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| Copyright MARVEL COMICS |
Not long arrived here at Castel Crivens (though pre-ordered some months back), four great Facsimile Editions - one a doubler - including Silver Surfer #1, and Action Comics #242 & #419, the original of which I bought around 9 months ago. As well as the normal version of SS #1, I got the variant foil edition, though I'm not sure it will scan properly due to its silvery sheen. If it's not included in the following images then it clearly didn't.
Glad to see Marvel have gone for the square-binding of the '60s ish, instead of staples, which diminishes the historical integrity of such publications in my opinion. Hopefully, they'll reissue previous stapled reprints in their original format in the future. Good to see the foil edition has no barcode box on the front cover, instead being relegated to the back as DC now do with all their facsimiles. Wish Marvel would adopt the same approach with future standard reissues.
Also, the reproduction of the ads in the DC mags is spot-on, not having the wishy-washy, faded look to them of some previous facsimiles. Looks like they're finally getting the hang of it.
Anyway, if you don't already have these titanic titles, rush round to your nearest comics shop or get on to eBay and nab 'em for your collection. Incidentally, if you were thinking of not buying the SS #1 reprint because you already have the Fantasy Masterpieces presentation from the '70s, be aware that this issue had a few pages omitted and isn't complete. It was edited in such a way as not to be obvious, but I'm sure you'd prefer to own the complete story.
Anyway, feast your eyes on these covers.
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| Copyright DC COMICS |
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| Copyright DC COMICS |
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| Copyright MARVEL COMICS |
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| Copyright DC COMICS |
The original 1971 publication of the above Replica Edition from 2000 has various asking prices on eBay, from just under £100 all the way up to over £1,500. Even some of the replicas are pretty heftily priced in my opinion. However, I got mine for a far more reasonable amount, which didn't even come close to breaking the bank.
What interested me about this mag, which is unashamedly aimed at the girlie market, is the roster of artists whose work it contains. Are you ready for this? In either a pencilling or inking capacity, Jay Scott Pike, Bob Oksner, Morris Waldinger, Win Mortimer, Art Saaf, Vince Colletta, John Romita, Tony Abruzzo, Ric Estrada, Wally Wood, Norman Nodel, Mort Drucker, Bob Lander, Mike Sekowsky, and Bernard Sachs. The stories are written by Robert Kanigher and Jack Miller (one strip in two parts) and do the job, though you won't be on the edge of your seats while reading them.
I learnt about this mag only recently, and it was quite a surprise when I realised the replica itself is 26 years old, and the original a whopping 57 years old. Some of the strips look as though they've been resized and had panels extended, but it's been done reasonably well, in the main. Of course, I know all you male Crivs are far too manly to be interested in the subject of soppy romance and (ugh) love, but I thought you might have some wee sisters who might be. As for myself, I only bought it to use as material for the blog as, like you, I'm also far too manly for such stuff. (As my close friend and constant companion Cyril will testify.)
Unfortunately, the square-bound spine is just a little too tight to open the mag wide enough to scan the interiors flatly, so you'll just have to take my word in regard to the quality of the art, which ain't half bad in my opinion. Comments, anyone?
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| Conan characters copyright CPI |
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| Copyright DC COMICS |
Care Homes. The name is a bit of a misnomer, unless it's referring to the chief 'care' of such places, which is making money. Let me tell you a little about Care Homes, of which I have experience on account of my mother being in one for four years on the 25th of this month. She's 103 (104 in May), has Alzheimer's and cancer, and she's been in it since 2022 and in all that time it's been nothing but a continual stream of complaints from me about the way in which she's 'looked after'. I'm more or less satisfied with the way she's fed and watered in their 'one-size-fits-all' standard of care, but when it comes to specific requirements relating to my mother's particular condition, they don't have a scooby - or if they do, they ignore it.
When I visit, the floor is very often filthy as are the two tables in her room, which the night-shift staff seem unwilling or incapable of wiping unless I ask them, obviously preferring to leave such tasks to the cleaners in the morning. My mother has two hearing aids, which often are left with dead or dying batteries in them, leaving her unable to hear. Sometimes they have no batteries at all, and when I ask staff to fit new ones, the response is "I don't know where they're kept" or on a few occasions "I don't know how to fit them" The last time I was told this, I asked the woman how long she'd worked in the place and was told "Four years". Simply staggering.
Also, on the back of the battery pack, it says to wait for 60 seconds after removing the orange stickers before inserting, but the staff don't usually bother waiting, meaning the new batteries aren't 100% effective. They also don't press the reset button on the hearing aids after inserting batteries, which, again, means they remain ineffective. I wouldn't trust most of these people to look after a goldfish, never mind a human being. They're supposed to check my mother's hearing aids every few hours, and though they mark down that they have, they clearly haven't bothered. Only recently, I was told that new batteries had been inserted earlier in the morning, but my mother didn't even know when I was speaking to her. When I checked her two hearing aids, one had a battery and the other didn't. So much for new batteries being fitted that morning.
