ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST...

Today I visited a local newsagent's for what will be the final time.  It's a newsagent's which has occupied the same premises for over 50 years and one which I've been using since I was a young kid.  True, it's changed hands over the years, and it adopted a 'mini-market' approach several years back (getting a refit to accommodate its new status), but I mainly used its latter incarnation to buy a newspaper now and again.  It simply couldn't compete with a nearby One-O-One store and closed its doors and shutters today - forever.

  

The comics and books I got from there over the decades (when it sold them) were legion and legendary.  FANTASTIC, WHAM!, various DC & MARVEL mags, WHIZZER & CHIPS, KNOCKOUT, The CLANGERS (a colouring book), The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL, SPIDER-MAN COMICS WEEKLY, a couple of TV COMIC Annuals (1978 & '84, which I've still got) and no doubt countless others which I've forgotten.  The shop has been a regular part of my life for most of it, man and boy, and it's sad to see it go the way of so many other shops in my home town which were once such familiar features to me. 

So yet another one bites the dust, and I suddenly feel very sad and very old.  Did I say the final time?  I will visit the shop again, but, alas, only in memory.  It seems like that's where all the best places are these days.  Is it the same for you?  The comments section awaits.

******

I meant to say, one of the things I missed in the shop's later years was that its big windows were covered by full-length interior adhesive posters.  When I was a kid, they were filled with toys and books, and it was always interesting to look at the window display in passing when the place was closed for the day.  That way, if anything took my fancy, I could nip 'round the next morning and buy it.  When the shop was refitted, new shelves blocked access to the windows from the inside, hence them never being used again to display any of the goods for sale within.  Wasn't a change I liked, and it probably didn't help the shop's fortunes in the long run.

Y'know, I still have dreams to this day (as I have for many a year now) where I'm standing outside the shop looking through the window at all sorts of goodies.  Then I go inside and it's the same layout as it was when I was much younger, and I'm looking at various comics and toys and trying to make up my mind as to precisely which ones I want (or can afford).  I assume it's my sub-conscious mind's way of re-creating long-vanished (and dearly cherished) moments from the days of my expired youth.

The last three items I bought on the day - duly consumed

BABE Of The DAY - LYNDA CARTER...

LYNDA CARTER is thinking "I

wonder if Kid would go out with me on a

date?  I wonder if I should ask him?  I wonder

if he'll let me kiss him at the end of the evening?

I wonder if I should take my toothbrush with me?

I wonder if he's as good a lover as I've heard he

is?"  I guess that's why they call her WONDER

WOMAN.  (And the answer to all of that

 wondering  is a resounding Yes!)

JUSTICE INC. COVER GALLERY... (Updated)

Copyright relevant owner

Here's a puzzler.  I've always thought that I left school in December 1974, yet I have a clear 'memory' of looking at #2 of DC's JUSTICE Inc. in English class one day, in the annexe huts at the back of my school's 'Old Block'.  Problem is, this title didn't come out until '75, so I wonder if I might actually have gone back to school after the Christmas holidays for a few months.  It's probably just a false memory, arising from the fact that I drew The AVENGER's face on the inside cover of a paperback edition of Alistair MacLean's FEAR IS THE KEY.

You see, I read some of the novel in the same classroom and seem to remember drawing the face at the same time - which I couldn't have done if the comic didn't come out 'til '75.  So I must've done the drawing after leaving school, but because I link the book with the classroom, my memory naturally makes the same connection as regards the drawing.  And, as the drawing is of The Avenger, I likewise mis-associate the later comic with that earlier time.  The mind tends to play tricks with the memory in that way on occasion, don't you find?

However, you're not interested in any of that p*sh!  No, you're only here for the covers, so gracious as ever, I'll shut up and let you get on with looking at them.  Two KUBERTs and two KIRBYs - I sure do spoil you and no mistake!

******

Y'know, I have to be honest and say that Jack Kirby's art in issues 2-4 isn't that great.  It looks rushed and even more 'cartoony' than normal for this period of his career, as if he wasn't much interested in the character and was merely knocking out the pages in order to meet his monthly quota.  Of course, it's always possible that he was filling in for another artist at the last moment and had to turn them 'round faster than usual, but they're far from being his finest moment.

Bonus:  Below, the unused cover art for #1 by interior artist AL McWILLIAMS.

Courtesy of HERITAGE AUCTIONS