Past Postings: CONFESSIONS OF A CRIMINAL CO-CONSPIRATOR - IN LITTERBUGGING...

A copy of the finished artwork

I readily confess - it was me.  Yes, I'm the one you're looking for.  How can I deny it?  After all, I put my name to it.  I sit here, consumed by guilt in my participation in the worst ever spate of litter-bugging that Scotland has ever seen.  "How can this be?" I hear you ask, and, not wanting to disappoint your eager expectations, I am only too ready and willing to tell you.

In a previous post, I alluded to a company for which I occasionally did a bit of advertising work.  Amongst their diverse interests were various food outlets, including that great Scottish stalwart and home of the deep-fried MARS BAR - the humble chippie.

A copy of the original 'rough'

No, nothing to do with building sites; I of course refer to the traditional fish and chip shop, that bastion of British (well, at least Scottish) civilization as we know it.  (And I'm well-aware that there are some amongst you who will gleefully proclaim that the words 'Scottish' and 'civilization' do not belong together in the same sentence.  Youse are claimed!) 

Here's how it happened.  This particular fish and chip shop needed a cartoon illustration for their bags - I provided it.  (The 'rough' and the finished article can be seen on this very page.)  However, the company which owned the shop also had quite a few other food outlets in various parts of Scotland.  Whenever any of them were short of bags, they were supplied from any excess stock of bags which I had designed.  (This, of course, would sometimes happen in reverse.)

Add to that the fact that one of these shops was right next to a bus terminal to which hordes of hungry travellers called in for fish suppers and the like on their way home, and you can well understand the reasons as to how this humble little paper bag managed to get around.  

The finished, printed result

This resulted in the situation that, no matter where I happened to be, at some stage I was likely to see a bag with my name on it drifting down a high street or across a field, or stuck in a hedge somewhere - not only in the remotest areas of my own home town, but also in Hamilton, Rutherglen, Glasgow - and even as far afield as Edinburgh for goodness' sake!  That bloody bag got everywhere - I'm sure it was haunting me.  I never dropped a bag myself, but I somehow felt responsible.

Anyway, I feel better now.  Whoever it was who said that confession is good for the soul was right, bless 'em.  Hopefully, I'll now be able to sleep at nights, and face myself in the mirror with an untroubled conscience.  Only time will tell.

Right now, however, I'm off down the chippie for a fish supper and a deep-fried Mars Bar.  Braw!

A GIANT AMONG (SUPER) BOYS - SWAN, ADAMS, & ORDWAY...

Copyright DC COMICS

It sometimes amazes me to realise that I'm still 'completing' collections over half-a-century after 'starting' them (even if I wasn't then aware of it) back when I was a kid.  For example, in the '60s I bought Superboy #146 and World's Finest #178, which were the first instalments of two-part continued stories that I never saw completed.  What's more, the two issues of each individual title were interrupted by 80-Page Giant reprint numbers totally unconnected to the continued stories, despite their consecutive numbering.  That must've been a 'bummer' at the time for readers eagerly awaiting to find out how each tale concluded.

I don't remember which issue I bought first, nor is it likely I obtained them on the same day; they were probably purchased months apart and not necessarily in sequential order - though the Superboy mag was published a few months before World's Finest.  In the UK there often seemed no rhyme or reason as to when US comic mags appeared in newsagents, so it was often 'pot luck' as to what was available to you at any given time.  However, I never retained my original issues, but obtained replacements for them quite a number of years ago now, which I've owned far longer than their predecessors.

A few years back, I managed to acquire the wrap-ups to each tale, and Superboy #148 seemed slightly familiar to me.  Previously, I'd always believed I'd never read the conclusion, but I found myself wondering if I'd perhaps read it out-of-sequence to the first part in #146.  As part two wasn't an obvious 'follow-on' from part one (read them and you'll see just what I mean), if I'd read part two first, I may not have recognised it was a follow-up to part one when I eventually bought and devoured it (figuratively-speaking of course).  Not that any of that will be of interest to you, but you know how such mysteries fascinate me.

Anyway, a while back I obtained World's Finest #179 (the Giant reprint ish) and today I received Superboy #147 (again, the Giant reprint ish), which means I now own three sequential issues in a row of each mag, bringing to an end something started way back in the '60s when I was a mere primary school kid.  Ah, the sense of achievement that fills my soul!  But hold!  That's not just what this post is about.

