There was a time when people in Britain weren't interested in the antics of American wrestlers. We had our own grappling superstars. Navdeep Rehill looks back at how the likes of Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks, Les Kellet and Young David used to entertain us on ITV'S World of Sport show every Saturday afternoon. He also reminisces about British heroes and villains that didn't compete in the wrestling ring.
From the sixteenth until the twentieth century, British power and influence gradually expanded to cover one quarter of the world’s surface. The common saying was that “the sun never sets on the British Empire”. What began as a largely entrepreneurial enterprise in the early modern period, with privately run joint stock trading companies such as the East India Company driving British commercial expansion, by the nineteenth century had become, especially after 1857, a state-run endeavor, supported by a powerful military and navy. By the Victorian era, Britannia really did rule the waves. Heroes of the British Empire is the story of how British Empire builders such as Robert Clive, General Gordon, and Lord Roberts of Kandahar were represented and idealized in popular culture. The men who built the empire were often portrayed as possessing certain unique abilities which enabled them to serve their country in often inhospitable territories, and spread what imperial ideologues saw as the benefits of the British Empire to supposedly uncivilized peoples in far flung corners of the world. These qualities and abilities were athleticism, a sense of fair play, devotion to God, and a fervent sense of duty and loyalty to the nation and the empire. Through the example of these heroes, people in Britain, and children in particular, were encouraged to sign up and serve the empire or, in the words of Henry Newbolt, “Play up! Play up! And Play the Game!” Yet this was not the whole story: while some writers were paid up imperial propagandists, other writers in England detested the very idea of the British Empire. And in the twentieth century, those who were once considered as heroic military men were condemned as racist rulers and exploitative empire builders.
Scottish cyclist Chris Hoy, the reigning Olympic champion, has been instrumental in British track cycling's remarkable transformation from also-rans to a leading world superpower. Author Richard Moore shadows Hoy throughout the current season to provide a revealing insight into the hitherto guarded world of track cycling.
There was a time when people in Britain weren't interested in the antics of American wrestlers. We had our own grappling superstars. Navdeep Rehill looks back at how the likes of Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks, Les Kellet and Young David used to entertain us on ITV'S World of Sport show every Saturday afternoon. He also reminisces about British heroes and villains that didn't compete in the wrestling ring.
Chris Murray reveals the largely unknown and rather surprising history of the British superhero. It is often thought that Britain did not have its own superheroes, yet Murray demonstrates that there were a great many in Britain and that they were often used as a way to comment on the relationship between Britain and America. Sometimes they emulated the style of American comics, but they also frequently became sites of resistance to perceived American political and cultural hegemony, drawing upon satire and parody as a means of critique. Murray illustrates that the superhero genre is a blend of several influences, and that in British comics these influences were quite different from those in America, resulting in some contrasting approaches to the figure of the superhero. He identifies the origins of the superhero and supervillain in nineteenth-century popular culture such as the penny dreadfuls and boys' weeklies and in science fiction writing of the 1920s and 1930s. He traces the emergence of British superheroes in the 1940s, the advent of "fake" American comics, and the reformatting of reprinted material. Murray then chronicles the British Invasion of the 1980s and the pivotal roles in American superhero comics and film production held by British artists today. This book will challenge views about British superheroes and the comics creators who fashioned them. Murray brings to light a gallery of such comics heroes as the Amazing Mr X, Powerman, Streamline, Captain Zenith, Electroman, Mr Apollo, Masterman, Captain Universe, Marvelman, Kelly's Eye, Steel Claw, the Purple Hood, Captain Britain, Supercats, Bananaman, Paradax, Jack Staff, and SuperBob. He reminds us of the significance of many such creators and artists as Len Fullerton, Jock McCail, Jack Glass, Denis Gifford, Bob Monkhouse, Dennis M. Reader, Mick Anglo, Brendan McCarthy, Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Dave Gibbons, and Mark Millar.
Engaging the Crusades is a series of volumes which offer windows into a newly emerging field of historical study: the memory and legacy of the crusades. Together these volumes examine the reasons behind the enduring resonance of the crusades and present the memory of crusading in the modern period as a productive, exciting, and much needed area of investigation. This new volume explores the ways in which significant crusading figures have been employed as heroes and villains, and by whom. Each chapter analyses a case study relating to a key historical figure including the First Crusader Tancred; ‘villains’ Reynald of Châtillon and Conrad of Montferrat; the oft-overlooked Queen Melisende of Jerusalem; the entangled memories of Richard ‘the Lionheart’ and Saladin; and the appropriation of St Louis IX by the British. Through fresh approaches, such as a new translation of the inscriptions on the wreath laid on Saladin’s tomb by Kaiser Wilhelm II, this book represents a significant cutting-edge intervention in thinking about memory, crusader medievalism, and the processes of making heroes and villains. The Making of Crusading Heroes and Villains is the perfect tool for scholars and students of the crusades, and for historians concerned with the development of reputations and memory.
Heroes and Villains is a unique collaboration with the caricaturist Gerald Scarfe, which will also be the subject of a documentary on BBC Four. In the book, portraits of well-known figures, selected from the National Portrait Gallery's collections, are quirkily juxtaposed with caricatures that depict their villainous side. Gerald Scarfe, Britain's best-known caricaturist, provides these artful, glib distortions, many of which have been specially commissioned. They reveal the wit and vision of an exceptional draughtsman at work. who argue their views for and against, on subjects as wide ranging as Henry VIII, Oswald Mosley, Virginia Woolf, Princess Diana and David and Victoria Beckham.
Sharp-eyed Marianne lives in a white tower made of steel and concrete with her father and the other Professors. Outside, where the land is thickly wooded and wild beasts roam, live the Barbarians, who raid and pillage in order to survive. Marianne is strictly forbidden to leave her civilized world but, fascinated by these savage outsiders, decides to escape. There, beyond the wire fences, she will discover a decaying paradise, encounter the tattooed Barbarian boy Jewel and go beyond the darkest limits of her imagination. Playful, sensuous, violent and gripping, Heroes and Villains is an ambiguous and deliriously rich blend of post-apocalyptic fiction, gothic fantasy, literary allusion and twisted romance.
It is 1895 and the world is in turmoil. The Great Powers compete for resources and the latest technology, and an undeclared and secret war rages between them all. This is battleground of the Adventuring Companies. These clandestine agents of the Great Powers operate in the shadows, matching skills and wits in pursuit of the newest scientific formulae or powerful occult artifacts. In Her Majesty's Name sets these adventuring companies against each other in one-off encounters and in longer narrative campaigns. Companies are usually comprised of just 4–15 figures and two players could easily play three games in an evening, making an on-going campaign a highly viable option. In Her Majesty's Name has been designed to allow maximum versatility for the player – if you can imagine it, the system will help you build it. There is, however, a wealth of material provided in the book, covering weird science, mystical powers, and a range of pre-generated adventuring companies, including the British Explorers' Club, the Prussian Society of Thule, the US Marine Corps, the Légion Étrangère, the revolutionaries of the Brick Lane Commune, ancient Egyptian cults, and the mysterious Black Dragon Tong.
Captain Britain returns to fight alongside the Black Knight and Merlyn to save the fabled Camelot and Otherworld from the hideous hordes of Necromon! Plus, Captain Britain is reborn, as the acclaimed Alan Moore and Alan Davis begin their momentous run and Britain's hero faces the terrifying Fury! Collects Hulk Comic Weekly #42-55, 56-63, Marvel Super Heroes #387-388, Daredevils #1-11 and The Mighty World of Marvel #7-13.
