith, which he believed are turning into political ideologies and therefore one of the sources of the strategic struggles of the contemporary world.

From 2008 to 2010 Abbas travelled the world of Buddhism, photographing with the same skeptical eye. In 2013, he concluded a similar long-term project on Hinduism.

Most recently before his death, Abbas was working on documenting Judaism around the world.

A member of Sipa from 1971 to 1973, then of Gamma from 1974 to 1980, Abbas joined Magnum Photos in 1981 and became a member in 1985.

On Wednesday April 25, 2018 the Iranian photographer Abbas Attar known simply as Abbas, died in Paris, aged 74.

According to Abbas, in a 2017 interview with Magnum, there are two photographic methods: “One is writing with light,” he said, “and the other is drawing with light.” While he viewed other Magnum photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson as adherents of the latter, the former was the foundation of Abbas’ practice. In lieu of placing his focus on single moments in time, he looked at his photographs as interlinked elements of a greater whole. In this sense, Abbas was a storyteller, and his images were pages of tales on celluloid, which were no less arresting when viewed (or rather, read) in isolation.

In the same interview, Abbas noted that it was a 1968 trip to New Orleans that made him understand the importance of what he called “sequencing”, or creating a narrative thread through a series of images. Examples of this can be seen in Abbas’s book Return to Mexico: Journey Beyond the Mask (1992), a document of his travels through the country in the 1980s.

His books aside, Abbas’ work has been the subject of exhibitions in galleries and museums around the world, including the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, the National Museum of Singapore, Galerie FNAC and the Magnum Gallery in Paris, and the Grey Art Gallery at New York University.

“It is with immense sadness that we lose him,” Dworzak said. “May the gods and angels of all the world’s major religions he photographed so passionately be there for him.”

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[howardhawkshollywoodannex]

Castle in the Sky (1986) was photographed by Hirokata Takahashi. Hiro has 50 cinematography credits from 1957, his second credit, 47 episodes of a 1973-74 animated series, to 2003. None of his other credits have any international recognition.

[lboogie1906]

Stewart Byron “Stu” Gilliam (July 27, 1933 – October 11, 2013) was an actor stand-up, and TV comedian.

He was born in a middle-class area of Detroit, the grandson of a church minister. He left home at the age of 14 to perform with a circus as a ventriloquist in state fairs, then after a few years began to appear in clubs in Chicago. During his two-year service in the Korean War, he entertained troops as a ventriloquist. In the 1950s/60s he performed his act in clubs nationwide with black audiences, including the Apollo Theater in New York City. He sometimes performed for mixed-race shows, but in Southern states was prevented from appearing onstage at the same time as white performers. Finally, the Playboy Club circuit placed him before largely white crowds, including in the South.

He appeared on national television in the 1960s, including The Ed Sullivan Show, Playboy After Dark, and The Dean Martin Show. He did stand-up work and TV and film appearances in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1968, he was paired with Don Adams and Robert Culp in Get Smart as Agent Samuels in “Die, Spy”, a spoof of the television series I Spy. He was the voice of Freddie “Curly” Neal on the cartoon series Harlem Globetrotters in the early seventies.

He co-starred in Roll Out (1973-74) season. The series was set in France during WWII and was loosely based on the 1952 film Red Ball Express. He married Vivian Baraville (2007). #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence

[humanoidhistory]

Production art for Star Trek: The Animated Series, 1973/74.

[howardhawkshollywoodmusic]

3. I Think I Love You by The Partridge Family Starring Shirley Jones and featuring David Cassidy debuted Oct 70 and peaked at number one, scoring 1911 points.

The group formed for their 1970-74 tv series, and had nine chart entries from this, their first, to 1973. The first three made the top ten.

[yama-bato]

Tree: A journey (1973-1974) from the Tree: A journey series 1973-74 John CATO

[k00294490]

Frank Auerbach

1. Head of Ken Garland 1977-78

2. Head of C.D II 1977

3. Drawing in progress for Portrait of Sandra 1973- 74.

I spoke with Sylvia today and she recommended I take a look at Frank Auerbach's work. I found his work fascinating. These drawings really inspired my work. I just picked four from the series that I liked. He used the same model over again and each variation is different or smudged or patched up. I think it's really unique and I want to experiment in this way too.

A quote I liked from Auerbach was, " I absolutely needed the feeling of breaking through into uncharted territory, and working in a world where no rules were known and anything was possible."