No, check out the cover at the top of this post.  Pencilled by Curt Swan, it's actually inked by Neal Adams (McS is sure to pop-up at the echo of that name), but when this issue was reprinted as a 'Replica Edition' some years ago, the cover was redrawn/re-created by Jerry Ordway.  That's the cover below, and as you can see there are a few minor differences; mainly, the colours are 'flatter' and don't have the same depth and subtlety of the original.  I bought the replica when it was first published (2003), so I've read the stories, but I wanted the 1968 original for the ads and the smell of the paper.  (Perv!)

Anyway, all that preamble was mainly an excuse to show you a Neal Adams cover that you may not have realised he was involved with.  Sure, Curt Swan pencilled it, but it's still (at least) 50% Adams.  Any comments will be most welcome, so don't be shy now!

For the tale about Superboy #146, click here.  A link on the page about #148 might also prove interesting to you.  For the story about World's Finest #178, click here.  There's a link on the page about my acquisition of WF #180.

BABE Of The DAY - SUSANNA REID...

 UK TV presenter Susanna Reid

is our babe today, folks.  She has a very

 classy chassis, I'm sure you'll agree.

COVERS, BOOKS, & JUDGES - BATMAN #200...

Copyright DC COMICS.  Cover NEAL ADAMS & IRA SCHNAPP

You've seen the above cover before on this blog, Crivs, but it was scanned from one of a trio of Neal Adams volumes featuring his Batman work for DC.  This time around, though, it's the actual published issue on display, which I acquired only recently so I thought I'd show you the real deal, plus a few interior pages to give you a taste of what it was like.  

You know the old saying, 'you can't judge a book by its cover' - well, never has that been more true than in this case as the contents are pretty mediocre in both writing and art, and any readers expecting anything different due to the striking Adams' cover were doomed to disappointment.  For an Anniversary ish, it should've been a lot better.

Written be Mike Friedrich, pencilled by Chic Stone and inked by Joe Giella, the comic was published in 1968, but when you compare it to what Marvel was producing at the time, it falls far short of the superhero shenanigans emanating from The House Of Ideas.  Number 200 should've been a significant issue story-wise, but sadly it was not to be.

Nice cover though.

STINGRAY & BATMAN Return To The Scene Of The 'Crime'...

One of the good things about having a blog is that you can be wonderfully self-indulgent.  ('Wonderfully' from the blog-owner's perspective, that is, though perhaps not from the readers'.)  I've previously told you the tales of my Plaston Stingray and Marx Batman, and how I recently obtained replacements for them nearly 60 years after the fact.  Well, this evening, I decided to indulge myself one step further, and took Stingray along to the field where I lost its Ratemaster propellor in early 1966, and another close-by field where my Batman (then in possession of a friend with whom I'd swapped it for a Marx soldier) met its untimely demise after being hurled skywards by an older boy around 1969.

I took a few photos in approximately the same spots where the original events transpired and, in so doing, reconnected and reinforced their associations in my mind with the neighbourhood I lived in as a young boy.  It's almost a compulsion that I can't resist and, thankfully, my pals tend to humour me in these mad notions to which I occasionally succumb.  So thanks to Tongalad for assisting me in capturing for posterity a pictorial link to my memories and associations of so very long ago.  (He snapped the pics with me in them.)  In returning to the scene so long after the fact, it's almost like I've rewound time and rewritten the fate the toys succumbed to so many decades earlier.*  Fanciful I know, but I derive a measure of satisfaction from it.

(*"How so?" you may be wondering.  Well, this time, Stingray returned from its journey fully intact, and Batman survived his visit unbroken - each from the same locations they'd originally come a cropper.) 

Any of you Crivvies ever done anything so daft that you'd care to admit to?  If so, fire away.

Stingray's in the foreground in this pic and in my hands in the others

******

This field is just across from my former home, and further up from the one
in the previous photos, which is at the foot of the street and over the road

Batman (sans cape & cowl) going solo, here and above, but held by me in the pics I'm in

When I was setting up the previous two photos, I lost my balance and fell over,
but was uninjured.  Vanity made me leave my 'wheeled walker' out of the scene

SUPERMAN & BATMAN ARTICULATED FIGURES...

Characters copyright DC COMICS

Nothing much to talk about this time around, Crivvies, but I didn't want you to think I was neglecting you - so here's a couple of photos of additions to my vast accumulation of stuff at Castel Crivens.  7 inch articulated figures of Christopher Reeve as Superman and Adam West as Batman.  Great, don't you think?  Anyone else got them?

 

STINGRAY - IN THAT SINK-ING FEELING...

