CAPTAIN ACTION-MAN...

Playing Mantis Captain Action, with professionally
produced, shrink-wrapped replica of original box

Apparently, CAPTAIN ACTION creator STAN WESTON was one of a trio responsible for G.I. JOE - which is interesting (to me) because, in Great Britain, G.I. Joe was rechristened ACTION MAN.  As a lad in the '60s, I don't recall seeing Captain Action (or Captain Magic, as he was originally going to be named) on sale in this country, but I knew about the character through the adverts in comics issued by NATIONAL PERIODICAL PUBLICATIONS Inc. (DC COMICS), such as SUPERMAN and BATMAN, etc.  I instantly coveted this wondrous item, but it wasn't until toy company PLAYING MANTIS re-released IDEAL's iconic action-figure in 1998 that I finally managed to acquire one.

DC Comics published a title based on the character in the latter half of the 1960s, but its brief five issue run indicates that it wasn't quite as popular as anticipated.  Featuring artwork by WALLY WOOD and GIL KANE, and written first by JIM SHOOTER and then by Kane himself, the comics boasted some spectacular cover art, which I now unselfishly share with you here.  They're scanned from my very own copies which I obtained many years ago, but should still be relatively easy to obtain from back issue specialists in comicbook stores and on eBay.

The ad below (drawn by KURT SCHAFFENBERGER) comes from DETECTIVE COMICS #359 ("The Million Dollar Debut of Batgirl!"), but the previous owner has defaced The PHANTOM figure by drawing stripes on his costume.  Tsk, tsk!  Some people, eh?

I'd be interested in the reminiscences of American readers who had this toy when they were kids, and whether any Brits actually managed to get their hands on one back in the '60s.

      

And, if you're lucky, you may still be able to get this great book (below) all about Captain Action from your local comicbook store.  This is the original printing, but I believe a revised and updated edition was made available a year or two back.

TOYBOX TREASURES Of The PAST: The TWO BATMANs...

Aurora kit built and painted by Kid Robson

I've shown both the above items before, but never together.  However, the two of them are connected, and not just because they're both BATMAN collectables from the 1960s.  You see, when I was a kidlet and first acquired my AURORA Batman plastic model kit, I didn't bother assembling the figure for some forgotten reason.  I did build the base though, and when I later bought the LOUIS MARX Twistable Batman, I'd bend it into a rough approximation of the Aurora figure and affix it to the tree with a rubber-band.

I'd love to be able to show you the result, but you'll just have to use your imaginations.  Aurora Batman is glued to his tree and I wouldn't want to risk bending Marx Batman in case his forty-six year old wire limbs snap.

Needless to say (though I'll say it anyway), I've had these replacements for many years - far longer than my original items - but I always get a special glow whenever I recall my rather unique amalgam of these two great toys from my childhood.  Did any of you also have these items, and, if so, what memories do you associate with them?  Feel free to share them with the rest of us in the comments section.  

PART SIX OF MARVEL TALES SPIDEY COVER GALLERY...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Roll up, roll up! Here's the penultimate part of SPIDER-MAN covers from MARVEL TALES in the 1980s, as illustrated by STEVE DITKO back in the '60s for the very first printings of these classic adventures.  As you can see, the cover of issue #172 bore the legend "Collector's Item Classic" right next to the word "Marvel" in the top corner box, thereby resembling the name of an earlier reprint mag which the BULLPEN once published. (MARVEL COLLECTORS' ITEM CLASSICS, natch!  However, the placement of the apostrophe is different in both cases.)

Be sure to be here for the final instalment of this super series, as there'll be a couple of surprises which you won't want to miss.

The DANDY To CLOSE?

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

So, the word on the street, Huggy, is that Dundee publisher D.C. THOMSON is considering The DANDY's future and may well even close the world's longest-running weekly comic.  DCT, however, have a habit of making announcements merely to generate interest and sales, so I wouldn't count out The BEANO's stablemate just yet.

Contrary to what some people are claiming, the last two years in particular have been anything but "an absolute triumph for British comics", and the only "phenomenal" aspect to the whole sad and sorry debacle of the 2010 relaunch was just how quickly circulation plummeted.  Readers voted with their feet, and though it's true to say that something needed to be done to kick-start sales, handing sections of the comic over to would-be cartoonists with little or no experience in the world of sequential storytelling was an experiment too far.

Overnight, the comic took on an amateurish, 'fanzine' appearance (albeit a professionally printed one), with poorly executed logos and diabolical, near-illegible lettering fonts.  Making a comic look like it was produced by children is hardly the way to sell it to children - of whatever age, and the editor responsible should have been sacked before his nightmare vision ever saw the light of day.  (Although, thankfully, there were still some strips by seasoned professionals.)

