WHAM! - A POWER PACK ANNUAL...

Copyright relevant owner

Here's a tasty treat from the past - some select pages from the WHAM! Annual for 1967 (issued near the end of '66) - including a lovely three-page colour strip of FRANKIE STEIN, by the irrepressible KEN REID of FUDGE The ELF and FACEACHE fame.  Strangely enough, although POW! Annuals featured reprinted MARVEL stories, the Wham! and SMASH! volumes didn't - relying instead on home-grown humour and asventure strips.

Take a look at the first picture on the third tier of the above page - I believe that's ROBERT BARTHOLOMEW (otherwise generally known as BART - though perhaps it's ALBERT COSSER) who was the editor of Wham!.  It really is a good likeness, regardless of which of the two gentlemen it is.  How do I know?  I occasionally saw this him around the hallways of KING'S REACH TOWER when I was down in London, and MARC JUNG (sub-editor of BUSTER) identified him (as either Bart or Cos, can't quite remember).  Imagine my surprise when, a few years ago, I was leafing through some old letters and found one from the late-'70s from LOOK & LEARN (in response to an enquiry of mine), signed by 'Robert Bartholomew', the editor.  It hadn't clicked with me at the time, but just think - I had the autograph of an editor from one of the favourite comics of my youth and didn't even know it!

   

BIFF (below) later turned up in THUNDER as SAM, a fact which LEO BAXENDALE wouldn't have been happy about as he wasn't paid for the re-use of the ones he'd drawn.  It was his annoyance at this that later caused him to quit U.K. comics altogether.  The irony is, had publishers not defrayed the cost of a weekly title by reprinting a limited number of old strips, they might not have been able to publish the comic to begin with - or continue with it if circulation started to fall.  Result - less work to go around for jobbing cartoonists. (Or vastly reduced page-rates for everyone.)  Catch 22?

   

And now - the one you're all waiting for - FRANKIE STEIN by Ken Reid - in colour.  Who says this blog doesn't deliver the goods, eh?  Given the rather abrupt way the tale ends, I can't help but feel it's a page short.  When I first read it, I turned over the last page expecting it to continue on the following one - but nope, that's all there was.  Ken's pages towards the end of his career lacked the vitality and spontaneity of his earlier work, being somewhat stiff and stilted - but here we have him at his absolute best, so be sure to savour every brushstroke and penline.

  

I'd love to see all of Ken's Frankie Stein strips coloured-up and released in a deluxe format book.  Why someone hasn't yet done it is beyond me.  STEVE HOLLAND (of BEAR ALLEY BOOKS) would be the man for the job - if he thought there was an audience for it.  You'd think there would be, eh?

******

Like to see more from the 1967 Wham! Annual? Well, don't be shy - say so in the comments section.

BOND, BROSNAN, BOOKS And ROUNDABOUTS...

Dust-jacket design by Stefan Dreja

I once borrowed a book from my local central library, and - against a multi-coloured panoply of flowers in a sunken roundabout - sat reading it as a glorious mid-'70s hot summer sun shone down upon me.  The book was JAMES BOND In The CINEMA by JOHN BROSNAN, and a year or two later, I was able to obtain my very own copy from GRANT'S BOOKSHOP just outside Glasgow's Central Station.

Sean Connery as James Bond

The book was published in 1972 and covers the first seven movies in the series, DR. NO to DIAMONDS Are FOREVER.  It's an extremely entertaining and engrossing read, capturing the mood of the films perfectly, although there are a few minor discrepancies in the description of events.  However, Brosnan originally hailed from Australia, where Bond movies were heavily edited in line with the country's strict censorship laws, so that no doubt accounts for some of the occasional and inconsequential (relatively speaking, of course) inaccuracies in matters of detail.

Before the age of videos and DVDs in which a viewer can watch and freeze-frame a movie at his leisure and to his heart's content, the only way to 'relive' a film was to go and see it again at the cinema (this was before the Bond back-catalogue had been sold to TV), buy the soundtrack LP - or to immerse oneself in the pages of a book such as this devoted to the subject.  Brosnan's book is lavishly illustrated with over one hundred stills, virtually all supplied by UNITED ARTISTS themselves.

Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore

I was so impressed by this book that I bought another copy several years later direct from the publishers, The TANTIVY PRESS.  Now I have a pristine copy, plus my well-thumbed original which I can delve into whenever the fancy takes me.  And, whenever I do, I'm right back in the darkened gloom of my local cinema (middle seat, back row) on a Saturday afternoon in the early '70s - where I was fortunate enough to see all six of SEAN CONNERY's 'official' EON Bond blockbusters on the largest screen in Scotland in the first purpose-built cinema in the U.K. since the second world war.

  

Or I'm back in that sunken roundabout on a glorious sunny day a few years later, reading the book for the very first time.  Little did I know then (how could I?) that ten or so years afterwards, I'd be lettering some of the same author's NIGHT ZERO/BEYOND ZERO scripts (illustrated by artist KEVIN HOPGOOD) for 2000 A.D.  I never got to meet John Brosnan or to talk to him, but I remember asking editor ALAN McKENZIE to tell him how much I'd enjoyed his book and some of his movie reviews in DEZ SKINN's STARBURST magazine.

Back of dust-jacket

Sadly, although that sunken roundabout still exists, the flowers and the wooden bench (one of several) I sat upon are gone, and the roundabout itself is in a dilapidated condition.  However, my memories of that day are as sharp and as clear as they ever were, and - should they ever be in danger of fading (like the colours of those long-vanished blooms) - John Brosnan's superb book is only an arm's reach away.

The roundabout (where I first read the book) in its glory days