divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/38354?ns=guardianpageName=Art+and+design%3A+%27I+was+shocked+by+the+hatred%27ch=Art+and+designc3=The+Guardianc4=Mark+Leckey%2CCulture+section%2CTurner+prize%2CArt+%28visual+arts+only%29%2CArt+and+design%2CAwards+and+prizes+%28Culture%29c5=Art%2CNot+commercially+usefulc6=Charlotte+Higginsc7=2008_12_03c8=1127709c9=articlec10=GUc11=Art+and+designc12=Mark+Leckeyc13=c14=h2=GU%2FArt+and+design%2FMark+Leckey" width="1" height="1" //divpMark Leckey has been handed two kinds of hangover cure the morning after winning the Turner prize - a packet of ibuprofen and an orange tube of Berocca. But the hangover doesn't show: the artist is neat as a pin in dandyish pink jeans, delicately polka-dotted shirt and a bleached-gold mane straight out of the George Michael school of haircare. /ppWhen the Turner prize is not being decried as insanely controversial, it is written off as dull and well past its sell-by date. This year's show fell into the latter category. Leckey, like many a winner before him, has discovered the hard way that a cheque for pound;25,000 and an instantly improved career come at the price of a public mauling. The Independent yearned for something that wasn't "about wearing your theory-stuffed brain on your sleeve". The Telegraph wrote off the entire show as "technically competent, bland, and ultimately empty". /pp"What I was warned to expect, but still shocked me, was how much obloquy and hatred the prize generates," he says. "I love the Stuckist conspiracy theory, that Nicholas Serota is a kind of machiavellian Skeletor who manipulates the government and the people." He will have had good advice, too: at Monday night's ceremony he was hand-in-hand with a Tate curator who has overseen previous Turner prize exhibitions; one of this year's judges, Daniel Birnbaum, is a colleague at the Frankfurt art school where he teaches. ("I know it looks ropey," he says of this last fact. "But it won't have helped me. He would have had to make a more convincing case for me, if he argued for me - and I don't know that he did.") Even so, he has been caught off guard. "I certainly wasn't expecting my work to be called boring and over-intellectualised. People wrote about me who don't know me, don't know my work, made an opinion based on one piece of work. They just steamed in."/ppFor some artists, the payback for this "obloquy" is the experience of having 60,000 members of the public come to see their work at Tate Britain. Not for Leckey. He accepted the nomination partly "because I wanted to see what it was like outside the sometimes constricted art world. It's small and can be very self-congratulatory." But, he says, "I am not interested in my work being democratised." What he'd really like, now, is for some doors to open. In particular, he wants his own television series - a variety show, with his band, Jack Too Jack, as the house orchestra. It would have musical numbers, and a little play or sketch, and Leckey sitting in a leather armchair agrave; la Ronnie Corbett telling an anecdote - except the chat would be "about art and ways of seeing". John Berger meets the Two Ronnies, he says. Would the BBC be remotely interested? "Well, there'd be no swearing," he says. "This would be good, old-fashioned, light entertainment."/ppLeckey takes me through his room in the Turner exhibition. Here is a little model of his flat, also his studio, which often appears in his films, marking the liminal space between the "real" world and the world of images in which he operates, or loses himself. Over there is Felix the Cat, spinning endlessly on a screen; there is something almost pornographic in the camera's pitiless gaze. Over here is a film that, by sleight of hand, appears to show Jeff Koons' Bunny, a metal sculpture of an inflatable rabbit, taking pride of place in Leckey's apartment. But it's all smoke and mirrors - the piece was never there. /ppLeckey is an admirer of Koons. "I like the idea of something that's almost inhuman in its perfection, like Bunny. It's as if it just appeared in the world, as if Koons just imagined it and it appeared. I always get too involved in the work." He also likes the notion that Warhol made his art unselfconsciously, "that he produced this work and went, 'Ah, really?' I like the idea that you let culture use you as its instrument. What gets in the way is being too clever, or worrying about how something is going to function, or where it's going to be. When you start thinking of something as art, you're fucked: you're never going to advance."/ppLeckey, 44, is the son of working-class parents who met while they were both working at Littlewoods. He was a "woollyback", someone from outside metropolitan Liverpool. "Ellesmere was an overspill town. I grew up with a sense of feeling inadequate, with the idea that the real action was going on over the river." He became a casual. "It was a working-class style, a genuine subculture. It was lads who adopted middle-class leisurewear - golfwear, sportswear - that you could see in magazines worn by the jetset. Ultimately, another word for casual was football hooligan. It was a kind of drag, a disguise. A means of using style to transform yourself." /ppThis was the era of the new romantics, but "casuals were more stylish, and smarter". You could say that Leckey's early negotiations between image and substance, his early attempts at self-transformation, were a kind of preparation for life as an artist. But art was a long time in the future. At Whitby comprehensive, now Whitby high school, he dyed his hair. "Like a skunk. And I used to jump out of windows: my effort to escape. My record was two floors." He left at 16 with one O-level, in art. He can't remember what grade he got. /ppThen there was a period when "I was a scally. A bad lad." What kind of a scally? "I scallied around," he says, evasively. "A bit of this, a bit of that." He went on various YTS schemes. Then, at 19, "I suddenly got deeply fascinated in trying to find out when civilisation began. In Ur and Babylon. I started going to the library. I am an autodidact - that's why I use bigger words than I should. It's a classic sign." Leckey's obsession with the beginning and the end of things has stayed with him. "It's the terror of infinity. I'm not convinced about the solidity of anything. Everything seems ephemeral." Sometimes images "seem more authentic than what they represent": this is a theme of his filmed lecture, Cinema-in-the-Round, part of the Turner prize show./ppFinally, Leckey says, his stepfather sat him down in the kitchen, and said: "Everything in this room has been designed and made by someone. You could do that." He took A-levels and went to art college in Newcastle, which he hated. "It was the early 1990s, when critical theory had swept the nation. The place was full of hippies from down south who were reading Mervyn Peake and Tolkien, and suddenly they were made to read Barthes and Derrida. It was like a Maoist year zero. I became very suspicious of the merits of critical theory, which is why I have been shocked at being accused of being over-academic. I've never seen myself as theoretically minded."/ppWhen Leckey collected the Turner prize cheque from Nick Cave on Monday night, he declared himself "chuffed to bits", and said that he was sounding more and more scouse. Then, surveying the room, he declared rather elliptically: "This is all good." I wonder what he meant. The prize? The party? The art world? "I was trying to say, not very well, that the art world in London, in Britain - that this is my world. It's good you can get acknowledged by your peers and that there is a sense of community. OK, that sentimentalises it, because it can be a bitter world, it can get factionalised, and lots of us can be sitting there scowling about White Cube gallery. /pp"When you read about the Turner prize in the press, and about the art world in general, you get the wonky idea that it's all about Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Banksy. I get riled by Damien Hirst's skull and by Banksy. It just irks me. The work is trite. And then it comes to represent culture and art, it becomes totemic. And I don't understand that." /pp· The strongTurner prize exhibition/strong is at Tate Britain, London SW1, until January 18. Details: 020-7887 8888./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/mark-leckey"Mark Leckey/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/turnerprize"Turner prize/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/art"Art/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/awardsandprizes"Awards and prizes/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/4kmT88Dmgmj2mKMdIydVjFfQTsk/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/4kmT88Dmgmj2mKMdIydVjFfQTsk/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