I haven't looked at The Dandy in some time, so perhaps it may have improved in recent months and my comments are out of date.  The comic is a national institution, so let's hope it's got plenty more years of life in it yet.  Personally, I won't believe it's dead until I see the lid nailed down - and that's not something I particularly want to witness. 

DESERT ISLAND COMICS...

As most British readers will know, DESERT ISLAND DISCS is a long- running BBC RADIO FOUR programme, based on the premise of a weekly guest being stranded on a desert island and having to choose their eight favourite records of all time.  Then they're asked if they could only choose one, which one out of the eight it would be.  Sounds like a good idea to steal, so with that in mind, what eight comics are your all-time favourites, and why?  And, if you could only keep one of them, which one would it be?

Leave your answers in the comments section.  Go on, play along - it'll be fun.

PART ELEVEN Of FANTASTIC COVER GALLERY...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

And now, returning to an earlier era, we present yet another half-dozen covers from "Britain's Super-Hero Action Comic" - FANTASTIC!  Also included are their back-page pin-ups, though please note that #63 had a back-cover ad which also appeared on #s 64 & 66.  To avoid repetition, it is reproduced here only once.  Note also that BARRY SMITH has only one pin-up this time around, the others being taken from other sources and featuring artwork from JACK KIRBY and DON HECK.

Only another twenty-three covers to go, alas, before our trip back in time comes to an end - but worry ye not.  We'll have something else lined up for you by then.  In the meantime - enjoy!

JOE KUBERT - REST IN PEACE...

Images copyright relevant and respective owners

Legendary artist JOE KUBERT has died at the age of 85. Famous for drawing such comics as TOR, TARZAN, ENEMY ACE, SGT. ROCK, HAWKMAN and dozens more, as well as founding The Kubert School, Joe was right up there alongside KIRBY, EISNER, SWAN, BUSCEMA, and any other comicbook artist of renown you care to mention.

Other blogs will doubtless cover the man's life and career in greater detail. For the moment, here is a selection of covers that made Joe Kubert's name one of the most respected in the industry.

Joe Kubert: September 18th, 1926 - August 12th, 2012.

HUGH And I...

 The afternoon moon.  Photo by Kid Robson

Hugh was a nice big fella - tall, thin, quiet and unassuming.  I'd met him back in 1983 when I was attending night-classes at my old secondary school (now demolished), and he was one of those people with whom it was immediately easy to get along.  I'd left school at 16 before sitting any Highers, and now I was seeking to redress the oversight by studying for Higher English.  (Passed it.)

However, it wasn't until after we'd sat our exams and night-school was over that Hugh and I became friends rather than just mere acquaintances.  Not the sort of friends who palled about regularly, or who made arrangements to meet up or anything like that.  It was just a case of whenever we ran into one another, we'd pass the time by 'shooting the breeze' and perhaps having a coffee together.  Sometimes he preferred a pint, so we'd find a bar and I would partake of a Coke (in a dirty glass - nothing soft about me), and we'd kill an hour or two in conversation.

The last time I saw Hugh, I treated him to a meal in a local eatery and we reminisced about 'old times'.  We'd only known each other for about seven years or so, so our shared recollections didn't reach back too far, but Hugh was a bookworm and always had something interesting to say.  He was also a book rep, which meant he had a car, so when we'd finished our meal and had a gab, he deposited me at my house and said goodbye. "We'll do this again sometime," he said.  "My treat."

A couple of months later (or so it seemed), I was reading the 'In Memoriam' column in my local paper and spied a familiar name.  It was the first 'anniversary' of the death of someone's beloved son, and I was surprised to see that the name of the deceased was the same as Hugh's.  Couldn't be him of course, as I'd last seen him only a couple of months back and the poor guy in the paper had been dead for a year.

However, as the day wore on, something gnawed at the back of my mind, and eventually I 'phoned a Glasgow shop which Hugh used to supply with books from time to time.  A guy called Stevie answered and I asked if he knew the book rep named Hugh, and whether he'd seen him recently.  "He's dead," he said.  "Got hit by a bus around a year ago."  Thanking him, I put down the 'phone and slowly let the confirmation of my nagging suspicion sink in.

That meant I'd last seen Hugh over a year before, despite it seeming far more recent than that.  I could hardly believe it - he'd been resting in his grave (or his urn) for over twelve months while I, in my ignorance, still trotted about permissively, half-expecting to run into him at any time.  Even after I learned of his death, I'd occasionally see someone in my local shopping centre and absent-mindedly think "Is that Hugh?", ready to call out to him before sadly remembering that he was no longer around.

