No One Feels Guilty About Their Guilty Pleasures
By Dan Brown What are your guilty pleasures? Reality TV? Soap operas? Disco music? The Three Stooges? Something else? My guilty pleasures include old Marvel comic books, black-and-white sci-fi magazines, and yacht rock. But here’s the thing: If you’re like me, you probably don’t feel all that guilty while enjoying your guilty pleasures. In fact, almost no one does. It’s time to admit that the term “guilty pleasure” has outlived its usefulness. It’s been a long time since any of us felt shame for liking so-called “lowbrow” culture, and there are a number of reasons for the shift. The original idea behind putting those two words together was that some movies, songs, TV shows, et cetera were so cruddy they were beneath supposedly cultured people. It was a way to separate the things that were Art from the stuff that was crap. This meant going to the opera was better for you than, say, watching Road Runner cartoons. If you appreciated highbrow things, you were a better person and if you liked pop culture, your tastes were considered stunted. (The question this line of thinking prompts is, why are all the things that are supposed to be good for me so hard to consume? In this view, culture is medicinal – it tastes awful, but you’ll be better for experiencing it.) Somewhere along the line, our collective thinking changed. Thank goodness. As pop culture has moved to the centre of our culture (our “discourse,” if you want to use a fancy academic word), it has become more respectable, more like Art. When I was a kid delivering the London Free Press in the 1970s, they didn’t report weekend movie grosses every Monday. Fast-forward to today and Hollywood is a big, legitimate business. No one disputes motion pictures have a role to play in telling our collective story. Even horror pictures! Or look at what’s happened with TV. Once derided as the boob tube (because TV shows were made for viewers of low intelligence), network TV underwent a renaissance in the 1990s that has given way to the streaming revolution we are now experiencing. We are in a TV Golden Age. Much more money and effort is invested into making entertainment in the 2020s than 50 years ago. And we also have the internet, a global communications hub that allows us to talk with other fans around the world, and guess what? They agree there’s a lot more going on in populist culture than the snobs ever gave it credit for. Superman is a metaphor for the immigrant experience? Not just a dumb comic about a hero who punches bad guys? What the? The theory of the long tail means those who love Dungeons & Dragons, for instance, in one community don’t feel so alone anymore – there are RPG enthusiasts everywhere, and if that many people love gaming, can they all be wrong? The middle phase in this shift was when people would say they appreciated something “ironically,” which was another way to wink, to indicate you were too smart to be enjoying something, but you were self-aware enough to know it wasn’t really that mentally nutritious. Well, in 2025 no one says that much anymore, either. For better or worse, we no longer live in a shame-based society. So if you catch yourself copping to your own “guilty pleasures,” don’t feel you need to use those words. Consider this column permission to like whatever culture you prefer – and not feel ashamed or embarrassed while enjoying it. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Take a ride on the new Heavy Metal
By Dan Brown Heavy Metal is back. Like an undead corpse that refuses to stop lurching forward, the once-groundbreaking comic magazine has returned to newstands with a No.1 issue that relies heavily on nostalgia for the 1981 movie that carries the same name. If you’re a fan of the woman warrior Taarna, or sports cars entering the Earth’s atmosphere, or all-powerful evil green orbs, you’ll want to check it out. If not, you can safely give it a miss. I was never a regular reader of the mag, which – like Britain’s 2000 A.D. – was inspired by the French periodical Metal Hurlant and first appeared in 1977. But I think the team behind the debut edition is counting on readers already having warm feelings about Heavy Metal, the magazine and the movie. Editor-in-Chief Frank Forte says the new No. 1 represents a relaunch, not a reset, and calls the glossy, 232-page introductory issue “an unholy mix of legacy, lunacy, and visionary brilliance.” Shy about promoting this new version of Heavy Metal, Forte and his crew are not. I chose the variant with a Greg Hildebrandt cover – it shows an astronaut who has parked his car on the moon’s surface perusing a copy of Heavy Metal as Taarna and her winged mount float overhead. There are numerous other covers to choose from, including one that’s a Frank Frazetta painting. Heavy Metal No. 1 retains the anthology format of old, with several different stories in the sci-fi, fantasy, and horror vein. Forte himself has written a bunch of them. The best of the lot, according to no one