FRED & BARNEY - FRIENDS TO THE END...

A little while back I promised to show you my FLINTSTONES WALKER by MARX TOYS, made way back in the early 1960s.  So, without any further ado - enjoy.  YABBA-DABBA-DOO!

To see my YOGI BEAR & HUCKLEBERRY HOUND walking toy, click here.

SNEAKY GOINGS ON IN THE COMICS WORLD...?

Well, my spies were a little late reporting this one to me, but better late than never I suppose.  It's just been brought to my attention that, some weeks back, a certain blogger made remarks in the comments section of one of his posts which seem to suggest that he's responding to a particular (though un-named) individual with whom he's been known to disagree.

Now, call me a cynic, but if indeed he is referring to that specific person (which is the consensus of those who alerted me to it), why would he knowingly print comments from someone he's banned from his site and then respond to them?  It just doesn't add up.  Unless, of course, he wrote the comments himself to cast suspicion on that particular person and show them in a bad light.

I've seen it all now.  Oh well, onward and upward.

THEREIN HANGS A TALE - DITKO SPIDER-MAN COVERS...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

I suppose there's some kind of irony to waxing lyrical about the joys of holding an actual, physical comic and illustrating my post with images which you, the reader, will be viewing on a computer screen - but it's one we'll just have to live with I'm afraid.  In an age where the future of comics appears to lie in a digital format, wandering into a newsagent's and plonking down your pennies in exchange for a printed publication may well soon be a thing of the past, but to this old dinosaur, using a laptop, iPad or mobile 'phone to follow your favourite funnies or herculean heroes just can't compare to the 'real thing'.

There's something about the shape and feel of a comicbook, the ink on the page, the smell of the paper even - which the digital impostor cannot match, and - truth to tell and without meaning to be patronising - I feel kind of sorry for future generations if their only exposure to printed comicbooks is going to be looking at them in an airtight, temperature-controlled glass case in a museum somewhere.  Let's hope that the two formats - digital and traditional - can co-exist for many more years yet at the very least.

Anyway, back now to the fascinating subject in hand, which is the next batch of '80s MARVEL TALES reprints of '60s SPIDER-MAN adventures by STAN LEE and STEVE DITKO. Apparently, the FANTASTIC FOUR stories by Lee and JACK KIRBY were considered for a similar treatment, though I now forget if it would've been in a separate reprint mag or in Marvel Tales after the Lee and Ditko Spidey stories had run their course.  Not that it matters much because it never happened.  Readers had to wait until the advent of the MASTERWORKS series of volumes a few years later to see the early FF classic tales again.

Anyway, I'd better not keep you from the goodies any longer - enjoy these cataclysmic classic covers from yesteryear. 

Sharp-eyed readers will have noticed that the above image has been 'flipped' from its initial appearance and that DOC OCK's face has been changed to a more slimline version.  The glasses seem like an afterthought, not being rendered too well - and look as if they're about to fall off.

Also, when the original cover was first printed, back in the '60s, Stan Lee had Jack Kirby redraw the lower parts of Spidey's legs, being dissatisfied with Steve Ditko's rendition of them.  Curiously, for the Marvel Tales reprint they've been redrawn yet again, not matching either Ditko's or Kirby's versions.

Want to see more Marvel Tales/Spider-Man covers?  Just try and stop me!  For Part Three, click here.  For Part One, click here.)