HEY, IT'S YOGI BEAR IN DIET (AND SCRIPT) DISASTER...

Characters copyright HANNA-BARBERA

25 years ago, a MARVEL U.K. editor asked me to letter a Holiday Special at short notice.  I agreed, but when I received the script and art, the script was awful.  It had been translated from a foreign edition (which was a translation from a U.S. edition) and the script was so immensely bad as to be insulting.

It was a HANNA-BARBERA-based cartoon comic, and almost nothing about the scripts was right.  RANGER SMITH was named WARDEN SMITH, PICNIC BASKETS were called LUNCHEON HAMPERS, and the characters spoke in a stilted fashion, merely repeating, in the main, what was obvious in the pictures.  What's more, little care had been taken to ensure the dialogue and captions fitted the allocated space.  It was a dog's dinner.

I 'phoned the editor and related my concerns, and enquired if I might be allowed to 'punch' things up a bit.  She reluctantly assented, seeing the wisdom in my words, but she wasn't overly happy that I'd spotted oversights she had missed.  However, the deadline was looming and there wasn't time to return the strips to the office to be lettered by anyone else.

You'll have to trust me on this, I suppose, but the finished result was far better than the original version.  I tailored all the dialogue to fit the balloons, I supplied the characters' logos for the splash pages (taken from a Hanna-Barbera book I had), and actually added some much-needed humour to the script.

The tale you see is one of the results.  If you get at least one chuckle out of it, that's one more than was in it before I got to work.  Did I get any more dosh for all the extra time and effort I put into it?  Hey, don't ask silly questions.

******

(Incidentally, I suspect that 'parsley' should have been rendered as 'celery', but that didn't occur to me until after I'd turned the job in.  It's just that I know people munch on celery to curb their appetite and lose weight, but I've never heard of anyone advised to eat parsley to do so.  It would probably work, but celery is the usual recommendation.)

It seems the original notion was to have Yogi borrow a dress from within the tent, but as I received
b&w stats to letter, I assumed it was the tent he was wearing and lettered it accordingly.  However,
the strip was coloured after I'd lettered it (as the open case ltg on page 1 being coloured shows), so
Yogi's wraparound should have been coloured to match the dialogue.  As it is, my idea of 'a bear in
a tent' has been compromised

Note that Yogi's borrowed tunic disappears in panel 2

Incidentally, all the balloon and caption shapes were already on
the art, so I had to fit my lettering within pre-existing outlines

And below is the cover which contained the above tale.

MARVEL CLASSICS COMICS...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Back in 1975/'76, a new comicbook series hit the stands - MARVEL CLASSICS COMICS, featuring comic strip adaptations of famous works of literature.  There were 36 issues in all, a dozen of them being reprints of other publishers' strips.  I thought it was an interesting run of comics and thought you all might like to see the covers of the first three issues.

Tough luck if you don't, 'cos here they are.

ANOTHER BABE Of The DAY - JENNIFER BEALS...

Wotta darlin'!  It's JENNIFER BEALS.

Rhymes with 'squeals', but whether she does

or not isn't something you need to know.

KLASSIC KIRBY KOMIC KOVERS: The MIGHTY THOR #142...

Image copyright MARVEL COMICS

Another classic cover for you to paste your peepers 'pon, Criv-ites, as The MIGHTY THOR battle The FANTASTIC FOUR's bombastic baddie The SUPER SKRULL.  I first read this story in the pages of SMASH!, and it may well have been the final Thor tale to appear in the esteemed periodical's pulsatin' pages (I'd have to check).  JACK KIRBY did himself (and us) proud with this cataclysmic cover, that's for sure.

(Shame the Skrull's cross-eyed though.)

DALEKS 'DABITTIES'...

The DALEKS copyright BBC TV and the Estate of TERRY NATION

I've shown these DALEKS transfers before, but it never hurts to refresh one's memory, eh?  Do any cavortin' Crivs recall having these beauties back in the '60s?  The 'dabitties' were printed in reverse of course, being the right way 'round once applied to the back of your hand or forearm.

