Marvel Comics Super Special: KISS (1977)

Gene, Paul, Ace and Peter were just four hot-blooded youths in The Big Apple, when they got ahold of The Box of Khyszc... trouble is, Doctor Doom saw it first, and what Doom wants, he takes! Can even the rockingest quartet in the universe stop mankind's greatest villain?

Given their flamboyant, cartoon-like appearance, KISS appearing in their own comic seemed almost an inevitability. Indeed the band’s eccentric outfits, camp make-up and self-created pseudonyms owe much of their influence from Stan Lee and co’s iconic characters.

The band are as much about their image than anything else - including the music, indeed KISS have had made more money from merchandise and have lent their likeness to more memorabilia than any other band (including The Beatles) becoming an almost billion dollar global brand. As well as the usual concert t-shirts and posters, the roughly 3,000 KISS products on sale have included action figures, board games, video games, pinball machines, credit cards, suits, condoms and - for die-hard fans: coffins. 

On June 30^th 1977 Marvel published the first of its Super Special comic books. Although the subsequent 40 issues tended to be an illustrated version of a recent movie, the debut comic was devoted KISS. The initial publication featured Gene Simmons, Ace Frehley, Paul Stanley and Peter Criss as superheroes rather than rock stars. Or to give them their comic book inspired personas: the Demon, the Spaceman, the Star Child and the Cat.

The bizarre story begins with Simmons and Stanley wandering the streets of The Big Apple, the former is complaining about how his father wants him to become an accountant: “He actually ordered me to ditch my comic collection!”

As they turn a corner they encounter a blind old barbarian dressed in a yellow vest and furry pants(!) fighting some muggers. As Simmons and Stanley dawdle over helping him, the old man throws them a mysterious object that the attackers are trying to steal from him. The item turns out to be the magical Box of Khyszc. Apparently. 

“Heads up flaming youth! Hither cometh thy destiny!!”

Simmons and Stanley then flee the scene to a pinball parlour where they encounter Criss and Frehley. The goons then burst into the arcade demanding the object. They then open the box out of sheer desperation and pull out four KISS dolls - which were also marketed at the time. There is an explosion from which the quartet emerge as their Marvel alter-egos.

KISS then embark on a cosmic journey through time and space where they must defeat Marvel villain Dr Doom and his undead groupies. In between they take the scenic route home through Hell where Simmons battles another Marvel regular Mephisto.

Unbelievably - or perhaps not, the comic was printed with the band’s own blood! It was donated by each member during a concert stop in February 1977. A registered nurse – with a notary to witness, drew the blood.  When the time came for the comic to go to print the blood was taken to the Borden Ink plant in New York where it was poured into vats of red ink for printing, which all sounds very hygienic.  

  

Although it's highly debatable that the blood ink marketing gimmick shifted any more units of the issue, it did go on to become Marvel’s best-selling ever, with a second outing for KISS - the fifth in the series of Super Special comics, was released the next year. However, rumour has it that the blood ink was involved in a mix up at the plant where it was mistakenly used for an issue of Sports Illustrated.

Hancock: The Blood Donor (1961)

Probably the best-known and arguably the best-loved of all his TV works, 'The Blood Donor' is the penultimate episode from Tony Hancock’s final BBC series Hancock.

The action takes place almost exclusively at the local hospital, in which Hancock manages to insult most of the fellow patients and staff, faints while giving blood and has his wine gums stolen by another donor.

The script was penned by Hancock’s writing team of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson who had worked with the comic since the ‘50s radio series. Initially the duo had Arthur Lowe in mind for the 'The Blood Donor' - but luckily for Hancock the script was given to him and has since become a British comedy classic. Indeed the script provides some of TV's most iconic gags - and rather interestingly, Hancock never learnt it.

“Rhesus! They’re monkeys aren’t they? How dare you I didn’t come here to be insulted by a legalised vampire.”

On his way home from recording the previous episode (the wonderful Archers parody 'The Bowmans') Hancock was involved in a car crash. While not life-threatening, the impact was enough to throw him through the window and leave him unconscious. Rather than cancel the studio that was booked for the recording 'The Blood Donor', the crew were instructed to install teleprompters around the set for Hancock to read his lines from. Throughout the episode the viewer can quite clearly see his eyes darting for the prompts when the other actors are speaking. 

“A pint of blood? That’s very nearly an armful!”

While it wasn’t quite true that he never memorised a script again after the episode, Hancock’s increased reliance on the autocue caused his performances to become increasingly stiff. Critics have noted that his facial expressions, so integral to his morose persona and just as integral to the laughs as his delivery, became rigid.

Following the series conclusion in 1961, the comic left the BBC to join ATC. Later on in the same year he split from Galton and Simpson following a falling out over the writing of a film. Hancock longed for transatlantic success in movies but this success ultimately eluded him. With his new writers his popularity began to dwindle while Galton and Simpson found success with a new show - Steptoe and Son.

Alan Simpson, Tony Hancock and Ray Galton

As his career faltered, Hancock’s increased alcohol dependency affected his performances – his alcoholism and his reliance teleprompters play a part in a disastrous performance at the Royal Festival Hall. Splitting from his writers and leaving the BBC to join ATV in 1961 were decisions that his career never recovered from.    

Despite his problems Hancock managed sporadic TV and film appearances. In 1968 he was contracted to make a 13-part series in Australia which was titled Hancock Down Under, however, only three episodes were completed. On June 24^th 1968 Hancock was found dead in his Sydney apartment with an empty bottle of vodka amongst some amylobarbitone tablets - he was 44.

Hancock’s suicide note read: “Things seem to go wrong too many times.”

Brian Eno and the Windows 95 Startup theme (1995)

There aren't many people in music who can boast a career of such impressive creative longevity and diversity as Brian Eno. Originally finding fame as the synthesizer player in Roxy Music, Eno left the successful Glam/art-rock band in 1973 to realise his own musical aspirations.

During the mid to late 70s 'Eno' the moniker he often used embarked on an impressive solo career as well as working with David Bowie on the ground-breaking "Berlin Trilogy" of Low (1977), Heroes (1977) and The Lodger (1979) while producing and performing on albums for the likes of the Talking Heads. Eno would also go on to release the album My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981), a collaboration with Talking Heads front man David Byrne that arguably kick-started the concept of extensive sampling within pop music.

As well as being a virtuoso behind the mixing desk, Eno has been a pioneer in the field of ambient music making several records with King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp embracing the creation of a technique called "Frippotronics" (essentially a stereo tape delay effect inspired by minimalist composer Terry Riley). 

In 1994 Eno was approached by Microsoft to compose the Startup theme for their seminal home computing operating system Windows 95. The launch for Windows 95 was preceded by an intense marketing campaign which also used the Rolling Stones' 1981 hit 'Start Me Up' - a reference to the computer's new Start button. 

Eno told Chicago Chronicle's pop music critic Joe Selvin in 1996: "The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. I'd been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, Here's a specific problem - solve it.

"The thing from the agency said, We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah-blah, dah-dah-dah, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional, this whole list of adjectives and then at the bottom it said and it must be three-and-a-half seconds long.

"I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel.

"In fact, I made eighty-four pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time."

In the end Eno's theme clocked in at around six seconds. Rather interestingly, in an interview on BBC Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity, Eno confessed: "I wrote [the Startup theme] on a mac. I've never used a PC in my life, I don't like them."