Crikey Issue 2

[Captain Storm]

Just to let people know,Brian has been in touch and the second issue of Crikey should be in the post soon!He believes fans will be greatly impressed by the changes.Anybody here,besides Colin and myself writing articles for it?My next task will be an article on Starhawk.My article for Adam Eterno has been submitted for Issue 3.Sort of a 101 on the character as a full synopsis would fill a book.

[Kashgar]

I'll have to get that sent for then. Is Colin's piece on the Victor in No 2 I wonder? Look forward to your Adam Eterno piece in No3 Cap!

[colcool007]

My blagger's guide to the Victor is in issue 2. I have yet to send in the guide to True Stories. I hope to carry out a major update to it to get it back to the pre-crash level and to then advance past that level with the mahoosive amount of Victors heading my way so that I should complete the run from 1023 to 1399 and will allow me to get back up and hopefully past the 800 mark.

I hope to get the index up to the 900 mark so that when issue 3 comes out, the guide covers as many issues as possible.

[Captain Storm]

Hi Kashgar,hope you like the Adam Eterno article.As stated it is intended for the average reader who perhaps hasn't heard of him before....I philosophize aplenty on him here http://groups.yahoo.com/group/adameternoforever/ and pay tribute to him here http://adameternoforever.tripod.com/ so if people are interested in learning more they can look at both projects.If it catches the readers fancy may do a more indepth one at a later date.Issue 3 comes out in January.Looking forward to your Victor article Colin.For the info of all here,Steve Holland has put together a little something for Issue 2.Hope to see more contributions from the members here.The collective knowledge is second to none and should as I hope turn Crikey into a Journal rather than just a fan mag.If we all subscribe it should help keep the mag afloat as I believe it deserves its place in our world and could in time act as a hard copy mouthpiece for this forum(not that we would take it over or anything but we would definitely have our voices heard).

[Richard S.]

the new issue is scheduled to be posted out on Wednesday (postal strikes permitting).

Picked up my copy at the ABC show in london today so just off to read it now, woo-hoo!


Richard

[Captain Storm]

Any thoughts on Crikey Issue 2?Vast improvement!They kept the free gift quite BTW,great articles from Steve Holland and ColCool..kudos gentlemen!!!

[Kashgar]

I'll have to get this sent for then and risk the ox-cart postal service. What's Steve Holland's article about by the way?

[Captain Storm]

The history of I.P.C. or Fleetway or Amalgamated Press or Odhams or...this indicates the article's subject matter,which is very well researched,but which still left me confused...

[Kashgar]

Managed to pick up a copy of Crikey No 2 at Forbidden Planet yesterday and read it through last night. Hmm. What to say? I'd like to say it was a vast improvement on the first issue but that would be a lie. It's better in some instances certainly but even so there is still too much that lets it down I'm afraid. For a start there are still too many pages supplied by those I felt were guilty of waffleese from the first edition and once again the lack of hard fact is painfully telling in too many areas.
A defence of their approach made in a reply to one of the letters in the letters column was that they wanted to attract the general reader and so didn't want to overdo the 'train-spotter' details too much. This response to those who would like to see and those who may be able to supply good hard fact I find a bit offensive if I'm honest.
I also noticed that my own list of those artists who drew the strips in the first editions' 'Nutty Notions' feature, and that I published here, was included in the editorial as having been supplied by one or two correspondents by email without any reference to where the list had originally come from. Still, maybe I'm being arrogant in assuming no one else could have supplied the full list off their own bat but if not it would have been nice to have at least had a name-check for this bit of 'train-spotting'.
Once again there is much that needs individual comment but that will have to wait for another day.

[Kashgar]

Well here goes, I can contain myself no longer. I really do feel the need to make mention of an article published in the current issue of Crikey titled
'So much to answer for.... The Kidnapped Kidds' written by Tom Elliott.
First off, I will say that it is well written but sadly much of what is written is surely well wide of the mark.
The story in question was published in the first 15 issues of Sparky between Jan and May 1965 ( this info is not supplied in the article by the way) and concerns two kids being kidnapped by a gang of train-robbers after being witness to one of their heists.
Now strips like this, and indeed in earlier times text stories, were the mainstay of many a kids publication where kids would be put into some perilous situation only to outwit their adult antagonists with some natural craft and guile or juvenile show of bravery at the denouement.
Here however the writer tries to put a ludicrously dark spin on the tale by making reference to not only the Great Train Robbery but even more particularly the Moors Murders and then castigating the editor of the Sparky for having published the story in the first place as though it was an affront to public sensibilities to have done so. 'Beyond belief' I think is the phrase he uses.
Fancy publishing a story about kids being kidnapped by train robbers when we've just had to live through the events of the Great Train Robbery and the Moors Murders are still fresh in the public mind seems to be the mind-set.
Sadly though, even if this was a moot point, which I don't think for a minute that it is, by trying to conflate all his themes together the writer shoots himself in the foot. For when he mentions the images of Brady and Hindley staring out from the covers of newspapers he's actually referring to events that hadn't even occured when this strip was published. The Kidnapped Kidds having ended in May 1965 and Brady and Hindley having not being arrested until the following October.
Describing 'The Kidnapped Kidds' as gritty, which the writer does by comparing it to the equally 'gritty' Charlie Peace drawn by Jack Pamby in Buster really is a nonsense on so many levels. It's gritty like Enid Blyton's Secret Seven were gritty and no attempt to tie it in with evil in the real world can make it any less so. Even the artwork by D C Thomson old-timer Dave Ogilvie ( again this is not mentioned in the text) positively screams cosiness. Mind you, the writer's reference to Jack Pamby's Charlie Peace as gritty maybe shows his idea of grit and mine are fundamentally different.
In the preamble to the main article the writer also irritates by referring to Sparky's eponymous title character as being a cannibal, which despite all his other racist shortcomings he certainly wasn't and to another Sparky character, the revived Dandy old-timer Hungry Horace as being a 'light-hearted celebration of bulimia'. Yep, I really do seem to remember all those hilarious strips where Horace ended every week with his head down the toilet. Words fail me.
So in conclusion did 'The Kidnapped Kidds' have 'So much to answer for...?
I won't even bother to answer that question.