And below is how they'd have looked once 'transferred'.

KLASSIC KIRBY KOMIC KOVERS: The FANTASTIC FOUR #12...

Image copyright MARVEL COMICS

It was the first time The THING and THE HULK clashed, but it wouldn't be the last.  JACK KIRBY still hadn't made up his mind as to just how many fingers and toes ol' Hulkie had, but we forgave him because he was Jack Kirby.  As far as I remember, there was never any confusion as to how many digits Thingie had, but he had other problems.  Namely, his fingers were bigger than his nose, so he couldn't pick it.  (Nor could Greenskin come to that.)  No flicking snots at the wall then.  Ain't life a b*tch?

Update: Oops!  I featured this cover in a previous post and then forgot about it.  Never mind, I'm sure you'll all agree that it's worth another look.

THE INFINITY GAUNTLET - THE 26 YEARS LATER AFFAIR...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

I know I've waffled on about it before, but I just can't get used to how quickly time passes as one gets older.  It seems like only a few short years ago that I picked up The INFINITY GAUNTLET #s 1 & 2, but it was a staggering 26 years back - more than a quarter of a century away.  I was still a young man then, but my youth has long-since deserted me, though the comics remain in the same condition as when I first bought them.

For some unknown reason, I never saw the next four issues in the run, but yesterday, I acquired the softcover collected edition, and I'm now looking forward to catching up with what I missed almost half my life away.  For a brief time, I'll be able to pretend that I'm back in 1991, and still have my youth and vitality, with more years ahead of me than behind me.  Sure, it's only an illusion, but sometimes illusions are the best we can hope for.

So here's to Infinity - and beyond.

******

Did you spot the price increase?  Issue #1 cost 60p, #2 cost 95p, and #s 3-6 cost £1.35.  That's some jump in the space of a mere 3 issues.

And should you wish to purchase the softcover collected edition for yourself, below is what it looks like.  Available from all good comics shops.

(BOND) BABE Of The DAY - ALEXANDRA BASTEDO...

Semi-regular reader Moonmando requested a

return appearance of ALEXANDRA BASTEDO in

our 'Babe' spot, so here she is.  "Hey, I read your blog

every day!" protests Moony.  Yeah, I know, but that's

 not why I referred to you as 'semi', o bold one.

AURORA MONSTERS Of The MOVIES - The FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER...

The original box, 1977

I bought the above model in Glasgow in the late '70s.  I'm not sure which shop I got it in now, but Goldberg's or Lewis's spring to mind.  A couple or so years after building it, I gave it to a pal, but I bought another one when Revell re-released the kit around 20 odd years later.  Still haven't built it, so I've borrowed a pic of one from the Internet.  Didn't Hypnotator do a great job?  That's the standard I have to aim for.

Built & painted by HYPNOTATOR

The reissue box, 1999

KLASSIC KIRBY KOMIC KOVERS: The FOREVER PEOPLE #10...

Image copyright DC COMICS

Apparently, it wasn't JACK KIRBY's idea to guest-star DEADMAN in The FOREVER PEOPLE - he was asked to include him by, I think (too lazy to check), CARMINE INFANTINO.  The result was an entertaining enough story (continued from the previous issue), but it wasn't really the Deadman that Deadman fans knew and loved.  However, it was by the Jack Kirby that Jack Kirby fans knew and loved, and that was good enough for them, so who are we to argue?

BABE Of The DAY - NICOLA BRYANT...

NICOLA BRYANT - 'nuff said.  What's

that?  You want words with a photo like this?

Are you serious?  Who's bothered with words at

a time like this?  Okay then, here's a cute Babe

scratching her back.  (You happy now?)

JIM REEVES - FOUR WALLS...

Here's JIM REEVES singing FOUR WALLS -

live - no lip-syncing.  Now this is how to sing!

KLASSIC KOMIC KOVERS: SUPERMAN #100...

