TOMB RAIDER...?

Copyright DC COMICS

You may remember me mentioning one of my childhood friends dying recently (October 21st), though we weren't exactly on talking terms at the time of his sad expiration from Lupus.  However, the pal of his who's been tasked with clearing out his flat invited me round to help myself to just about anything I might like or want that wasn't already taken, so I found myself in a place I haven't stepped inside in approximately 6 or 7 years, going through the belongings of the departed one.  Joe (for that was his name) was a bit of a hoarder, so it's going to be a huge undertaking for his pal to empty the flat as every room is filled to overflowing with stuff Joe had accumulated from diverse sources over his limited lifetime.

With an occasional exception I mainly restricted myself to things I myself had given Joe over a period of several years, but there was one item I'd recommended to him just before we'd fallen out (again) that caught my eye, which was the stonkingly huge Jack Kirby Fourth World Omnibus published a few years back.  Apparently, the first printing had a howling error, in that a Jimmy Olsen page had been printed twice, resulting in another page being omitted.  DC recalled the book and issued a second printing which was error-free and fired the person responsible for the blunder in the first version.  No, I don't know his name, but I'll bet he's kicking himself for his oversight.  Thankfully, it was the corrected edition Joe had.

I already own all the tales in their original form and also in previous reprints, but the book is an extremely impressive publication which I'm glad to have.  Death tends to wipe the slate clean when it comes to the 'trespasses' of friends, so I'm going to imagine the book is a Christmas gift to me from Joe as, out of all his friends, I'm pretty sure he'd prefer me to have it - and none of them were into comics anyway.  He was only 64, so died far too young as he should've had at least another 20-odd years ahead of him.  It would probably take that long to read the Omnibus - did I mention how stonkingly huge it is?  Anyway, Joe, thanks for the present and a Merry Christmas to you wherever you are.  Sadly, there's no point in wishing you a Happy New Year.

Below, Joe in 1981, sometime around February or March, in the front room of 103 Boulton Road, Southsea, Portsmouth.  This is the way I prefer to remember him, as the kind of life he led in the ensuing years sadly took their toll on him.  However, in memory he'll be forever young.