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| Image copyright DC COMICS |
I somehow find it slightly strange how you can seemingly forget something that was once a familiar, everyday feature of your life for years - until, that is, something else reminds you of it and you realize that you hadn't quite forgotten it at all, you merely hadn't thought of it in a while.
Case in point: When I went to see SUPERMAN The MOVIE in early January of 1979 at the ABC Cinema in Glasgow, at the film's end I bought a souvenir booklet and a poster - which was exclusive to Scottish audiences (because we're special) - from a booth in the foyer. (That is, the poster was exclusive. I'm not quite sure about the booklet - which I've still got, incidentally.)
The poster hung on my wall for close to four and a half years, until we moved to a new house and I then gave it to a visiting pal in a fit of generosity (some might say madness), without ever having hung it in my new room. "Are you kidding?" he asked, not believing his good fortune when I enquired of him if he'd like it. Then he was off back down to England and I never saw either poster or pal again.
Well, regular readers of this blog will know ('cos I've told them often enough) that, just over four years later, we moved back to our previous house and, where possible, most of my posters (or exact duplicates) were put back up in the same spot they had occupied previously. Except for the Superman poster, obviously, because I no longer owned it.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, I recently acquired a high quality A4 glossy print of the poster, which once again occupies the room it first hung in back in the late '70s and early '80s. True, it's nowhere near the size of the original, but it's still large enough to see in all its marvellous magnificence, as opposed to the fuzzy, pixelated, thumbnail pictures occasionally glimpsed on some remote corner of the internet.
Seeing it back in its accustomed place more than 30 years since it was last there is oddly comforting, bringing with it memories of a time when I was younger, fitter, taller and had a far more optimistic outlook on life. There's just something I can't quite explain about seeing these primary and prominent colours and images (Superman, the logo, the stars, the background, etc) once more in that same corner of my old room. It's as if the poster somehow belongs there.
And it's like returning to an earlier era and reclaiming the years one has lost to Time over the decades between then and now. True, such a notion may be only an illusion, but, like all the best illusions, seems as real as the warmth of the sun on one's face on a Summer morning, or a refreshing drink in the cool of the evening or at the close of the day.
Welcome back, Supes!
******
Update: I'm now able to have the poster printed in the same size as the original if I wish, but it would mean rearranging the other posters on my wall and I don't think the wallpaper could withstand it. I've therefore got one in the same size as a SECRET WARS poster in the same spot that the Supes one once occupied, so that I can swap them over if I ever feel like it.