EgyelĂľre mĂŠg nagy a csend a legĂşjabb Tolkien-adaptĂĄciĂł kĂśrĂźl, de azĂŠrt el lehetett kapni kĂłsza pletykĂĄkat az elĂľ-elĂľkĂŠszĂźleti fĂĄzisban lĂŠvĂľ HobbitrĂłl, mely a GyĂťrĂťk ura elĂľzmĂŠnyekĂŠnt lesz majd felfoghatĂł.

I took at look at some of the highs and lows of DC Special a while back, so I thought that it was only fair to do the same for a Marvel series. If Marvel Premiere this was started as a try out title, they certainly gave their initial characters pretty long auditions. Granted, Adam Warlock only had two issues before moving on but Doctor Strange and Iron First were given 12 and 11 issues, respectively.

I’m not here to talk about any of those runs as those characters are very well known and have been spotlighted a million times. I’m here to talk about the more obscure one, two and three-shots that popped up over the final 30 or so issues of the title. I don’t have room to comment on every issue or characters (in fact, there so much good stuff that I’ve spread it over two installment) – so my apologies if I’ve missed one of your favorites.

Let’s start with the Liberty Legion, a two-parter linked into the Invaders series. Now, I love the Invaders stuff, but these two issues were truly the first signs that Roy Thomas’ obsession with Golden Age heroes was possibly an illness. Nobody needed these heroes to return and the Heroes vs. Heroes angle was so clichéd by the mid-70s. You’ve got a couple of decent Kirby covers, but Don Heck’s pencils and flattened terribly by Vinnie Colletta’s razor-thin inks.

