"Dad, what’s a flexidisc?"
So the recent resurgence in interest for Alan Moore’s “March of the Sinister Ducks” (spurred on by Neil Gaiman’s pointing to an MP3 file) had me thinking about other comic book flexidiscs. Here are the only ones I remember:
- Critters #23 (Fantagraphics) – “March of the Sinister Ducks” on one side, “Right to the Blues” by Ty Templeton on the other.
- Duplex Planet Illustrated #1 (Fantagraphics) – features “Skin” by the Brave Combo and “The” by Jimmy Carl Black and the Grandmothers. “Skin” shows up on the CD “A Place of General Happiness Volume 2.”
- Femforce #50 (AC Comics) – the Femforce theme…I don’t have this one, but you can read about it here.
- M #1 (Eclipse) – according to Cat Yronwode’s website, the flexidisc was a soundtrack recorded by Jon J. Muth and Steve Niles. Whether it was just music or a dramatic reading, I haven’t the foggiest.
- Ms. Tree #50 (Renegade) – a one-sided flexi with “The Theme from Ms. Tree,” performed by the band Cruisin’. It later showed up on the Cruisin’ CD from Beat Brothers Recordings. Max Allan Collins played keyboards.
- Nexus (magazine) #3 (Capital) – basically a dramatization of the contents of the issue, with everyone speaking really, really quickly to squeeze everything onto the record. Great theme song.
- Scout #19 (Eclipse) – another one I don’t have (only read the first six issues), but it featured blues music by Tim Truman. I think it may have included music from the full-length Scout LP by Tim Truman and the Dixie Pistols (eBay auction here).
This list doesn’t include the multiple flexis that were included in Mad Magazine specials (I still have a fondness for “Mad Disco,” and the greatest one of them all, the one with eight different endings, “It’s A Super Spectacular Day!”).
With record players pretty much gone the way of the eight-track tapes (hey, I still have a working record player, but I’m old and weird), we can pretty much forget about seeing comics with flexidisc inserts ever again. Chaos Comics had a go at including CDs with their comics…even if they’d been good CDs, it’s just not the same. Actually, I’m surprised more comic publishers haven’t tried the CD-insert route…I mean, aside from AOL discs.
So, am I forgetting any flexis from the above list?
One of Alice Coopers tour books came with a flexi-disc of “No More Mr. Nice Guy” way before it was actually released.
It was the kind that had to be cut out of the program to be played.
This was my sisters tour book, and of course I cut it out and taped it to an actual 45 to play it right.