First off, I have to point out that this isn’t a revelatory new release or anything; extreme statements by some fellow Beatles aficionados to the contrary, the 1987 CD releases weren’t abhorrent in any way. They were a little flat, a little lifeless in places–even in comparison with other 1987 era mixes–but they weren’t awful. Of course, the fact that the first four 1987 albums were done in a mixdown mono (not the true mono mix, not a stereo mix–sort of a variant mix in their own right) left a lot of fans (including me) dissatisfied. So I was glad to get these reissues.

Don’t assume that I’ve waited 22 years for better versions of the Beatles albums, though. In the intervening years, I’ve transferred the first four stereo albums in my Mobile Fidelity boxed vinyl set to CD, so I have those songs in stereo; I’ve acquired the Dr. Ebbett’s mixes and the Millennium mixes, enhanced versions of the original CDs tweaked by technologically advanced Beatles fans; the Purple Chick mixes, which include all sorts of bonuses, alternate takes, etc.; and the Capitol mixes of the first eight American Beatles albums, which is in many cases the way I actually prefer to hear these songs (the Dave Dexter remixes, as I’ve said before, were always punchier and richer in sound on those early discs than the comparable British original albums, and since that’s what I heard hundreds of times in my childhood, some of those songs sound more “right” to my ears because it’s the sonic signature that has been burned into my brain cells).

I listened to the stereo set first, because I prefer stereo to mono. The first two albums still sound thin; since most of the songs on those albums were recorded “instruments left, vocals right,” there’s little room to improve the bass resonance, for instance–all the instruments are packed together in one channel, and the dynamic range can only be tweaked so much. Voices are clearer, like a layer of gauze has been removed, but there’s nothing remarkable here.

From the third album on, the sound begins to improve remarkably. Once the remastering engineers had multitracks to work with, they were able to do much more with bass response, drum crispness, vocal clarity, etc. The mid-period albums sound crisp and sharp and have a strong presence–but it’s the last albums that sound the most improved. Sgt. Pepper’s and Magical Mystery Tour show some improvement, but the albums that really stand out are The Beatles (aka the White Album), Abbey Road, and Let It Be. The sound is energetic, punchy, and realistic in a way that the original CDs weren’t; it comes across as if you’re truly listening to a studio monitor mix rather than a standard CD.

(A couple of fans have created their own DTS 5.1 mixes from these albums, and the sound is quite impressive. There’s enough stereo separation and instrumental clarity to make the 5.1 mixes seem quite believable; I think I’ve listened to those albums in quasi-5.1 as often as I’ve listened to them in stereo.)

The box set is quite nice, but there’s nothing amazing about the package itelf. The features about the making of each album are intriguing, the booklets offer some great background info and rare photos, but the best package of all is the Box of Vision, a 12″ x 12″ album-sized box designed to hold all the stereo CDs plus their accompanying booklets and covers, along with an album-sized hardcover reproducing the album art in the size that it originally appeared. I bought the Box of Vision before I received the stereo set, so I already had a home for the discs as soon as they arrived.

The mono set is the more impressive package in terms of design. The CD covers are true miniature reproductions of the original album covers, and each CD is packaged in a protective plastic inner sleeve to prevent scuffing and scratching (yes, even after charging over $200 for the stereo set, they didn’t even put the albums in protective plastic inner sleeves… pretty chintzy, huh?). But the problem is, these are mono mixes, and they simply don’t have the resonance and the rich sound field of the stereo version.

I have a theory that a speaker can only reproduce complex sounds up to a certain levels before the instrumental sounds blur together to create a single-speaker sound that is an amalgam of all the instruments than the distinct sound of each instrument. Stereo spreads the instruments and voices over twice as many channels, so each speaker only has to reproduce half as many component sounds; mono requires each speaker to reproduce them all at one time, so instruments get buried in the mix. There are many mono mixes where I can’t hear guitar bits very clearly at all, or piano lines get lost in the overall sound. The same songs in stereo distinctly sound each instrument, and I hear nuances that just aren’t there in the mono.

Even so, it’s good to have the mono mixes. These aren’t just remixes; in some cases, they are different takes or different versions of the same song, altered in post-production with differing sound effects, slightly different mix speeds, etc. In truth, they are variant editions, and the completist in me sees the necessity of having both sets. Furthermore, the mono box set is the only place where you can get the legitimate stereo versions of Help and Rubber Soul, since George Martin remixed those albums for the stereo versions in 1987, creating another variant mix.

What I’m hoping for, of course, is that Apple and EMI will choose to release a 5.1 DVD-A version of these albums at some point. That would offer the clearest, most high-fidelity version of the albums possible, spread across six speakers so that each speaker can reproduce a smaller facet of the overall sound, creating a much greater fidelity. If you want to get an idea just how good that could sound, listen to the DVD-A version of the Beatles Love and you’ll realize just how breathtaking a genuine 192kHz 5.1 mix could be. It seems absurd that every album by the Doors or Genesis or the Talking Heads could be available on DVD-A or SACD, but the body of work of the most influential band in rock history is only just now getting upgraded CD versions; there should have been a 5.1 DVD-A set offered on the same day as the remastered CDs. That’s the set that will be the ultimate version of the Beatles music; everything until then is just an interim improvement.

This time, though, I was late to the party, so to speak.

