RIP Paul Darrow

Sadly we lost the great Paul Darrow today. I don't know how fans across the pond or elsewhere took to Blake's 7 back at the tail end of the Bronze Age, but I suspect it was loved in much the same way everywhere. Some things just are.
Yes, it had a budget of 50p, yes they were always running round the same quarry in Somerset pretending they were on a different planet than last week, but it was still great. And right at the helm, making it greater, was Paul Darrow as Avon, the best good / bad guy in TV sci-fi.
Put it this way, no one in our school wanted to be Blake. We all wanted to be Avon. He didn't take shit from anyone, didn't trust anyone and didn't depend on anyone. He was Mr. Cool.
And Darrow was shameless in his enjoyment of the role, somehow managing to be both camp and deadly serious at the same time.
Plus he & Servalan always had that thing going on...

Paul was also keen on connecting with the fans, as for instance regularly writing for the Blake's 7 magazine:

And of course, the mag ran a Blake comic strip. OK, it was written on the level of Look-In's many TV adaptations, but you did get Ian Kennedy and then Steve Dillon on art. And something of the essence of Avon can be glimpsed here, even if a comic strip can in no way match Darrow's delivery with a line.

Steve Dillon's Nick Fury, Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D

As you've probably heard by now, we sadly lost Steve Dillon yesterday. Me, I was into Steve's stuff literally from day one, right from Hulk Comic all the way throughout Doctor Who Weekly, 2000AD, Warrior and Deadline.
Even back then you knew that, like Dave Gibbons, Dillon's classically American-looking art was destined for the big time at Marvel & DC.
And when I returned to comics after a good few years of disenchantment with books full of badly proportioned grinning demons with unfeasibly large guns, it was Dillon that brought me back.
When I saw his and Garth Ennis' Welcome Back, Frank for the first time, it was like coming home to a warm log fire.
So here's that first appearance, with a 16 year old Steve giving us his mega-cool Nick Fury, from the pages of Hulk Comic ( although there's a different artist on the first episode, who I think is John Richardson. )
Anyway, yes, this is raw stuff, but man, it's got bags and bags of energy, style and rock solid storytelling..

Abslom Daak-Dalek Killer

In typical cockeyed BAOB fashion, let's celebrate Peter Capaldi as the new Doctor with a kickin' strip from the early issues of Doctor Who Weekly, detailing the adventures of friendly neighbourhood psychopath Abslom Daak, a character who would've fit right in alongside MACH 1 & Strontium Dog in contemporary issues of 2000AD. He's not likely to pop up on the show any time soon, more's the pity.
Daak's your classic tough-guy / anti-hero with a death wish, a spiritual brother to Snake Plissken or Hell Tanner, and the strip is as suitably two-fisted and macho as Steve Moore can make it, as well as a brilliant early example of Steve Dillon's american styled artwork.
I don't know who first hired Steve to work at Marvel USA, but it must've been the easiest decision in the world, looking at this stuff.