MIGHTY MARVEL PIN-UP PAGE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

As all true SPIDER-MAN fans will know, the original STEVE DITKO cover of AMAZING FANTASY #15 was (gasp) rejected in favour of one by JACK KIRBY (although Ditko inked it). If I remember correctly, the unused cover was eventually published in an issue of MARVELMANIA (or somewhere), but one of the earliest reprintings (and the first British one) was as a back-page pin-up in The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL #2.

The original cover can be seen here - but above is the MWOM pin-up from October 7th (issue dated 14th), 1972. And for the completists amongst you (and who isn't?), below is the cover of the issue from which the pin-up comes.

A MARVEL "STICK-UP"...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Nowadays, we live in an age where publishers think nothing of putting a couple of quid or more on the price of a comic and adding a load of useless junk to justify doing so.  I remember when a poster or some stickers were the only inducements required to tempt us to purchase a comic that we probably would've bought anyway - and all at no extra cost to the reader.

Here's an example: The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL #3 from 1972 (dated October 21st, but on sale from the 14th) - plus the free gift included in that week's issue.  Though let's be totally honest - the JIM STARLIN and (perhaps) JOE SINNOTT cover would've sold the comic on its own.

"The NAME'S BOMB... JAMES BOMB..."

Copyright DC COMICS

I must've ordered several back numbers of this particular issue of MAD back in the day.  I loved it so much that, whenever I inadvertently dog-eared a corner or creased the spine of my latest copy, I immediately ordered another one.  Until the day that THORPE & PORTER informed me that they had run out - no more back numbers of #146 to be had.  I eventually managed to buy one from a pen-friend on the Isle of Wight, and that's the one from which I've scanned the following pages.

I remember waxing lyrically and eloquently to one of my school friends about the JAMES BOND parody contained in its pages.  "How do you manage to DO all these things?"  "Magnificently... of course!"  Hell, I'm still using that line today.  Whenever I'm showing off to someone by doing a doodle of OOR WULLIE or POPEYE, inevitably I'll be asked:  "How do you do that?"  And, equally inevitably, I utter my stock reply, stored in my memory banks since 1973.  I guess I'm a creature of habit. 

Brilliantly drawn by the amazing MORT DRUCKER, this parody has everything. Great art, funny one-liners and James Bond - sorry, Bomb - himself.  What's not to love?  If you haven't read it before, you're in for a treat - and if you have, you're still in for a treat, albeit one you've experienced before.  When this issue first appeared, Bond double-bills still regularly featured in Saturday matinees in cinemas all across the country.  It wasn't 'til about 1974 that the Bond movies back-catalogue was sold to television stations, although it was at least another year 'til the first one in the series (Dr. NO) appeared on the box.

Rereading this issue today, I'm pleased to see that it still holds up very well.  And who'd ever have thought that typeset lettering for the speech balloons and captions would work so good - better even than hand-crafted ones?  They just seemed, against the odds, to suit Mad to a tee - bestowing upon it a literary respectability that normal comicbook lettering probably couldn't have achieved.

Just how did they manage to do it?  (C'mon - you must've seen that one coming.)  All together now...

"Magnificently... of course!"

SUPERMAN - FROM THEN 'TIL NOW (ALMOST)...

Images copyright DC COMICS

Most of you will likely have heard of the book "SUPERMAN From The '30s To The '70s", which was published in the U.K. by HAMLYN BOOKS in 1972. (CROWN BOOKS published the U.S. edition the previous year.) With an infor-mative introduction by E. NELSON BRIDWELL, the book featured a mixture of black and white and colour reprints of Superman tales from down through the decades. It was described as a compendium of Superman 'firsts', but not every story really qualified in that department. 'Twas a nice, big, thick book though, and well worth £1.25.

In 1979, Hamlyn reissued the tome in the wake of the success of the blockbuster Superman The Movie, which had been a huge hit only a few months before. Interestingly though, the Other Media In Which Superman Has Appeared list wasn't updated to include the movie - the book being simply a straightforward reprint (on slightly thinner paper) of the earlier edition from seven years before.

Cut forward to 1983, and Crown released a revised edition, called, funnily enough, Superman From The '30s To The '80s.  Apparently DC itself had very little to do with the contents of the earlier volume, which had mostly been chosen by an editor at Crown.  This time around though, it was a different story.  Gone were some of the more whimsical, run-of-the-mill tales, being replaced with newer classics like "The Miraculous Return Of Jonathan Kent" two-parter and "The Origin Of Superman" tale from The AMAZING WORLD Of SUPERMAN tabloid-sized treasury special.  E. Nelson Bridwell revised his introduction from the '70s, but retained the spirit of the original.  If I have one minor quibble, it's that the "Kryptonite Nevermore!" story was omitted this time 'round.  SWAN and ANDERSON at their very best, too.