The rest of the world had succumbed to 007-mania with the release of Goldfinger, but I didn’t see that film until its re-re-release; I suspect my parents were concerned about the emphasis on a gold-painted naked lady that was a part of the marketing campaign (I can guarantee you that my mom wasn’t convinced this was at all appropriate for a 10 year old, which was my age when Goldfinger was initially released).

But by the time the international press campaign for Thunderball launched in earnest in 1965, I knew this was something I wanted to experience. Action, intrigue, suspense, espionage, glamour, and amazing effects (well, they were pretty amazing for the time… the underwater scenes were far beyond anything I had ever witnessed on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, that’s for sure)–yep, I wanted to know more about this James Bond…

Because Dad worked for a newspaper, he often had access to press kits for films; in the past, those press kits hadn’t included the sort of films I’d like to see (no one was doing a major press promotion for The Tingler or The Screaming Skull), but the pre-release buzz for Thunderball caught my attention right away… and this was a film for which Dad could get the press kit. Well, sort of–it was cut up, with a few images missing, because local theaters would ask the newspapers to use some of these images with their newspaper ads. The black and white press kits included, in addition to stills from the film, a number of press-release-style articles and film ads in a variety of sizes for every market.

I had seen references to James Bond in at least one movie magazine that I had picked up, but it hadn’t made much of an impression on me. I had also seen a DC Comics adaptation of Dr. No that appeared in Showcase a couple of years earlier, but that seemed dull and lackluster compared to the usual Showcase contents. This whole Thunderball thing, though–now this looked great. James Bond looking debonair while a jetpack carried him away from his adversaries; James Bond grappling underwater with the lead adversary as a virtual army of well-prepared black-clad scuba divers prepared for the confrontation; James Bond surrounded by beautiful women… And all the while, he always looked suave and nonplussed, in spite of the danger that awaited.

Because the marketing for this film seemed more action-oriented and less sensual in nature than that aforementioned golden girl image utilized to promote Goldfinger, Mom and Dad were willing to let me see this film at the DeSoto Theater in downtown Rome. I was entranced by the storyline, by the visuals, but most of all by the sophisticated agent 007, who always knew just the right thing to say and do. Forget Batman or Superman or Spider-Man… I wanted to grow up to be this guy! I wanted the cool cars and the gadgets and the glamour and the glory–just like millions of other people who found in the 007 image the sort of intrepid hero that we all could admire.

Bond was as much a hero as any of those comics characters I loved; oh, he didn’t have a costume as such, but he had a heroic identity, he had the gadgets, he had the funding, and he had the skills necessary to confront any adversary. And unlike Batman, he had this really great accent that made everything sound impressive!

Actually, 1965 was the year when I discovered two new passions: James Bond and a television show that my parents casually mentioned as being “sort of like James Bond.” I was intrigued; how could any television show capture the global intrigue and the level of excitement of James Bond?

So at my mother’s suggestion, I tried an episode of this quirky NBC series called The Man from UNCLE. And right off the bat, I saw that Mom was right!

Rather than presenting a James Bond clone, The Man from UNCLE starred two heroes, each of whom represented different aspects of the Bond persona. Robert Vaughn’s Napoleon Solo was the suave, handsome (well, supposedly–but I never really saw why that big-headed lug was considered attractive), and adept at the art of espionage–but it was David McCallum’s Ilya Kuryakin that appealed to me more. He represented the down-to-business side of Bond’s persona; his accent gave him a bit of an exotic air, his appearance echoed vaguely of the Beatles early look, but his black turtleneck and shoulder holster wardrobe made it clear that this was the man who took care of business.

I missed most of the first season of Man from UNCLE, but caught up with it in reruns. While it lacked the expansive budgets and on-location scenarios of the Bond films, it had one advantage: it came on every week, whereas we only got one Bond film a year. And like James Bond, UNCLE had it share of magazines, trading cards, toys, and other paraphernalia to eat up whatever budget an eleven-year-old might have left over after investing in all his other entertainment addictions.

Today, in an entertainment world filled with high-tech effects-laden comics-based films and television series, it might seem odd to hear of a comics fan embracing the world of Bond and UNCLE because they were about as comic-book-like as one could find in films or on television. But back then, Bond and UNCLE were eye-opening, because they showed me that (a) larger-than-life heroes could find be extremely successful and popular, and (b) the aforementioned heroes didn’t have to wear a colorful costume or have amazing powers to engage in wonderful adventures.

Yep, I think it would be quite appropriate indeed to name it after Teddy…

I didn’t think much about it, but Susan apparently remembered. For an early birthday gift, she got me a set of pastels and some textured paper. I haven’t gotten around to actually doing anything artistic per se, but I’ve played around it a little bit with it just to remind myself of pastel techniques and to get used to the feel of it once again. Pastels still rank right up there with watercolors as one of the media that I most enjoy and most admire.

Have no idea if I’ll produce anything worthwhile, but it doesn’t matter; I think I’m going to have a good time with it, at least…

Wish I could give a tangible explanation for my absence, but there hasn’t been one. I’ll chalk it up to the general malaise and gloominess that has hung over me since late July. It’s starting to lift a bit now, and I guess I’m ready to come out of my bunker and face the world once again…

It’s funny–I haven’t seen this book in forty or more years, but I can still see Williams’ lovely linework (an ink style that seems to have influenced Frank Frazetta’s work, in fact). There are no mass-market collections of Williams’ work that I know of–but there should be. He’s too good to be forgotten, as this one panel so aptly illustrates.

But the Joker seemed to know what he was doing, at least…