PAY TO SHOP? VOTE WITH YOUR WHEELS...

Here's an aerial shot of my local town centre taken, I'd say, sometime between 1968 and around '73.  That's the way I remember it when I was a kidlet, up to my early teenage years until, slowly, surely, it began to change into something completely different. 

Were a new photo to be taken today, all you'd be able to see is a roofed-over, soulless shopping complex built over the car parks and most of the grassy areas on the right-hand side of the picture.  The building you can see in the middle of that area used to be a cinema, but is now a bingo hall, the front part of which is roofed over and incorporated into the shopping centre.

The tall building right smack-dab in the middle of the photo is now demolished (apart from the first two floors) and, again, just about every open street around it is nowadays covered by the aforementioned shopping complex.  However, as the company which owns it charge for parking, most sensible people shop in a retail park just outside of town, or use other shopping centres in or around Glasgow which don't levy parking charges against them.

When you think about it, it's an entrance fee by stealth.  You go to do your shopping and you have to pay for the 'privilege' if you're a car owner.  In my book, if you want people to shop in your complex, then you provide the parking space which enables (and encourages) them to visit and spend their dosh in the stores, not charge them for doing so.

No wonder so many of the units have been vacated or lain empty since they were built a few years back - those who can travel to shop elsewhere, do so.  Let's hope the landlords wise up soon, before the centre becomes a 'ghost-town'.

Any gripes about your shopping centre?  Let's hear 'em!

I DREW MONTY'S DOUBLE...

Some years ago, I worked in my local MOTOROLA plant and, upon turning up for work one night, I was charged with an unusual task.  One of the staff was retiring (though certainly not shy) and, knowing of my artistic leanings, my boss, MARIE, asked me to do a caricature to be presented to the soon-to-be former worker the next day.  It was a bit short-notice, but I was supplied with a photo of the individual and let loose.

What you see above is the result, drawn during my half-hour lunch break in the wee small hours of the morning.  Done with a gel pen if I remember correctly, I took a bit of care inking this one as it was going to be framed before being given to the 'lucky' recipient, but it was still drawn pretty fast, hence the name of DUNN KWIK, my pseudonym employed for all pieces that circumstances (or laziness) dictated being produced in a bit of a hurry.  It was a good likeness and I hear the subject was more than pleased with the the finished article.

I can see what needs improved, but, all-in-all, it isn't too bad and adequately fulfilled the purpose for which it was created.  Can't ask for more than that in half an hour, can you?  Obviously it would've been far better in colour, but not having been given any advance warning, I had nothing with which to colour it.

******

In fact, on reflection, scratch that modest assessment above.  That drawing is pretty darn good considering the circumstances under which it was produced, drawn off the top of my head with no reference material as a prompt.  And it's a good likeness, given that all I was provided with was a thumbnail-sized photo on an ID card.     

HOORAY! PART TEN Of SPIDER-MAN COMICS WEEKLY COVER GALLERY...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Within a year of The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL being launched in Britain, STEVE DITKO's back-catalogue of SPIDER-MAN stories had been exhausted, the last of them appearing in SMCW #32 - released 15 days short of a full 12 months since the first issue of MWOM had gone on sale on September 30th, 1972.  Had the early Spider-Man adventures been reprinted in complete instalments, they'd have been used up far quicker than they were.

Just goes to show that U.K. weekly comics consumed far more material that their U.S. monthly counterparts.  In fact, I believe that the Stateside PLANET Of The APES was kept going in later issues mainly to provide material for the British POTA because it was so popular, thereby adding to the merry Marvel coffers.

Like its companion title, SMCW by this time was completely devoid of colour - apart from front and back covers - and had lost some of the visual appeal that earlier issues had.  Nonetheless, at 40 pages for 5p, it still represented good value for money, and was to prove the longest-lasting title in the British Marvel stable.

However, a surprise was lurking around the corner.  Maybe I'll tell you about it in our next Spidey cover gallery post.

'DOODLE Of The DAY' - PART TWO...

Characters copyright MARVEL COMICS

Here's one I really shouldn't show you.  Why?  'Cause there's just so much wrong with it on so many different levels.  By the way, ignore the credits - the page was never inked.  What you see before you is a scan of an A4 photocopy of the A3 original art, with the contrast increased to make the pencil lines look like ink lines. Yeah, I know, it doesn't quite work.  The lettering and border lines are in ink though. (And you're right - it really doesn't qualify as a 'doodle' - but it is unfinished art and I like the title.)

So what's wrong with it?  For a start, the lettering is too big, the gutters are too large, the figures in the first panel are all standing on different levels, Reed Richards tilts at an odd angle, Sue Storm is a bit stiff and unnatural, while the folds in her lower arm's sleeve are overworked.  In its original, softer, pencilled version, some of these faults were slightly less glaring, but with the contrast turned up they hit the reader smack dab in the kipper. 

This was drawn for my own amusement back around the end of April, start of May 1983.  It was intended to be the first page of a 5 page origin tale, but, as usual, I soon lost interest and didn't proceed any further with it.  Don Gordon and Percy H. (for Hinkle) Pinkerbottom are both names I've used on occasion, the latter being adopted as my legal name for a number of years back in 1982.  (Remind me to tell you that story sometime.)

However, despite its faults, I'm proud of the pencil work on Ben Grimm.  His left arm in the first pic is a bit stiff, but I think I mostly did a decent job with the creases in his jacket in all 3 panels.  I also believe there's a definite suggestion of 'solidity' in the 2nd pic of Ben, as opposed to the rather flat one of Sue in the first.

Am I going to utter those immortal words?  Yep, you betcha!  "One day I'm going to sit down and redraw the thing properly."  Of course, it would've been smarter to have drawn it properly to begin with, but that's often easier said than done.