As far as I know, there was no Hamlyn British edition, so the Crown volume is a nice little collector's item which is well worth having, even if you already own its pred-ecessor.  Start your hunt on ebay today.  In the meantime, enjoy the scans from my personal copy of the book.

THE AVENGING ANGELS...

For those of you who may not already know, AIRFIX (now owned by HORNBY) reissued their 1968 CAPTAIN SCARLET ANGEL INTERCEPTOR model kit a little while ago.  Having had this kit back in the '60s, I recently managed to get my hands on the current one and look forward to doing it justice this time 'round.

Although the box has been redesigned, it still features the original 1960s artwork.  I understand the recent release is a limited edition - but, if you're quick, you should still be able to get your hands on one.

Spectrum Is Green.

THE RETURN OF BATMAN'S BADGE...

You'll perhaps remember me telling you about my childhood adventures of playing at BATMAN back in the '60s.  (If not, you can read about it here - go on, I'll wait for you until you get back.)

Anyway, above is a replacement I acquired a few years ago of the badge I used to wear on my jumper while running around in my mostly homemade Caped Crusader outfit.  (Only the mask and badge were 'official' items of merchandise.)  Until, that is, it fell off my jumper one night while I was in the school playground at the foot of the street.

I later learned that IAN FREW, who lived in the bottom house in my row, had grabbed it seconds after it hit the ground.  I chapped his door, but he denied having it, so there wasn't much I could do.  It only took me about 40-odd years to acquire a replacement for it.  I was glad to finally have it back in  my possession - it was like saying hello to an old friend. 

FAVOURITE FANTASTIC COVERS...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Don't worry, all you FANTASTIC fans - the following covers will appear in their appointed place in my Fantastic Cover Gallery when the time comes.  However, someone from another blog isn't getting any younger.  He may well be an old man by the time I get around to publishing them, so I thought I'd feature some of his favourite covers all in one post.

So, these are for him - feast your eyes on these Fantastic favourites.

Back page Pin-Up from issue #38

Unfortunately, I don't have the gift - but here's a b&w interior illustration

The TRUTH BEHIND The FICTION - Or HOW To SPOT A NUTTER...

"The truth is out there!" someone once said.  And here it is - social-inadequates are everywhere!  Case in point: The self-styled 'CAPTAIN', from various sites on the internet, has finally snapped his cap.  A petulant man-child who obviously suffers from a massive inferiority complex (or perhaps it's not a complex - maybe he's just inferior) has blogged yet another of the distorted, exaggerated, and far-from-the truth fantasies at which he is so adept.  Let me tell you about this sad and sorry little man who refers to himself as 'The Captain'.

A few years back, in a spirit of helpfulness, I pointed out that he'd got something wrong on a post on one of his blogs.  He corrected it without admitting the fact, and then denied the error had ever existed.  Such disingenuity seems to be a habit of his, as we shall see.

Recently, he posted BEANO and DANDY scans on his blog.  He mis-attributed the source of The Dandy ones, at first denying it when I pointed it out, then admitting it, but claiming he was only going by what the person who supplied the scans had told him.  Besides, these things aren't important, he claimed.

He disputed my point that The Beano scans were four pages short, saying that several experts had confirmed they were complete - until I kindly emailed them to him so that he could add them to his blog.  He also mis-attributed their source, which I correctly identified.  He resorted to his old standby - he was only going by what the supplier of the scans had told him, and besides, these things weren't important anyway.

(He has since characterized my attempts to supply him with accurate information and missing pages as "taking issue" with him.  In fact, the reverse is true: he took issue with me for trying to be helpful, saying I was wrong and that he loved a good debate.  Until I emailed him the missing pages, that is.  Then it was nothing but sulks, huffs, insults and lies all round on his part.)

Are you seeing a pattern yet?  Whenever he gets something wrong, it's always someone else's fault - never his.  The buck certainly doesn't stop with him in his little world.

Then an old detractor of mine, who had miraculously (and no doubt 'coincidentally' - yeah, right) turned up on (and only on) the two posts to which I had responded and took a mild dig at me, while erroneously claiming that 'The Captain' was correct in his assertions.  The fact that this detractor misrepresented what those assertions were in order to take a pop at me is typical of the sort of thing he does.  This person has been accused of bullying on another forum, so I responded by saying that he should reserve such tactics for there.  A fairly mild (and appropriate) riposte I would have thought.

