VANISHING VIEWS, NARROWING HORIZONS...

The above photo captures the view from the top of the hill where I live, as it was on August 2nd 1988.  It was essentially unchanged from when we'd first moved into the house back on June 14th 1972.  However, when I took the photo, we'd been back in the house for a year and a day, having moved away five years earlier and then returned four years later.

The photo below was taken only today, and is the view as it is now.  Not quite so expansive, is it?  Funny how everything seemed much cleaner, brighter and more colourful back then, whereas today, things seem darker, duller and more bleak - or is it just me?  The skies are shrinking, the horizons are narrowing, and the colours are fading far too quickly.

Anyway, glad to have cheered you all up.

HAVE YOU GOT YOUR OWN STINGRAY?

Just had to print this ad because it's so nice.  Looks like

the work of RON EMBLETON, and someone has made

fridge magnets out of it and is selling them on eBay.

REFLECTIVE REPOST: WHOSOEVER HOLDS THIS HAMMER...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

Above is the original final caption box of THOR'S origin from JIM #83 before it was changed to how it saw print, below.  (With Thor missspelt as THORR.)  Interesting to see that perhaps Thor was intended as a try-out character to test reader reaction before launching him in a series.  I say "perhaps" because this may merely have been a gimmick to make readers think they had a say in what was published.  I'd imagine that it's more than likely the next few episodes were already lying in a drawer in STAN LEE's office.

UPDATE:  (See "Can anyone kindly explain this mystery to me?" post.)

For those who are interested, here's the inferior, re-lettered version from the first printing of the THOR MASTERWORKS book, and subsequent re-printings up to the softcover release.

When I first saw the above abomination, I re-lettered a new one (by hand) with amended spelling from the original - and sent it to TOM BREVOORT for use in future reprintings.  It was never needed though, as superior stats of the original proofs were eventually discovered.

Below is the original and my re-lettered version, side-by-side.

BABE Of The DAY - JOLENE BLALOCH...

DOLLY PARTON liked JOLENE BLALOCH

so much, she wrote a song named after her.  That, of

course, is a blatant lie, but I have to fill these captions

somehow, so any ol' p*sh will do for me.  Besides, who

reads this stuff anyway?  You know you're only here

 to look at the pictures - so feast your eyes.