This month, Atomhenge release a newly remastered and expanded version of Hawkwind’s Elric-inspired progstravaganza, The Chronicle of the Black Sword, (which was, alongside Hawkwind’s Astounding Songs, Amazing Music, the first LP I ever bought), so I thought I’d celebrate by listing my top 10 fantasy-themed concept albums. Then I realised I couldn’t think of 10 fantasy-themed concept albums, let alone good ones, so here, over the next few Mewsings, (and with a little bit of cheating here and there) are my top 5-or-so, starting with Jon Anderson’s 1976 album, Olias of Sunhillow.

When the various members of Yes decided to take a break from the band and produce solo albums in 1975, Anderson holed himself up in a studio with nothing but an engineer and four groups of instruments: drums of various ethnicities, stringed instruments (including kotos, sitars, harps and guitars), a collection of “international bells”, and a stack of electronic keyboards. These groups represented the Nagrunium, Asatranius, Oractaniom, and Nordranious — the four tribes of Sunhillow, a crumbling world on the verge of destruction. Three heroes unite to save Sunhillow. Olias builds a music-powered flying ship, Moorglade Mover, with which the trio are to find their people a new home. (The other two heroes have slightly more ill-defined roles. Qoquaq is “a leader, fashioner of peoples”, which is vague but at least important-sounding. Ranyart, however, is “to guide the moments begotten light”. I wonder what he actually put on his c.v.?) But the key instrument, and perhaps the most weirdly fantastic, is Anderson’s ethereal voice, often multi-layered, singing wordlessly or intoning the peculiar poetry of his lyrics, which when read are pretty much nonsense, but suddenly make sense when sung.

The initial spark of inspiration was Roger Dean’s cover to Yes’s 1971 album Fragile (depicting a flying ship leaving a crumbling world). To this Anderson added an enthusiasm for Tolkien, and the writings of proto-New Age prophet Vera Stanley Alder. In fact, there’s a dangerous swerve towards the New Age in Anderson’s first solo album, both in the optimistic whimsy of its fantasy world, and the musical palette of soft, sparkling synths and World instruments. Thankfully, it easily escapes that particular doldrum of musical Hell through sheer energy (on the musical front) and sheer weirdness (on the fantasy front). This isn’t music to attune your chakras to, it’s adventurous, full of drama, uplifting melodies, evocative soundscapes, and a fresh unearthliness that makes it the only fantasy album I can think of which genuinely sounds like it could have come from another world.

Today, Royal Mail release their Mythical Creatures stamps, six designs by Dave McKean:

Not being a stamp collector, I wasn’t sure whether to get a first day cover (which sounded like it might appreciate in value) or the presentation pack (which sounded more fun), so I stumped for both. The first day cover comes with the stamps stuck on a specially-designed envelope, and franked with a faun postmark, while the presentation pack has the stamps (unstuck) in clear pockets on a fold-out card with more Dave McKean designery inside, and some short pieces by Neil Gaiman on the mythical beasties in question.

My favourites have to be the dragon, the mermaid and the unicorn. They’re the simpler designs, both in content (just the creature in question against a misty-swirly background) and colour (each one being predominately one colour).

I was interested to read, on Neil Gaiman’s blog entry announcing the stamps, that one of the designs was going to be a banshee, till someone pointed out it might be thought letters bearing the banshee stamp were going to contain bad news. Did no-one point out that the 62p pixie stamp might be classed as snail mail?

What’s going on here? Suddenly we’ve got not one but two comedy send-ups of heroic fantasy, one on Radio 4 (just finished), one on BBC 2 (just begun). I must admit I listened to ElvenQuest in a I’m-not-going-to-like-this-but-I-know-I’m-going-to-have-to-listen-to-it kind of way, but grew to like it, and even miss it, now it’s finished. Will it be the same for Kröd Mändoon and the Flaming Sword of Fire? Actually, I started liking Krod Mandoon a bit quicker, but maybe because I’d been warmed up by ElvenQuest…

Coming so close together, and being about the same sort of thing, you can’t help finding similarities between the two. For instance, in both shows, the Evil Baddy comes across as a slightly naff office boss, with the descent into management-speak being one of their main jokes (another being the sudden flip into killing employees/servants who don’t please them). Is this a measure of our times, because the biggest evil we’re likely to face in our daily lives is an over-officious line manager? Or is it just another branch of the continued David Brentisation of comedy? Actually, it might be something more deep-seatedly British than that, as Alistair McGowan’s Lord Darkness (from ElvenQuest) reminded me a bit of both Ralph Richardson’s Supreme Being and David Warner’s Evil from Time Bandits — polite and reasonable, but wielding enormous power with an indifferent flick of the finger. That’s just how we Brits expect our bigwigs to be, I guess.

Another point of similarity — although one scantily clad in the form of a wild divergence — is the women. Both serials (or, so far, in the case of Krod Mandoon) have only one real female character of any significance. The main joke with ElvenQuest’s Penthiselea the Warrior Princess (Sophie Winkleman) is she’s completely innocent about sex (thinking babies come from the Baby Tree, if I remember right), whereas the main joke with Krod Mandoon’s pagan girlfriend Aneka (India de Beaufort) is she’s a nymphomaniac on a scale (300 men in one night?) that makes it difficult to retain any sympathy for her, or the besotten Mandoon. (Or am I just behind the times?) I’d be tempted to say it’s a pity fantasy (even comedy fantasy) is still struggling to get free of these sort of female stereotypes (I’m reminded of the way Sword & Sorcery’s flimsily-dressed wenches in distress were “updated” in the 70s by the likes of Raven, Swordsmistress of Chaos, who was just another crudely flipped stereotype), but then again, I can’t exactly say any of the male characters escape being stereotypes either.

But hey, this is comedy, and comedy’s all about stereotypes, right? You can’t have jokes without people being the butt of jokes, because comedy is all about our need to laugh at other people, right?

Actually, I don’t think it is. If you look at the best comedies — Fawlty Towers, Spaced, Alan Partridge — the characters you really laugh at are the ones you know, deep down, are just like you, in some little way. You laugh at stereotypes, but you laugh with characters. Or maybe that’s just me.

It’s weird to think heroic fantasy, which I always thought was going to be kept firmly relegated on the marshy borderlands of culture, is now the subject of two mainstream comedies. I can’t believe that jokes about, for instance, bad riddles inscribed above magic doorways or the ümlautification of names  — which I’d have thought you have to be familiar with fantasy role-playing games to find funny — are part of mainstream comedy. It means that, in a roundabout, backdoor kind of way, heroic fantasy is part of the mainstream, though unfortunately not in the sort of way that will get anyone to think it can be really good. (And it can. Alan Garner’s Elidor, for instance. Short, devastating, and featuring a unicorn.)