DAYS OF WINE AND MARVELS...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

If pressed, I'd say that my favourite comic of the '70s was The Mighty World Of Marvel.  Great name, great content, great presentation (in the main), and it stayed pretty much that way for the first 30 issues or so.  In early 1979 it was relaunched as Marvel Comic, and the interiors looked like any other UK comic for boys, visually losing the Marvel magic which had once been so distinctive.  

Having shown issue #330 recently (when it changed its name and direction), I decided to show you the very last issue of MWOM before its transformation, but I no longer actually owned it.  Never mind, that's what eBay's for, so I bought a copy and it arrived today.  Therefore here's a few pages just to give you a taste of what the comic was like before it changed and then vanished forever.

Having said that, it wasn't gone for long really, as it reappeared just over three years later in May of '83 (dated June) as a monthly, though unfortunately it only survived for 17 issues.  Jumping ahead almost 20 years, Panini brought it back as a US-sized, full-colour monthly, and it had a good long run until only a couple or so years back.  Who knows, with a bit of luck maybe it'll pop up again one day.  Here's hoping.

A LITTLE SOMETHING EXTRA FOR SUMMER...

Copyright relevant owners

A few short years back I managed to obtain a replacement for my TV Century 21 Summer Extra which I first bought back in 1965.  It was extremely reasonably-priced (I've seen far worse copies only recently at more than twice what I paid), but it didn't contain the free gift - they seldom if ever do.

But hurrah!  Finally managed to track one down and it arrived at Castel Crivens today.  It's complete (apart from the cardboard sheet it was pressed out of), though I've shown only one side of one of the set of strips below.  No point spoiling you, is there?  So it took 56 years, but I got another one in the end.

Anyway, if you remember having this comic and its free gift, let's hear all about it.  Memories are for sharing.

TELEVISION CUTIES - WHO WAS YOUR FAVOURITE...?

Diana Rigg - The Avengers

Okay, lads, in no particular order, some of the TV cuties that we all lusted after when we were kids or teenagers back in the '60s and '70s.  Who was your favourite and why?

Alexandra Bastedo - The Champions

Annette Andre - Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased)

Honor Blackman - The Avengers

Sue Lloyd - The Baron

Linda Thorson - The Avengers

Gabrielle Drake - UFO

Rosemary Nicols - Department S

Elizabeth Montgomery - Bewitched

Barbara Eden - I Dream Of Jeannie

Louise Jameson - Doctor Who

DO YOU REMEMBER The CHAMPIONS...?

Copyright relevant owner

I assume I had a full set of all 45 The Champions collectable cards back in the day, but if not, I certainly had most of them.  The accompanying 'confectionery' is anathema to me, so was swiftly disposed of by either immediately binning it or giving it to my brother or a friend.  (Its precise fate would obviously depend on who - if anyone - was with me at the time of purchase.)  Nowadays, modern card sets featuring all sorts of subjects are sold by themselves (usually in packets of 6) without the need to indulge a kid's sweet tooth - if only it had been like that back in my day.

I think the cards first became available in 1968 not long after the show debuted on TV, but they'd disappeared from my neck of the woods sometime in 1969.  To my mind they were 'old hat' by 1970, so imagine my surprise when on holiday in Rothesay that year, I rediscovered them in abundance in a newsagents not far from where we were staying.  I bought a goodly number of them, and, if I didn't have a full set first time around, I did this time.

Inexplicably, back home from holiday, I cut the margins off the cards, but for some reason never disposed of them; they lay scattered around the 'floor' of our loft for a couple of years and, when we moved house in June of '72, I gathered them up and took them with me to our new home where they took up residence in the attic.  I guess I'd just become so used to seeing them in our old loft that I wanted to continue that familiarity in our new abode.  They were there, if I recall correctly, for close to the entire 11 years of our first term in the place and, unless at some point I gathered them up and disposed of them before flitting, perhaps some yet remain there, awaiting rediscovery.

Anyway, thought you might enjoy being reminded of something from your youth if you're old enough to remember them, so here's the first card in the series along with its secret decoder.  Any memories of the cards or the TV show that spawned them?  Then feel free to share them in the comments section.

Incidentally, Alexandra Bastedo died in 2014 at the no-age-at-all of 67, and Stuart Damon passed away in June of this year, aged 84.  The third and final Champion William Gaunt (though he's filled out a bit now) is still with us today, also 84.  A few years ago I treated myself to the DVD boxed set of the show, but haven't actually watched any episodes - must get around to it sometime.