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A wise man once wrote, "Come, muse. Let us sing of rats."
But what of us? Will we be singing of rats, today? Or of something else altogether?
Only you can decide because that feature's back. The one in which the first person to comment gets to decide the topic of the day.
It could be art, films, flans, plans, books, bagels, cooks, nooks, crooks, ducks, drakes, pixies, rocks, music, mucous, fairy tales, fairy lights, Fairy Liquid, fairy cakes, Eccles cakes, myth, moths, maths, magic, tragedy, comedy, dromedaries, murder, larders, Ladas, mystery, mayhem, molluscs, Moorcock, May Day, mangoes, bongoes, drongoes, bingo, Ringo, Pingu, Ringu, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Doris Day, Marvin Gaye, Doris Day, Brookside Close, Ramsay Street, Scarlet Street, Dead End Street, the Equinox, parallelograms, rhomboids, androids, asteroids, pomegranates, granite, marble, marbles, maples, staples, fables, stables, sofas, eggs, pegs, legs, dregs, sodas, sausages, eggs, whisky, broth, Bath, baths, Garth Marenghi, Garth Brooks, Garth Crooks, Bruno Brookes, Bruno Mars, Mars Bars, wine bars, flip-flops, flim-flam, flapjacks, backpacks, see-saws, jigsaws, dominoes, draft excluders, dunderheads, deadheads, webheads, flowerpots, flour pots, bread bins, bin bags, body bags, body horror, shoddy horror, doggy bags, bean bags, coal sacks, cola, cocoa, pancakes, pizzas, baking soda, sci-fi, Wi-Fi, Hi-Fi, sewage, saunas, suet, Silurians, Sontarans, Sea Devils, sins, suns, sans, sense, sludge, slumps, sumps, sunshine, slime, soup, sandwiches, Sultanas, Sultans, grapes, grappling or sandcastles.
It may be that and so much more.
Let us retire to our gazebos and see what intrigue unfolds...
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22 comments:
Which comics do you associate with childhood holidays?
To me, Human Fly # 9
https://comics.ha.com/comic-issue-index/the-human-fly.s?id=32240
is linked with a trip to Bridlington, for some reason. I don't know if it was bought for me there, or I took it along!
Also, for me, spider-man Comic # 328
https://britishcomics.fandom.com/wiki/Spider-Man_Comic_Vol_1_328
is linked with a holiday to Malta, as is the giant, broadsheet 1979 Dandy Summer Special
(folded into 4) - not unfolded, as it is in the picture!
https://www.comichaus.com/comics/dandy-summer-special/107122.htm
Phillip
Thank for the topic, Phillip.
I associate 85-billion-and-one comics with Blackpool. So,I won't name all of those but some of my strongest associations with the place are the Jim Aparo Spectre issues, DC's The Shadow, and the entire output of Atlas Comics.
I associate Man-Bat #1 with Lytham St Annes. I also associate Lytham with The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves #41 and with Alan Class' Astounding Stories #93 featuring Giant-Man vs the Human Top.
During a holiday to Burryport, South Wales, in August 1977 I bought the first Thor Treasury Edition from 1974 and the first Conan Treasury Edition from 1975, both on sale long after they were originally published!
Like Steve I to also associate 100's of comics with family holidays in Blackpool. In particular; Conan the barbarian issue 26, Kull issue 9, Amazing Adventures issue 25 ( Deathlok) and numerous Marvel Deadly Hands of Kung Fu comics and others. On a weekend holiday to Arbroath ( it rained for 2 days ) Avengers issue 106 and Hulk 163. And finally a lovely warm holiday near Perth ( Scotland) Superman issuese 241 and 242.
There are two that stand out for me. On a family road trip in 1974, we stopped for lunch at a place called "Stuckey's". It was a chain of gas station/gift shop/restaurants that was often found at interstate off ramps nationally. After the meal we looked around the gift shop; while everyone else was ogling souvenirs I found Dr. Strange #1! Grabbed it, and actually still have it.
A couple years later we took a family trip to the Smoky Mountains, and at a touristy souvenir shop I snagged Amazing Spider-Man 157, with Doc Ock. Read it in the hotel room that evening...
Good topic, Phillip!
We didn’t have major holidays when I was a child - not a great deal of disposable income. But here’s what comes to mind…
2000AD - the prog with the Jolly Green Giant making a legally dubious appearance in Dredd, which I got over the weekend we stayed with friends at the seaside in Kent in 1978.
