Were you a teenage girl in the mid 1980s? Did you listen to pop music? Were you incredibly annoying? Then chances are you owned at least one issue of "Tiger Beat" with Duran Duran on the cover! But how did these foppish Brit wonderboys cut a bloody swath of vengeance to the top of the music charts? Let's find out.


Apparently Duran Duran was thought of as a Birmimgham band. Birmingham was not a town I commonly associated with hair gel and pastel-colored blazers with the sleeves rolled up, but comic books don't lie.


Any kid of MINE says he wants to open a 'wine bar', he's getting smacked upside the head too. Give him another one Dad! Meanwhile, what's future Duran Duran frontman Simon LeBon up to?


He's getting his shirt dirty on TV and singing in the church choir. And going to the same school as Elton John, but even though this comic would dearly like us to believe they were chums, Elton and Simon attended the school several years apart. Nice try, comic.


"Hey there Nick Rhodes with walls covered in David Bowie posters. What record did you buy? Another David Bowie LP? Well I never!"


I can easily understand skinheads not appreciating the musical artistry of Duran Duran. But skinheads preferring Squeeze... that is unexpected.


Curse you, limitations of 1980s synthesizer technology! Now I have to get stinking drunk and invite Roger Taylor to play drums for our band!


Clearly we must make sure that our crowd of insanely-dressed Birmingham freaks is entertained by music that is calibrated to their exacting standards! If only there was a band with a Barbarella-inspired name we could hire...


Sure, Andy Taylor, you can play guitar like a natural disaster - but THOSE TROUSERS HAVE GOT TO GO!!


However, with Simon Le Bon the "trouser problem" was not an issue.


Legions of high school girls would be making the same statements to their parents in a few years -to heck with college, I'm going to stick with Duran Duran!! Unfortunately it didn't work out quite so well for anyone other than Simon.


As an 80s guy I often suspected this was the bulk of Duran Duran's appeal - what music, they're so dreamy!! - but I've never seen the concept expressed so clearly and in a manner so dismissive of Adam Ant.


Wow, this is the least sexy version of "Girls On Film" ever! Well, let me take the edge off with some horrifying pop-star grimaces.


Soon their stylish videos and amazingly innovative, technically accomplished musicanship - well, okay, their stylish videos - propelled Duran Duran to the absolute pinnacle of popular culture, as represented by the timeless, will never go out of style album cover art of Patrick Nagel!


And just like the awesome stardom of Duran Duran, the marriage of Charles and Di will last forever.

Yeah, I went there! Hey, don't give me that look. I'm not the one who put them in this comic to begin with!


What's next for this entertainment powerhouse? World tours, side projects, James Bond theme songs, tattered Teen Beat posters coming down from walls, long periods of former fans denying any knowledge of the band, nostalgia-fueled reunion tours, wine bar. Definitely wine bar.

PREVIOUS STUPID COMICS

NEXT STUPID COMICS

BACK TO STUPID COMICS INDEX

BACK TO MAIN INDEX