RUPERT COVERS & ENDPAPERS - PART THREE...

Image copyright CLASSIC MEDIA/EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS

I've shown this before, on an Annual, but the area covering the spine was missing - so here's the full illustration in all its mighty magnificence.  That ALFRED BESTALL fella sure could draw, and that's a fact.  More soon!

BABE Of The DAY - SUZANNE DANIELLE...

Look, SUZIE luv, you don't

need the knife.  If you want my

body you only have to say so.

PART SIX Of MARVEL'S The SUPER-HEROES COVER & IMAGE GALLERY...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

From the backyard of bygone days comes another five issues of The SUPER-HEROES, MARVEL U.K.'s pulse-pounding periodical from the sizzlin' '70s.  I loved this weekly mag, and the ones featured in this series are the actual copies I purchased back in the day, not later replacements.  Hard to believe that I've now had these comics for over 40 years and that this title (along with its companion magazine SAVAGE SWORD Of CONAN) was the first new Marvel weekly to be released after I'd left school and was part of the working world.

That means comics like MWOM, SMCW, The AVENGERS, DRACULA LIVES, POTA, SHIVER & SHAKE, WHOOPEE, BUZZ, and WARLORD were the last new weekly mags I bought as a schoolkid.  I wasn't aware of this subtle distinction at the time though, as life seemed like one single strand of an unravelling ball of string, not the separate, unconnected, compartmentalized events they seem in retrospect long after the fact.  (Wow!  Deep or what?)

As always, cavortin' Criv-ites, your comments are most welcome.

  

The reversed '1' in the image above this one shows that the page was 'flipped' before publishing (on the
original U.S. cover as well), so I thought you might like to see how artist JACK KIRBY first drew it

PART TWO Of RUPERT COVERS & ENDPAPERS...

Image copyright CLASSIC MEDIA/EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS

And here we go with yet another RUPERT BEAR endpaper (or is it a cover?) by ALFRED BESTALL, the second artist to draw the strip after creator MARY TOURTEL.  If anything, the popularity of the little brown bruin increased under Alfred, and with work of this superb quality, it's easy to see why.  Another impressive picture soon, Criv-ites.

RUPERT COVERS & ENDPAPERS - PART ONE...

Image copyright CLASSIC MEDIA/EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS

Having featured a few RUPERT BEAR books recently, I thought that some of you might like to see some covers and endpapers by ALFRED BESTALL.  I can show only a few alas, but they're stunning.  Here's the first one.

(Click on image, then click again for optimum size.)

******

(I'd thought that some covers were endpapers, but I've now amended the series title.)

THE WORLD'S GREATEST COMIC MAGAZINE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Here's a little prezzie someone gave me over Christmas - The WORLD'S GREATEST COMIC MAGAZINE!  Okay, so  technically, it's a book, but it's a book that collects all 12 issues of a magazine of the same name, so there's no need to get in a muddle over it.  Does exactly what it says on the tin - or back cover, to be precise.  Why not treat yourself to a copy today?!

  

WOTTA BARGAIN - OOR WULLIE & THE BROONS FOR ONLY £1.99...

Image copyright D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd

If you're quick, you may still be able to nab a copy of this £12.99 OOR

WULLIE & The BROONS book from WHS for a mere £1.99 - like I

did.!  A saving of a whopping 11 quid.  Better get your skates on.

KID CLASSICS - OLD BALLS, PLEASE...

Here's a strange little story for you concerning the item in the above ad.  I bought my one and only TONIBELL MINIBALL back around 1967 or '68.  (Hard to believe it was over 45 years ago.)  When I moved house in 1972, I was sure I'd brought it with me to my new home, but, mysteriously, I couldn't find it.  I'd kept it behind the water tank up in the attic, and I was sure I'd retrieved it the night before moving, but - search as I might in our new abode - it was nowhere to be found.

Over the years, I'd regularly have dreams in which I'd find myself back in my old house, searching for my trusty pal from childhood.  Anyway, to cut a long story short, 19 years later I decided to determine its fate once and for all, and managed to gain access to my old house and attic - and was overjoyed (if flabbergasted) to discover my little yellow Miniball exactly where I'd left it so many years before - completely untouched.  So, not only was I the last person to see it back in 1972, but also the first to clap eyes on it again in 1991.  Strangely, the 24 years that have elapsed since I retrieved it don't seem a fraction of the time it lay undiscovered and neglected behind the water tank.

And guess what?  I've never had those dreams again since that day I finally solved the mystery of the disappearing little yellow ball.

Photo taken on June 9th 1991, before I removed the ball from where
it had lain ever since I'd flitted from the house on June 14th 1972

WHITE CHRISTMAS - JIM REEVES...

