Monday 22 July 2019

NAKED MAN ALERT - AND VALIANT & SMASH! SUMMER SPECIAL 1971 (UPDATED)...

Copyright REBELLION

It was June or July (or maybe bits of both) 1971 that my family holidayed in Largs for the third and final time.  I'd arisen early on the Saturday morning on the day of departure and taken a quick jaunt along to my former neighbourhood to top-up my sense of nostalgia, intended to sustain me during the coming fortnight.  In the very same newsagent's where I'd regularly purchased TV CENTURY 21 comic in 1965, I spied the VALIANT & SMASH! Summer Special and bought it immediately.  (Strange to think that TV21 - in a vastly different form - was still on sale in 1971, though it would be only another few months before it too was merged with Valiant.)

Here's the curious thing.  Although I remember the cover clearly, when I recently acquired a replacement for my original copy, I realised that I had no memory of the contents.  Sure, I remembered the characters themselves, but not the stories, nor any specific images from any of the strips.  That's unusual for me, and I can only assume it's because I haven't seen the contents since they were first published, hence my memory of them was never refreshed in the same way as other comics I'd replaced only a few years after first having them - not 48 years as in this instance.  And perhaps, also, they weren't particularly memorable to begin with.  (Had JANUS STARK been among the contents, that would definitely have registered with me.)

KNOCKOUT hadn't been out for very long, and I purchased an issue or two during our stay in Largs, but there are two items in particular that I remember buying in the same shop, maybe even on the same day.  One was a little plastic deer (see here) and the other was a REDBOX action figure, which, if I recall rightly, was outfitted in a deep-sea diving suit.  I seem to remember his face being extremely similar to that of PALITOY's ACTION MAN, but when I received my replacement today (the figure itself, unclothed), there wasn't much of a resemblance.  Perhaps I'm remembering the face of the action figure I'd bought in Rothesay the year before, or maybe I later contrived a means of attaching an Action Man head to the Redbox body, but whatever, that's the way I remember it.

Courtesy of computer trickery, the same figure - before and after

The figure itself is just as I recollect, and it's good to be reunited with yet another item from the past (two, counting Valiant & Smash!), almost 50 years after the fact.  Funny how I sometimes think it's impossible for me to be that old, yet at other times my youth feels like it was centuries ago.  The Redbox figure was actually quite a decent imitation of Action Man, in that the level of articulation almost matched that of AM.  The main differences were that the hands and feet didn't rotate, and the waist and neck joints didn't allow the upper body and head to move up or down, but that apart, and given the difference in price, it offered tremendous play value.  Unlike other cheaper figures, the arms could be positioned outwards from the body (allowing him a hands on hips pose), not simply moved forwards or backwards like inferior imitations.

Also, the swivel joints just above the thighs (under the ball-joints which fit into his lower regions) allowed him to (almost) sit with either foot resting on the opposite knee, something that even PEDIGREE's TOMMY GUNN (AM's closest top-quality rival) couldn't do.  Okay, 'Redbox Man' was made of far softer and lighter plastic, but he was still a good toy, and only Action Man, Tommy Gunn and IDEAL's CAPTAIN ACTION outshone him.  Considering all the cheap inferior knock-offs that sprang forth in the '60s, that's no mean achievement.  Talking of Tommy Gunn, the combat soldier version of Mr. Redbox actually had the name 'Tommy' on the box.  Was this meant to be his name, or simply the type of soldier he was meant to be?  (British soldiers were referred to as Tommies.)  The camouflage uniform he was adorned with didn't look British.

So, two more replacements for past items have joined me, which makes me happy and sad at the same time.  How is that possible you may be wondering.  Well, I'm happy to have them 'back' again, yet I'm sad that the time they represent was so very long ago.  As I said, sometimes it feels like it, other times it doesn't - a paradox that I don't think I'll ever quite be able to get my head around.  How about the rest of you?  Anyway, I'd better go and find some clothes for Mr. Redbox before he gets arrested.  (Now done.)

Just think - I last stood in these premises way back in 1971.  Wow!

Footnote: I returned to Largs for a day's visit (see here) in June 2014, a full 43 years later.  The above shop was once the very newsagent's from which I'd bought my Redbox figure and plastic deer.  The newsagent's now sits across the road (I took the above photo just outside) and is still run by a member of the same family, who, if I recall correctly, still owned the lease on the other premises, but were trying to sell or let (through estate agents) to interested parties.  Again, if I remember rightly, it had lain empty for only a few years, after having been a hair & beauty salon.

Update: I've now painted Mr. Redbox's hair and eyebrows.  (I'd only touched up the brows with a marker pen in the 'before' side of the pic.)  As is common with these figures, the hair was only lightly sprayed, mainly on the top, with the sides and backs left bare.  The original colour looked black to me, but on closer inspection, I thought I could detect a hint of a dark brown.  I tried black at first, but it didn't look right, so I removed it and used a brown colour that I mixed myself (from brown and black).  Looks quite good, if I say so myself.

9 comments:

Paul Mcscotty said...

