An AMAZING ADVENTURE Into ADULT FANTASY - COVER GALLERY...

Art by KIRBY & AYERS.  Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Forget what you've read, it didn't happen that way!  AMAZING FANTASY #15 was never intended to be the last issue, and SPIDER-MAN wasn't published in it as a 'one-shot' so that STAN LEE could get the character out of his system.  It's true that AF #15 was the final ish, but it wasn't cancelled 'til after it had gone to the printers and probably not even until after it had hit the stands.  Ol' Spidey was intended as an ongoing character from the very beginning and issue #15 was meant to be the first in a new direction for the comic.

It started as an anthology mag called AMAZING ADVENTURES, featuring various SF and mystery tales (including an early prototype of DOCTOR STRANGE, called DOCTOR DROOM), drawn by artists like KIRBY, DITKO, AYERS, HECK and REINMAN.  However, with its 7th issue, the name changed to AMAZING ADULT FANTASY and it became an exclusive showcase for Steve Ditko's artwork.  Sales were slipping though, so it was decided to try and infuse new life into the mag by changing it into a superhero title along the lines of The FANTASTIC FOUR and The INCREDIBLE HULK.  The word 'adult' was dropped from the logo as it would've seemed out of place on a comicbook featuring a 'long underwear character' aimed at juvenile readers.

Meanwhile, however, publisher MARTIN GOODMAN had seen the recent sales figures and, despite Stan's plans for the comic, ordered its cancellation with immediate effect.  The Spidey story intended for #16 then found its way into The AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 several months later, and the mag lasted for 700 issues before being cancelled to make way for The SUPERIOR SPIDER-MAN last year.

Here, then, is a complete gallery of all 15 covers from the short-lived comic that led to the debut of The Amazing Spider-Man, MARVEL's flagship character.  From such little acorns mighty oaks do grow!

SPECIAL BONUS:  Below is the original, unused cover for AF #15.  I suspect the logo from the published issue above would've replaced the one (based on the original Amazing Adventures logo) on Ditko's version, had it seen print.

HORROR Of The HOUSE On HAUNTED HILL...

Art by STEVE DITKO, copyright MARVEL COMICS

Seeing as how we're fast approaching Hallowe'en, I thought I'd share this true tale with you to put you in the mood.  Are you alone?  Are you sure you're alone?  Perhaps you'd better check first before we proceed.  Ready?  Good, then I'll begin.

******

Not long after my family had moved into our new house back in 1972, a curious thing happened.  My brother came downstairs into the living-room one night and claimed he'd just seen an elderly lady in white on the stairway outside his room.  My parents pooh-poohed the notion, but, shortly after, my bed was moved from my front room on the grounds it was damp (the room, not the bed) into my brother's room, which we then shared for a few months (again, the room, not the bed).  I suspect it was more to do with my brother being scared to be alone than it was with the risk of me catching pneumonia, but I grant it could've been a combination of both.

Some indeterminate time afterwards (a year or two perhaps), my brother again came into the living-room with a concerned look on his face and called us upstairs, saying that someone was walking around in the attic.  We all trooped up to my brother's room and, sure enough, there was a sound of creaking boards - as though someone was walking from one end of the attic and back again.  My father got out the stepladder and tentatively poked the top of his head a few inches into the hatch opening, but he was in no mad rush (nor were we) to more thoroughly explore the vast confines of its black interiors, so we put the noise down to some not entirely convincing 'rational' explanation and retired downstairs again.  

Some years later, we moved house, and four years after that, we moved back again - with the exception of my brother, who'd acquired his own flat in the meantime.  Now, I don't believe in ghosts, but the couple with whom we exchanged houses in order to return to our former abode, told me that one night while lying in bed, a ghostly apparition had drifted through the wall from my brother's old room into theirs, then floated right over their bed and melted through the window on the other side.  They were a young couple and a bit flaky, so I put their 'experience' down to having partaken of a combination of too much alcohol and weed.