[colcool007]

Just got mine today. Will post my take on it later. However, I do like what they have done with my article and it was good to see that the additional credits are there at the bottom.

[felneymike]

the writer tries to put a ludicrously dark spin on the tale by making reference to not only the Great Train Robbery but even more particularly the Moors Murders and then castigating the editor of the Sparky for having published the story

the writer also irritates by referring to Sparky's eponymous title character as being a cannibal

Hungry Horace as being a 'light-hearted celebration of bulimia'

Who wrote this [unpleasant reference to bodily function]? and why haven't they been found swinging from a lamp-post with a note saying "TRAITOR" stapled to thier head?

I'm glad i only ordered 3 issues

[colcool007]

Who wrote this s***e? and why haven't they been found swinging from a lamp-post with a note saying "TRAITOR" stapled to thier head?

I'm glad i only ordered 3 issues

Felney, you'll get splinters from sitting on that fence! Honestly as I am not old enough to remember the early Sparky, but even I knew that Sparky was meant as a comic black guy in from Darkest Africa and that Hungry Horace was a spin-off from rationing as it seemed like a dream come true to have as much as you want as the UK was still rebuilding and Hungry Horace ended up with more than his fair share of tummy-aches, but talking on the great white telephone, well that one must have passed me by.

I don't agree with Tom Elliot's take on the Kidnapped Kidds, but at least he has taken a stab at it. But again, it suffers from a lack of referencing. That, in itself, leads to the sort of errors where the parallel of the Moors Murderers being arrested is drawn despite the arrest happening after the Kidnapped Kidds was published. But as the story was in the headlines at the time and the lack of referencing i.e. issue numbers and dates, mistakes like this will creep in. At least the Great Train Robbery did occur 2 years earlier so it's a pretty topical reference. Plus with Charles Wilson escaping in Aug 1964, it does make sense for the Train Robbery to be mentioned.

Gritty, on that subject, I'm with Ray.

Interesting to note the Terry Bave postscript was added almost as an afterthought, but someone really should have checked this important fact.

This issue is a lot more punchy and the article from Steve Holland made my head hurt! But it was factual and included dates and verifiable fact of which we need more. I do agree that we need to keep it a bit more fluffy than the average reference tome, but there is nothing to stop us from getting our message across and still keeping it interesting to read. I am impressed with the honesty of the editorial team to include letters that couldn't exactly be described as complimentary like Norman's and his quoting of Shaqui's website.

Overall, a massive improvement on issue 1, but in the words of the Head "Can do better" is on the report card.

[Edited to take out wee swearie! ]

[Captain Storm]

Some folk here may think of my continued defense of Crikey as bordering on adulation but that is not the case.I believe it should and can get better.Human error will always creep in and given the fact that there are so many experts here is one good reason why they should support it instead of belly-aching.This can obviously be done by pointing out errors,which to the credit of all is being done(but email Brian! and let him know!)or maybe proofing the articles before publication.My own article was proofed by Steve Holland and Crikey kindly emailed me my draft back and forth umpteen times before I was satisfied with it.As to calling it "shite" well that particular vernacular making its debut here should have the Mods stepping in.I don't appreciate it and I don't think it will give our younger members a good example either.Now as to the run of the current mags contents,sure a lot of it is fluffy and deliberately strays from trainspotter territory,but a lot of it was interesting too.I particularly enjoyed Colin's article on the Victor and I agree with Ray that Steve's column made my head hurt,but Steve to be fair is Grand Master of Trainspotterville!!!!But a lot of necessary prose was needed to convey the confusing history of Fleetway.Now all we need is the right mix of entertainment and facts and figures and we have the perfect pie.The recipe needs a good dollop of forum members here(if they feel so inclined-if they don't - switch channels).Can't wait for Issue 3

[Kashgar]

Hi Cap, It was not I but Col who said Steve's article made his head hurt. For me Steve's article, a sort of 'Who do you think you are?' of a significant branch of British juvenile publishing, was possibly the best thing in the whole issue. Fact pact and erudite will always work for me particularly when the writer has that air of being someone who knows what he is talking about. OK the subject matter may have been a little on the arcane side but then again I'm the sort of enthusiast so steeped in the cult of 'trainspotterism' that I'm still waiting for an in-depth and informative article on Gordon & Gotch!
More about Crikey No2 anon.