SUPERMAN, 'BOB BILLENS', AND ME...

Images copyright DC COMICS

I was looking for some biographical information on a well-known comics artist a couple of days back, and duly entered his name (or so I thought) into the search box at the top of the screen. Being the impatient type, I picked the first one on the proffered list and hit the key - only to discover that it wasn't the individual I was looking for.

My mistake, but - many years ago - I had a friend whose name was very similar to that of the artist, and, in my haste, I'd unconsciously typed his name - Bob Billens - instead of the intended Bob Billings.  (Names changed to protect the guilty, but they really are that similar.) The face of what appeared to be a complete stranger stared out at me from the screen, and I was about to backspace to the previous page when something made me look again more closely.

Wonder of wonders! It was the actual former friend of nearly half my life ago, apparently doing very well in the world - if his self-penned many fine words in tribute to him and his achievements can be taken at face value.  Not that it matters much - he was always his own biggest fan.  And anyway, what's a blog for if not to blow one's own trumpet?  (And, in his case, try and generate a few freelance employment opportunities.)

What struck me, however, was just how old he looked, which is why I hadn't recognised him at first glance.  Being the nostalgic sort, I just couldn't stop my mind from rewinding back through the many years to when I first met 'Bob', sometime in 1979.  As I have to fill this blog with something, I may as well tell you about it now.  Hopefully, I'll contrive a way of making it seem at least vaguely interesting before we reach the end of the story.

Starting in February 1979, I worked in my local Central Library for about six or seven months. Quite a few of the 'head' librarians were given to looking down their noses at those working 'under' them, and boasting about the extent of their overdrafts.  (As banks only give money to those who've already got money, they considered it some sort of status symbol to be accorded the 'honour' of owing loads of dosh.)  They really were a tedious bunch of pretentious, insufferable poseurs.

I'd been there for perhaps only a couple of months when a female colleague one day exclaimed: "You sound just like Bob Billens...", before explaining - in response to my predictable enquiry - that 'Bob Billens' was a university student (just graduated) who worked in the library during the Summer months.

Anyway, before long, I got to meet Bob Billens, and - sure enough - he did sound a little like me.  Amazingly, he was also a dyed-in-the-wool comicbook geek like myself, and we soon hit it off - talking comics and swapping opinions on what we thought of the new SUPERMAN movie with CHRISTOPHER REEVE (which was then still only a few months old).  We also indulged in a fair amount of secret sniggering at the pomposity and pretensions of our library 'masters'.

I very quickly became discontented and suddenly quit the job, but our friendship continued. However, not too long afterwards, Bob and his wife (in a pre-planned career move) 'upped-sticks' and relocated to England.  We kept in touch for a few years until, gradually, his new life claimed him completely and his already steadily-waning inclination to maintain contact finally evaporated.

When shot-on-location photos of Superman IV he'd taken and promised to send never arrived - with no word from him in the weeks or months that followed - it became clear he'd no intention of getting in touch again.  Not being one to impose myself on people, I didn't pursue the matter, even though I found it slightly puzzling given our common interest.

Perhaps he'd simply concluded that, being hundreds of miles distant, I could serve no further possible practical purpose in his day-to-day life (especially after I'd given him my highly collectable SUPERMAN The MOVIE poster) and was therefore surplus to requirements.

Also, I probably just didn't measure up to his 'sophisticated' new circle of posh friends and colleagues down South.  He'd actually once 'hinted' as much on a brief visit home, when he gave me an odd look and said "I dread to think what the folks at work would say if they saw you."  He tried to say it in a 'jokey' way, but was obviously embarrassed by what he considered my lack of sartorial elegance and less than fashionable appearance.  (Judge for yourselves from the above photo.  I think I look rather saintly.)

The irony of him becoming the same kind of status-seeking, social-climbing snooty snob as the former library colleagues he'd so often claimed to despise and regularly heaped scorn upon isn't lost on me.  It would be on him though, but that's usually the way of such things.

That reminds me - I really must track down a replacement for that Superman movie poster one day.  One that doesn't look quite so old and as tired as Bob Billens.

(And 'Bob' - if by some remote chance you ever happen to read this - I'm sure you'd like to know that 'Big Rosa' sends you her regards.  I can't speak for anyone else though.)

******

And no doubt you'll all be pleased to know that I've now obtained a replacement poster of the one I originally bought way back in January 1979 in the ABC Cinema in Glasgow.