KEN REID'S FINAL FUN-FILLED FROLIC Of FRANKIE STEIN...

Copyright REBELLION

While you're waiting for the last JASPER THE GRASPER strip by KEN REID, here's another last strip by the great man - FRANKIE STEIN.  This was the final Frankie frolic to appear in the pages of WHAM!, in issue #166, cover-dated August 19th 1967.  As we all know, PROFESSOR CUBE's lad was revived in the 1970s under the pen of ROBERT NIXON, but - good as they were - they couldn't quite match the sheer lunacy of Ken's version.

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Looking at this page more closely makes me wonder if another hand might also have been involved, as some of the panels (or bits of them) seem slightly different from Ken's usual approach.  Or am I just imagining things?  Anyone got any thoughts on the matter?

TRAIL OF MEMORIES...

Ever watched a speedboat cut through the sea, or a 'plane soar across the skies above?  What do they have in common?  Both leave a wake of sorts behind them, the disturbed water in the case of a boat, and a vapour or exhaust trail in the case of a 'plane.

It strikes me that memory is a bit like that, especially when you move house.  One's trail of memories belongs to the previous home and area you lived in, so all your established points of reference still exist in the past.  It's not until you've lived for a time in that new habitat and the 'wake' has moved on that your recollections and perceptions pertain to your new surroundings and become 'synchronised'.

In a recent post, I was speculating as to why the 'flavour' of the old house and neighbourhood we had moved from in 1972, carried over to our new place of residence.  Part of it was down to the fact that even though we'd relocated, much of my daily life still took place in my former locale, but it was more than that.  I simply hadn't yet clocked up enough of a store of fresh experiences and associations to draw upon in place of the older ones.  I therefore yet viewed the present through the fixed filter of past perceptions.

When a 'plane has passed out of sight, its trail yet lingers for a while before eventually evaporating.  Which is not to say that new memories and perceptions replace older ones, or that the older ones disappear (we shouldn't push the analogy too far); only that newer memories and impressions then move to the front of the queue of our recollections, becoming the lens through which we view our present environs.

I have high hopes of one day saying something profound.  This wasn't it.

PART TWO Of JOHN BYRNE'S FANTASTIC FOUR COVER GALLERY...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Well, I could write a great long screed here, which would doubtless have you enthralled and hanging on every word, such is my majestic mastery of the English language.  However, I know you don't visit this blog to read what I have to say, regardless of how witty and entertaining I happen to be.  So, I won't detain you any longer from enjoying JOHN BYRNE's dramatic and dynamic delineations of MARVEL's first and favourite family, The FANTASTIC FOUR.  Be warned though - you may have to endure a few self-indulgent footnotes along the way. 

I got this issue from a Glasgow newsagent's at the far end of a street that led to the Barras.
I was doing a signwriting job that day and the guy I was with was shocked to see I'd bought
a comic.  Perhaps he thought it was a comic for girls because of Sue on the cover

This was another one I remember reading in the Blue Lagoon while devouring a Fish
& Chips tea.  In fact, the previous issue may also have enjoyed that distinction

This is another comic I got by mail order from Dave Hern's Wonderworld Comics in
Bournemouth.  Not 100% sure, but I may have got the previous ish at the same time