Here's the ol' Yuletide classic, WHITE CHRISTMAS,

as sung by the man with the velvet voice, Gentleman JIM

REEVES.  Take it away, Jim.  (Skip the ad.)

BABE Of The DAY - SUZANNE DANIELLE...

It's super sultry SUZANNE

DANIELLE to brighten Christmas

day.  A woman like her would do me

just fine, ta very much.  What say

 the rest of you cavortin' Crivs?

PART TEN Of SCHOOLTIME SCANDALS - The LABRADOR 'SAUSAGE' DOG...

Mr. CURRY was the janitor of the second primary school I attended.  He lived in the end house of the fourth row down from mine, straight across from the school, and his house came with the job.  Imagine my surprise when, a year or two after we'd flitted to a new house and neighbourhood, I noticed that Mr. Curry had become janitor of the primary school just around the corner from us.  His house (that again came with the job) stood in splendid isolation in the school grounds.

Before flitting, I'd been a secondary school pupil for nearly two years, but Mr. Curry was still a regular sight on account of him passing my house to or from the pub on the far side of the shops across the street.  It was therefore a tad strange when, after we'd flitted, he again became a regular sight to me in my perambulations around my new neighbourhood, either when I passed the school on my way to the town centre, or saw him walking home from his local public house.  He liked a drink, did Mr. Curry.  Died quite a few years ago now.

Let's now jump back to when I was yet living in my former neighbourhood and was still a primary school pupil, sometime around 1968, give or take a year either way.  While gazing out of the window of the annexe huts across from the main building one afternoon, I saw Mr. Curry taking a kick at a Golden Labrador dog which appeared to be seeking shelter in the doorway.  His kick may have connected, but I couldn't say with certainty after all this time.  I was shocked to see an adult behave in such a heartless manner towards one of man's best friends, and felt sorry for the poor animal.

The very doorway.  The school was demolished
nearly two years ago.  Photo taken circa 1984

Later that evening, coming back from a pal's house, I saw that the dog was again sheltering in the school doorway.  Had it been abandoned?  Was it lost?  Or had it tracked down its young master to the school and was now faithfully waiting for him to emerge from the building, not realizing that he'd gone home several hours before?  I told my father about the dog, and, along with my brother, we went down to the school and brought the dog home with us.  It was a friendly animal, and hungrily scoffed the cold link sausages we fed it from the fridge.

My father, who worked for the police, arranged for them to collect the poor dog and house it in their kennels 'til collected by its lawful owners.  He later informed us that the canine had been claimed, but even at the young age I then was, I wondered if he was telling us what had actually happened or what he knew we wanted to hear.  Many years later, I saw inside the station kennels for strays, and they were the dirtiest, smelliest, vilest quarters imaginable.  To think that, if the dog wasn't reunited with its owners, it had spent its last days in such conditions is awful to contemplate.

I never much liked Mr. Curry after that, though, truth to tell, I hadn't much liked him before, but he fell even further in my estimation from then on.  Strange thing is, whenever I see a Golden Labrador now, I can't help but think of that poor beast from so long ago, and still find myself hoping that it was a happy ending all round for the dog and its owners.

Sometimes there are some things we're better not knowing, don't you think?  Just in case.

SILENT NIGHT - JIM REEVES...

A Merry Christmas to all you cavortin' Criv-ites out

there in Bloggerland.  Here's the mighty JIM REEVES

version of SILENT NIGHT, containing all three verses

of the carol, not just two, like some other renditions.

STOP!  Don't just scroll down to another post or

jump over to another blog - give this song a listen and

hear the finest vocalist of the 20th century perform this

Christmas classic better than you've ever heard before.

Merry Christmas everybody - Pax Vobiscum.

PART TWO Of RUPERT BEAR COVER GALLERY... (Updated)

Images copyright CLASSIC MEDIA/EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS

I could never work out why RUPERT BEAR isn't coloured brown inside the books (and in the FROG SONG video) because he is on the covers, and he is supposed to be a brown bruin after all.  Okay, yeah, I know it's likely an 'expense' thing, but it makes him look like a polar bear.  The 1973 Annual has a 'variant' cover, with him being brown on one version, and white on the other - apparently the latter is highly sought-after by collectors.

Anyway, these (along with the books in part one) are all the Rupert Annuals I own, although I do have three fun books (which I've shown before), as well as a couple of other books that'll no doubt pop up on this blog one day.  Until they do, enjoy the covers in this post.

  

This book celebrates 75 years of Rupert's existence

And this book is the 75th Rupert Annual