But here's where it gets strange (as you doubtless anticipated).  A few years after having moved back, I was lying in my bed one night in the small hours when I suddenly became aware of a wizened old woman in white shuffling towards my bedside.  She stopped and stooped, lowering her crinkled face towards mine as if scrutinizing it intently.  For a moment I was paralysed, but then, with a growl, I sat bolt upright in bed to confront the ancient figure, who immediately retreated (still facing me) into the far corner of the room before fading into nothingness.

I sat stunned for a moment, not quite sure what had happened.  Had I seen a ghost, the very one my brother had claimed to have seen so many years before?  Or had I only been dreaming and suddenly awoken - with the figure in my dream somehow still visible before me, like some swiftly-diminishing after-image?

Who can say for sure?  I still don't believe in ghosts, but that was certainly a moment which gave me pause for thought.  Anyone else got any similar experiences?  Feel free to share.  

SOME OLD NEIGHBOURS DIE, OTHERS SIMPLY FADE AWAY...

Art by BERNIE WRIGHTSON, copyright DC COMICS

A few doors along from me used to live a woman whose name (for the purpose of this tale) was Mrs. SMITH.  Mrs. Smith and her three daughters were living there when my family moved into the area in 1972 and had presumably lived there for a good number of years before we had ever thought to do so.  In the fullness of time, her daughters married and moved out and Mrs. Smith lived in the house by herself.

About fifteen years ago, I would occasionally see Mrs. Smith's teenage granddaughter visiting her, but her health had started to fail so I never saw much of Mrs. Smith herself, apart from the very odd occasion when she was sweeping her front porch.  Then, around six years back, I noticed that the now adult granddaughter and her boyfriend seemed to be visiting Mrs. Smith quite a lot, if their frequent comings and goings were anything to go by.

And then one day the proverbial penny dropped.  Mrs. Smith's granddaughter and boyfriend weren't visiting, but actually living there, Mrs. Smith having moved out of the house and in with another of her daughters some months before without me having noticed.  And so it had come to pass that another long-time familiar face had disappeared from my everyday life without me ever getting to bid her a last goodbye.  (Not that she'd be concerned with that.)

I've no idea if Mrs. Smith is still alive or not, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that she expired a few years back, so frail had she become.  In the caverns of my mind are many people who were once everyday participants in my day-to-day life who I haven't seen in years, and, like Mrs. Smith, I have no idea whether they yet inhabit this mortal plane or left for parts unknown a good while ago.  Alive, dead, flitted, emigrated?  Who knows?

(UPDATE: I later learned that 'Mrs. Smith' passed away on Friday, November 1st, 2013 - twelve days after I posted this.)

What strikes me as odd is that it can be many months, sometimes even years, before we realise that we haven't seen 'so and so' for ages, and that part of the backdrop of our lives has been altered by their absence.  I often think of folk who once perambulated past my window on a daily basis that I haven't seen in years, and wonder where they are and (if alive) what they're doing now.  (Just where is the guy with the ill-fitting toupee, who my teenage self used to see making his way to and from the local pub every night?  He must've been one helluva fighter to stop his drinking buddies continually ripping the p*ss out of him, that's for sure.)

I remember sitting in a cafe in Southsea one day, back around 1985, and noticing an elderly gentleman with a pale film over one eye and a distinctly Karloffian-type face (as BERNIE WRIGHTSON would draw it), dressed in 1950s style clothes under a black overcoat. I only ever saw him once, maybe twice, but every now and again, my mind jumps backwards and I wonder what became of him, simply because I associate him with Southsea and have fond memories of my time living there, nearly thirty years ago.  

When I'm gone, I wonder if anyone will one day ever wonder what happened to the guy with his German Shepherd dog, who faithfully traversed the neighbourhood in all weathers, and, without ever having known me, sort of miss me in the same way that they miss their childhood - simply because I was once a familiar (from afar), everyday part of it.

It would be nice to think so, but somehow I doubt it.  

HE'S BACK - JOHNNY FUTURE!

 

Copyright REBELLION

 

For all lovers of superhero adventure comic strips, here's one of the finest from the pages of FANTASTIC, published by ODHAMS PRESS in the late '60s - JOHNNY FUTURE!  Drawn by Spanish artist LUIS BERMEJO, this is one of the most fondly-remembered strips of the period by those who were lucky enough to be there at the time.