STINGRAY copyright relevant owner

You Crivvies will likely think I'm flogging this topic to death, but something occurred to me about my recent replacement for my childhood toy, the Plaston Stingray.  Because it's main chassis is blow-moulded, it's ideal for use as a bath toy, and even though it's retroactively referred to as such, it's not described as a bath toy on the box, nor, as far as I know, in any ads for it at the time.  It's therefore not altogether impossible that this toy has never even been near water in its 60 years of existence, prompting me to do something about it.

So, according to my diary, my next bath night's not actually due for another couple of years (I jest - it's only a year), but I thought the bathroom sink would suffice to finally fulfil this classic toy's purpose to be 'played with' (okay, photographed) in water.  (Classic and extremely rare - it's regarded among collectors as the 'holy grail' of Stingray toys.)  I added a little touch of Toilet Duck to give the water a blue tinge, popped the super-sub in its natural element, and snapped a few pics for posterity, plus for your palpitating peepers' pleasure.

No, don't thank me - 'tis my duty to serve.

TOYBOX TREASURES Of The PAST: PRESENTING The PLASTON STINGRAY - AND IT'S MINE, ALL MINE... (Updated)

STINGRAY copyright relevant owner

It was near the end of 1965, either for my birthday or for Christmas*, that my mother bought me a Plaston Stingray from a Co-op store named Krazy Kuts in my town's main shopping centre.  I remember us, on our way home, standing just along from the ground floor flat my grandparents had not long moved into, having relocated from Hamilton Road in Rutherglen.  (I think my father and brother were also present.)  I can no longer recall whether it was on the way in or on the way out (or whether we even went in at all), but I remember studying the box and the cut-out stand-up figures printed thereon.

It must've been early in the New Year in 1966 that me and my brother took my Stingray down to the bottom of the street, across the road from which was a marshy sort of field with a pond in it.  I don't know how, but I managed to lose the Ratemaster propellor and perhaps also the Tail Fins at the rear.  In fact, I don't know if it's possible to lose one without also losing the other, but it's the absence of the Ratemaster I recollect all these decades later.  Now, however, nearly 60 years on, I've finally managed to replace this toy from my childhood.

It didn't arrive in the condition you see in the first six photos though - no, that's the result of my painting handiwork and high-quality repro parts of the yellow 'plug-in' components and Stingray labels, procured from a place in Canada which manufactures many Gerry Anderson pieces, as well as of other iconic toys from the '60s.  As you can see from the five seller's photos of Stingray at the foot of this post, only the hollow, blow-moulded blue chassis arrived at my address after me winning it in an eBay auction.  I knew repro parts for the missing pieces were available and promptly purchased them, along with a repro box, after paying for the chassis.

As you can see from the seller's photos, nary a hint of silver remained on the body, aside from a smidgeon on one of the Aqua-sprites, and a couple of minuscule nebulous flecks of silver on the cockpit.  I'm kind of glad of that in a way, as had the original shape of the windows still been discernible, I'd have felt obliged to restore them to how they were.  After looking at images on the Internet though, I didn't like the look of the mask-sprayed windows, which were too tall and had two front screens instead of a single one.  I therefore took the liberty of painting on the windows more in accordance with how they looked in the TV show, but keeping a hint of the Plaston rendering.

So, like I said, it took nearly 60 years, but another cherished toy from my childhood has returned to the fold to keep me company (along with others) until my 'final bedtime'.  Welcome home, Stingray.  Now, how many comments will 'happen in the next half-hour' ?  Standby for action!  (I hope.)  Update: Only one comment so far?  Don't all rush at once now.

******

*Actually, thinking it over, it's unlikely to have been for Christmas as I wouldn't have been allowed to see it until the big day - even had I known it's what I was due to receive.

  

As you can see, the top of the cockpit had been pushed in, but I rescued
it by softening the plastic with hot water, then inserting an Allen Key
into the periscope hole and pulling it back up into its proper shape

And below is how the windows looked on the toy originally.  (I think mine looks better.)

Curiously, the Plaston Stingray is one of only two or three childhood toys which seemed smaller than I remembered it.  Usually, my replacement toys appear to be the same size to me as an adult as when I was a kid.  The Corgi Toys Aston Martin D.B.5, The Saint's Volvo 1800, etc., don't look one whit smaller than they did then, so why's this one different?  Perhaps it seeming larger to me as a kid was an optical illusion due to the taller windows, which makes the top part of the vessel look bigger.  If you compare the windows in the above pic with the narrower ones of my own, the impression given is that the above toy is more 'bulky' than it actually is.  That's the only reason I can think of, but it might be altogether fanciful.  Incidentally, to give you a sense of scale, it's around 10-and-a-half inches long.  (The toy, I mean.  What else would I be referring to?) 