2000AD & Starlord Prog 86: we had just moved from Kent and were staying with family in London in what was supposed to be a temporary stop-over but turned into a 5 month stay because the house we were moving to in the North West suddenly needed a lot of work. So that was sort of a holiday. Except that I had to go to a school there for a few months which was quite hard work. Nice to have the continuity of picking up 2000AD every week.
Warrior 12: visiting family down south in 1983. A very hot summer. The Bojeffries Saga!
The amazing visit to see the same family members down south in summer 1986 that included a visit to Forbidden Planet in Denmark St, wherein I picked up the next few issues of Swamp Thing, the first three issues of The Dark Knight and the first two issues of Elektra Assassin.
It’s all a bit like that really. I could go on, but probably best not to.
Hello, Charlie here. Charlie’s parents were at trendsetters. They took the four of us out of school to go to Fort Lauderdale for spring vacation in March 201972. They wanted me to babysit, being the oldest. The payoff was I got to go into a drugstore and get a comic book. It was captain America fighting, if I recalll correctly, the fifth sleeper!
Great subject. Back in 1973 our scout troop had our annual 2 week camp in Waterford in the south of Ireland. Fantastic holiday and brilliant weather. On the last day we were buying presents and found a gift shop bunged with comic's. Time was limited but the 3 I chose were Hulk #161,death of the mimic with Beast as a guest star:Sub-Mariner #59,vs Thor and Thor #209 with Don Blake in London and Stonehengebrilliant and hilarious at the same time!
Labor Day wasn’t actually a holiday for us kids, quite the opposite in fact — it always coincided with the last weekend of summer. For me, the annual Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon is permanently associated with going back to school. But Labor Day in September of 1972 came on the weekend when I decided I wanted to start buying comics regularly. Quite the milestone! Mom gave me a whole dollar to buy comics at the grocery store and these are the five that I bought on that first binge: WEREWOLF BY NIGHT 10, CAPTAIN AMERICA 168, AVENGERS 117 (climax of the Avengers/ Defenders War), MARVEL DOUBLE FEATURE 1 (Iron Man and Cap reprints) and TOMB OF DRACULA 17.
Christmas 1973: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 130 (MJ tries to snog Peter under the mistletoe at Betty Brant’s Xmas party but he’s still mourning Gwen and ditches her) , SWAMP THING 9
Thanksgiving, 1974: VAMPIRELLA #39
Christmas 1974 : MARVEL’S GREATEST COMICS 48 (Ronan The Accuser!) PLANET OF THE APES 5, THE SPIRIT 6 — and like Steve, lots of Atlas Titles, all First Issues: PLANET OF VAMPIRES, DESTRUCTOR, WULF, SCORPION, MORLOCK 2001 , etc
Christmas 1975 : MARVEL’S GREATEST 55 (guest starring Spidey, Thor and Daredevil, one of the dumbest Mighty Marvel Misunderstanding punch-ups ever but also one of the most spectacular)
b.t.
I was a big Planet of the Apes fan when the tv series was broadcast in 1974. I was aware a comic was to be published but the first issue I saw, and bought, at the newsagent was #4. The next issue that turned up was #20 and subsequently most issues from #25 onwards. During a caravan holiday in Cornwall, in August 1975, a local general store had loads of marvel UK weeklies for sale at 2 pence per copy, and I picked up #3 and #s8 to 19. This gave me the final third of the original movie adaptation plus the whole of the initial Jason and Alexander storyline. Happy days.
Having only seen a handful of recent Marvel weeklies, prior to this, I was surprised that the early Mighty World of Marvel issues had paper (rather than glossy) covers. I didn't pick any up, which I regretted a few years later during the height of my Marvel UK obsession. But warm summer Cornish days reading old Planet of the Apes comics remain impossibly nostalgic to my inner 8 year old.
DW
Bernard Cribbins has died on the day my mother would have turned 90.
DW, my first issue of Planet Of The Apes was #5 and it was also my first ever Marvel comic. But I had no problems getting POTA every week except for #8 and #62.
Colin
#5 would have been a better introduction as it featured the high action chase sequence. #4 was pretty wordy and static. I was also confused at the time because it had no connection to the TV series and I then had no idea about the movies. #20 was equally confusing as it had no connection to either TV or the movies. My next issue was #23 which was the classic first appearance of Apeslayer. I was pretty much hooked at that point. Back to that holiday, reading the whole Jason and Alexander story in one hit was fantastic.