 

Ah, the '60s!  What can one say about them?  The era of BOND, The BEATLES and BATMAN, it was also the time of flower power and 'free love' (though there's always a catch), to say nothing of some great puppet shows from the stable of GERRY ANDERSON.

 

However, we're not here to talk about those things - for the moment it's only JOHN FOSTER's superpowered alter-ego we're interested in.  So let's get to him, shall we?  And we're off!  

 

BEANO & DANDY CHRISTMAS CRACKERS...

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

Why does DENNIS The MENACE on the above cover look like a 20 year old, powerfully-built man in short trousers?  Not quite sure, but he does, wouldn't you say?  In the shops now - The BEANO and The DANDY CHRISTMAS CRACKERS, priced £4.99 each.

While it's great to see so many classic strips, it has to be said that they look extremely washed out.  Perhaps this is to give them an authentic 'old' look, but it makes them less attractive than they could be.  If I were a cynic, I might think they were made to look like this in order to make the current strips in The Beano weekly look even more colourful and exciting than they actually are by comparison.  Surely not though?  

Either way, D.C. THOMSON have taken the lazy route to producing these bookazines, merely scanning and printing by the look of it.  I'm certainly no expert and hardly have the technology available to DCT, but even with my limited resources, I've managed to make the examples on this post much brighter and slightly less ancient looking.  Cop a gander at that Dandy logo - wouldn't have hurt them to tart it up a bit, surely?

Anyway, probably designed to appeal more to grown-up former readers than today's current crop of kids, so if you've got a spare tenner, you could probably spend it in worse ways.

ARCHIE GOODWIN'S GLASGOW 'ADVENTURE'...

Art by STEVE DITKO, copyright MARVEL COMICS

As I gad about the streets of Glasgow, the city of my birth, I'm often struck by its similarity to other countries.  Depending on exactly which street one happens to be, the architecture resembles New York or Chicago, Prague, Russia, Berlin, Austria - and no doubt quite a few other places.  In fact, the city has stood in for a few of these locations in various movies over the years, so it would seem that I'm not the only one who thinks so.

As I mentioned once before, back around the mid-'90s, a small group were taking a stroll around George Square in the centre of Glasgow.  Amongst the assembled company was no less a personage than ARCHIE GOODWIN (anyone who doesn't know who he is can leave the room now) and his wife ANN, and no more a personage than my good and humble self.  As we all chatted amongst ourselves on our way to dinner, Archie and myself at first continued a conversation we'd begun earlier, and then expanded onto other matters.

I mentioned to him that, as a young boy, whenever I was in the city centre with my parents, invariably I would be bought a comic (one of the POWER COMICS usually) containing reprints of JACK KIRBY or STEVE DITKO tales, and had no problem at all imagining that they were taking place in Glasgow.  This, of course, was because the buildings that Kirby and Ditko drew in their strips were identical to those of my birthplace.  'Twas Archie who pointed out that it was no surprise, as many of America's city blocks had been designed by some of the same architects, who had emigrated to the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century.

There's an alley I pass just along from Glasgow's Central Station, and I swear to you, if I were ever to see a Steve Ditko SPIDER-MAN climbing up or down one of the walls, I doubt I'd be in the least bit surprised.  In fact, I almost expect to see him every time I look.  Maybe one day, eh?

 

"WHERE DEMONS DWELL!"

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

As I gyrate through the streets of Glasgow, I have only one destination in mind - a comicbook shop!  Within its cool interiors I'm immediately met by a plethora of power-packed periodicals, books, and collectables, the very things to prompt my pulse into overdrive and bring me to the brink of a heart attack.  So many goodies, so little room left in my seemingly shrinking house.

THOR MASTERWORKS Volume 12 was a book I simply had to have, as well as the third printing of FANTASTIC FOUR OMNIBUS Vol 1.  Marvel now have all their books printed in China, and the new Omnibus volumes are much thinner than they used to be, meaning that they take up far less space on a bookshelf.  That's not the only reason I bought it though, so let me explain why I did.

