The star was awarded the MBE along with the rest of The Beatles in 1965, but later decided to send it back as a form of protest.
In a letter addressed to The Queen, Lennon wrote:
"Your Majesty, I am returning my MBE as a protest against Britain's involvement in the Nigeria-Biafra thing, against our support of America in Vietnam and against 'Cold Turkey' slipping down the charts. With Love, John Lennon of Bag."
The medal, which has lain untouched for years, was found in a cabinet at the Chancery Department Of The Royal Household, reports The Daily Telegraph. It is still in its original presentation case, and is accompanied by Lennon's protest letter.
Beatles historians and fans are now calling for the MBE to be put on public display, either in a museum or at Lennon's childhood home in Liverpool, Mendips, which was donated to the National Trust by Yoko Ono.
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Should we dispense with monthly comic books and just publish trade paperbacks? The editorial director of Harris Comics thinks so.
A monthly comic series loses a small fraction of their audience from one issue to the next due to the natural attrition of serialized storytelling. No serialized story will keep 100% of its readers with each succeeding installment. On average the typical comic probably loses 10% of its readership per issue. That may not sound bad but stretch those losses over the course of twelve or twenty-four issues and suddenly a comic that sold 25,000 copies its first issue is no longer breaking even within a few years of its debut. At that point a publisher has to decide whether to keep going or cancel. Now imagine if instead of one monthly a publisher had decided to launch many simultaneously, believing that a larger set of offerings would make their company look more impressive. Maybe a company could offset the losses making up for it with related trade paperback sales and other merchandise. But say they have a half dozen or a dozen titles bleeding that much. The losses start piling up exponentially. That scenario has played out many times over the last few years and why you’ve seen new publishers fall as quickly as they have risen.
I grew up buying comics at the news stand and, later, the comic book shop. I love that monthly fix. But, more and more, I buy comics in collected format. For one thing, it's cheaper. For another, many of the monthlies produced now are being created with the collection in mind--so why not wait and read them all at once.
Dispensing with the monthlies would probably result in better comics, actually. By trying to create comics for both formats, the stories actually suffer in their organization and pacing. Few of today's monthlies stand up as strong 20-odd page works. Often, story-telling is drawn out and slowed down, just to fill the page count for the eventual collection. And the resulting collections often don't read as strong books unto themselves.
Once the industry makes a decision on how it wants to tell stories--in 20-page snippets or in 100-odd page books--we'll have better told stories.
The end of monthlies also would likely spell the end of silly big event crossovers and other marketing gimmicks in favor of individual, though longer, stories that focus more on original plots and characterization that isn't as steeped in continuity.
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Kyle Baker, sarcastically, shows that maybe Frank Miller's take on the Spirit isn't as off the mark as some people, like me, think.
It's a well-done piece and, I have to admit, I haven't seen Miller's film yet. I should, if only so that I can gripe about it fairly. My reservations about it (which have prevented me from shelling out the dough to go see it) are based on what I've seen in teasers and my general opinion of Miller's past work.
I stand by my opinion that Miller is essentially a one-trick pony: He takes a property, darkens it up and says "look at how clever I am." And, as a result, he's badly damaged the superhero genre, resulting in books that confuse grim nihilism and exploitation for maturity and stealing away characters that once were safe for young children to enjoy and admire from the youth audience.
I'm talking about Batman, not the Spirit, here. I realize that the Spirit was created for an adult, newspaper-reading audience. But, after Miller's "Dark Knight," pretty much the entire mainstream lines of DC and Marvel have become dark and ugly in tone and inappropriate for pre-teens. And I just can't forgive his role in that development.
At the same time, though, maybe I shouldn't let that predispose me to hate Miller's "Spirit." If and when I see it, I'll share my thoughts about it.
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See, this is the Batman I remember! (Well, maybe he doesn't have to always be this nice...)
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From Geek Orthodox: Superhero bottle caps!
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Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton has died, Billboard reports.
Asheton and his drummer brother Scott formed the Stooges with Iggy Pop in Ann Arbor in 1967. Amid a music scene that also reared acts like Bob Seger and the MC5, the Stooges stood out for their reckless abandon, theatrics and pummeling style, a clear precursor for punk and alternative rock.
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