LOOKING AT THE VIEW...

As we get older, it seems to me that colours appear less vivid, flavours and smells less potent, our surroundings less able to make an impression on our conscious minds.  Maybe that's why, when we think back to childhood, summers seemed longer and brighter and bluer, and winters were whiter and crisper and colder.  (Though that last part may have been down to the absence of central heating when I was a boy.)

Our senses are keener when we're younger, and more susceptible to the 'moods' with which each season of the year enfolds us.  Also, because we're more optimistic, enthusiastic and eager to experience each brand-new day, we perceive everything around us in a particular way that is peculiar to the period of childhood and adolescence, but which does not continue with us on our journey through adulthood.

Sometimes I look at a comic or toy and get a flashback to an earlier time in my life - and for the briefest of moments re-experience a more colourful, sharper, keener, livelier, brighter and better world than the one I wake up to each day as a grown-up.  It's almost like, as children, we have a special enhancer fitted to our senses, through which every experience is routed to deliver optimum impact.  However, this enhancer has worn out by the time we reach the end our third decade, and the world never seems quite the same again.

That's why Christmas, Halloween, Easter, etc., appear to be but pale shadows of their former selves as we get older.  In fact, it's only the dim and distant memory of how such times were to us as children which lends any faint hint of magic or enchantment to current celebrations.  Without the glow of past years to illuminate our present ones, Christmases and birthdays would mean little or nothing to those of a certain age.

I can remember, as a child, standing at the top of the hill on which my then-house was situated, and the horizon seemed an almost infinite distance away, the sky a vast expanse of drifting clouds against an azure backdrop a million miles high, and my surroundings were easily able to accommodate visions of fairytale kingdoms of the kind depicted in storybook illustrations.  (I remember when I first read The HOBBIT as a 10 or 11 year old - the remote mountain I could spy from my back garden was surely the same Lonely Mountain under which the wicked dragon SMAUG's stolen treasure resided.)

Whenever I stand at the top of that hill on a visit to my old neighbourhood today, the sky seems far lower and the once distant horizon only a stone's throw away, encompassed by boundaries which, if they existed in the days of my youth, I never noticed.  Metaphorically speaking, once you start seeing the frame as well as the picture within, you know that you've run out of pixie dust.

Unfortunately, you only get provided with one portion in life - and it's not enough to last the journey.

UNCANNY X-MEN COVER GALLERY...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Sometimes words are superfluous, and this is surely one such occasion.  What could I possibly say that would increase your appreciation of the first ten covers of The X-MEN as illustrated by JACK 'KING' KIRBY?  Well, to be honest - nothing.  So all that need be said is - enjoy!

BACK To The FUTURE...

Copyright REBELLION

Many of you will have read and enjoyed The MISSING LINK strips from the pages of the late, lamented FANTASTIC which I published in a number of posts last year.  With its sixteenth issue, the series took a different direction and the Link, who originally was little more than an INCREDIBLE HULK knock-off, became a bona-fide superhero called JOHNNY FUTURE!

Here then is the first episode wherein JOHN FOSTER reveals his caped crime-fighting alter ego to the world at large for the very first time.  Want to see what happens next?  Then be sure to leave your 'thumbs-up' in the captivating comments section.

(Incidentally, the symbol on Johnny's costume appears to have been added later by someone in the ODHAMS offices.  Going by how inconsistently it's rendered from panel-to-panel and episode-to-episode, it's highly unlikely to be the handiwork of artist LUIS BERMEJO.  In fact, it was missed out in the last panel.) 

SPIDER-MAN COMICS WEEKLY COVER GALLERY - PART ONE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

February 10th, 1973.  That was the day SPIDER-MAN COMICS WEEKLY first went on sale (and the secret of FOOM was revealed to the waiting world). After sharing the first 19 issues of The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL, the web-spinner was awarded his own mag, backed up by The MIGHTY THOR, with ol' Shell-head, The INVINCIBLE IRON MAN, joining them in issue #50.

This Sunday will be the 40th anniversary of this collectors' item classic, so I thought I'd treat you to the first part of a selection of covers and images from Spidey's very first pulsating periodical in the U.K.  He'd previously appeared in POW! back in the 1960s and then TV21 at the start of the '70s, but this was the first British weekly that presented full, uncut adventures in a publication with him as the title star.

So feast your itchin' eyes on the pics that follow, and indulge yourself in warm and cosy recollections of when you first experienced them 40 years ago.  And don't dare forget to click here for Part Two.  (And dig those dynamic JIM STARLIN illustrations on the back page of issue #1 and on the front cover of issue #3 - terrific stuff, eh?)

PART TWO Of T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS COVER GALLERY...

Copyright relevant owner

The above image is one of my favourite WALLY WOOD covers ever, partly because it reminds me of four different houses.  I first saw it (and read the contents) back in the '60s while we were visiting friends who lived across the street from where we'd once lived some years before.  So not only does it conjure up memories of two houses in my old neighbourhood, but also the one in which I was living in at the time.  I also associate it with my present abode because I bought an ALAN CLASS comic in the '70s which bore the same cover illo.

However, ignore my personal reminiscences - no doubt you'll have your own memories which spring to mind when you look at the accompanying collection of covers which lies before you.  So, go on, indulge yourself - you have my complete permission.