but me, is Enki Bilal’s Bug, which imagines a near-future predicament for the nations of Earth: What if all the memory stored by all the world’s computers just . . . vanished? Bilal does a good job exploring the ramifications of this information blackout, for instance astronauts stationed in orbit suddenly find they have to steer their craft manually, which they’ve never done before. Meanwhile, people below are struggling to adjust to an analog lifestyle. I also enjoyed Cold Dead War, a sequel of sorts to the B-17 segment from the Heavy Metal animated motion picture, with one lone survivor traipsing through an island of undead airmen. The five-pager Evil Sex Bitch, meanwhile, seems aimed at adolescents, with its main soul-sucking character being the kind of female that the Eagles, Electric Light Orchestra and Cliff Richard warned teenage boys about in the 1970s. There’s also two Taarna stories, a prose section at the front of the book with assorted items of interest to sci-fi fans, a couple parody ads (no real ones), and of course the trademark offering Heavy Metal has always been known for: topless chicks. Back in the day, Heavy Metal was able to feature bare skin because, as a magazine, not a comic, it was exempt from the restrictions put in place by the industry censor, the Comics Code Authority. Like I said, as a young comic reader I caught only the occasional issue of Heavy Metal. I was a huge fan of the weird movie, though, so I found it odd this relaunch doesn’t make any mention of the film’s rock-and-roll soundtrack. For whatever reason or non-reason, I was a much more constant reader of Epic, the Marvel anthology series that was an experiment in creator-owned content. I guess I have more mainstream tastes, so if the House of Ideas wants to start that one up again, I’d be on board. You can bet, if the relaunched Heavy Metal takes off, it’s going to happen. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Enjoy Free Comic Book Day
By Dan Brown Here’s some free advice. Do yourself a favour this weekend and make time on Saturday to head down to 100 Kellogg Lane for Free Comic Book Day at L.A. Mood Comics & Games. It’s the annual event held at comic stores everywhere when retailers offer freebie sampler comics to their customers, as well as putting on sales that include some outrageous discounts. It kicked off in 2002 and quickly became an institution among those whose who have nerdy tastes. It grew into what some have dubbed “geek Christmas.” “This event celebrates the independent comic book specialty shops, thousands of which exist in North America alone,” organizers explain on Free Comic Book Day’s official website. And here in London, it’s always had its own flavour with store owners marking the day in their own distinct way. At L.A. Mood, for instance, local comic creator Eric Olcsvary will be holding court. “Eric is an extremely talented indie comic creator and an all-around delightful human being. Make sure you stop by his table to say ‘Hi’ and check out his comics,” the folks at L.A. say. Olcsvary is known for his AllsCherryComics line, including his Wendy series. The store is also teaming up with Shaw’s Ice Cream, located on the second floor of 100 Kellogg, for a contest that will test the creativity of comic-book fans, who are asked to rename an existing Shaw’s ice-cream flavour using a comic book or superhero reference (without using trademark names). I know my favourite is maple walnut. Now how could I make that into a comic-themed flavour . . . The publishers giving away samplers of their titles this year include Marvel, Dark Horse, Image, Random House Children’s Books, Boom! Studios, and Archie. The one title that caught my eye on the FCBD site is Marvel’s Fantastic Four offering. “(Writer) Ryan North and (artist) Humberto Ramos craft an unusual story in which the Fantastic Four respond to a most unusual interdimensional summons!” the bumpf for the issue exclaims. Sounds like classic FF! The freebie comes, of course, as Marvel Studios prepares to launch Fantastic Four: First Steps on the big screen at the end of July. What I love about Free Comic Book Day, apart from the deals, is the feeling that’s in the air as comic fans travel to the Forest City’s comic stores. Spring is arriving, university classes are over, the world is just coming back to life after the winter. Comic fans are getting primed for the summer’s big movie releases, and cosplayers often have new outfits to wear. The first Saturday in May wouldn’t be the same without it. You may have heard how the owner of the Free Comic Book Day brand, the comics distributor Diamond, entered Chapter 11 earlier this year. I don’t think there’s any need to fret. The day has become its own special thing, and if Diamond doesn’t survive I have no doubt that comic stores would step in to keep the tradition alive, even without the distributor acting as coordinator. I hope to see you on Saturday! Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
What’s with All the Facsimile Editions?
