Before The Year Begins

The New Year has begun.

But before we start to look forward, I want to have a glance back. Planet Blog started in September of 2008 and during that time I tried to cover topical, cool and groovy pop cultural moments. Favourites seem to be the ones about The Phantom, The Day of the Dead, Errol Flynn, War of the Worlds, Banksy, Philip K Dick and Bettie Page.

However, I missed some things because they were before the blog began or I just couldn't fit them in. For instance, I would like to have written about the 100th Anniversary of Wind in the Willows, one of the most endearing works of literature.

I would have lamented the passing of Roy Scheider. Amongst all his many films he was best known as Sheriff Brody from Jaws, but with that amazing performance in All That Jazz, he showed he was one of the last great leading man character actors. I'd have acknowledged the great b-movie actress Beverly Garland who had a long, successful career but will be remembered by me for her strong performances in '50s cult classics like Not of This Earth and It Conquered the World.

I would have saluted Arthur C Clarke, his remarkable contribution to science fiction and the bridging of art and science, and of course, 2001: A Space Odyssey. And I would have expressed my regret at the tragic loss of two writers; David Foster Wallace, a master of irony in fiction and non-fiction and his major tome Infinite Jest, and Tom Disch, a significant writer of allegorical literature, satire, essays and poetry. Disch especially deserved a wider audience than he had during his life. I hope both only grow in stature. I'd especially like to see Disch's cult classics Camp Concentration and 334 contunie to garner a receptive audience. His children's book The Brave Little Toaster will forever be a classic.

I would have done a nice spread on the art of Dave Stevens, creator of The Rocketeer and the first major artist to seek to immortalize Bettie Page (his work does appear in the Bettie Page post). I'd have a final salute to Ollie Johnston, the last of the great Disney animators who worked on Pinocchio, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia and Bambi. And I would have done a spectacular showreel of the amazing work by special effects artist Stan Winston. Stan gave us the Predator, the Alien Queen, the Terminator, the Jurassic Park dinosaurs and innumerous effects and creatures ending with the Iron Man suit just before his unexpected death.

I have received some nice feedback (all of it welcome) for the topics and artists covered and the attitude Planet Blog takes, but I have been amused by it being referred to as a bit morbid with its "Death of the Week". I'm afraid that probably won't change while humanity has yet to achieve immortality, but I do try to make my obits works of salutation and celebration of cool dudes and dudettes and to pay tribute to remarkable works of sub-cult-alternate-general pop culture.

Enough looking back, time to look forward, or at least to the here and now; there's plenty to write about, plenty to cover. We've got a whole year a head of us full of neat stories and images.

So, I guess the best thing to do is to get on with it.

Robin Pen