Due to my mother's Alzheimer's, I had asked for her hearing aids and their receptacles to be stored in the reception office at bedtime, to prevent her putting them in before visiting the toilet through the small hours and then forgetting to remove them when she returned to bed. She also has tinnitus, meaning she often hears noises in her inner ear canal which she thinks are 'exterior' noises, resulting in her fitting her hearing aids in the small hours of the morning to see if she can identify their source. She fits them to go to the en suite toilet, then forgets to take them out when she returns to bed, which has resulted in them getting broken on several occasions as she's wearing them while asleep. Due to her befuddled state, she sometimes puts her dentures in the hearing aid receptacles, which makes a helluva mess.
Because of these issues, I asked for her hearing aids and receptacles not to be kept in her room through the night as she didn't need them at 2 a.m. (or whatever) to go to the toilet, and this was agreed upon by management. Staff, however, had a different idea, and despite assuring me several times that this was being followed, weren't actually doing so, as I found out one night when a member of staff inadvertently let slip that the items were left in her room overnight.
I decided to check, so I dropped in at 1 a.m. one morning to find my mother fully dressed and fast asleep, slumped in her armchair in front of the TV, which along with her room light was still on. 1 a.m. - terrible. When I questioned staff as to why my mother wasn't in bed, one of them produced what looked like an envelope, on the back of which was written a list of names and room numbers. Every name had 'assist' written next to it, with the exception of my mother's, which said 'leave'. This was despite me telling staff and management (from day one) that my mother's bedtime was 10 p.m. However, sometimes my mother retired to her bed early, and some clueless 'senior carer' took it upon herself to decide that if my mother could put herself to bed at 7 or 8 p.m., she was likewise capable of going to bed at 10 without assistance.
Trouble with that was my mother would sit up watching TV until she fell asleep in her chair, and because she wasn't being checked, that could be in the wee small hours. Trusting anyone with Alzheimer's to look after themselves properly by going to bed at a reasonable and regular time is ridiculous - they're in a care home because they can't be relied on to look after themselves, yet the numpties in my mother's place apparently think otherwise. Often when I visited, my mother had been left in bed most or all of the day and when I enquired as to why, I was told "because she wanted a lie in". Well, of course she did, being knackered as she wasn't helped to bed at 10 p.m., which is when I said from day one was my mother's bedtime. But nah, why listen to the person who looked after her by himself for years, eh, and who knows what's best for her based on personal experience?
They just seemed incapable of understanding that her limbs and mind would further atrophy if she was left in bed for hours, and sometimes she would just stare at the ceiling when I visited as her mind had essentially closed down through lack of any kind of physical and mental stimulation. They don't care, however, as all they're really interested in is their cigarette breaks and doing as little as they can get away with. Recently, over the course of at least a week, the floor in my mother's room hadn't been swept and the same particles of dirt and 'debris' were still in place after several visits. I took photos, however, and if I have to take the Care Home to court, I have dozens, if not hundreds of photos showing the dirty and untidy state of her room, including excrement on her toilet seat, which wasn't cleaned properly even after me bringing it to their attention. What's that? It's a dirty job and they don't get paid much? Tough! They shouldn't do it then. Hell, what am I saying? They don't.
I'm not saying that all staff are the same, some are quite pleasant, but far too many just don't appear to have a scooby when it comes to the quality of care in regard to a nearly 104 year old woman with Alzheimer's and cancer. In the interests of fairness, the current manageress (she's had two predecessors) is trying to solve the issues, but her staff simply don't seem to listen to her. They treat the place like their private fiefdom and run it for their own convenience rather than that of the residents. It's as though it's staffed by a bunch of amateurs, not properly-trained professionals. It now has new owners, yet I've still to see any consistent improvement. Around three years ago, my local newspaper ran a story about my unhappiness with the place, but the Care Home didn't respond.
No photos this time as there are simply too many to choose from, but in the next instalment there will be horror stories aplenty and I'll publish names and photographs of some of the culprits. Unless, that is, after four years of this fiasco, they can get their act together and treat my mother with the dignity she deserves. Up to them. Non-anonymous comments welcome.
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| Copyright DC COMICS |
If you're a comics-buying Brit of a similar vintage to myself, you know US comics used to come to the UK as ballast in ships. This meant it was months, maybe even years after they were published in the States, before they appeared on our newsagents' spinner-racks, though occasionally some of them were available on our shores not too far removed from their US point of sale. 'Twas all down to random chance and a bit of good luck, basically.