By Dan Brown Comic reprints have been around a long time – in fact, if I recall my industry history correctly, the first comic books were stapled editions of reprinted newspaper funnies. What’s relatively new are facsimile comic editions. They’ve been around a few years and in their current form they reproduce historically significant issues – like, say, the first appearance of the Punisher in Marvel’s Amazing Spider-Man No. 129 – on glossy paper. The other difference is the context. Unlike anthologies of collected issues, facsimiles editions also reproduce the front and back covers, ads, letter columns, and other bumpf that accompanied the original story. I guess the selling point would be, if you want to experience a particular comic as it appeared in, for example, 1974, then this is the closest you’re going to get to it. I'm all for them, just so long as they don’t alter or “correct” any of the content as it appeared originally. I was heartened to see, for instance, that a facsimile of Marvel’s Star Wars No. 1, which came out ahead of the movie’s release in 1977, faithfully reproduces the odd colour scheme of the comic as it was. So the front depicts Princess Leia as a redhead and Darth Vader’s armour as green. Just like the original weird cover. There would have been no outcry at the time because moviegoers didn’t know any better, with the film’s theatrical debut months off. The adaptation, like the unseen motion picture, was called simply Star Wars, not Episode IV or A New Hope or anything else George Lucas dreamed up after the saga took off. I’m sure the collector market has a lot to do with the proliferation of facsimiles. It’s impossible for most comic fans to buy a copy of Fantastic Four No. 1, for instance, so this is a cheap way to see what the fuss was all about. I own many anthologies and collections, and I will concede they lack something – the ads in comics, especially, were a big part of the reading experience when I first became a fan in the 1970s. Where else can you see ads for weight-GAIN formulas? “Too skinny?” one spot blares in AMS No. 129. In another notice. Charles Atlas promises to make any weakling into a man, and such novelties as X-ray glasses, joy buzzers and stink loads for smokes (“guaranteed to stop cigarette moochers”) were on offer. The colourful adverts of that era also urged readers to take up fishing, eat Slim Jims and snack on Hostess Twinkies. The 1970s being an age of self-improvement when everyone was scrounging for a buck, you could train by mail to be a cartoonist, veterinary assistant, hypnotist or karate master. And if you did respond to any of the offers, “No salesman will call.” Naturally. Likewise, the letters page was a big part of what made comics special. At a time when there was no global instant-communications device, seeing what other fans had to say gave me new ways of thinking about my favourite heroes. Back then, the letters column was the hub that joined individual readers to the larger Marvel or DC fan community, confirming for me that other kids were moved by the same characters and plots. Perhaps the appropriate way to describe facsimile issues is that they are the equivalent of watching YouTube videos of old TV shows with the commercials included. The only misleading bit is the paper itself. Facsimile editions are printed on glossy stock and the borders surrounding the panels on each page are a blinding white. Even with freshly printed comics back in the day, the newsprint was one splotchy shade of brown or another, and aged rapidly. These things were not built to last. So enthusiasts in 2025 will miss one out on one very important comic experience from the past: Inhaling the sweet, musty scent that comics made with cheap paper give off as they decay over the years. It may be my favourite smell. If I could bottle it, I would. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Pop Culture Like Star Trek Used to be Disposable Fluff
By Dan Brown When I say “Star Trek,” I mean the old TV show that featured William Shatner as Captain Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Mister Spock. I don’t mean the Next Generation or Voyager or Upper Decks or Strange New Worlds or anything else. And if you’ve seen a Star Trek rerun in the last few years, you’ll have noticed the special effects stand up remarkably well. Although it was made on a shoestring budget in the late 1960s for an audience that had low expectations of science-fiction television, those shots of the Enterprise look crisp. But here’s the thing: Those aren’t the original effects. When you see the Enterprise floating in space, fighting a battle, or high above a planet’s surface, those images were inserted into the original episodes in a remastering process that dates back only to 2006. So the Trekkies who fell in love with the series in the 1960s did so without the attraction of modern special effects. My purpose here isn’t to argue which version is better. Nor is it to speculate if Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry would have approved of the new effects (he died in 1991). What I want to point out is how the revised Star Trek episodes represent a new attitude toward pop culture. What would surprise Roddenberry if he were alive is how long-lived his show has been. When the program originally aired from 1966 to 1969, TV didn’t have a great reputation. The medium was derided as “the boob tube” because the dominant perception was that the small screen appealed to those who weren’t all that bright. Consequently, Star Trek – which many consider classic stuff today – was just as disposable as any other show on the air at the time. In other words, despite embodying enduring social and political themes, individual episodes weren’t built to last. It didn’t matter back then if the show would hold up to repeated viewings, and I’m guessing the idea people would still be watching Star Trek in the year 2025 would have startled network executives. Nor is Star Trek the only example of pop culture that was created as ephemera that has far outlasted its creator’s