4. Head of Leon Kossoff 1957

5. Head of E.O.W 1960

6. Head of Julia 1960

Auerbach would build up layer upon layer of whatever medium he'd work with, charcoal, chalk, oil paint or with acrylic(though he didn't use acrylic often). He sketched, painted on board and in oil on canvas. He'd spend a long time on his drawings and after a session he'd scrape back whatever he had just built up and then begin another layer. "Although the paintings have a long gestation, what is preserved is usually only the work of a few hours." (Alexander Adams)

References:

Pictures and Auerbach quote from 'Frank Auerbach' by Robert Hughes

Journal Article. Review by: Alexander Adams, The British Art Journal, Vol 16 No. 3 (Winter 2015/16), pp. 125-126

[therecordchanger62279]

11 NEW PLAYLISTS

A few months ago, I did a post with 163 playlists I’d created for my iTunes program. Since then I’ve added 11 more, so I thought it was time for an update. Number of songs on each list follows the title in parentheses.

1969 (131) For some time now, I’ve been wanting to create year-by-year playlists of my favorite singles. I think 1969 was the best year in the history of recorded music, so that seemed a logical place to begin. A Billboard book of Top Chart Hits from this year was indispensable.

1970 (153) More hits from the first year of what was Rock and Pop’s best decade. A Billboard reference book is, again, a must.

Dylan ’75-’76 (74) Bob Dylan’s 1974 tour with The Band seemed to kickstart a renaissance period for him that carried him through 1976. This playlist begins with the January ’75 release of Blood on The Tracks, and follows with The Basement Tapes released in June of that year. The Rolling Thunder Revue live shows from Volume 5 of The Bootleg Series is next, followed by the Desire album released in January ’76, and finishes with the second leg, and final shows with the Rolling Thunder band in Spring of ‘76 captured on the Hard Rain album.

Gram Parsons (90) Gram Parsons influence on Rock is so pervasive that he deserves his own playlist. I don’t have his International Submarine Band recordings. If I get them eventually, they’ll lead off this playlist. Instead, I begin with the original version of The Byrds Sweetheart of the Rodeo album. Parsons joined the band, and took them in a Country direction that had them playing The Grand Ole Opry at one point. But Parsons left the band before the album was issued, and Roger McGuinn wiped Parsons’ lead vocals from the tracks that featured them, and replaced them with his own. But The Byrds boxed set had the originals in it, so I simply reconstructed it, and that’s what I used here. That’s followed with all of Parson’s recordings with The Flying Burrito Brothers. Parsons first solo LP, GP follows that. I used a live album called Fallen Angels Live 1973 next which was done after that album was recorded. Grievous Angel, Parsons’ last album released in 1974 closes his portion of the playlist. You can end it there, but I have a CD titled Return of the Grievous Angel: A Tribute to Gram Parsons that features 13 tracks by musicians who were influenced or worked with Parsons including Emmylou Harris, Chris Hillman, Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, and many more. The remaining track belongs to Eagles whose Bernie Leadon wrote a tribute to Parsons released on their 1974 On the Border album titled “My Man.”

I.R.S. (103) Miles Copeland’s legendary I.R.S. Records was a player in the indie label sweepstakes that surfaced during the years of the New Wave in the late 1970s. Among the bands who recorded for or were connected to the label were R.E.M., The Go-Go’s, The Police, English Beat, Lords of the New Church, Spirit, Black Sabbath, Human Switchboard, The Alarm, The Bangles, The Animals, General Public, Timbuk 3, Concrete Blonde, The Fleshtones, dB’s and more. This diversity is one of the label’s trademarks, and makes for a great playlist.

Joan Jett (135) I’ve been a fan of Jett’s since The Runaways days, and I have quite a few of her albums, but I’ve neglected her in recent years, so I thought a playlist was in order. I also used to be in her fan club because the fan club occasionally issued some rarities on CD – which makes this playlist special, and comprehensive. It begins with 9 tracks Jett wrote or co-wrote, and recorded with her first band The Runaways. Following that are some early recordings before she signed with Neil Bogart’s Boardwalk label. These appeared on the fan club release 1979. Next up is Flashback, another rarities collection from the fan club. From there it’s Bad Reputation, I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll, Album, and Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth – all on MCA. Her next album Up Your Alley was her debut for Columbia. Pure and Simple follows that. I used three tracks from the Fetish compilation not available elsewhere, and two more rarities from Fit To Be Tied, a Greatest Hits collection. The playlist closes with her 2006 set, Sinner. That’s 30 years of Joan Jett altogether.