Image copyright DC COMICS

Another collectors' item classic cover for all you cavortin' Criv-ites - SUPERMAN's 100th issue!  It's taken a couple of liberties with the small repro of the 1st ish (namely, adding 'First Issue' and updating the masthead to a more accomplished one), but I very much doubt that many readers in 1955 had ever seen an actual copy of #1, so it didn't much matter.

However, you've no doubt seen it on this very blog, and now you've also seen #100, so aren't you glad you dropped by?

THE BEAR FACTS - WISH I'D HAD ONE OF THESE...

Back around 1963 when I was a kid, I had a shaped, cardboard YOGI BEAR Hallowe'en mask (bought from WOOLWORTH's), and in 1965 or '66, I bought another one (again, from Woolies).  Here's an outfit I probably would have killed for though.  Ain't it neat?  (Update: Managed to re-acquire another Yogi mask the same as the one[s] I had when I was a lad.)

BABE Of The DAY - IMOGEN HASSALL...

What a way to be welcomed in the morning,

eh?  A fresh glass of orange juice and a beautiful,

bikini-clad Babe in the shape of stunning IMOGEN

HASSALL, and the world seems like such a great

place to be, don't you think?  I know I do!

STAPLES IN THE SANDS OF TIME...

I decorated my back room recently.  I say 'recently', but it actually took me about 29 years to start it, and then it was months of hanging a couple of strips of wallpaper every few weeks 'til it was finished.  Because of a medical condition, I tire easily, and I just didn't have the stamina to apply myself to the task with any energy or enthusiasm.  Therefore, it was a bit here and there when I could.  And I was absolutely knackered at the end of it, let me tell you.

The room used to be my brother's, mainly, when we stayed here the first time around.  I say 'mainly' because we shared it for quite a few months when my room suffered from damp during the winter months, and there was a period when we swapped for a while, so the room was 'officially' mine as well.  As regular readers will know (and lost the will to live at my continual re-telling), we flitted to another house after eleven years, then moved back (sans brother) four-plus years later.  Along with my old room, I also commandeered my sibling's former sleeping quarters.

Yeah, big deal, you say, get to the point.  Well, while I was in the long, slow, arduous process of trying to hang a few strips of wallpaper, I found staples embedded in various spots in the walls, where my brother had affixed all his heavy metal posters back in the '70s.  I decided to leave them there (after flattening them into the wall with a hammer), as, having been there for more than 40 years, I didn't have the heart to remove them.  Long after I'm less than a memory, these old staples will likely still be there, a permanent testament to the fact of my family's presence in this house down through the decades.

I've touched on this subject before, but it amazes me to think that we always leave our mark on wherever we've lived, even if we don't realise it at the time.  When I revisited a former dwelling sixteen years after having moved out, I was surprised by just how many 'markers' of our time there yet remained.  Wallpaper, tiles, lowered ceilings, marks where circular fluorescent lights had been, etc., it was all comfortably familiar to me, as if we'd never been away.  And when we returned to the house in which I now reside, our departed doggie's scratches in the back door were there to welcome us and remind us of our prior occupation.

We all leave some kind of mark behind us, however trivial, and regardless of whether we intend to or not.  What feature of any of your former homes will attest to you once having lived there long after you're gone?    

KLASSIC KOMIC KOVERS: SPIDER-MAN COMICS WEEKLY #50...

Image copyright MARVEL COMICS

It was around six years since The INVINCIBLE IRON MAN had last appeared in his own strip in a British weekly (FANTASTIC), but in 1974 the wait was finally over and ol' Shell-Head was back.  I think I'd already bought this ish, but if memory serves, it had some slight flaw that made me seek out another copy.  I do remember making my way down to the Old Village quarter of my town as it was starting to get dark, with the glow of the street lights reflected in the fine film of rain on the glistening pavement, and buying my second copy from a now long-gone newsagent's.  I acquired the above copy some years back, and the newsagent remains open in memory.  One glance at the cover and I'm back there faster than a fart from The Flash, buying this comic on a wet January evening in the long ago-days of 1974.

"LOOK AT THAT FOUNTAIN. EE, IT'S CHAMPION..."

