VALIANT JOINS VULCAN - IN A JOURNEY INTO OBLIVION...

Copyright relevant owner

You'd have thought IPC's VULCAN would've been much more successful, emulating, as it did, a style very similar to that of American comics, but the national edition of Vulcan ran for only 28 issues.  However, as it had tallied up another 30 in a trial run in Scotland six months previously, if I'm not mistaken (and knowing me, I very well could be), the total count (remember to be extremely careful in your pronunciation of that when speaking to someone) was 58.  It also had a Holiday Special and an Annual, the latter usually being listed on eBay as 'rare', despite it popping up for sale extremely regularly.  (For 'rare', read 'more expensive than it should be'.)

When its time came, it was merged into VALIANT as a 'mini-mag', which, as far as I know, was the only time this was done to an absorbed title.  I'm not sure it was successful, as it meant some adventure strips were given only one page, and The TRIGAN EMPIRE's colour art didn't reprint too well in black and white.  A mere six months later, Valiant was swallowed by BATTLE and I can't help but wonder if it was the awful typeface lettering that was being used in IPC comics at the time which led to circulation dropping on so many titles.  I won't even bother showing you any examples, because they're so bad it's painful to look at them, but the overall effect was, to use the Glasgow technical term, pure pish.

Sure, D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd used typeface lettering in their comics too, but it was done with more finesse that IPC could manage.  When a comic looks dreadful, it surely doesn't help it retain a loyal following.  It's mere speculation on my part, of course, but maybe there's something in it.  Anyway, here's the Vulcan Mini-Mag #1 and some humour pages (hand-lettered thankfully, so they're most likely reprints) to give you a small taste of a comic weekly that had only around six months to live.  Shame really.  Still, that said, Valiant's 14-year lifespan is hardly to be sniffed at.

BABE Of The DAY - SYBIL DANNING...

Here's sexy and sophisticated

SYBIL DANNING to kick-start our

pulses this morning, Crivvies.  Just one

look at Sybil and I remember life is worth

living - and I'm certain she feels the exact

same thing about me.  (Er, hold on...

 why are you all laughing?)

A LOAD OF OLD BULL...

My family lived in the house prior to the one in which I currently reside between November 1965 and June 1972 (when we flitted), but because I still attended the secondary school across the road and hung out with pals in the evenings at the neighbourhood shops a stone's throw away, I didn't really miss it (didn't have a chance to I guess) until around a dozen or so years later, after we had again moved to yet another house in 1983.

Hold on a minute, you say.  If we moved to another house in 1983, how can I yet be living in the one we were in prior to moving?  Easy - we moved back (sans brother) just over four years later, as regular readers will doubtless be sick fed up reading by now.  However, I still knew a few people in the area of my '65-'72 house, and during the '90s would occasionally visit one of my old boyhood pals, who'd lived two rows behind me when we stayed there.  He'd left the family home for a few years, but returned when a relationship ended, living there with his father and sister.

In 1997, upon the death of his father, he and his sister had to move, but a couple or so weeks before, he'd given me an ornament of a Highland bull, I think.  (Judge for yourselves from the photo above - excuse the dust.)  Its horns were broken, so I took it home and repaired and repainted them.  My father had recently had two or three spells in hospital, but on one of his returns home (not that he knew it would prove temporary) as he cast his eye around the room taking in familiar objects, he spotted the bull sitting atop a display cabinet where I'd placed it.

"Where did that bull come from?" I heard him ask my mother while I was in the kitchen, who informed him I'd brought it in.  I think he was only back in the house a few days, maybe a week, when he was again hospitalised for the final time, never making it home again.  I appreciated my pal giving me the bull, as it was a link to my old neighbourhood, likely having sat in his living-room while I yet lived in the area as a child - it connected me to the place in a tangible way.

Now it has another significance, in that it was the last 'new' household item my father ever laid eyes upon before he passed away.  I doubt that he would've viewed it in the same way as me, as a link to the past, and though I never got to explain to him where it had come from, I'm glad he got to see it and sort of 'welcome' it into the house before he himself left it for the final time.

So I look at that old bull now and again and it reminds me of my old house, my old neighbourhood, my old pal (and his old house), and my old dad.  Funny the significance an ornament can have, isn't it?  Do you have any old ornaments or items that hold any special significance or associations for you, Crivvie chums?  Feel free to share in the comments section.

******

For another nostalgic tale involving this boyhood friend and my old neighbourhood mentioned above, click here.  And you may also find this tale interesting.