I'm the same sometimes memories from the past seem not that long ago and other seem a lifetime ago even separate memories from the same year. I remember picking up a few copies of the then new Knockout when on a weeks family holiday in Dunkeld, strangely I was back in Dunkeld last weekend (a beautiful village) for the first time since then and I remembered buying those comics but it seemed a very long time ago, then I remembered on same holiday picking up Superman 241 which was in the same shop but that memory seemed like it was only 15 years ago but it was from 1971 or 72.

Kid said...

Yeah, time always puzzles me in the way that it works. Talking of Largs (as I was), I was there in 1968 and remember being in a newsagent's. I was there again the next year, and went back into that same newsagent's - and it felt like I had last been there the day before, not a year before. That's probably because my mind jumped straight back to the previous year, making it seem much more recent than it was. Strange, eh?

Hackney Steve said...

More memory mind-bendery, eh Kid? Here's one that might appeal to you - one of my most treasured possessions is my (replacement) copy of the Marvel Grab-Bag treasury from 1975. I got my original for Christmas that year (I would've been 6) and although only a couple of the stories are festive, the cover is as Christmassy as it gets. I re-read that book until it fell apart and then picked up my current copy as a 30-something. I dig the book out and re-read certain bits of it every Christmas, but here's the point of my ramblings: as I see those images again they trigger pleasing memories, but I also can't help but remember buying this copy at a mart and 2 stall-holders having a ding-dong 'cos the one I offered the money to pretended it was his stock when apparently it wasn't! So this copy I have now is only an ersatz stand-in, and will never be the copy my parents bought me. The other thing is, I absolutely love the Luke Cage story in that book. Years later I picked up one of those B&W collections and discovered that 'my' version had a page edited out...but far from feeling aggrieved I couldn't care less as I felt no connection at all to the full story in B&W form and I imagine I wouldn't care too much for a copy of the original issue. The format we first saw this stuff in seems as important (or more) as the material itself. I guess that's why old British Marvels are still sought after, bastardised as they are? Whaddaya think?

Kid said...

That's an interesting one. On the point of replacements having their own associations beyond those of the original item, I think it depends on how you obtain them. Most of my replacement items I get through the post via ebay, so when I open the box or envelope, it's just like laying eyes on my original comic, book or toy after however many years. To me, the replacement, in some magical, mystical way, becomes the original. It's almost like it sat in a cupboard for years, I opened the door and there it was again. However, what you say is undoubtedly true to an extent as well. In a slightly different but similar way (if you'll forgive the seeming contradiction in terms), if I look at the FF story, 'Prisoners of Kurrgo, Master of Planet X!' in its '60s b&w reprint in my replacement copy of Wham!, I'm back in the house I then lived in when I was a boy at the time. If I look at the same story in its '70s partial colour reprinting in MWOM, it conjures up images of that time. The same story, two different presentations, two different sets of memories, in the second instance also memories of the first instance because when I re-read the story in the '70s, I also remembered reading it in the '60s. That make any sense? It's almost like I led two lives around the same story.

I imagine that when you look at your Treasury Special (I still have my original), it depends where your head is at the time as to which memory is the predominant one. Sometimes it will be your original memories at the forefront, other times it may be those of when you obtained your replacement, but even your second set of memories will be pointing in the direction of the first at the exact same moment. Funny how the mind works, eh?

I love the old British Marvels for themselves and for the times in which I bought them, and also for the memories they conjured up of their Odhams Press predecessors, so yes, the format is often just as important as the material. I suppose it depends on which particular time in your life you're trying to remember or re-experience.

Interesting comment, HS.

Kid said...

I also meant to say that, way back in the mid-'80s, when I was given a bound file copy of Wham! from 1967, my mind immediately returned to that year and where I lived at the time. Nowadays, when I look at any particular issue that I remember from the '60s, my first memory is the original one, though I also now remember when I acquired the replacements.

Talking of memories, you may find the following post interesting: "Burn, Namor, Burn!" Favourite Comics of the Past - Part Twenty-seven... Just type it into my blog's search box.

Hackney Steve said...

I've had a read of your Subby post Kid, and in answer to the question you posed at the end, I guess the reason we obsess about these things is 'cos they ARE important - not in any grand cosmic scheme of things but certainly in terms of being the tiny jigsaw pieces that make us. These memory triggers tap directly into that purer version of ourselves (by which I mean, before we had all these adult worries and responsibilities), so they seem important 'cos at that time they probably were the most important thing that happened that day...the thing that fascinates me is, if these memories can be reignited just by looking at a comic cover, then they still exist somewhere up there somewhere...just got the urge to watch Life On Mars again!

Kid said...

I lean towards believing that we never forget memories - only how to access them on occasion. And not thinking about something is not quite the same as forgetting it. I remember once catching a whiff of disinfectant as I was walking past a house one day, and it immediately made me think of my primary school toilets. Hadn't thought of them in years, but the smell of disinfectant reignited the memory, lying dormant in my mind.

Anonymous said...

Kid, it's nice that you have such happy memories of holidaying in the UK. Nowadays there seems to be an obsession with taking foreign holidays.

Kid said...

I've only ever holidayed in the UK, CJ, so they're the only holiday memories I've got. As for holidays abroad, I just don't see what the attraction is in sweltering in the heat, lying at the side of a hotel pool, and having to eat food that I can't even pronounce the names of. Having said all that, I haven't actually been on holiday since 1974.



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