In a totally self-indulgent exercise in rampant nostalgia, here's a photo of the fountain that used to lie at one end of my local town centre.  It was turned into a 'rockery' in the late '70s or early '80s, before being demolished when the shopping centre was enclosed under a roof not too long after.  I still prefer it as it was in this photo though.  Although on a much smaller scale, it always reminded me of the fountain in the opening credits of '60s TV show The CHAMPIONS.  Still does in fact.  (You wouldn't recognise this area today.)

BABE Of The DAY - JOLENE BLALOCH...

JOLENE BLALOCH has the best-looking

lips for sucking porridge through a straw that

I've ever seen.  Surely there's a way to put such a

unique talent to use?!  Let me think about it for a

second, I'll come up with something.  (Nah, I

 was wrong - can't think of a thing.)

PART FOURTEEN Of SCHOOLTIME SCANDALS: OVER The HILL, BUT NOT QUITE OVER 'The DALE'...

Nah, she wasn't this hot - almost

Her name was Miss Dale, and she was seriously sexy.  Small, blonde (update: nope - redhead actually, the ol' memory was playing tricks), early 20s, she usually wore a blue denim mini-skirt and also indulged in some serious sadism that too many teachers of the period were prone to.  She had a nasty habit of punching your arm several times to emphasise whatever point she was making, and I certainly wasn't the only kid who suffered from a bruised upper limb in her class. Where did such rage come from?

One day, she decided to test our spelling by reading out words to the class, so that we could then write them in our jotters to be marked by her diminutive, angry self.  One of the words she uttered was 'yawn', which, due to my familiarity with the Shakespearean-style of speech in MARVEL's THOR, I took to be 'yon' and thus wrote it in my jotter accordingly.  She then collected our efforts and sat at her desk to evaluate them, while we busied ourselves with something else.

After a while, she called me out to her desk and berated me for seemingly misspelling the word, then belted me with the tawse - solely for what she considered my lack of spelling ability, not because I was cheeky or anything.  50-odd years later, I now know just what an utterly inept teacher she was not to have considered the possibility that I'd been thinking of another, perfectly legitimate, phonetically similar word to the one she'd had in mind.

Her response should surely have been: "There are two words pronounced that way, define the one you mean."  Then it would've been a simple case of me explaining exactly what word I'd had in mind, and her then asking me to spell the other, the one she was looking for.  The fact was, I'd spelt the word properly, it was just a different word to the one she'd been thinking of.  And yet that glaringly obvious possibility never occurred to her.  What a thicko.

I did learn a few valuable lessons that day though.  Firstly, that teachers weren't always right; secondly, that Miss Dale, though sexy, was a bitch - and thirdly, there's no way clearly hormonal people should ever be tasked with imparting knowledge to any group of children, when their main method of teaching seems to consist of punching and belting them until they 'learn' things.

This was primary school, mind, so we're not talking about teachers having to deal with surly and unruly teenagers - we're talking children of only 8 or 9 years old. What the hell were educationalists thinking of back then?  As I've said before, kids today don't have a clue about just how lucky they are compared to ourselves.

As for Miss Dale?  I have absolutely no recollection of ever seeing her again after I left primary. Maybe she left before I did.  However, it would be nice if she learned how to manage her anger issues and went on to become, at the very least, a competent (and kinder) teacher.  The alternative simply doesn't bear thinking about.

MARVEL TALES COVER GALLERY...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

MARVEL TALES lasted an astounding 30 years, from issue #1 in 1964, right up to #291 in 1994.  Like MARVEL COLLECTORS' ITEM CLASSICS, it reprinted some of the earliest tales of the most popular heroes from 'The House Of Ideas'.

But, hey - you're not here to read me wittering on in my typically boring, long-winded fashion.  So why don't I just cut to the chase and show you the covers of the first dozen issues?  You'd like that?  Well, I have to confess I'm a tad disappointed you never took any time to think over that proposition, but who am I to argue with all you crazy cavortin' Crivvies?

So here they are!  Any happy memories of any of them?  Then feel free to share them in the comments section.

I obtained my original copy of this issue in Blackpool in 1973 or '74