GORDON'S BANKING ON IT...

As the more sports-minded (or 'armchair experts') amongst you will know, the football season has descended upon us.  We can now look forward to lager-lout behaviour in pubs with giant-screen TVs, brain-addled parents spending fortunes on official team kits for their infants and toddlers, and the disruption of normal channel programming for the discernible future (yawn).

You'll doubtless have guessed that I'm not a footie fan (what gave me away?) - not got the slightest interest in the game, or sports in general come to that.  However, when I was a lad, I bought #1 (and  for a while, subsequent issues) of SCORCHER when it first appeared on January 3rd (dated 10th) 1970.  I never could resist the lure of a new weekly comic's number one.

Copyright REBELLION

At some stage in its early run, it gave away free-gift cards featuring famous footballers, and although I wasn't a fan of the game (I only continued to buy the comic for the BILLY'S BOOTS strip, which had a sort of supernatural premise), I decided to retain the one of GORDON BANKS and get rid of the rest.  The reason?  His name of course.  Here was someone regarded as the best goalkeeper in Britain, if not the world - the absolute top man in his chosen profession - and his name was Gordon.  (And he wore a nice grass-green top for good measure.)

Over the years, the card has come, in memory, to encapsulate sunny Summer days of my youth (the photo was clearly taken in Summer) in one of my old neighbourhoods, so when I recently saw it for sale on eBay, I snapped it up.  Gordon's card is now back to live with me - and provide one more window into the past to distract me from the final future that beckons us all.

(Now there's a cheery note to end on.)

The THING COVER & SPLASH PAGE GALLERY - PART THREE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

As I gad about the streets of Glasgow, friendly passers-by often say to me, "Hi Kid, how's things?"  Overlooking their bad grammar, I hilariously reply "Not what they used to be!", which is, after all, just the sort of response you'd expect from a professional nostalgist.  And 'Marvel' at how cleverly I steered the topic round to 'Things' in an effortless link that would be the envy of many a TV presenter.  (Two word puns for the price of one there, as it's MARVEL's THING I'm talking about.  No need to applaud - it's a gift.)

As it's Friday the 13th today, I thought it appropriate that we start with #13 of the Thing's own magazine (which is a complete lie, of course - it a total coincidence).  To be honest, I don't recall being too keen on the ROCKY GRIMM - SPACE RANGER theme that ran over several issues, but I plan on re-reading them soon and perhaps I may revise my opinion.

Anyway, enjoy this pulsating plethora of covers and splash pages from a titanic time when The FANTASTIC FOUR's most popular member had his very own monthly comic mag.  It may only have lasted 36 issues, but that's better than The INCREDIBLE HULK managed on his first outing.

ALAN MOORE GETS IT COMPLETELY WRONG - AGAIN...

Remember a little while back (in this post) when I said someone should stick a sock in ALAN MOORE's gob to stop him making a total t*t of himself almost every time he opens his bearded mouth.  Well, listen to him accuse STAN LEE of claiming, in one of his ORIGINS books, to have created CAPTAIN AMERICA with JACK KIRBY.

I've got those Origins volumes - Stan never says he created the shield-slinger in any of them.  In fact, although he's been mistakenly credited as having done so by lazy reporters who don't know their comicbook history, he himself, as far as I'm aware, has never made such a claim in his entire life.  (Unlike Jack, who once claimed to have created SUPERMAN, and designed SPIDER-MAN's costume.)

Furthermore, to add insult to injury, Mr. Moore totally misrepresents the conversation between JONATHAN ROSS and Stan in the TV programme IN SEARCH OF STEVE DITKO, completely distorting what the two of them actually said and painting Stan in a bad light in the process. 

Mr. Moore would do well to remember that, without Stan Lee, there might not have been a comicbook industry in which to carve out a lucrative career for himself - largely using the creations of others who preceded him.

PART TWO Of DON STARR In "The LIVING DOLLS"...

Copyright relevant owner

Response to TERRIFIC's DON STARR strip has been reasonably favourable, so here's part two to help you recapture the joy of your youth from when you first read these pulsating pages in the ODHAMS PRESS Power periodical back in - gasp - 1967.  I'll have to dig out my copy of STEVE HOLLAND's INDEX TO THE POWER PACK to see if I can find out the artist's name of this strip - no doubt he'll be foreign, as many of the best artists on British comics were in those days.

Right, see you all back here again for part three - don't miss it!

SHE'S SMOKING RINGS AROUND YOU!

Here's and old MILLS BROTHERS favourite

of mine, sung by k.d. lang.  Put your feet up, sit back

and close your tired eyes - you're about to enter a state

 of total relaxation.  Ready?  Right - hit that link!

PART TWO Of TALES OF SUSPENSE COVER GALLERY...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Well, folks, here we are again, this time with a belated part two of our TALES OF SUSPENSE cover gallery - featuring ten, count 'em - ten great covers from the dawn of the MARVEL AGE.  I'm familiar with a few of these INVINCIBLE IRON MAN images from when they adorned the covers of a British weekly periodical called FANTASTIC, published by ODHAMS PRESS in the late 1960s, but it's great to see the originals.

Some of them look a little rushed to me, but JACK KIRBY was pencilling almost everything that Marvel was producing at this time, so, given his workload, it's understandable.  Look at #52 - The CRIMSON DYNAMO looks like a midget compared to Iron Man, but the size of characters in relation to one another was never Jack's strong point.  My favourite cover out of the bunch is, in fact, #57 by DON HECK - although it's actually a makeshift one consisting of 'cut-ups' from some of the story's interior panels.

Know something?  If Marvel were to republish these comics tomorrow as single issues, I'd buy 'em before any contemporary comic, even though I already have several reprints of each one.  Just what does that tell you about modern comics?  Answers on a postcard please.  (Or you can use the comments section.)

  

PART FOUR Of The SUPER HEROES COVER & IMAGE GALLERY...

Images copyright DC COMICS

Let's now look at the next part of The SUPER HEROES cover gallery, including some interior pages from this early '80s mag for those who may never have seen it before.  (Yes, I know - my consideration has no limits.)  The good thing about this title was that it reprinted a variety of stories from different decades, and also included various features to fill in readers with the history of the DC COMICS Universe.  A superb little monthly, and tremendous value at only 40p.

The mag had a mixture of great, good, nice, and slightly dodgy (going by #12) cover art by a variety of U.K. talent around at the time (and some of them still are), but it was the classic content which was the main attraction in most cases, although I'm sure that in some instances the covers must've led to a few extra sales (#7 from part three being a prime example of the sort of attention-grabber I mean).

Anyway, that's enough pointless padding from me; I now unleash these iconic images upon you to delight your world-weary eyes.

  

The 'TERRIFIC' DON STARR, In "The LIVING DOLLS" - PART ONE...

All images copyright their respective owners

THE LIVING DOLLS made its debut in TERRIFIC #3, with the hero of the strip, DON STARR, showing up in #4.  That's all you really need to know as you'll discover anything else of interest as we go along.  Beyond whitening up the pages, I haven't bothered to remove any printer's blemishes, but I may do that later perhaps.  Besides, I know that some readers prefer to see classic strips 'warts and all', so a few ink blots won't matter much.  If you'd like to see further episodes in the series, I'd appreciate you saying so, because it'll take quite a bit of time to scan all the pages and, truth to tell, I'd rather not bother if nobody's all that interested in reading them.

The adventure begins now!  Will we ever see its end?  Up to you, pilgrim - up to you!