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It's a highly unusual situation for me to look at an item and have absolutely no hint of an idea as to when and where I first bought it, but such is the case with the above Annual. Note that it's an 'official' Superman Annual, though as far as I know, there were never any unofficial ones - certainly not in the UK at least. It's dated 1980, which means it went on sale around August or September of 1979, but however hard I try, I just can't recall where I obtained it from or in what year. Was it 1979 or sometime in the early '80s? Did I buy it new from a shop or by mail order as a 'back issue', or did I get it in a jumble sale? Perhaps a friend (yes, I do have some) gave it to me - I just don't have a ruddy clue. I find this incredibly irritating as I've always prided myself on having a good memory, but this is a book that somehow slipped through the cracks.
What I do remember is I gave it to a a pal by the name of Bob Billens (or something close to that) in the early '80s, after I'd already extracted two pages that made up a Superman poster, plus a third page by Curt Swan (possibly first published in a US mag) showing how to draw Superman's face in a variety of expressions. I was going to throw the book out, but he said he'd take it instead, regardless of the extracted pages. I still have those pages, though I substituted the poster, which was on my wall, with a print-out of a scan of it a few years ago. Recently, I got the urge to track down a replacement, but I couldn't even recollect what the cover looked like. I looked at UK Superman Annuals on eBay, and there were a few which showed images of some of the contents. When I saw the double-page poster I knew that was the one I was searching for.
So that's another item from my youth returned to the fold, 40-plus years after owning my original, and it's good to have again. It reminds me of that friend (before he proved to be a bit of a d*ck - no, I don't mean 'duck'), as well as a time in my life when it seemed that the world was my oyster and I had unlimited time to 'cultivate' it. Funnily enough, although I extracted the poster in the early '80s while living in my current house, it wasn't until my family moved to another in 1983 that, around a year later, it went up on a wall in my new bedroom. As regular readers know, we returned to our previous home just over four years after flitting from it, where the poster assumed the spot on the wall it was intended for had we never moved elsewhere. Strange when you think about it, eh? It ended up where it began, and maybe that's precisely how it should be.
Any thoughts, theories, observations, or accusations (y'know, like "You're bonkers, Robson!") made welcome in our comments section.
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| A page in a similar vein to this one appeared in SUPERMAN #245 for Dec '71/Jan '72 |
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10 comments:
You're bonkers Robson.
Everyone's a critic.
I never saw this or any other DC annual on sale ever. I don't think much of the cover as it looks too cartoony.
Superman looks like he's been copied from a Curt Swan drawing, CJ. There were quite a few DC character Annuals at this time, like Batman, The Superheroes, etc., but you weren't ever into DC mags so maybe that's why you never saw the UK Annuals.
I had this annual 3 years on the trot, 1982-1984 because I was a big fan of the movies at the time. I also had the 1977 Batman/Superman annual although I've no idea how I acquired it. 1982 is my favourite with Chris Reeve on the cover albeit a small picture.
http://www.tonystrading.co.uk/galleries/annuals/superman.htm
I've also recently acquired the Superman Annual for 1983, though I never had it at the time, and the Batman one for 1984 - again, never had it back then. Some good stories in them. Right, I'll take a look at that link - ta much.
I never had any all superhero type annuals as a kid, I don't know if they never appealed to me ( being reprint) or I never saw them). I never had any UK Marvel titles either even although I bought MWOM, SMCW and Avengers every week. The closest I got to buying these ( or more likely asking for them as a present) was an early mid 1960s POW annual that had a Spidey tale.
I think one of the reasons I bought so few UK Annuals that reprinted DC strips was because they were recoloured (when they were in colour, that is - sometimes they were in b&w) and pages (recaps usually) were omitted, which I didn't like. However, I bought my replacement 1980 Annual more for the particular time in my youth it represents, rather than any of the contents. Talking of Pow!, McS, I'm lucky to have every Wham!, Smash!, Pow!, and Fantastic Annual ever published.
Superman's depiction, on that cover, is appalling - particularly his mouth. I never had that annual. I did, however, have the 1979 UK Superman Annual - which was a cracking good read! I also had the Superman & Batman Annual 1974, on whose cover Superman needs a bill-hook, of some description, to fend off a tiger, despite being virtually indestructible. That was a good annual, too.
Phillip
The actual inking is perhaps a little rough, but that definitely looks like a 'swipe' of a Curt Swan drawing of Superman so I can live with it. Some of those Annual covers were a little lacking in their rendition, so not always the best they could've been.
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