Funny how quickly time passes, isn't it?  It's now over twenty years since I learned Hugh had died, and it still only seems like a few months since we ate and talked and laughed together, and he dropped me off outside my house with the promise of "doing it again sometime".  Sadly, for Hugh, that "sometime" never came - nor, in fact, for me either.  But who knows?  Maybe one day, perhaps - in another place, another time.

And Hugh - if so, you're buying.

BUSTER & THE BIG ONE - PART THREE...

The Sparrows go to War.  Art by Tom Kerr.  Images copyright relevant owner

Presenting the final five pages which complete your issue of BUSTER & The BIG ONE from 1965.  Often, seeing the ads in comics can be as much of a time-travel experience as the strips themselves, carrying us back to childhood faster than the wink of an eye.  I have to admit, I was largely unaware of Buster's existence at this time, being fully captivated by TV CENTURY 21.  To me, the 'definitive' Buster came a couple of years or so later, when FISHBOY started.  Along with CHARLIE PEACE (and Buster himself), that's the comic I remember from my innocent youth.

Hopefully, this three-part series has stirred up warm reminiscences of your days as a schoolboy in the dim and distant days of the 1960s.  Which, paradoxically, seem as fresh and alive as the morning dew and the caress of a gentle breeze on one's skin. 

Ug and Tug.  Art by Angel Nadal

Charlie Drake.  Art by Arthur Martin

For Part Two, click here.  For Part One, click here.

SPOTLIGHT ON FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #33...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Who'da thunk it?  A new comic I actually enjoyed.  FANTASTIC FOUR Annual (#33), written and pencilled by ALAN DAVIS (with inks by MARK FARMER) is a nice, traditional-type story which benefits from being a single issue tale, rather than the first episode of a multi-part 'epic' and the 'slower-than-a-snail's-pace' structure that such adventures usually entail.  (On account of being designed with collected editions in mind, rather than the monthly instalments they first appear in.)

I won't ruin the story for anyone by saying what it's about, but the artwork is more than worthy of a mention.  Clear, at-a-glance, unconvoluted sequential art which glides seamlessly from panel to panel, the reader isn't left scratching his head and wondering what he's looking at.  If I have one minor gripe, it's that the THING's face is perhaps slightly too 'cartoony'-looking on the cover, but that's not something the interior rendition of blue-eyed Benjy is afflicted with.

One thing that does bug me though, is this - take a look at the above page.  When I open a comic, I want to see a traditional splash page - something dramatic that'll whet my appetite for what's to come, not a page of dreary text which just about snuffs my interest and leaves me disinclined to read any further.  And take a look at all those names along the bottom.  What the hell are assistant editors, associate editors, editor-in-chiefs, chief creative officers, publishers, and executive producers doing there?  Who the hell cares?  FECK OFF!

It's the same on the first single-illo page (page two, not counting the text page) of the story.  As far as I'm concerned, the only names I'm interested in seeing are of those who wrote, drew, lettered, coloured, and - at a push - edited it.  The rest of them should be buried in the indicia, not obscuring the art - after all, who gives a monkey's burp?  It'll be office receptionists and tea ladies next.  Kindly feck off, the lot of you, and leave the credits for those who actually crafted the tale.

Okay, rant over.  If you're looking for an undemanding, entertaining way of killing half an hour, Fantastic Four Annual is for you.  Pick it up at your local comic shop today. 

MARVEL TALES SPIDEY COVER GALLERY - PART FIVE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Say what you like about STAN LEE, but one thing he was good at was coming up with catchy titles.  For instance, just look at the first offering in this new instalment of MARVEL TALES SPIDEY covers: "The GOBLIN And The GANGSTERS!"  And let's not forget "BRING BACK My GOBLIN To ME!" in ish #165.  Superb stuff indeed, and it's this sense of fun that '60s writers and artists were clearly having with the comics they created that's sadly lacking in many of today's lacklustre and disappointing offerings.

However, I'm not here to preach to you, merely to present this latest batch of Sturdy STEVE DITKO masterpieces for your consideration and enjoyment.  Take a look at the cover of MT #167, which originally adorned Spidey's second annual - in which he met that ol' Master of the Mystic Arts, Dr. STRANGE.  I'm lucky enough to have that particular publication in my collection (as well as the first), and there's just something about it which reaches out and grabs you.  Thankfully, none of its magic has been lost in the Marvel Tales reprint, despite a little juggling to accommodate the bar-code box.  And ANDY YANCHUS (who once worked for the famous AURORA model kits) has done a superb job of colouring the interiors.

Anyway, that's enough needless chat from me - on to the goodies.