which did you hear about first: the chinese or the british gang of four?

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i think i learned about the band first.

― sarah c, Sunday, 10 October 2004 13:51 (twenty-one years ago)

The original (if you will), thanks to Doonesbury in the late seventies.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 10 October 2004 14:16 (twenty-one years ago)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/920000/images/_922042_sdp_300.jpg

― Richard C (avoid80), Sunday, 10 October 2004 14:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Hugo Burnham, Sara Lee, Andy Gill and Jon King plot the 2025 reunion.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 10 October 2004 14:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think the British Gang of Four sound anything like the Chinese one.

― Rockist_Scientist (rockist_scientist), Sunday, 10 October 2004 14:35 (twenty-one years ago)

The Chinese version, by about 10 years.

― supercub, Sunday, 10 October 2004 14:38 (twenty-one years ago)

The British one.
Similarly, I heard about the musical Bauhaus before the artistic ones.

― MindInRewind (Barry Bruner), Sunday, 10 October 2004 14:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Same as Ned.
"Madame...Mao...is a...maggot..."

― William Crump (Rock Hardy), Sunday, 10 October 2004 14:57 (twenty-one years ago)

The trial of the Chinese gang of four was one of the first news stories I can remember watching on Tv. The other big story of the time was the South Moluccans, who used to hijack planes, but don't anymore.

― Joe Kay (feethurt), Sunday, 10 October 2004 17:03 (twenty-one years ago)

What Chinese Gang of Four?

― My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny), Sunday, 10 October 2004 18:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, embarrassingly, I don't know the Chinese one!

― jaymc (jaymc), Sunday, 10 October 2004 18:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Tsk. Time for a history brushup!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Four_(China)

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/CHINAgang.htm

Jiang Qing, perhaps by default the most famous of the four, is featured in some propaganda posters here:

http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/jq.html

http://www.iisg.nl/~landsberger/images/jq02.jpg

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 10 October 2004 18:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Another "thank you" to Doonesbury.

― manthony m1cc1o (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 10 October 2004 18:57 (twenty-one years ago)

It's interesting how Doonesbury so readily functions as a way for 'kids' to follow the news, perhaps (though I say this not knowing the ages when Anthony and William encountered those strips). I'd actually be interested in remembering or realizing whether it was 'the news' as formal media presentation that I locked onto first -- I was definitely a network news junkie by the time I was eight in 1979 -- or Doonesbury's presentation and commentary on same.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 10 October 2004 19:00 (twenty-one years ago)

(And whether later folks like Breathed or now McGruder also fulfilled the same function for kids reading comics -- I suspect such was the case.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 10 October 2004 19:00 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think I understood Doonesbury when I was eight.

― Rockist_Scientist (rockist_scientist), Sunday, 10 October 2004 19:03 (twenty-one years ago)

Good lord, I'm sure I didn't entirely either. Nonetheless I was reading along because the art was good and the characters were funny, and the more I read the more I picked up things, as well as reading earlier book collections from the strip. I guess I didn't see it as much of a leap from my Peanuts books to those, they were both comic strips after all.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 10 October 2004 19:05 (twenty-one years ago)

The British one by a year or two.

As for that OTHER great punk-funk band of lefties that took their name from a history book, I'd heard of the original (American revolutionary) Minutemen about a few years before the band.

(Never read "Doonesbury". Loved "Bloom County"!)

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Sunday, 10 October 2004 22:18 (twenty-one years ago)

(And whether later folks like Breathed or now McGruder also fulfilled the same function for kids reading comics -- I suspect such was the case.)

Some friends and I were recently discussing Bloom County's role in our own assimilation... 'course I was 11 before I picked up my first Breathed tome, so I probably had a fairly decent grasp on his political jabs. (Senator Bedfellow, the "caucuses", and Bill ze Cat's sordid liaisons with Jeane Kirkpatrick, Princess Diana, and Clinton's cat "Socks" = funniest strip ever.)

― Will (will), Sunday, 10 October 2004 22:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Ditto the Doonesbury. I was constantly asking my dad to explain Doonesbury references to me.

― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Sunday, 10 October 2004 22:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Why were the SDP founders being compared to the "At home he feels like a tourist" hitmakers, I asked myself.

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 11 October 2004 06:46 (twenty-one years ago)

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