A TRUE TALE Of BIRTH AFTER DEATH...

Images copyright DC COMICS

1974.  The date trips off my tongue with such familiar ease that it still seems fairly recent to my mind.  Hard to believe, then, that it was actually 38 years ago when I was still a mere lad.  Back then, DC COMICS had a title called BLACK MAGIC, which reprinted SIMON & KIRBY tales from a magazine of the same name published in the 1950s.

I remember buying the first issue with such startling clarity that I almost feel as if I went to bed last night as a 15 year old boy and woke up today the age I am now.  Life really does go by so fast, alas.  However, it's a story in the second issue that made a big impression on me which has lasted to this day - "BIRTH AFTER DEATH".

It purports to be a true account of events leading up to the birth of SIR WALTER SCOTT, the famed Scottish novelist, playwright and poet born in Edinburgh in 1771, who died in Melrose at the age of 61 in 1832.  (ROB ROY and IVANHOE being but two of his works.)

Although I've checked, I've never been able to find any corroborating evidence to back up the tale, but I find it hard to believe that Simon & Kirby would simply have made the whole thing up.  I remember reading the comic (on the day I bought it) in the graveyard of a local centuries-old church, complete with the burial vault of a once-prominent family from ages past.  Creepy but apt, don't you think?  Obviously that's why I associate the tale with the place today.

1822 portrait of Scott by Raeburn

Anyway, have a read and make up your own mind.  Fact or fiction?  To me though, it's one of those stories that - if it isn't true - it ought to be.

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UPDATE: Simon & Kirby's story is true after all (with just a little artistic licence in regard to minor details).  From THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL, Tuesday, October 18th, 1932, comes the following account.  (Thanks, Tongalad.)

Sir Walter Scott's Mother Buried Alive Five Years Before His Birth

Old Essay Reveals She Was Rescued From Tomb Due to Ghoulish Sexton

London England - The astonishing fact that Sir Walter Scott's mother was declared to be dead and was actually interred five years before Sir Walter Scott's birth is recalled in a letter to the Daily Express, sent by George MacDonald, Birmingham.

"Her weird sepulchral experience," says MacDonald, "is described as follows by a great essayist of many decades ago."

Buried in Vault

Here is the description:

"Miss Rutherford, while lying in a trance and declared by the physicians to be dead, was laid away in the family tomb in the great vaults under the parish church.

"At night the ghoulish sexton stealthily entered the tomb, opened the casket and proceeded to rob the elegant and entombed lady of the jewels which were on her person according to the then prevalent custom.  Finding some of the finger rings too tightly fixed, the unconscionable thief took his pocket knife and slashed the flesh from the fingers.

"Came to Life"

"The sudden shock and flow of blood caused a reaction of the vital forces, and the reanimated lady opened her eyes, uttered an exclamation of amazement and attempted to rise up.

"The guilty and horror-stricken rascal's hair rose straight upon his head, and with the yell of a desperate madman he rushed forth, thus raising the alarm which brought help and rescue to her.

"She lived many years subsequently, none the worse for her awful adventure which occurred five years previously to the birth of Sir Walter."

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Click the link below (provided by Tongalad) to see the actual newspaper's front cover:

http://news.google.com/newspapersnid=1499&dat=19321018& id=uahQAAAAIBAJ &sjid=2SEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5668,6482729

Unfortunately, the above link appears to be no longer active, though it was for years. 

HAS THE BUBBLE BURST?

As far back as I can recall, I've always had a thing for Bubble Cars.  I remember being on holiday one year when I was about three or four - in Ayr perhaps - and trying to win one from a grappling machine.  (Or what- ever they're called.  You know the thing I mean - one of these plexiglass cases found in amusement arcades and [nowadays] shopping malls where you direct a crane-type grappling arm and try and lift the prize desired.  There must be a name for them, but if I ever knew it I've forgotten.)

