File under: Trails and Influences.
Other Pathways. Case #45/52.
And while I’m talking about borrowings from Albion in the overgrowth and slightly guilty pleasures (see Day #273/365)…
When I was a considerably younger personage than I am now I had a small number of book adaptations of films that used multiple photographs from their cinematic parents in order to tell their story in a live action comic strip/annotated stills manner.
You would see similar kinds of things in romance comics, where the tales of loves won, lost and fretted over were represented by posed actors…
Very occasionally since I’ll come across such a book from back when that I haven’t seen before and they always seem like quite a find, an odd little corner of culture and merchandising.
Or indeed Punk magazine’s couple of issues done in that vein that featured New York’s downtown/blank generation cognoscenti such as Debbie Harry, Richard Hell, Chris Stein, Joey Ramone, David Johansen and the like. Good stuff if you should ever find such a thing.
They’re known as fumetti apparently, somewhat popular on the continent.
The only other time I have come across such things was in the pages of the revival of Eagle comic in the early 1980s…
…and talking of revivals and revivifications… a day or so ago I had a wander through the folkloric, folk-horror, science fiction and fantasy borrowings of the remake of Randall & Hopkirk (deceased)…
…and talking of that and fumettis, I thought a bit of a mix and match of the two may well be appropriate.
This is a particular episode called Fair Isle and this particular fumetti could well be called spot the borrowing and reference point…
…which is largely a rather sizeable amount of The Wickerman (which is… spoiler alert… postmodernly referred in the episode itself)…
…and along the way a somewhat familiar approach to a particular island state, a dash of Doctor Who-esque 1970s costume clad monsters…
…a 1970s Doctor himself, a police officer who has the physiognomy of Sergeant Howie’s brackish beliefs, a visit to the eccentric Lord of the manner…
…folkloric costumes as decoration in the lordly manor which remind me somewhat of the (car crash) of The Wicker Tree…
…the kung fu butler from The Pink Panther… hi-jinks with the locals in the very local hostelry… the hiding of the covenant in Raiders Of The Lost Ark… some more chasing by those costume clad folkloric monsters… “I would’ve got away with it if it wasn’t for you pesky kids” Scooby Doo-esque unveliing… the transformations of Altered States courtesy of Ken Rusell…
Anyways… complete the captions below…
Ah, straw bears and a Summerisle similarity I see…
Our intrepid hero is corned by 1970s Doctor Who-esque folkloric costume creatures…
The approach to the island state with its own laws and ways of doing things…
The Doctor himself…
Sergeant Howie’s belief system makes an appearance in physical form…
A visit to the eccentric Lord ruler of this island state… perhaps to discuss the growing of fruit and food resources?
Just a touch of the faceless villain creatures that seemed so prevalent in 1970s science fiction and fantasy…
Hi-jinks with the locals in the local hostelry…
…and now to hide the relics…
Those costume clad folkloric monsters don’t give up easily…
The Scooby Doo-esque “I would’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for you pesky kids” unmasking…
…and you could add to that list, although not directly represented in the fumetti above but in the episode itself…
…an island state that produces its own unique foodstuff under the direction of one particular lord and master… the ecological worries and disasters of Doomwatch (another part of the mini-genre of ecology and resources gone to heck in a handbasket that was somewhat prevalent in the 1970s).
Oh and although without an ability to take references from cultural work that hasn’t yet happened, this is unlikely to have been a reference point… but there is more than a dash of the workmanlike-took-me-a-few-goes-to-get-through-but-I-don’t-seem-to-hate-it-as-much-as-I-thought-I-would-and-its-still-better-than-The-Wicker-Tree remake of The Wicker Man in the playing with gender expectations and roles in this Fair Isle story.
A visit to that particular mini-genre in the company of No Blade Of Grass, Z.P.G., Soylent Green, Phase IV, The Omega Man, Logan’s Run at Day #88/365… artifacts from that curious mini-genre at Day #213/365… and a visual tip of the hat to both that particular mini-genre and a particular lionheart(ess) at Day #83/365.