I recall buying a few US mags back in the '60s, which I later bought again in the '70s, in brand-new condition and for their original price - or whatever the current equivalent was. Seaside resorts like Largs and Blackpool were particularly good for finding pristine, inexpensive US comics, and I acquired several Kirby FFs years after he'd departed Marvel for DC, as well as some Buscema Silver Surfers. What are the chances of that happening today, eh?
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Forgive the preamble, but I wanted to set the scene for what I'm about to say next. Although DC Super Spectacular #6 was published in 1971, I never saw it in my local shops 'til around '73, maybe even '74, whereupon I swiftly bought it. I no longer remember how long I had it for, but I don't think it would've been years, probably no more than a few months at the most. I was more of a comics buyer in those days, as opposed to a collector.
Anyway, in 2004, DC Comics released a replica edition of the mag, which I bought at the time (and still have), though there was something about the wrap-around cover that didn't look quite right to me. The original covers had been drawn by Neal Adams (pencils) and Dick Giordano (inks), but there was something subtly different about the replica edition. Upon investigation (reading the indicia), I discovered the cover was a re-creation by Dick Giordano on his own.
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I'd have thought Giordano, as the original inker, could've managed to re-create a more faithful replica of the covers, but seemingly not. Did he draw it from scratch, trace it, use a projector, or utilise the 'graph' method? I don't know, so if anyone does, please enlighten your fellow Crivvies, if you'd be so good. Anyway, I recently acquired a replacement for my long-gone original, which I wanted simply because I once had it and wanted to own it again. That's nostalgia for you.
So here are both versions for you to compare. Black Canary looks as though she's got a slight squint in the replica and there are other faces which don't quite match their original incarnations. Is this the sort of thing that'd bother you, Crivs, or do you regard such things as inconsequential? Would you even have noticed the differences had I not drawn your attention to them? Feel free to mock my anally-retentive memory (when it works properly) in the comments section.
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| Copyright CPI |
I must confess I've quite enjoyed the first three issues of The Savage Sword Of Conan Reforged, where Heroic Signatures/Titan have sensitively coloured various b&w classic Marvel strips and breathed new life into them, visually speaking.
However, what I don't quite understand is this: Although CPI own the copyright on all things Conan, 'twas Marvel who originally commissioned these strips and paid for them. Surely, then, they belong to Marvel, who you'd think would retain ownership of the images even though they no longer have a license to publish them. Why, then, are Titan (or whoever) allowed to reprint Marvel strips when they never financially contributed to them when first published? Or is there something I don't know about? Like, perhaps Marvel receives a fee for the use of pages which they should really still own, even if they can't publish them on account of no longer having licensing rights to the character? If not, I'd say they should. (Get a fee, I mean.)
But that's not what this post is about - I just got carried away. (Whaddya mean I should be?!) Thought you'd like to see the covers to #s 2 & 3, as well as some interior pages to show how good the colouring is. However, this wouldn't be Crivens without a bit of criticism. Cop a gander somewhere below at the woman being seized by (spoiler alert) cannibals: to my eyes, her head is too high above her shoulders, and too far back to be entirely natural looking. I'd say Neal Adams (or an assistant) erred on this pic and should've put more work into it. Saying that, though, these are nice looking mags, and a Roy Thomas Conan Tale is usually always worth reading. (For the record, I prefer the art on the John Buscema-illustrated tale.)
In the text piece in issue 2, there's a couple of typos, but I'm not sure if the article was retyped or simply scanned from whatever issue it originally appeared. Either way, it would've been nice if they'd been corrected, as I, for one, hate anything that detracts from a mag's potential perfection. I haven't yet read the text piece in #3, so am unaware if it's error-free or not. Anyway, enjoy the piccies and feel free to leave a comment on what you think about these Cimmerian comic mags if you've bothered to buy them. (And if not, why not?!)
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| Copyright MARVEL COMICS |
I can't remember whether or not I've referred to this before, but I've intended to for a while now, so here it is. It's the very first time the FF's flare gun signal has been used, and the cops in the 2nd last panel are seeing it as it happens, just like everyone else. It's only been in the sky for mere seconds, perhaps a minute or two at most, but one of the cops states "Rumours are flyin' about an alien invasion!". Come again? There hasn't been time for any rumours to get started (much less for the cop to hear about them), and what's so alien about three English words in the sky? H'm, methinks Stan boobed with this bit of dialogue, what say the rest of you?*
(*Obviously not much, going by the distinct lack of comments.)
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One more thing: Look at the 'splash' panel, in particular the person standing between the woman and man both pointing at the flare. The left shoulder of the 'in-betweener' appears to be in front of the woman, despite her being larger, which suggests this panel is a 'composite' of two different panels less than competently merged together.
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Update: Just noticed I had indeed already referred to the flare gun and cops in an earlier post, but it was worth repeating in case anyone missed it.
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| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS |
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| This cover illo was also pressed into service as a splash page in the very next issue. Not quite in the same league as the SURFER cover above, eh? |