Anyway, the owner of the amusement arcade, seeing my disappointment at not being able to secure a dark red Bubble Car, beckoned me to follow him (don't panic, my parents were with me) and, going behind a curtain into the back of the arcade, gifted me with a friction-drive Bubble Car of my very own.  Perhaps that's what started my lifelong love of such vehicles, although it doesn't explain my initial desire to acquire one from that machine in the arcade.  Maybe I just liked the shape and the colour. Anyway, regardless of what started me off and whether it was before or after this momentous moment that I developed my appreciation of them, that was the very first Bubble Car I ever owned.

I acquired my second one when I was about eleven or twelve.  It was a CORGI TOYS diecast HEINKEL Bubble Car in a bright orange. I'd have preferred a red one, but the shop (R. S. McCOLL'S) had no such animal, so an orange one it was.  To date, I only have ten Bubble Cars in all (six on display in the accompanying photos), two being three-wheeled affairs, the remainder having a full complement of four.  Yup, believe it or not, some Bubble Cars were actually of the four-wheeled variety, which may come as a surprise to you.

Interestingly (to me at least), that holiday in Ayr was also where I obtained my very first TV COMIC publication - a TV Comic Holiday Special.  At that time I had no idea it was a special edition of a weekly comic, not discovering this fact 'til a year or two later.  In truth, if it hadn't been for MIGHTY MOTH on the cover and DICK MILLINGTON's artwork inside, I would never have associated my first purchased issue of the weekly with the earlier holiday special.  It was the look of Mighty Moth I remembered, not the name of the comic.

Although my parents never owned a Bubble Car, they did acquire a NOBEL car in 1964 or '65, which did sort of suggest a hint of the shape of one.  (See photo below.)  We had this car for at least three or four years, possibly five, and in all that time I only ever saw its twin once.  As far as I'm aware, no toy company has ever issued a scale model of this uniquely-shaped automobile, which is a shame as I'd dearly love one.  (Are you reading this, Corgi?)

So there you have it.  Another rambling reminiscence in which probably no-one apart from myself is even remotely interested.  At least I've recorded these childhood memories for posterity, which - should my memory fade with time - I can return to in the future and remind myself of precious moments I'd forgotten.

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Update, July 2015: I recently learned that a German company called BUDIG released a limited edition, white metal model of the car around 2008, and I managed to obtain one from Rotterdam on eBay.  Here are three of the seller's photos of the one I bought.

HAPPY EASTER MONDAY, BUSTER...

Copyright REBELLION

Fifteen years ago, the Easter copy of BUSTER went on sale, surprisingly with no mention of the celebration on the cover.  Sadly, there would be only two more similarly-themed issues to go before the comic's demise at the end of 1999 (dated into 2000).  For the last few years of its life the fortnightly periodical was mainly reprint, though Buster's strip itself was new material, drawn by JIMMY HANSEN.

   

The ODD-BALL strip below is doubtless a reprint, and is drawn by comics legend TERRY BAVE.  Odd-Ball first appeared in WHIZZER & CHIPS back in 1969, eventually ending up in Buster when the two comics merged in October 1990.

RICKY RAINBOW first appeared in the short-lived NIPPER (for nippers), launched in January 1987.  When it merged with Buster eight months later, Ricky was one of the strips which survived the amalgamation.  Once again, the strip below is most likely a reprint and is drawn by Jimmy Hansen. 

 Have a Happy Easter Monday.  Scoffed all your chocolate eggs yet?  (Buuurrrrp!)

KLANKS AND SPARKS...

Copyright D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd

If Scottish publisher D.C. THOMSON & Co, Ltd had any kind of equivalent to London's FLEETWAY/IPC's mechanical man ROBOT ARCHIE from LION, it was probably BIG KLANKY from The SPARKY comic.  Drawn by BOB WEBSTER, Klanky made his first appearance in the 75th issue and bowed out in #499.  Klanky was an alien robot befriended by Earth children ERNIE and SUE HUGGINS and is fondly remembered by Sparky readers of the time.  What follows is a tale from the 1968 Annual (on sale from around August/September 1967), so sit back, relax, and indulge yourself with a nostalgic trip into yesteryear.