Comic Book Resources

During his "days of the week" episode, he mentioned Solomon Grundy as a villain of the golden age Green Lantern, and he may have even used the term "Golden Age."

Thanks, Mike!

I added it!

In his song "All Along the Watchtower" he kept referencing Watchmen.

I'm guessing we won't get this in the UK, but do you know if it's available as a podcast?

hey brian, it's a little known phenomenon, but ken kesey and the merry pranksters, the guys that sort of spread the word abot acid and madeit popular with he acid tests and parties, made comic books really popular and hip at the time. college kids were reading dr strange and taking lsd and all that stuff, so it wasn't even geeky to reference a comic around those times because the cultural revolution permitted it. sorta cool.

No podcast, but I believe it is available in the UK (Dylan mentioned as much in a season one episode, so I presume it still is true in season 3).

Here's a website that might work for you!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/bob_dylan/

Ya, hippies loved certain comics. My Dad loves Silver Surfer.

Thanks Brian! And thanks to BBC's iPlayer, I can even listen to a few that I missed, brilliant!

Dalarsco:
"Ya, hippies loved certain comics. My Dad loves Silver Surfer."

Are you saying Dylan is a hippie? He's really not. He actually hates them. That's why he wouldn't play at Woodstock.

It's less likely that it's Dylan throwing in those references than it is one of the show's writers.

Yeah, Dylan's more of a hipSTER. He seems to enjoy feeling superior to people.

He seems to enjoy feeling superior to people.

Well, that settles it, then. He's DEFINITELY a comic book fan.

I should have been more specific. I was replying to anthony r's post about LSD and Dr. Strange.

Well, when you're superior, you might as WELL enjoy it.

Man, Dylan being a comic fan would be a dream come true for you wouldn't Brian!

Also, makes me laugh that you've gone from checking comics for Dylan references to checking Dylan for comic references...

Yeah, Dylan’s more of a hipSTER. He seems to enjoy feeling superior to people.

Well... he is.

...holy shit, is that Scott "Hellboy" Allie? Cool...

"There must be some way out of here," said The Joker to the thief.

Plus he plays God on horseback in The Umbrella Academy: Dallas #3

I'm a huge Dylan and TTRH fan, so I picked up on all of those references as well. The only one I would add is that he played a short clip from Superman: The Movie in the California show, in which Gene Hackman discusses the San Andreas Fault. It's certainly up for debate how much content is generated by Dylan in the show. He appears to get much straight from Wikipedia. Some speculate that most of the content is generated by Eddie Goredetsky, though Bob would obviously have final say on everything.

As a huge Dylan fan myself, I'd certainly hope this were a case of Dylan being a comic fan, but I sort of doubt it. I think he's been prolific enough that when you get _no_ references to comic books outside of one source, and that source is the one in which he arguably has the least direct influence, things seem iffy. That being said, it really wouldn't surprise me -- he's a man that draws from practically any source, so reading comics certainly doesn't seem impossible to me.

DigitalGonzo, there is one reference to comics outside of TTRH--a drawing of The Joker appears in the Jokerman video. Alas, it is documented that Dylan didn't have much to do with that video.

Paul McCartney was a big comic book fan during the 70s. That's why he wrote that song, Magneto & The Titanium Man. I'm sure there a quite a few other big league musicians we folks could name...

-Citizen Scribbler

"Superman and Green Lantern ain't got nothin on me"...

"In his song “All Along the Watchtower” he kept referencing Watchmen."

Line of the day.

I could make a joke about he's patterend his performance style after that Dick Tracy villain, but it's just too damn easy...

There's also talk about Batman on the "NIGHT" show: "You know, I always loved Batman. The way I looked it, you had to come from another planet to be Superman, but anyone could Batman. And I tried."

However, we should reflect that Dylan does not write Theme Time alone, that there is a writing staff who probably write a lot of copy for him. Perhaps they are the source of factoids like the Bottle City of Kandor. But I think there is enough evidence here to say that Dylan probably does like comic books.

THIS JUST IN : BOB DYLAN APPROVES OF COMIC BOOKS!

Surely you don't think that Dylan writes his own copy?

By the way:

"The comic book and me, just us, we caught the bus/
The poor little chauffeur, though, she was back in bed/
On the very next day, with a nose full of pus/
Yea! Heavy and a bottle of bread"

Couldn't be any clearer!

Dylan's official site links to Ray Sohn's short comics adaptation of The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest.

http://rsohn.com/comics_ballad.html

I don't think it's any good, and it contains mature content, but it may be of interest.

"Surely you don’t think that Dylan writes his own copy?"

I can't imagine he would waste time talking about the Bottled City of Kandor if he didn't think it were interesting to talk about, even if he's not the one who wrote down the factoids.

Thanks for the "Night" reference, Murray!

“In his song “All Along the Watchtower” he kept referencing Watchmen.”

I'm guessing that this is sarcasm...the song was written long before the comic.

I’m guessing that this is sarcasm…the song was written long before the comic.

Bless