However, both of them are fellow-members of said other forum and have had quite a few discussions in the past.  'The Captain', in an exaggerated and theatrical display of 'solidarity' with his forum 'chum', banned me from his site and sycophantically apologized to said detractor for the "worst kind of abuse" he had ever seen in over fifteen years on the internet.  Perhaps he should expand his horizons.  I repeat - all I said was that the person should stick to his bullying tactics on the other site.  Nice move though - gets his own back on me for correcting his errors - and gets a kick in for his 'colleague' as well.  Two birds with one stone.

'The Captain' also used the opportunity to level inflammatory insults at me, which I demanded he remove from his blog or there would be repercussions.  Typically, he distorted the facts to misquote me as having said "dire consequences", implying some sinister intent on my part.  He even claims to have reported me to the police.  Am I alone in regarding this person as being somewhat hysterical in his responses?  I doubt it.

We now descend even further into absurdity.  He then claimed that his wife and child were terribly upset by all of this (a claim he has since repeated, saying I have caused "worry and consternation" to his family).  My response was that, going from his immature behaviour, I very much doubted he was old enough to actually be married and that his 'wife' could surely only be of the 'inflatable' variety.  I always try to keep a sense of humour about me, even when dealing with obvious nutters.  This - and this alone - is what he constitutes as "vile attacks" on him and his family.  Same goes for "disgusting comments".

Are you beginning to see how he distorts things completely out-of-proportion, the better to portray himself as some kind of 'under-siege' victim?  Is this the behaviour of a sane and rational man, never mind a mature one?  Again, I doubt it.  It really is rather pathetic to use one's family (who are probably completely unaware of this individual's online shenanigans) to try and elicit sympathy for oneself or to assume the moral high-ground.  And all because he was caught in a succession of errors and can't handle the fact.

He accuses me of having "libelled" him - although, as far as I'm aware, it's impossible to libel a fictitious identity.  That's right - he doesn't use his own name, preferring to operate under an alias.  Also seems to use a proxy server by the look of it - perhaps he has something to hide?  He also accuses me of having libelled my detractor.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but libel is when one states an untruth, isn't it?  (Rhetorical question - of course it is.)  Nothing I've said about either of them is untrue - and my detractor certainly doesn't seem to be making any kind of a fuss about it as far as I'm aware.  Isn't it big of 'The Captain' to insist on taking offence on someone else's behalf?

He also accuses me of having posted an anonymous comment about him on another blog, thereby adding some form of supernatural divination to his 'impressive' list of non-accomplishments.  (Incidentally, I've since looked at the blog in question and his remarks on this subject seem to be at odds with what the blog owner himself says.) 

What should I do?  Claim despair over my friends and family being subjected to all this "worry and consternation"?  Tell the police in an impotent act of hysterical rage and frustration at someone ripping the p*ss?  Make a complete and utter t*t of myself by according more gravitas to a trivial and absurd situation than it warrants?  Well, no - that's mainly his department.

I'll content myself with pointing out what a self-absorbed, immature, disingenuous and deceitful little nutter he seems to be, and having a good, hearty laugh at him and his foibles.  Feel free to join me.

******

UPDATE:  The oaf has since deleted his provocative remarks from his blog, no doubt in order to minimize his outrageous behaviour and enable him to claim (in his own words) a "calm and dignified" reaction.  (Must be nice to have such a flexible perception of reality.)  Divorced from the context in which they were made, some of my comments may seem unduly forthright, but it should be remembered that I am only responding to smears, insults and outright lies.  I have no interest in whitewashing the facts and therefore will not be removing my posts.

The UNEXPURGATED BEANO NUMBER ONE... (PART TWO)

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

For all you completists out there, here's the second half of the first issue of The BEANO for you to salivate over.  (For Part One, click here.)  Unlike the abridged presentation on another blog, this one features the full 28 pages (in two parts, this being the concluding one).

Your very own Beano #1.  Am I good to you or what?

HERE'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DEAL WITH INFANTILE MINDS...

Recently, another Blogger made what I regard as offensive remarks about me in the comments section of his blog.  Wouldn't have bothered if it hadn't been clear he was referring to me.  So I emailed him and insisted that he remove his biased, inaccurate and inflammatory insults immediately, otherwise there would be repercussions.  Obviously, any intelligent person would interpret this as 'legal' repercussions (and much unwelcome publicity on my blog), but I've since received an email from this deluded, pathetic individual informing me that he's reported me to the police.  My initial thoughts are confirmed - the man is obviously of severely limited intellect.