The Rolling Stones ’75-’77 (95) Bob Dylan’s 1974 tour with The Band was one I followed in the pages of Rolling Stone magazine, and that’s where I got the Rock journalism bug. I followed Dylan from then on, and 1975 - ’76 was a great 18 months for Dylan. The memories of that are what lead me to create the Dylan playlist above. But at the same time, The Rolling Stones were prepping for a Tour of the Americas, as they named it. But things didn’t get off to a great start. Guitarist Mick Taylor announced he was quitting the band just weeks before the tour was to begin. The band brought The Faces’ Ronnie Wood in to fill the void, and put off the job of getting a permanent replacement until after the tour. With no new material ready, the band’s label issued Made in The Shade, a 10 track hits collection drawn from their four previous albums. The Stones incorporated most of that record into their live set, and hit the road. In the meantime, Abkco issued a collection of outtakes titled Metamorphosis in an effort to cash in on the tour. So, the new albums competed in the marketplace while the band played on. With a new guitarist aboard, the shows were sloppy, and critics were merciless. They were also ignored. The tour did record business, and when the band got off the road they began the audition process for a new guitarist, and they cut the Black & Blue album after settling on Ron Wood as a permanent member.

     A European tour was booked beginning in Spring of ’76. Love You Live, issued in 1977 drew tracks from both The Tour of Americas, and the European leg in addition to a live set the group played at the El Macombo club in Toronto, Canada. While there, guitarist Keith Richards was busted for drugs, and the band was out of commission until his legal troubles were settled.

     The release of a live set from the Tour of the Americas, and the complete El Macombo set along with Love You Live, and the two studio albums paint the picture of two years in the life of The Rolling Stones from June of ’75 to March of ’77. The playlist brings it all back.

Santana ’72-’73 (23) Caravanserai, Santana’s fourth album released in 1972 marked a new direction for both the band and its namesake. Following the completion of Santana III, Carlos Santana began playing with drummer Buddy Miles for a tour. They released a live album in June of ’72. At the end of that month, the Santana band played a show for the closing of Bill Graham’s Fillmore, after which Carlos Santana began recording with Mahavishnu John McLaughlin. Caranvanserai was released in October, and the Love Devotion & Surrender sessions began in late ’72, and finished in early ’73. That album was released in Spring of ‘73. The live record with Buddy Miles, two tracks from that Fillmore performance, issued on Fillmore: The Last Days, followed by the studio record with McLaughlin track the guitarist’s path, and that’s what on this playlist.

Santana ’73-’74 (44) Picking up from where the last playlist left off, we have the next Santana group album, Welcome. That’s followed by a Japanese tour issued as Lotus which captures two different Santana bands in concert. And to finish 1973, and this playlist we have the studio album Borboletta. By the time Santana would surface again in 1976 with Amigos, the band he’d had would, once again, have new members, and a new sound.

Stiff (57) One of the great indie labels from England’s Punk era, the Stiff catalog is a difficult one to organize. It was primarily a singles label. And collecting the noteworthy ones for a playlist can be daunting. I needed help from Google, and you have to be careful which tracks to use. Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, and Graham Parker were all on Stiff, but none of them for very long. Ian Dury, Rachel Sweet, Madness and a few others had longer tenures. Dr. Feelgood, The Pogues, Kirsty MacColl, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Ian Gomm, The Adverts, The Damned, and Any Trouble also made noteworthy contributions. Not an easy playlist to compile, but the music is all great, and well worth the effort.

UK Underground (241) After Psychedelia washed Pop away in the UK in the late 60s, there was a period of transition to what became known as Progressive Rock. I named this playlist UK Underground because it chronicles a number of lesser-known bands and labels from what was a very interesting period in the history of British Rock. There are a number of label compilations from the Harvest (A Breath of Fresh Air), Vertigo (Time Machine), Charisma (Refugees), Polydor (Spirit of Joy) and Island (Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal) imprints that, combined with one covering the Ladbroke Grove scene (Cries From The Midnight Circus) along with early tracks from Yes (Yes and Time and a Word), Giles, Giles & Fripp (The Cheerful Insanity of), Pink Floyd (Piper At The Gates of Dawn), and The Moody Blues (selected tracks from Time Traveller), give an excellent overview of a time in British Rock when the landscape was changing. It all fits together well, and nicely covers the years 1968-1974. Bands like Hawkwind, Hatfield & The North, Caravan, Bodast, Tomorrow, Strawbs, and Soft Machine will also add variety and depth.

You can ask Spotify to make you a playlist, but it’s more fun, and makes a better playlist if you do it yourself.