50 YEARS OF JAMES BOND...

Got a bit of time to kill?  Then you may enjoy this.

BABE Of The DAY - HEATHER THOMAS...

I've been a little remiss recently in

bringing you your Babe of the Day, so to

make up for it, here's HEATHER THOMAS,

with whom I'm in love - and I'm sure she'd feel

the same about me if she knew of my existence.

(How could she ever resist me?)  Eh, what's that,

nurse, time for my injection, you say?  So just

when am I gonna be freed from this rubber

 room?  Heather, call me!

CAN YOU DRAW COMICS The MARVEL WAY?

Copyright MARVEL COMICS/SIMON & SCHUSTER

If I remember correctly after all this time, I ordered my copy of HOW To DRAW COMICS The MARVEL WAY from a mail-order company called MAYA MERCHANDISING towards the end of 1979.  You can imagine my disappointment when I eventually received a note saying they were currently out of stock, but would send one on when they received more copies.  It was sometime in early 1980 when a card through my letterbox informed me of a parcel awaiting collection from my town centre main post office, and I well-recall the surge of excitement when I finally held that brown paper-covered package in my hands.

The book was a 5th printing, but that didn't bother me back then.  (And anyway, I eventually acquired a first edition many years after, when my collector's desire for such things had increased a tad.)  11 years later (though it seems much longer looking back), STAN 'The MAN' LEE personally autographed my copy, as well as a handful of other books.  (That was 23-odd years ago and, conversely, seems much shorter in retrospect.  Odd, that.)  Personally, I think it's a brilliant book, and it inspired me to draw a SUPERMAN versus HULK page (which I'll post when I find the ruddy thing) shortly after reading it.  Stan's snappy patter is a delight, and elevates the tome far above other, similar volumes.

Curiously, the TITAN BOOKS soft-cover edition omits the first half of Stan's dedication at the front of the book, and both it and the American SIMON & SCHUSTER/FIRESIDE volume appear to have printed page 68 upside down. Whether this was done deliberately to make it more interesting (and challenging) is always a possibility, I suppose, but I wouldn't risk betting my shirt on it.  Other comic art instruction manuals have been issued over the years, but few of them are as inspirational as Stan's and JOHN BUSCEMA's original 'How to draw comics' book, in my view.

Don't have a copy on your bookshelf?  It's still readily available so why not rectify that right away?

Stan's autograph

Titan Books edition omits everything before "Dedicated to every..."

Does anyone really stand with their legs so far apart?  In Glasgow, that's just asking for a kick in the nuts!

"Okay, who's nicked my clothes?  I left them right here!"

If this is what you see looking out at you from the mirror, then you sure are one ugly buggah, yes sirree