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Dec04

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1969!

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Dec 4, 2024

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1969!

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 55 years ago… This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott Tipton and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Dec. 4, 1969. Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Nov. 27, 1958. Click here to check it out. (Keep in mind that comics came out on multiple days, so these are technically the comics that went on sale between Dec. 1 and Dec. 7.) So, let’s set the scene: If Woodstock is considered the zenith of hippie counterculture, then its nadir is Altamont, a poorly planned and incompetently executed free concert in northern California that played out Dec. 6 like a smashed mirror version of its East Coast inspiration. The slapdash operation drew 300,000 people and one version of the story goes that the headliners and organizers, the Rolling Stones — on the recommendation of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane — hired the Hells Angels for security. But like virtually everything with the planning of Altamont, that’s a matter of dispute. A somewhat different version has it that the Angels were merely hired to protect the generators, make sure nobody rushed the stage and keep an eye on things nearby. What’s not in dispute is that the concert — which included acts like Santana, the Airplane, the Flying Burrito Brothers and more — was, as the day went on, increasingly beset by violence and chaos. (The Grateful Dead, who were central to pulling the whole thing together, turned tail and decided not to take the stage because of the bad vibes.) Things came to a head during the Rolling Stones’ set, when an 18-year-old man named Meredith Hunter, high on meth, got into a scuffle with the Angels as he joined other fans trying to get on stage during Under My Thumb. Hunter was beaten, retreated and returned moments later brandishing a .22. A member of the Angels knocked Hunter’s gun hand and stabbed him multiple times, killing him. (Three others were also killed during the festival: two in a hit-and-run when a car ran off a highway and plowed into them as they sat around a campfire, and one who drowned in a canal.) But it was Hunter’s slaying that symbolized the show’s wild, lawless frenzy, particularly considering his death was captured on footage...

Nov27

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1958!

Posted by Dan Greenfield on Nov 27, 2024

RETRO HOT PICKS! On Sale This Week — in 1958!

Scott and Dan hit up the comics racks from 66 years ago… This week for RETRO HOT PICKS, Scott Tipton and I are selecting comics that came out the week of Nov. 27, 1958. Last time for RETRO HOT PICKS, it was the week of Nov. 20, 1979. Click here to check it out. (Keep in mind that comics came out on multiple days, so these are technically the comics that went on sale between Nov. 24 and Nov. 30.) So, let’s set the scene: The geopolitical status quo was being upended in the Caribbean and in Europe, with the ultimate effects felt around the world: — The Cuban Revolution was reaching its climax and the fighting around Guisa was intense. Fulgencio Batista’s government forces could not contain Fidel Castro’s rebels, who kept hitting the army with setback after setback. The battle was a decisive marker that Batista was in trouble and the rebels ultimately took control of the island nation over New Year’s. — Meanwhile, there was plenty of saber rattling in the Cold War: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev on Nov.27 — Thanksgiving, as it happened — gave an ultimatum to the U.S., U.K., and France, demanding that their troops be withdrawn from West Berlin within six months, or the Russians would give control over the access routes between West Germany and West Berlin to East Germany. U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles waved off the threat: “We are not afraid of May 27, 1959.” (Weirdly, Dulles died in May 1959 and was buried on the 27th.) Khrushchev later backed off but it did make the divided city a central issue. IN OTHER NEWS — It would be some time before we found out who had The Right Stuff, but the U.S. crewed satellite program was on Nov. 26 officially named Project Mercury. — The U.S. on Nov. 28 made its first full-range firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile, launching it from Cape Canaveral. The missile reached its target, 6,325 miles away, near Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, half an hour later. It brought the U.S. into parity with the Soviet Union, which had already successfully tested a similar missile. — On Nov. 25, elections were held in the territory of Alaska for its first state officials and federal representatives, ahead of becoming the 49th state on Jan. 3,...

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