What's worse, however, is that in his own account of the event, so eager is he to imply sinister intent, he attributes the words "dire consequences" to me - words I never actually used.  Yet more proof, if any were required, that he's not shy in twisting the facts to suit whatever distorted picture he's trying to paint.  I previously described him as someone with no regard to accuracy - I now don't hesitate in calling him an outright stranger to the truth.  (To reality, in fact.)

What is it with some comicbook geeks?  Are they mentally retarded, or what?  The question remains though - just who's going to report him for wasting police time?  (Assuming that he has actually reported me - which I doubt.)  And to think - all this nonsense simply because he got his facts wrong three times in a row and resents me for merely supplying corrections.  (Prima donnas, eh?  Who needs 'em?)

Error #1: He claimed his Dandy scans came from the 1978 Chimera-Posner book, D.C. THOMSON FIRSTS.  No they didn't.  When he finally admitted I was right, he said that he was given the wrong information by the supplier of his scans.  What?  The guy doesn't know what it is he's scanning from?  A likely story.  Then he claimed such details aren't important.  (So why does he get uptight about it?)

Error #2: I also pointed out that his Beano scans were four pages short.  Not so, said he, claiming that several unidentified experts confirmed his assertion that he'd posted the complete comic.  (Obviously also a bit of a fantasist.)  So I emailed him the four missing pages.  No acknowledgement or thank you until over a day after I'd drawn his attention to the fact on my blog.  Then he eventually posts a grudging "thank you" and later tries to imply it was posted earlier than it actually was.

Error #3: He also mis-attributed his Beano scans to a different source than they actually came from.  Talk about sloppy 'accountancy'?  Once more, it wasn't 'til I had again identified the actual source that he tried to imply that he'd known all along and had simply mis-typed.

He's done this sort of thing before.  A couple of years ago, I pointed out an error in something he wrote.  He went back and sneakily amended the mistake, then claimed he'd never made it to begin with.  Without a screen-grab of his initial version I couldn't prove anything, so I didn't make a fuss, downplaying the situation by saying I couldn't understand what'd happened.  Given his constant squirming and dismissal of detail as being unimportant - when he gets it wrong that is - it's clear he has a massive hang-up about being seen to be mistaken about things on which he considers himself an expert.

Now he's going 'all-out' over on his blog, trying to misrepresent the facts and playing the role of the victim.  When a detractor of mine turned up on his blog erroneously endorsing his claims, he also took a sly dig at me, to which I responded.  (Strange that said detractor only visited the two posts I'd remarked upon and missed the subsequent ones.  Let's put it down to coincidence, shall we?  Even though they both know one another as members on a comics forum.  No doubt we also believe in fairies and honest politicians.)

Sadly, this was the only excuse he needed to try and wrest some kind of perverse revenge for having been shown to be wrong, seizing the factual content of my reply to said individual as an excuse to ban me from his site.  (Perhaps he's aware of the 'history' between myself and this person and is exploiting it for his own ends - as well as striking a blow on behalf of his comics forum cohort.  It's worth noting that, out of the four links (now five) on his blog to other sites, two are his own and one is my detractor's.  Something sure smells fishy in Denmark.)

Well, it's all a bit dramatic, but it's certainly one way to ensure not being picked up on all the errors one makes - ban anyone who spots them.  He likens himself to a seafarer, does this sad and 'stormy' soul - but all I see is a capricious Captain of an unseaworthy ship, adrift on troubled and turbulent waves.

"Argh-h-h-h! It's 'im!"

******

Update: This person has now deleted his provocative remarks from his blog in order to minimise his outrageous behaviour and to allow him to claim a "calm and dignified" reaction.  (Must be nice to have such a flexible perception of reality.)  Divorced from the context in which they were made, some of my comments may seem unduly forthright, though it should be remembered that I'm simply responding to smears, insults and outright lies.  I have no interest in whitewashing the facts and therefore won't be removing my posts.

PART THREE Of FANTASTIC COVER GALLERY...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

Heads up, you lucky people.  Here we have the next instalment of cracking covers (Gromit) from the ODHAMS PRESS periodical FANTASTIC, first published in the late '60s.  I believe any new back-page pin-ups were either by BARRY WINDSOR SMITH or STEVE PARKHOUSE (husband of 2000 A.D. letterer, ANNIE PARKHOUSE), and these were alternated with reprints of U.S. pin-ups or illustrations adapted for the purpose.

So without any further ado (must remember to pick up a fresh supply when I'm out), let's get started.

Don't know about all you Crivs, but I just love that pin-up of SUE STORM, originally printed in FANTASTIC FOUR #10.  Tune in again soon - for further Fantastic covers from yesteryear.