Despite claiming to feature the 'highest quality reproduction ever', FF #1 apart, the issues presented in the first two printings were the same as in previous Masterwork editions, which left a little to be desired if I'm being completely honest.  However, this latest release is using the superior source material first utilised in the relatively recent Masterworks softcover books.  Everything is still not 100% perfect in a few of the later issues represented in this newest hardback collection, but it's probably the closest they'll get to anything near perfection for quite a few years yet.

Take a look at the first image below.  This is the dustjacket to the second printing from a few years back - look at SUE's face and hair (and other details, like the policeman and pedestrians) and then compare them with the second image below, this time from the newest printing.  See the difference?  I've even included close-ups to help you.  

As you can see, in the first pic, Sue's face and hair are far less detailed, and there are some slight differences between the two pics of the cop and bystanders.

To some people, of course, differences like these are trivial, but to conscientious collectors like myself, we prefer to have everything as near to the original printings of the mags as possible (as far as accuracy goes), but obviously on better quality paper.

But let us not forget the Thor book at the top of this post.  Containing issues #206-216, it features 11 titanic tales of Marvel's mightiest immortal, written by GERRY CONWAY and LEN WEIN, and illustrated by such legendary luminaries as JOHN and his brother SAL BUSCEMA, MARIE SEVERIN, DON PERLIN and JIM MOONEY.  A couple of pages is your lot, I'm afraid, as I've spoiled you enough for today.

COMICS UK?

I've been a little lax with my postings recently, but having just wiped the dust of one particular distraction from my shoes, you now have my full attention.  So what would you like me to talk about?  If you have any suggestions or ideas about what you'd like to see your humble (I'm famous for it) host cover on this site, write in and let me know.  (But keep it decent, hear?)

Do you prefer to read mainly about U.K. comics, or are you as equally interested in U.S. ones?  What era most appeals to you, or are your tastes more general and non-specific?  You know where the ol' comments box is, intelligent ones, so don't be scared to use it. 

May I remind you all, however, that although the anonymous option remains open for the convenience of those without Google accounts, no comments will be published without a name of some kind (unless at my discretion), even if only an assumed one.  This helps to distinguish between different 'anonymous' commenters and avoids confusion.  Once you've adopted a name (if you're not using your real one), please stick with it.  Ta.  

A POOH In The CORNER Of The HOUSE - (Or SOMETHING LIKE THAT - CLOSE ENOUGH)...

Returning to an oft-repeated theme on this blog which I've probably battered to death - that of memories and associations.  Take the above EP record as an example.  ("Don't want it!" you contemptuously reply.)  I got it at an Autumn or Christmas Fayre in 1981/'82, held by the church at the top of the street and across the road from the house I'd lived in from 1965-'72.  Note that I said by and not in.  That's because the fayre (let's call a spade a spade - jumble sale) was held in my old primary school at the foot of the street, primarily (no pun intended) because it had more space to accommodate the aspirations of the event's organisers.

So, to hopefully helpfully reiterate: I obtained the record while living in my current home, from my old primary school in the same street as my former house.  That would explain why, whenever I look at it, I associate it with the area where I acquired it, but - so strong is the link, that I also associate it with my old room and can actually 'see' it there in my mind's eye as plain as day, in some kind of 'false memory'.  Weird, eh?

"Ah, that's easy to explain!" you proclaim.  "You associate the record with your old school and you associate your old school with your old house, so it's only natural that you'd connect the record to the house, too!"  And doubtless you're right.  However, it's still an odd feeling to have what appears to be a memory of something that was never actually so.  Anyone have any similar instances they'd care to share?

Go on - we won't laugh.  Promise.

  

STRANGE TALES COVER GALLERY - PART ONE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Starting with the first issue (#110) of STRANGE TALES to feature DOCTOR STRANGE, we now take a trip through a gallery of nine covers from the aforesaid title.  (I've included #s 112 & 113, though the good Doc was absent in those particular issues.)  The series couldn't have inspired high hopes in the minds of its two creators, as STEPHEN STRANGE didn't appear on the cover until issue #118, but posterity rightly recognises that these early LEE/DITKO tales were true classics.

So what more is there to be said but - enjoy!