intentions. Star Wars (by which I mean the movie with that title that came out in 1977) was made at a moment when few moviegoers were willing to pay to see a particular film multiple times. After all, a child’s ticket went for a whopping $1.50! Who could afford that in the hardscrabble Seventies, no matter how much you loved a film? As you likely know, several new coats of digital paint have been applied to Star Wars in the interim. There were versions with enhanced sound effects, then versions with enhanced visual effects, and on and on. They may have even released a 3D Star Wars for all I know. It doesn’t stop there. There are also updated editions – with outtakes put back in – of novels like George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Stephe King’s ’Salem’s Lot. Albums such as Bob Marley’s Legend have likewise been retouched. The important thing to note here is our feelings about pop culture like the original Star Trek series have changed: What was once a throwaway indulgence meant only for a moment’s pleasure is now taken seriously, even expected to transcend its time. Heck, there are even such journalists as Rob Salkowitz who specialize in writing about pop culture! That didn’t used to happen. Expectations have risen dramatically. You could even argue it’s pop culture like Star Trek and Star Wars that is partly responsible for creating an audience that wants more out of its TV, movies, music and so on, than a momentary distraction. Me, I prefer the “original” versions of things that were released back in the day. To my eyes, the first Star Wars motion picture had a certain low-budget charm so I didn’t need a new, “better” one. But I’m glad it’s still around, even in a modified form, to light the fire of imagination in the minds of a new generation of pop-culture enthusiasts who have higher expectations than I ever did. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
Pop Culture Like Star Trek Used to be Disposable Fluff
By Dan Brown When I say “Star Trek,” I mean the old TV show that featured William Shatner as Captain Kirk and Leonard Nimoy as Mister Spock. I don’t mean the Next Generation or Voyager or Upper Decks or Strange New Worlds or anything else. And if you’ve seen a Star Trek rerun in the last few years, you’ll have noticed the special effects stand up remarkably well. Although it was made on a shoestring budget in the late 1960s for an audience that had low expectations of science-fiction television, those shots of the Enterprise look crisp. But here’s the thing: Those aren’t the original effects. When you see the Enterprise floating in space, fighting a battle, or high above a planet’s surface, those images were inserted into the original episodes in a remastering process that dates back only to 2006. So the Trekkies who fell in love with the series in the 1960s did so without the attraction of modern special effects. My purpose here isn’t to argue which version is better. Nor is it to speculate if Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry would have approved of the new effects (he died in 1991). What I want to point out is how the revised Star Trek episodes represent a new attitude toward pop culture. What would surprise Roddenberry if he were alive is how long-lived his show has been. When the program originally aired from 1966 to 1969, TV didn’t have a great reputation. The medium was derided as “the boob tube” because the dominant perception was that the small screen appealed to those who weren’t all that bright. Consequently, Star Trek – which many consider classic stuff today – was just as disposable as any other show on the air at the time. In other words, despite embodying enduring social and political themes, individual episodes weren’t built to last. It didn’t matter back then if the show would hold up to repeated viewings, and I’m guessing the idea people would still be watching Star Trek in the year 2025 would have startled network executives. Nor is Star Trek the only example of pop culture that was created as ephemera that has far outlasted its creator’s intentions. Star Wars (by which I mean the movie with that title that came out in 1977) was made at a moment when few moviegoers were willing to pay to see a particular film multiple times. After all, a child’s ticket went for a whopping $1.50! Who could afford that in the hardscrabble Seventies, no matter how much you loved a film? As you likely know, several new coats of digital paint have been applied to Star Wars in the interim. There were versions with enhanced sound effects, then versions with enhanced visual effects, and on and on. They may have even released a 3D Star Wars for all I know. It doesn’t stop there. There are also updated editions – with outtakes put back in – of novels like George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four and Stephe King’s ’Salem’s Lot. Albums such as Bob Marley’s Legend have likewise been retouched. The important thing to note here is our feelings about pop culture like the original Star Trek series have changed: What was once a throwaway indulgence meant only for a moment’s pleasure is now taken seriously, even expected to transcend its time. Heck, there are even such journalists as Rob Salkowitz who specialize in writing about pop culture! That didn’t used to happen. Expectations have risen dramatically. You could even argue it’s pop culture like Star Trek and Star Wars that is partly responsible for creating an audience that wants more out of its TV, movies, music and so on, than a momentary distraction. Me, I prefer the “original” versions of things that were released back in the day. To my eyes, the first Star Wars motion picture had a certain low-budget charm so I didn’t need a new, “better” one. But I’m glad it’s still around, even in a modified form, to light the fire of imagination in the minds of a new generation of pop-culture enthusiasts who have higher expectations than I ever did. Dan Brown has covered pop culture for more than 32 years as a journalist and also moderates L.A. Mood’s monthly graphic-novel group.