Woodgod has become somewhat of a cult favorite over the years, and the cover simply screams 70s camp. The thing is, it’s a pretty decent concept – basically a mash up of Shelley’s Frankenstein and Stevenson’s Dr. Moreau. Bill Mantlo provides evidence of his fertile imagination and the Giffen/Jansen artwork is quite nice. Sure, there are lots of great Woodgod jokes out there, but this is a pretty decent issue and it would be nice if her were more than a footnote in the Marvel Universe.

Next we have Monark Starstalker, one of Howard Chaykin’s many anti-heroes. I actually really dig this book – Chaykin shows that he has his own vision and creates a very believable future. His layouts can get a little confusing and it’s a bit talky at times, but there’s a lot to like. Bounty hunters make excellent characters if you can get them unwillingly entangled in some righteous cause (see Han Solo). Chaykin was getting there with Starstalker and it’s too bad this wasn’t given more than a single issue. As the years pass by, I’m more and more impressed with Chaykin as auteur. There’s also a lot of great Gil Kane influence in the artwork.

We’ve got more Chaykin with issues #33 & #34, The Mark of Kane, as Roy Thomas does what he does best: adapt Robert E. Howard stories. The first issue is a real treat, introducing us to Solomon Kane and his rather intriguing adversary; Le Loup. I’m a suck for adventure stories set in the past so they’ve got me hook, line and sinker. More Kane influence here; and Chaykin really shines. The second issue is much weaker, but I’ve got a thorn in my side about stories that take place in ‘savage Africa’ – too much voodoo hoodoo. These two are worth picking, especially since Thomas does a nice one page overview of Solomon Kane’s pulp history.

Do I have to talk about 3-D Man? I do? Oh well, I guess it’s a fun read if you are in the mood for comics that represent the nadir of Marvel in the 70s. Once again, Roy Thomas tries to convince readers that the past is better than the present with very lackluster results. The problem is that it’s takes itself too serious be enjoyed as just silly fun. Thomas’ earnestness as a writer can be his Achilles’ hell at time. I’ve met Jim Craig a couple of times and he seems like a nice guy, but his artwork has really never done much for me. A few years ago, I audited a very awkward exchange between Thomas and Craig at a convention. Craig was suggesting to Thomas that they should work on a 3-D Man re-launch. Thomas’ response indicated that he thought it was a character whose best years were behind him. I’m not sure he ever had any ‘best years’.

The history of Moench & Ploog’s Weirdworld is actually quite ‘weird’. This series started in the one-shot black and white mag, Marvel Super Action (the super expensive one with Frank Castle on the cover), a single issue here at Marvel Premiere, 3 issues in the color mag Marvel Super Special and then onto Marvel Fanfare (I think). I’m not exactly the biggest fan of all things elvish, but this is pretty decent stuff as it really doesn’t take too much from Tolkien (but that’s some smooth marketing). I’d actually suggest that you track down the Marvel Super Special issues (that’s a mag I’ll be profiling at some pointed), as the artwork is very interesting (an airbrushing over John Buscema pencils). Marvel probably should collect all of these stories just to appease the handful of fans knocking themselves out trying to put together a collection.

Stayed tuned for Part 2 as well get a dose of Daleks, Pinkertons and the KKK!

For more fun talk about all thing ‘classic comics’, drop by my blog: Seduction of the Indifferent

Please send along any comments to Scottshouldbegood at yahoo.ca

1 Comments

• At December 2, 2008, suedenim wrote:

  Did Roy Thomas figure out how to indulge his Golden Age obsessions more smoothly when he did All-Star Squadron, or ...

Sortie : 24 avril 2007 The Lord of the Rings Online : Shadows of Angmar, permet aux joueurs de devenir des héros dans la Guerre pour la Terre du Milieu. Les joueurs peuvennt explorer land#039;Univers fantastique créé par Tolkien, et y établir leur propre réputation, découvrir et manier des armes légendaires dans des batailles stratégiques, pendant quÂ’ils chercherent lÂ’aventure seuls ou dans une Communauté.