DW
Summer of 1975, back in the old country for a month - we often used to go to Ireland in the summer holidays - reading Marvel Treasury #4 (Conan i'Red Nails'!) Kamandi #32 (double size issue with back-up reprint of #1) and Amazing Adventures #s 30 and 31 (my first Killravens).
They all really stick in my mind. Its not hard to figure out why.
Much later in '89, I have pleasant memories of a mad festival in Cornwall where I spent a couple of weeks on site, which remain linked in my mind with that summer's 2000AD Sci-Fi Special (which I picked up on a trip into town nearby).
But I'm also bringing it up for DW's benefit, as it featured a Dredd-related strip drawn by Mick Austin. Which can be read at -
www.2000ad.org/artwork/image.php?Image=leviathan.html&choice=WAKE
(It also reprinted the Maze Dumoir two parter by Ian Gibson that came up here a few weeks ago, which is where I actually remembered it from).
-sean
DW, I was equally confused by POTA #5 - I too was a big fan of the TV series and I too was unaware of the movies. But I was hooked by the ending of the story in #5 when the apes are shocked that Taylor can speak. I didn't have a clue what was going on but I wanted to see what happened next!
Ack! It was Labor Day weekend of seventy-THREE, not seventy-two that I began seriously buying and collecting comics.
In addition to the floppies I acquired in the week or so leading up to Christmas Day in ‘74, I also got Les Daniels’ COMIX, Steranko’s HISTORY OF COMICS Volume 2, Stan’s ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS and that first (and best) Marvel Calendar on Christmas Morning. I still sometimes like to browse through the ‘74 Marvel Calendar on Xmas, for a quick nostalgic dopamine hit.
b.t.
b.t. - Spider-man Comics Weekly # 101 had a Marvel calendar on the back that made the Beast look like 'Flock of Seagulls':
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/333292451340
Phillip
I hadn't read 2000AD for a little while at that point Matthew - I lost interest pretty much completely once the progs went full colour - so I only got that special because... well, I was in a small town Cornish newsagent, it was there, and I had enough change in Earth money, so why not?
But that story was a pleasant surprise. And not just because of Mick Austin - it was a good story and, as you say, a bit different from what you'd expect in the progs (although in retrospect you can see Judge Corey anticipates the kind of thing Alan Grant would go on to do with his Judge Anderson stories for the Megazine).
Actually, now I think about it, that must be the only 2000AD special without Dredd in it...
-sean
Oh, and my PLANET OF THE APES 5 was the US edition, not the UK one. The US POTA 5 was notable for featuring a fill-in story by Moench, Ed Hannigan and Jim Mooney called ‘Evolution’s Nightmare’ instead of the latest chapter of the gonzo Adventures of Jase and Alex. Kind of a riff on ‘Hell in the Pacific’, it’s about two survivors of a big-ass battle, one human and one ape, who have to put aside their mutual prejudices and work together to survive. It’s predictable and preachy, and Hannigan’s pencils are bland (it may have been his first professional work). On one hand, I liked the novelty of it at the time, being the first comic POTA story that wasn’t an adaptation of the films or a direct continuation, but overall, I would have preferred more Jase and Alex.
The cover is one of Bob Larkin’s best for the series, but apparently he would have preferred more Jase and Alex too, because that’s who he put on the cover; the protagonists in the actual story are a gorilla and a black man. Of course, ‘white-washing’ black characters on comics covers wasn’t all that unusual back in the day — check out the cover of PLANET OF VAMPIRES 3 for a particularly obnoxious example (including a Larry Leiber paste-up that transforms Jim Brown into Andy Gibb).
b.t.
Sean — speaking of Alan Grant, I was sorry to learn he died a few days ago. I mostly know him from his work on DC’s Batman books, but I thought he did some terrific work there, including creating The Ventriloquist and Scarface.
Philip — LOL
b.t.
Oh hey! I found something cool. I was googling just now to see if Russ Heath’s original cover art for PLANET OF VAMPIRES 3 has ever shown up online without the paste-over — alas, no such luck — but I DID find a Pablo Marcos cover for the never-published POV 4 (it’s at Comicartfans). Honestly, I can’t say it’s a brilliant, undiscovered masterpiece or anything, but I’m such a fan of Atlas’ oddball output that i got a tiny jolt of Nerd Joy from seeing it. I always get a kick out of seeing these rare bits of ephemera (like that unpublished Bog Beast story).
b.t.
I liked Mick Austin from his Warrior stuff
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