SPECIAL MARVEL EDITION - Featuring The MIGHTY THOR...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

Special Marvel Edition was a comic which lasted for 16 issues from 1971 to 1974.  The first four issues featured The Mighty Thor, the next ten starred Sgt. Fury, and the final two introduced The Hands Of Shang-Chi, Master Of Kung Fu.  I bought #2 as a back issue at the start of the '80s, #1 circa the mid-'80s (I think), and #s 3 & 4 only recently.  I've also got #15, purchased around 15 years or more ago (from the late Pete Root when he rented space in other premises in Buchanan Street in Glasgow), so that's only five issues in all.  (Update: Now six, as I acquired #16 since first publishing this post.)

However, it's the Thor issues I'm mainly interested in today, as it's good to finally have all four 53 years after they first appeared, and around 43/44 years after I first acquired #2.  Incidentally, neither 1 or 2 are replacements, both of them are the original issues from when I first bought them - as are 3 & 4, though I've only had them for a few days.  I've shown the first two on the blog before, but thought it would be a good idea to feature all four together so that you Crivs can view them as the 'family' unit they are.  (I've also now added them to some previous Thor cover posts so you'll see them there as well.)

Thought, theories, observations, and speculations about the comics welcome, as are imaginative, creative, inventive, and fanciful comments and insults about my good self.  Get cracking.

On ODIN's helmet, the left horn isn't symmetrical with the right and extends further - almost in
alignment with the contours of THOR's body.  Such artistic errors were common with KIRBY

COMING SOON - MY VERY OWN PLASTON STINGRAY FROM 1964... (Updated)

Something for you to look forward to, Crivs.  (The above pic of this very rare and collectable item is just a 'taster' for you.  More to come before too long, along with a story behind this toy from my childhood.)  Betcha can't wait, eh?  (Hey, where'd everyone go?)

TOYBOX TREASURES Of The PAST: The MAGNIFICENT SEVEN - DALEK ROLYKINS...

Copyright BBC TV and the Estate of TERRY NATION

Regular Crivs will probably know that I'm a big Daleks fan.  I must have several hundred of them in various shapes and sizes and from different years and decades, but I'm particularly fond of the Marx Toys Dalek Rolykins from the '60s.

I've just added a second black one to my collection, making them seven in total - not counting the eight or so of the Product Enterprise Rolykins revival from the late '90s - early '00s, which I also own.  The new ones aren't featured here - I'll probably show them in a future post.

I have boxes for six of the above wee chaps, though I've forgotten where they're stored at the moment, but when I find them (not that I'm going to be searching for them with any great urgency) I'll add them to the post.

Anyone remember the Dalek Rolykins, and are there any Crivs who have any in their collections?  Do tell.  Get those fingers typing.  (And don't forget to click on pic to enlarge.)

The 'HABITAT' - Or There And Back Again...

Hard as it is for me to believe, today is a whopping 52 years since my family first moved into the house in which I now reside.  There were four of us back then, though I now stay by myself as all potentially eligible women realise I'd be too difficult  to live with.  Perhaps they know they'd never be able to meet my high standards and see me as too much of a challenge - or it could be that I'm just an ugly old buggah who doesn't appeal to them.  You decide - not that I care a jot one way or another.  (I'm quite comfortable with my own company.)

Anyway, as I was sitting contemplating that fateful day back in 1972, trying to remember my impressions of moving to yet another new home (my fifth in 13-and-a-half years), it suddenly dawned on me that I never spared a thought for the house we'd just moved from (or my old room), and never really missed it until around 12-odd years later when we'd flitted to yet another new house.  I've shared my speculations as to why that might be with you before so I won't bother again this time around, but I find myself surprised by the fact.

But wait a minute - didn't I say my family moved in here 52 years ago?  So what's all this talk of another house?  Simple.  As regular readers will be (painfully) aware, after 11 years here we moved once more, then just over four years later, moved back again.  On August 1st I'll have been back here for 37 years, though that time span doesn't seem one whit longer than our first term in the house.  37 measured against 11 - how can they both feel of virtually equal duration?  (No point asking me, 'cos I don't know.)