FOUR WALLS - WINDOWS OPTIONAL...



1987, and the end windows still provide access to the view.  When this photo was taken,
things were still pretty much as they had been in my day.  My dog Zara (lying down on
the right of the picture) waits patiently for me to complete my task 

As previously stated on this blog, when I was much younger and still at school, I was prone to daydreaming.  On pleasant sunny days, I'd sit and gaze out of the window and imagine I was flying through the clouds and soaring into the stratosphere at super-speed, doing all the things that beings imbued with the power of flight are able to.  Well, apart from pooping on pedestrians below.  I was a superhero, not a seagull.  (Yup, I was a nutter even back then.)

2010, and the windows are now blocked off.  Note also the old folks' home on the left of
the picture, and the railings (with razor wire on the roof of the small building on the right),
giving the school a less than appealing appearance

  

On rainy days I was more relaxed, preferring just to look out at the grey skies beyond, as rivulets of rain raced down the pane, leaving little trails in the dirt on the window.  As I type this, it's raining outside, and it's with difficulty that I tear my gaze from the sky to apply myself to the task of writing yet another historically accurate, rousing reminiscence with which to thrill and enthral you.  I hope you appreciate all the sacrifices I make on your behalf.

Me in my old classroom circa 1986

  

In previous posts, I've alluded to the fact that all our horizons seem to be narrowing, as fields and play areas are consumed and crammed with sheltered housing for the elderly or squashed, teensy houses or flats for those climbing the property ladder.  For someone who grew up in a new town in the '60s, with its wide open spaces and acres of greenbelt for as far as the eye could see - and beyond - the disappearance of those green areas is casting a claustrophobic shadow over what was once an open and spacious place in which to live.

Close-up of part of the view from the back windows

My town currently has a new schools programme underway, in which a new school is built and then the old one demolished, thereby freeing up land on which to erect housing.  One thing that strikes me about these new buildings is that they have far fewer windows than their predecessors, in many cases resulting in pupils only having four walls to stare at (though no doubt the classrooms are brightly-lit), as opposed to a view beyond the windows.  It must be like living in a prison.  Even where classrooms do have windows, they're high-up, narrow ones, which allow no sight of the scenery (such as it is) beyond.

The same room as above and below.  As you can see, the pupils had quite
an expansive view before the windows on one side were covered

Take a look at the accompanying photographs of one of my old primary classrooms. The above photo was taken circa 1986, about 16 years after I had left for secondary school.  Apart from new desks, everything was much as I remembered it.  As you can see, two of the walls have large windows, through which the pupils have a view of houses and fields outwith the school.  In the photo below, taken in the same class in 2012, one side has had its windows covered so that it can be utilised for pinning up pictures, etc.  This wasn't restricted to that one room; that entire side of the school had all the windows blocked off, restricting the pupils' view of the wider world outside.

2012.  Dull, dreary, dismal and despairing.  I'm glad it wasn't like this in my day

Maybe there's no correlation, but I can't help wondering if narrowing people's horizons may also narrow their dreams and aspirations.  As a schoolboy, I used to explore the clouds from the comfort of my desk, and felt free and unfettered.  Just what do today's schoolkids dream of, or explore in their imagination with only the claustrophobic confines of four walls to 'inspire' them?

Any thoughts on the matter?      

PART THREE Of 'ON The SCENE' - SUPERMAN...

SUPERMAN!  First and greatest superhero of them all.  Greatest?  In theory at least, as he's taken a bit of a kicking from various writers messing around with his legend down through the years.  The only time I read a Superman comic nowadays is if it's an old one in my collection or a reprint in a facsimile edition.  The MAN Of STEEL as he is today is just not the same guy I grew up with, name and powers notwithstanding.

If you feel anything remotely like me, you may enjoy reading about the mighty MAN Of TOMORROW's silver screen adventures from these pulsating pages of On The SCENE Presents (The) SUPER HEROES, as it comes from a time (1966) when the MAN From KRYPTON was still recognizable to oldtimers like you and me.  ('Scuse me while I gob into the spitoon.)

Let's hope the upcoming big-budget movie from ZACK SNYDER is truly a return to greatness for CLARK KENT and his famous alter-ego.  If the world ever needed a superhero to look up to, it needs one now - and ol' Supes is surely the best man for the job.  Whether Zack or HENRY CAVILL are likewise qualified, though, remains to be seen.

   

Don't miss Part Four - FLASH GORDON!

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS COVER GALLERY - PART ONE...

Copyright relevant owners

A few years back, I purchased the DC ARCHIVES six-volume set of WALLY WOOD's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS, and what a cracking set it is, Gromit.  (There was a seventh volume six years later, containing non-Tower tales.)  However, I'm also lucky enough to own, in various shades of condition, several original TOWER COMICS issues from the '60s.  Good as the books are, there's just something about the original comics - with their Ben-Day dot colouring, distinctive smell of the paper, and the various advertisements - which brings the period alive in a way that deluxe hardcover editions are unable to do.

Anyway, as you all know, I'm an extremely generous fella, so I thought I'd share some covers with you here.  That way, you can enjoy them almost as much as I do.  And don't miss Part Two.