PULSATING PIN-UPS PART SIX: SUPERMAN...

Image copyright DC COMICS

Time for another PULSATING PIN-UP from the

SUPERMAN GALLERY mag, Criv-ite chums.  This

one's by MIKE ZECK, and isn't it a stoater?  Have you

got a favourite out of the pin-ups I've shown you so far?

Then feel free to tell me which one in the CS.  (That's

comments section in case you hadn't guessed.)

THIS POST IS MERELY ORNAMENTAL...

The event I'm now about to relate probably happened around 25-odd years ago.  I came home one evening to find one of a pair of ornaments (above) missing from its accustomed place.  When I asked where it was, my mother said she'd accidentally broken it and it was now in the bin out the back.

I looked in the bin and, wrapped up in a newspaper, were the pieces of the broken ornament.  I took them back inside and set about reuniting them.  I'm quite handy at that sort of thing, and before too long, it was looking much like its old self again, and happily resumed its place alongside its pal.

You can see one ornament on the windowsill,
with the edge of the other just in sight

My earliest memory of these two items is from 1972, and only because they appear in the above photograph, which has the date on the back.  We'd only lived in our (then) new house for around a month, but it's a certainty that we had them in our previous house, and very probably our previous two houses before that.  I'm therefore immensely surprised that I don't consciously remember ever having seen them before mid-1972.

The ornament below I do remember seeing in previous houses, right back to our first one in our new town.  It was likewise one of a pair, but its partner was broken when my brother knocked it off the mantlepiece when he stumbled against it (after a wee shove from me) in the late '60s or start of the '70s.  Sadly, it was beyond my ability to repair back then and there was no way to salvage it.

However, in the late '80s, when my mother broke the lone survivor, I rose to the challenge and restored it, gluing all the pieces together again and repainting the finished item.  One day I hope to find a replacement partner for it in a charity shop or jumble sale and have a pair again.  (In my sentimental madness I sometimes wonder if it ever pines for its missing companion.)

Anyway, I freely confess that I wrote this post more for my benefit than yours, but maybe you can relate to it in some way.  So do you have a long-cherished ornament you'd never part with, or is there one you recall from your childhood that you'd dearly like to own again?  If so, tell us all about it in the comments section.

Here's how the pair would've looked.  I remember them
as being mirror opposites, but I could be mistaken

PART FIFTY-FOUR Of FAVOURITE COMICS Of The PAST - FANTASTIC FOUR #57-60...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

In the interests of historical accuracy, it behoves me to say that I'm unsure whether or not I actually owned the above issue of The FANTASTIC FOUR (#57) back in the 1960s, but I definitely had the next three.  I purchased #59 mainly for the piccie of SUSAN STORM (I refuse to recognise her marriage to REED RICHARDS), but I was soon caught up in the drama within.

FF #58 was my entry point into this adventure, and it was the first time I'd seen JACK KIRBY's 'evolved' style of art compared to his earlier version of the foursome, when his figures were leaner and taller-looking.  The colouring gave the pages a mood and atmosphere that was lacking from the black and white reprints I was used to, and I recall the impression the issue made on me.  (My mother was ironing as I perused Jack's power-packed pages.)

As I said, it was the picture of Susie that was the clincher in making up my mind to buy the issue below, but I was glad I did.  I think this was the first time I'd seen BLACK BOLT and The INHUMANS, but I was  more interested in the main plot involving the FF and The SILVER SURFER.  In fact, come to think of it, it was likely the first time I'd ever seen the Surfer, although I know I had the earlier issue of FF #55, but perhaps I bought that one out of sequence after reading these issues.

The next one is 'odd-man-out', because I found a damp coverless copy of it at the side of a bus-shelter while waiting on a bus (no surprise there) to go shopping with my mother one day.  I no longer recall exactly how long it was after reading the previous two issues, but it was satisfying to find out just how the story had concluded, and the fate of the Surfer.

Anyway, years later (and many years ago), I purchased replacements for all four issues to add to my collection, and, as I've said before about loads of other comics, one glance returns me to an earlier point in time with such clarity that I feel as if I'm back there and a mere lad again.  It's an illusion of course, but sometimes illusions are the only things we have - and often the best.

Any memories of these mags, chums?  Let's hear 'em.