Wednesday, March 30, 2022

POP-A-LOOZA: THE EVERLASTING FIRST! ABBA, Action Comics, Action Swingers, Adventure Comics, The Adverts, and Astonishing Tales

Each week, the pop culture website Pop-A-Looza shares some posts from my vast 'n' captivating Boppin' (Like The Hip Folks Do) archives. The latest shared post is a reprise of the very first edition of my series The Everlasting First, offering quick takes on my introductions to ABBA, Action Comics, Action Swingers, Adventure Comics, the Adverts, and Astonishing Tales.

This piece was a little bit longer when it was first posted back in August of 2016. My original intent for The Everlasting First was for each alphabetical entry to spotlight my introductions to a musical act and a superhero or other fictional entity, supplemented by the quick takes, consisting of an equal number of music and comics/pulp fiction subjects. As the series progressed, I realized that many comics fans didn't want to read about rock 'n' roll, and some pop music aficionados didn't care about the funnybook stuff.

So I started separating the music from the comics and pulp stuff, and retroactively split all the previously-posted Everlasting Firsts, as well. 

Over the course of nearly six years of The Everlasting First, I still haven't made it through the damned alphabet. I have gotten through the letter T, with T is for TARZAN, T is for THE TURTLES, and T's Quick Takes For Comics (Teen Titans, Thor, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and The Twilight Zone) and Quick Takes For Music. (Television, the Temptations, Tommy Tutone and the Troggs). I haven't yet decided on the U entries--Uncle Scrooge? The Ugly Ducklings? U.N.C.L.E.? The Undertones? Uncle Sam? Tracey Ullman?--but I'll get to 'em eventually. When I finally do finish making my way through EF A-Z, I'll circle back to do others in no particular order, perhaps including the Animals and the Lone Ranger.

Two other dormant series are also due for a near-future comeback here: 5 Above (covering five songs from a specific artist or within a specific category) and Comic Book Retroview (covering short runs and/or single issues of comic book titles). Among the subjects potentially looming in one or t'other, we have the Romantics, Iron Man And Sub-Mariner, KISS, Daredevil Battles Hitler, the Hollies, Shazam!, Herman's Hermits, Detective Comics, Suzi Quatro, Captain Actionthe Kinks in the '80s, the Spectre in the Silver Age, and comic book songs.

They say you never forget your first time; that may be true, but it's the subsequent visits--the second time, the fourth time, the twentieth time, the hundredth time--that define our relationships with the things we cherish. Ultimately, the first meeting is less important than what comes after that. But every love story still needs to begin with that first kiss. 

That's the boilerplate intro for The Everlasting First. And the origin of The Everlasting First serves as the latest Boppin' Pop-A-Looza.

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This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, and on the web at http://sparksyracuse.org/ You can read about our history here.

I'm on Twitter @CafarelliCarl

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