( Image above by Peter Beste. You're welcome! ) The LA Weekly has a feature up about a new book with portraits of very serious Norwegian Black Metal dudes. In True Norwegian Black Metal, photographer Peter Beste captures the "blackest of the black: apolitical and anti-Christian separatist self-preservationists who’d sooner make a lampshade out of their own skin than to try to convert fans." Snip from Siran Babayan's piece: Take, for example, Immortal singer-bassist Abbath strolling through the woods surrounded by moss-covered emerald trees (“That’s essentially his backyard”), or Gorgoroth singer Gaahl standing in front of a snow-capped log cabin. Every turn of the page is a moving postcard of brooks, lakes and forrests. Which begs the question: With all the serenity and breathtaking views, what’s to rebel against? Apparently, Mother Nature makes mean Vikings out of little boys. If Black Sabbath were a product of bleak, industrial Birmingham, it should be no surprise that music this extreme thrives in a country with such high precipitation and so many months of either uninterrupted daylight or darkness. So don’t let the scenery fool you. These are some disturbed and disturbing fuckers, whether it’s guitarist Ymon of Perished with his arms covered in branding marks, or Nattefrost of Carpathian Forest smoking heroin off tin foil or a nude female model being painted in cow’s blood before she’s about to be hung from a cross for a Gorgoroth show in Krakow. Nearly everyone is wearing a scowl, corpse paint and spikes. And Beste’s grossest moment has him shooting Nattefrost smeared in his own shit. Of all the bands featured, Beste focuses on the Tolkien-inspired Gorgoroth and its lead troublemaker Gaahl, who’s been arrested twice for alleged assault and torture, and whose face, with its sunken cheeks, looks even creepier without makeup. And that Krakow gig in 2004 not only included human crucifixes but sheep heads mounted on sticks. (Dude, one photo of decapitated sheep heads would’ve been enough.) Images of Satan (LA Weekly), and there's a terrific slideshow here (NSFW). Here's the Amazon link if you'd like to buy the book. (Thanks Richard Metzger) Previously on Boing Boing: Black Metal for Dummies Black Metal cupcakes More on sociology of Malaysian Black Metal Malaysia bans metal as un-Islamic. For those about to rock: jail ... Cookie Monster Tribute Heavy Metal Band Malaysian metal and the Man: a first-hand account Dave Hill and Black Metal Dialogues...br style="clear: both;"/ a href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=92a61e9f9b046cebd8cb76c657684f61p=1"img alt="" style="border: 0;" border="0" src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=92a61e9f9b046cebd8cb76c657684f61p=1"//a img src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=92a61e9f9b046cebd8cb76c657684f61" style="display: none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/

( Image above by Peter Beste. Youre welcome! ) The LA Weekly has a feature up about a new book with portraits of very serious Norwegian Black Metal dudes. In True Norwegian Black Metal, photographer Peter Beste captures the blackest of the black: apolitical and anti-Christian separatist self-preservationists who???d sooner make a lampshade out of their own skin than to try to convert fans. Snip from Siran Babayans piece: Take, for example, Immortal singer-bassist Abbath strolling through the woods surrounded by moss-covered emerald trees (???That???s essentially his backyard???), or Gorgoroth singer Gaahl standing in front of a snow-capped log cabin. Every turn of the page is a moving postcard of brooks, lakes and forrests. Which begs the question: With all the serenity and breathtaking views, what???s to rebel against? Apparently, Mother Nature makes mean Vikings out of little boys. If Black Sabbath were a product of bleak, industrial Birmingham, it should be no surprise that music this extreme thrives in a country with such high precipitation and so many months of either uninterrupted daylight or darkness. So don???t let the scenery fool you. These are some disturbed and disturbing fuckers, whether it???s guitarist Ymon of Perished with his arms covered in branding marks, or Nattefrost of Carpathian Forest smoking heroin off tin foil or a nude female model being painted in cow???s blood before she???s about to be hung from a cross for a Gorgoroth show in Krakow. Nearly everyone is wearing a scowl, corpse paint and spikes. And Beste???s grossest moment has him shooting Nattefrost smeared in his own shit. Of all the bands featured, Beste focuses on the Tolkien-inspired Gorgoroth and its lead troublemaker Gaahl, who???s been arrested twice for alleged assault and torture, and whose face, with its sunken cheeks, looks even creepier without makeup. And that Krakow gig in 2004 not only included human crucifixes but sheep heads mounted on sticks. (Dude, one photo of decapitated sheep heads would???ve been enough.) Images of Satan (LA Weekly), and theres a terrific slideshow here (NSFW). Heres the Amazon link if youd like to buy the book. (Thanks Richard Metzger) Previously on Boing Boing: Black Metal for Dummies Black Metal cupcakes More on sociology of Malaysian Black Metal Malaysia bans metal as un-Islamic. For those about to rock: jail ... Cookie Monster Tribute Heavy Metal Band Malaysian metal and the Man: a first-hand account Dave Hill and Black Metal Dialogues...br style=clear: both;/ a href=http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=92a61e9f9b046cebd8cb76c657684f61p=1img alt= style=border: 0; border=0 src=http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=92a61e9f9b046cebd8cb76c657684f61p=1//a img src=http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=92a61e9f9b046cebd8cb76c657684f61 style=display: none; border=0 height=1 width=1 alt=/