tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3505022452508665567.post4778083939393916314..comments2024-03-28T02:53:44.198-07:00Comments on RETROMANIA: use your illusionSIMON REYNOLDShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01282478701882900354noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3505022452508665567.post-33274523422367340442013-09-19T01:11:08.682-07:002013-09-19T01:11:08.682-07:00Hi Simon, did you ever read the 40s-80s comic stri...Hi Simon, did you ever read the 40s-80s comic strip Flook, which at it's height as pop cultural comment (56-71) was written by Melly, and if collected would surely make a worthwhile visual accompaniment to Revolt Into Style? Sorry to spam about this, but I recently did an article on the strip- www.tcj.com/looking-back-at-flook-an-interview-with-wally-fawkes/ if it's of any interest. <br />regards, Adam Smith ajsmithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02826165756286974308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3505022452508665567.post-64360796147773789352013-08-08T11:24:16.526-07:002013-08-08T11:24:16.526-07:00yes i think i also qualify as the very very end of...yes i think i also qualify as the very very end of babyboom generation, being born in 1963. But much of my experience (belatedness, irony as unavoidable condition) feels generation x. somewhere in between, on the very cusp. hence ambivalence concerning, or oscillation between, Progressivism and Retro sensibilities, Modernism and Postmodernism tug at my inclinations and loyalties with equal strength.<br /><br />Enjoyed Tolkien as a child but sword 'n' sorcery always revulsed me. always enjoyed the premise of Norman Spinrad's alternative history The Iron Dream, where Hitler emigrates from Austria to America and turns from failed painter to successful comic book illustrator, and then to a science fiction writer. Adolf's most popular novel The Iron Dream (which comprises most of Spinrad's bk) is a sword'n'sorcery heroics fantasy full of crypto-Nazism. However, a few good countefactual jests and parallel-world mirrorings aside, Hitler's potboiler as reading experience is unbearable drivel, i.e. typical sword'n'sorcery! A too successful parody on Spinrad's part.SIMON REYNOLDShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01282478701882900354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3505022452508665567.post-87712387762950605032013-08-08T10:52:27.357-07:002013-08-08T10:52:27.357-07:0060s baby, early 70s child. Nominally, a Baby Boome...60s baby, early 70s child. Nominally, a Baby Boomer (just). Born too late to have properly experienced the 60s. Absorbing all that outpouring of culture after it was over and when many of the key participants had already gone to an early grave.<br /><br />That applies to me as well and so does the description of influences above, although I have 7 years lead on you. It's bothered me for years that I was born too late to really experience it as it happened. I wonder if that colours our views that our earliest cultural identity bomb was already a retro-look back at a (admittedly very recent) past that was already over.<br /><br />ps. Why does Fantasy get lumped in with SciFi? Can we blame Moorcock's need to make enough money to eat?Julian Bondhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01433164802534052728noreply@blogger.com