BABE Of The DAY - LINDA THORSON...

Lovely LINDA THORSON of

The AVENGERS shows how it should

be done in the 'wearing leather jackets'

category.  She'll be popping in for a cuppa

tea in just a moment (then, hopefully, she'll

be 'popping out') so I better go and put the

kettle on and take off the gimp mask as I

don't want to scare  her.  (Okay, who

 said "Better keep it on then!" ?)

KEN REID'S FINAL FACE-ACHE...

Image copyright REBELLION

Some time back, I showed you the very first FACE-ACHE strip by KEN REID (from JET #1, cover-dated May 1st 1971), so I thought it would be nice to show his very last strip that was published, in BUSTER, cover-dated March 14th 1987, just over a month after he died (February 2nd).  Ken had started work on another page but never completed it, and I have a copy of that unfinished strip.  However, I'm not at liberty to reveal it at the moment, but that time will eventually come.  (Incidentally, you can refresh your memory of the first strip here.)

******

As the years passed, Ken's art, although still meticulously rendered, took on a more stiff appearance and was less 'fluid' than it had once been.  More and more, he started to draw people from a side-on view, which made his pages seem a bit flat.  The first panel of the above page serves as an example of this; look at the unnatural side-on angle of the kids seated at their desks.  They actually appear to be looking off-panel, not at the teachers at the front of the class. 

ROLLICKING REPOST: NOW COMES... COLOSSUS!

Copyright REBELLION

Whenever I first read a book, the images that form in my head are indelible.  Even if I re-read the book twenty years later, the exact same imagery is conjured up in my mind as before - though sometimes a more careful contemplation of the text might reveal that what I'd envisioned was perhaps not in perfect accord with the mental picture the writer was trying to paint.  (It's usually pretty close though.)

What do I mean exactly?  Well, if a writer's description of a location is similar enough to one I'm familiar with, then that's where I'll think of whenever I read the associated piece of text.  For example, KENNETH GRAHAME's WILD WOOD (from The WIND In The WILLOWS) is an amalgam, to me, of two different woods in two different neighbourhoods where I lived as a youth.  Exactly which wood depends on precisely which paragraph (or sentence) I'm reading, but one descriptive passage will suggest one wood, and another the other one.  These images formed in my brain when I first read the book, and these are the images that remain with me to this day, no matter how many times I re-read it.

So what's that got to do with this strip from the FANTASTIC Annual for 1968 (issued in August/September of 1967)?  Well, what I've just waxed boringly about in the preceding preamble is pretty much the same when it comes to comic strips.  With one difference of course, as comic strips have their own accompanying set of images which don't require much, if any, interpretive contribution on the part of the reader.  However, comic strips still carry with them their own associations of where and when they were first read, so they leave their own indelible impressions on a reader's mind in a similar way to what novels do.

For instance, I so associate the COLOSSUS strip - drawn by the amazing Spanish artist JOSE ORTIZ MOYA - with the house and neighbourhood in which I stayed when I first read it, that I'm right back there again in a heartbeat on sight of this particular tale.  Regardless of however many homes I've lived in (or ever will live in) since my initial exposure to this story, whenever I've re-read it over the years, it's always that first house I find myself thinking of each time I pore over this astoundingly awesome Ortiz artwork.

Anyway, it goes without saying that you all deserve a gold BLUE PETER BADGE for having to wade through the previous paragraphs of self-indulgent tosh to get to a point that should've taken only a few sentences.  You know me though - in love with the sound of my own computer keyboard.

If you think you recognise the art style, you'd be right.  As well as drawing Spanish strips and working for WARREN PUBLISHING, Jose also drew strips such as The THIRTEENTH FLOOR and The TOWER KING for IPC MAGAZINES.  He did much more than I've mentioned here of course, and fans of the man and his work might like to read more about his career by looking him up on WIKIPEDIA.  Sadly, he died aged 81 on December 23rd, 2013, but he leaves behind a rich legacy of absolutely amazing artwork.

Anyway, congratulations - you've scaled the final plateau. Now you can enjoy this 12-page strip by one of the comic strip medium's true masters.      

SCHOOLTIME SCANDALS INTERLUDE: RHYMES Of The TIMES...

I had a little poodle dog,

a poodle dog was he.

He lifted up his poodle leg

and 'poodled' up a a tree.

I remember a lad called Adam Cowie telling me the above rhyme many, many years ago.  It started me searching my memory for other childhood verses that used to do the rounds in the playground.  Here's a few I remember.

Good King Wenceslas looked out

on the feast of Stephen,

Turned his trousers inside-out

because his bum was freezin'.

*

Beans, beans, are good for the heart,

the more you eat, the more you fart.

The more you fart, the better you feel,

beans, beans, for every meal.

*

Mine eyes have seen the glory

of the burning of the school,

we have tortured every teacher,

we have broken every rule.

We have killed the headmaster

and the cops are on our trail,

but we go marching on.

Glory, glory, hallelujah,

teacher hit me with a ruler,

the ruler went all red

and the teacher she fell dead

and we've never seen the old goat since.

*

The fart is a volcanic eruption,

that comes from the island of Bum.

It passes through the trouser canyon

and comes out as a musical hum.

*

My mammie said Ah wuz to go

for ma daddy's dinner-o.

Beef an' tatties, mince an' steak,

an' a wee bit currant cake.

Went to the river, couldnae get across,

paid ten bob for an old scabby horse.

Jumped on its back, its bones came a-crack,

had to wait 'til the boat came back.

The boat came back, we a' jumped in,

the boat capsized and we a' fell in,

Singing "Don't be weary, try and be cheery,

don't be weary for we're a' goin' home."

*

Julius Caesar done a beezer
in the middle of France.
The King of Spain done the same,
but only in his pants.

There are different variations of course (especially of 'Mine eyes have seen the glory'), but the above verses are how they were said or sung in my neck of the woods.  Can you think of any I may have forgotten?