HOLY CAPES & COWLS - PART TWO OF TOPPS 1966 BATMAN CARDS...

Images copyright DC COMICS & TOPPS

NORMAN SAUNDERS was the artist who painted the TOPPS 1966 BATMAN cards, over layouts by BOB POWELL (though I'm unsure if this was the case with every card), and if you owned them back in the day you'll remember how striking they were.  And now all you lucky Criv-ites need no longer rely only on memory, as you can gaze upon yet another six cards in the spectacular series. 

These iconic images come from the 1989 Deluxe reissue edition cards, which, if anything, were superior to the originals, so paste your popping peepers upon these pulsating pics, you lucky lovers of nostalgia, you!

BABE Of The DAY - JESSICA RABBIT...

Copyright Touchstone/Disney

What's the matters with you all?  So

what if she's only a cartoon?  I definitely

would!  (You know what I mean.)  (And

Moonmando probably has!)

PAVING The WAY To The PAST...

Paving slabs - or sidewalk slabs as our American readers might call them.  Not that it much matters as I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about whichever term I use, but I thought it best to cover all the angles.  A number of years back (15 or 20 maybe), my local council started to replace paving slabs with the same substance they use on the roads - tarmacadam, I guess.  I don't like it to be honest, because it makes the streets darker and gloomier at night, as the substance doesn't reflect light from the streetlamps in the same way as lighter-coloured paving slabs do.

Also, it tends to sink - and crack - in places, resulting in an uneven, pock-marked surface not unlike an obstacle course, which makes walking more of an ordeal than it should be.  The tarmacadam paths in my area are currently being renewed, to make them safer and less patchwork, but no sooner have the workmen completed a stretch of street than residents are parking their cars up on the side of it, which is the main cause of the kerbsides being all cracked and crumbled to begin with.  The fact that people in wheelchairs or invalid buggies, or folk with prams or pushchairs, can't get by is ample testament to just how thoughtless and selfish some car owners can be.  But that's not the point of this post - I'll save that rant for another time.

There are some areas within my hometown which still have the original paving slabs from when they were first laid in the '50s and '60s.  Whenever I find myself walking on them, I'm struck by the fact that, in most cases, these are the same slabs that I actually walked on as a child and I feel connected to my past in a way that's difficult to adequately explain.  (But you know me - it won't stop me trying.)  I was visiting an old neighbourhood recently where some sections of street are as they were when I was a boy, and the sense of walking in my own footsteps was quite a fascinating one.  (For me anyway.)

These were the very slabs on which I walked as a youngster, on my way to the shops, or to school, or to visit a friend, and they were still there after all this time.  Much has changed about the world since they were first laid - industry, technology, society, etc., but the slabs have survived. Eventually, of course, they'll be replaced by tarmacadam, and a sense of sadness will assail my soul at their passing; yet another reminder that much of what encapsulates an earlier era - the era of my childhood and teenage years in particular - is slowly but ever-so-surely being wiped away, erased from reality as if it had never existed.  In time, that 'clean sweep' will catch up to me and I'll join the ranks of history, but it's odd to think that paths on which the Romans walked centuries ago will continue to outlast the ones on which you or I trod for a minuscule fraction of that time.

So next time you're out for a walk, give a thought to the slabs under your feet.  They were there when you were a child and their days may well be numbered.  True, that's a fate we'll all one day face, but it's a shame that the things of which our lives consist can't be with us to the end, don't you think?

Hopefully, I've paved the way for some contemplative reflection on your part - and some interesting comments in return.  C'mon, Criv-ites - don't let me down!  (Even if you don't quite understand what I'm wittering on about.)