AWESOME ANNUALS From The '60s - FANTASTIC ANNUAL 1968...

Image copyright MARVEL COMICS

I love this cover.  Traced, copied from, or painted over a stat of the splash page from THOR's first appearance in JOURNEY Into MYSTERY #83, it should be hanging on the wall of an art gallery, so magnificent is it in all its MARVELlous majesty.  Don't agree?  Then better watch out - Thor's winging his way to your house right now.  Wouldn't want to be in your shoes, buster!

ANOTHER BABE Of The DAY - RAQUEL WELCH...

Now she's what I call a woman - and I'm

who she'd call for a good time!  Never off the

'phone to me, is RAQUEL.  Well, you've either

got it or you haven't, Crivvies.  (I've got it, but

relax - my doctor gave me some antibiotics,

 and it's now clearing up nicely.)

KLASSIC KOMIC KOVERS - WHIZZER & CHIPS #1...

Copyright relevant owner

"Two comics in one, double the fun!", but WHIZZER & CHIPS was really just one comic with two names.  However, it was a good idea to make readers think that they were getting more bang for their bucks.  (Or in this case, more pages for their pennies.)  On sale on 11th October 1969 (cover-dated 18th), the title lasted for one week past its (un-celebrated) 21st birthday before being merged with stablemate BUSTER, thereby ensuring that at  least a few W&C characters survived a bit longer.

KLASSIC KIRBY KOMIC KOVERS: AVENGERS #1...

Image copyright MARVEL COMICS

Released in the exact same month as The X-MEN, The AVENGERS were really the direct equivalent of DC's JUSTICE SOCIETY Of AMERICA.  The FANTASTIC FOUR may have been inspired by the JLA (or their success, at least), but the Avengers reflected the set-up of their DC rivals more than the FF did.  And they had their very own battle-cry - "AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!"

The POWER Of PICTURES...

The picture in question - sourced from MWOM rather than
WHAM! 'cos I can't open my bound volume wide enough to
scan.  (Images copyright MARVEL COMICS)

Whenever I re-read a book after many years, when it comes to descriptive paragraphs of places, whatever impression formed in my mind when I first read it, is the one that resurfaces upon my re-acquaintance.  The first time I ever read The WIND In The WILLOWS, my impression of the WILD WOOD was an amalgam of the woods at the foot of the street of where I then lived, and the woods in a former neighbourhood in which I'd stayed several years before.  I've re-read the book many times over the years, and the images conjured up in my mind are always the exact same as previously.  Same with MOONFLEET, or The HOBBIT, or TREASURE ISLAND, or whatever - it's the same each time.

That also applies to certain pictures.  For example, when I was a lad, 'twas my custom to (horror of horrors) cut certain pictures I liked from the comics they were printed in.  I was especially fond of clipping out pictures of SUSAN STORM ('cos I fancied her) from the FF stories in the pages of WHAM!, one of my favourite comics at that time.  I not only cut out panels, but figures within panels, resulting in what can only be described as 'paper dolls' which I kept in a checkered vinyl pencil 'purse' I'd found.  (I had to wait six months for it, as I'd handed it into the police - insufferably virtuous kidlet that I was.)

My former back garden

Sometimes I'd sit out on my back doorstep and go through my collection of cut-outs, acting out little adventures with them.  (Before I got my first ACTION MAN - a secondhand one from a pal of my brother - I had a cut-out picture of an Action Man that acted as a stand-in until the real thing came along.)  One morning, I was out in the back garden and saw something caught in the plants which ran along the edge of the lawn below the back window.  It was a picture of Susan Storm, which must've blown off the step on a previous occasion I was seated there, playing with my paper figures.  I was surprised, because I hadn't noticed it was missing and it was one of my favourites, so I was happy to be reunited with it.  Eventually, as I grew older, I had a purge, and consigned all my paper playthings to the dustbin of history.

Here's the thing: Whenever I look at that picture today (in reprints and re-acquired 'originals'), my main association is the back garden of my former house.  Although some later reprints also have their own associations from the time I bought them, they shelter in the shadow of my earliest impressions of that one particular picture.  So here's a question for you.  Is there any specific panel from a comic you read as a child that, when you see again, transports you right back to the time and place where you first encountered it?  If so, tell your fellow Crivvies all about it in the comments section.

Me on the back step - 19 years after moving from the house

BABE Of The DAY - BRIGITTE BARDOT...

Wotta waist!  BRIGITTE BARDOT

 shows how a belt should be worn.