VON HOFFMAN'S INVASION...

Copyright REBELLION

Okay, hands up all those who remember Jet.  (I think there was also an iced lolly by the same name at some stage, but it's the comic I'm referring to today.)  Like Thunder before it, it also lasted for only 22 issues, but in memory it seems it was around for longer.  You see, I have a distinct recollection of reading it at the dining table before before going to school (having bought it from the shops across the road first thing in the morning) on quite a few occasions, but perhaps I've merely been remembering the same one or two instances innumerable times over since then.  Leaves me wondering how many other times I might've done that, giving me the impression that some things happened more often than they did.

Be that as it may, I thought I'd belatedly direct your attention to the first collected edition of Von Hoffman's Invasion, a strip which appeared in Jet in 1971, and continued in the pages of Buster when the two comics were merged at the conclusion of Jet's short span.  I only received my copy today (dragged my heels a bit there), but it takes me right back to the house and neighbourhood where I was living at the time - and, of course, Eric Bradbury's art is always wonderful to behold.  I was lucky enough to letter his art on a few occasions during my freelance comics career, and it was a thrill to 'connect' with an artist who's drawn so many strips I'd read as a boy.

You may think I'm doing a 'Stan Lee' here, but a good while before Rebellion acquired the rights to so many UK classic comics characters from yesteryear, I lamented here on Crivens that publishers didn't seem to view the vast archives of British strips from the past as being worth anything in the way that US strips are, and suggested that it would be nice if such treasures (and I used that very word) were made available in handsome collected editions.  Then arose Treasury Of British Comics and the very thing I wished for came true.  Naturally, I like to think that they got the idea from me.  (Well, it's not totally impossible that I helped plant the seed.  Shut up - I prefer my version.)

Anyway, if you remember Jet, you might want to consider adding this volume to your collection - it's still available.

COMIC MEMORIES - HAPPY Or HORRIBLE...?

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

The Fantastic Four #150 is a comic that conjures up memories of me sitting reading it on my grandparents' itchy red bed settee on one of my family's weekly Sunday visits.  By this time we were living just 5 minutes round the corner from them, as opposed to the adjoining neighbourhood we'd stayed in for almost 7 years up until June of 1972.  Not that such a snippet of information is important to you, but it's relevant to me.

Anyway, it turns out that regular readers CJ and McS also have personal associations with this very same issue, and it reminded me of how comics and their covers can often be gateways to pleasanter times in our past, and the guardians of cherished memories of people, places, and events that are dear to us.

However, it just occurred to me that some comics must surely have sad or even unpleasant associations that we'd probably prefer to forget, though I can't think of any in my own particular case.  So here's a question for all you Crivvies to ponder, and answer if it's not an 'ordeal' for you to remember.  Are there any comics in your past that conjure up unhappy occasions, and that you can't look at or think of without being saddened by the recollections that they summon?

Or can comics only connect us to halcyon days of yore, as opposed to horrible days?  What say ye all, Crivvies?  Let your voices be heard.