Comics On TV

BBC4 have just finished showing a number of comic related programmes as part of a Comics Britannia season.

The Search For Steve Ditko.

To be honest, I didn't learn very much. The main thing that I picked-up about Ditko himself was how right wing his politics were. Mr A was a new character to me.

The other things I learnt were how to pronounce everybody's name. Hmmm...not quite as I thought for some. I also learnt that Alan Moore has go very strange tastes when it comes to jewellery. You couldn't miss all those rings and other strange devices on his hands. Bizarre!

I quite enjoyed it as it was nice to see a TV documentary on the creation of my favourite character. All those Spidey covers (many of which I own) were cool.

I enjoyed the art in Moebius documentary and he seems far more level headed than some of the other creators interviewed on some of these programmes. Mind you some of the other geezers they interviewed were a bit mad. I hadn't realised that he'd done the set and costume design for Alien. Obvious really when you look at it.

On the three part Comics Britannia documentary itself.

The first two were alright – but as they were looking at the Beano, Dandy etc and war and girls comics in the 1950’s

I agree that there was a bit too much Viz on Comics Britannia which looked at British comics since the 1970’s. The highlight was certainly Alan Moore reading Watchmen. It somehow was really good and really bad at the same time. Nice voice though! (I will have to re-read Watchmen soon.)

In conclusion, thanks to BBC for these. Most of the programmes were probably only watched by fans – but it was nice to see some serious discussion of this form of entertainment for once.