Anyway, not much to this post, but I didn't want the anniversary of my arrival here to pass unacknowledged.  I still find it strange that I acclimatised to my new surroundings practically immediately, with nary a thought for my old house - a house which now has such a significance to me, lo, these many years later, that I often feel I could live there again.  Having said that, I feel like that about every place I've ever lived in.  I guess I'm just getting old, and one's youth always seems to grow more appealing in retrospect.

If this strikes a chord with anyone, do please feel free to leave a comment.

BABE Of The DAY - LYNDA CARTER...

The lovely and luscious Lynda

Carter sizzles in her red dress and

shows the rest of us how to look amazing

without really trying.  Oddly, when I tried

on Lynda's dress the other night, I looked

simply ridiculous, so it doesn't quite

 work for everyone, sad to say.

A BONANZA Of SUPERMAN And BATMAN TALES From The '30s To The '70s... (Updated)

Copyright DC COMICS

From the 30's to the 70's (with the apostrophes after the zeros) never looked right to me.  It's like writing CDs as CD's.  Surely it should be From the '30s to the '70s?  That's how I prefer to render it anyway so that's what I've done.

Oops, sorry, got distracted.  The Superman and Batman companion volumes, first published in the US in 1971 by Crown Publishing, were/are great books, though looking at them now, I can see just how poor some of the reproduction was/is.  They appeared in the UK in 1972, published in paperback by Hamlyn under their Spring Books imprint, who reissued them in 1979, with no updating in the Supes volume to take account of Superman the Movie from 1978.  The contents of the two books were the same as before, though the spines were slimmer as ever-so slightly thinner paper was used inside. 

However, when Bonanza Books (a division of Crown) issued new hardback editions in the States, the film was mentioned in the dust-jacket's front cover fold-over, though not anywhere else inside.  Bonanza varied the size of the books, some editions being the same as the Crown printings, others being not-quite-so wide and around an inch or so taller, with the artwork on the Superman cover filling more space and with less margin.  (See photo below.)

I have three Batman and five Superman editions, the Batman volumes consisting of the UK 1972 and '79 paperback printings (Hamlyn/Spring), plus a recently acquired late '70s US hardback one (Bonanza).  The Superman volumes consist of the UK 1972 and two of the '79 paperback printings (Hamlyn/Spring), plus two late '70s hardback editions (Bonanza), which are different dimensions as mentioned in the previous paragraph.  (I've also got the updated From The '30s To The '80s Superman volume as well as the Shazam From The '40s To The '70s - both by Crown.)

So why buy so many you're maybe wondering?  You need to ask?  Obviously I'm bonkers (though you knew that anyway), but the 'real' reason is just that I'm a compulsive collector who likes different versions of the same thing.  However, another more practical reason is that back in 1982, I got my '79 paperbacks hardbound, which meant sacrificing the covers (though I retained them as pin-ups), so having the Bonanza editions means that I can scan the dust-jackets and print out new ones for my erstwhile paperback-now-hardback volumes.  I did that for the Superman one a while back, and now I've got the Bonanza Batman, I'll be doing the same with it, too.

So there you go - how to create a post from the most trivial and inconsequential topics, just so you Crivvies can have something to read.  Of course, whether it's actually worth reading is up to you to decide.  I'm sure you'll let me know either way.  (At least, I hope you will.)

DOCTOR WHO? NOT THE ONE I WATCHED AS A LAD...

Deary me, so the Time Lord is now officially a Gaylord!  Won't be watching again.  Why we as a nation put up with these insidious attempts at indoctrinating our kids I'll never know. 

MAD #1 FACSIMILE EDITION... (Updated)

Copyright DC COMICS

Here's a nice little facsimile edition you might be interested in - the very first issue of Mad comic, which lasted for 23 issues before being transformed into a 'magazine'.  However, when it first debuted, it was a a regular comicbook, plain and simple.  I actually have the Millennium edition of this issue, plus various reprints in books and magazines, but it's nice to now have it in something close to its original form to add to my ever-expanding collection.

'Close to'?  Yeah, because today's comicbooks aren't the exact size that they were back in (at least) the '50s and '60s (and even into the '70s and maybe the '80s as well), so it'll be a few millimetres less wide than the original and possibly there'll be a slight discrepancy in height, though unless you have an actual first issue from 1952 with which to compare, you shouldn't be aware of the difference.  (Apart from the fact that I just told you about it.)

So grab a piece of history while you can, because I hear this issue is selling well!

Artist Mike Higgs must've liked the cover as he used the layout for a panel in The Cloak's debut in Pow! #18, cover-dated May 13th 1967.  That's it below, next to its inspiration.