MONDAY IS 'WHAM!' DAY - OR AT LEAST IT USED TO BE...

Copyright REBELLION

I thought you'd enjoy seeing some of the contents from the comic lying on the floor in the photo in the previous post, so here are a handful of pages from WHAM! #134, cover-dated January 7th 1967.  Regarding the classic FRANKIE STEIN strip, I'm lucky enough to own the original art for this legendary KEN REID page, and it's indeed an enormous joy and wonder to behold.  There's no point begging, you can't have it and that's final.  The SAMMY SHRINK page is drawn by DAVE JENNER, who would be followed by TERRY BAVE not too long after, at first imitating Jenner's style but gradually supplanting it with his own.

The FANTASTIC FOUR page consists of two U.S. sized pages, cut and pasted into a single U.K. one.  I think The TIDDLERS pages are drawn by MIKE LACEY in a pseudo-BAXENDALE style, and are typical of the kind of humour to be found in most ODHAMS PRESS publications of the period.  I just love that colour cover!

  

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

COMICS AND CHAIRS AT TWELVE O'CLOCK...

It's been 32 years since the chair on the right of the picture has occupied that position.  I
brought it downstairs to recreate the scene.  On the floor is WHAM! #134 (cover-dated 7th
January 1967) which lies open at the FANTASTIC FOUR tale, "MASTER Of PLANET
X!"  Just think, that was 46 years ago - where did the time go?

When I was a boy, I lived just up the road from my primary school and sometimes nipped home for lunch.  As I sat at the table, I would steal surreptitious glances at whatever comic I happened to have, lying next to me on the floor as I scoffed my midday meal.  Even when we moved some years later, I maintained the habit of putting a comic on the floor to look at as I ate.  I couldn't read it of course, but I'd leave it open at a favourite page and just gaze at it between stuffing forkfuls of food into my gob.

The other day, while browsing through a 1960s back issue, I realised I could easily be sitting on the exact same chair on which I perched while looking at my original copy of the same comic back in 1967.  We had four dining room chairs, two of which were given away (along with our original dining room table) when my parents bought some new ones in early 1981.  Two chairs were kept as spares though, and eventually found their way into other rooms, one of which happens to be my own.

In fact, I'm sitting on the chair as I type (the other one currently residing in the loft, being in need of minor repairs), and the notion that there's a one in four chance it may be the very one I sat on back in 1967 as I read that issue is an extremely comforting one.  (I'd have sat on each of the chairs at some time or other, as I didn't always sit at the same table-place, depending on who else was present.)

There's something about a sense of continuity that's immensely reassuring.  It connects us to our past in such a way that allows us to occasionally forget that we're farther along in life's journey than we care to consider.  And, if you ask me, that's a good thing.