End of month round up

We are actually catching up and almost caught up  after the weekends easter continuation theme, just getting together and having a fun, rather sunny time together which helped given some of things I presently have on my mind.

Just typically I get back only to find visitors during my absence had broken the toilet handle mechanism so parts had to be ordered and it repaired which isn't what you want to hear after a lengthy train journey!

Comics were running a bit slow but this weeks Beano, Phoenix and monthy AdventureBox Plus have now arrived to read out of doors in the sun with lemonade just like I used to do when I was much younger.

Pix credit W-T-O@UR

There was chocolate to be had while away such as small creme aggs, decorated small milk chocolate ones, a bar of small easter eggs and yes I have finished my main easter eggs here, looking rather like these two.

Well, I'm still a young boy at heart!

Reading while recovering

Well we're still working through this period so mind does need to be kept a bit occupied of sorts which does take us into this weeks entry.

For some strange reason around the summer, I noticed my subscription to AdventureBoxMax seemed to got a bit messed up as one issued didn't arrive but then sometimes the odd issue is  bi monthly.

That run on for a bit that having triple checked all my emails I found no "Your subscription is ending" one I hunted online to the France based publishers website and redid it.

What I loved about was it had a short story, cartoons and various facts and games in a single package.

Fortunately it arrived in time to be read during this recovering period.

Also this months Monster Fun, now monthly arrived themed around Halloween which was a lot of fun

I also tidied up my comic rack  after the excesses of the Summer Hols.

Recovering boy

Well this week isn't a great one with contracting flu like symptoms so I've a rather sore throat, blocked up tubes and sneezing a fair bit, feeling generally rather groggy which is rather annoying to say the least,

That means more sedentary indoor activities like reading this months Monster Fun which came through the letter box yesterday with its new ghoulish Punk Rock band cartoon strip series which is quite a hoot apart from the Phoenix and Beano, sole survivor of the comics we read as boys.

It kind of remainded me a bit of my junior school days where I tended to pick any and all infections going aided in the last year by a new building with aior conditioning which acted like a great bug speader picking up, warming and transmitting it across every classroom.

That tended to result in me having a few days off every school term beyond the usual chicken pox and that where I'd be parked in bed with the radio on, usally BBC Radio 1 or 3 for the Lunchtime Concert unless I was allowed to come downstairs for Newsround and Childrens tv for a bit before tea time.

There are times when you'd sooner have those routines not least being cared for when unwell 

Comic fun

After last week's spun off to the past entry we go to the past in the present this week was after a few rough days I'm slowly actching up and reading a few comics in just the same way I'd of done in the 1970's.

Back then it was all Sparky, Beezer, Warlord and Dandy but the world of comics has changed however you might feel about it and at least Monster Fun maintains a connection to those days while strongly connecting with today's children do like old school comics when given the opportunity and all new but varied cartoon strips in the weekly Phoenix.

Comics can lift your mood and even open your mind to new ideas and concepts apart from being something you can share with others talking about the stories and just what you like about them.

Playing that Now Yearbook '90 cd reminded me of the magazine I used to love back the called Big! which was a cross between a tv features and pop fortnightly magazine that had interviews and pull out posters.

One was of Paula Abdul and the Wild Pair featured in the part animated video for Opposites Attract.

This week I'm sorting out things for next week I, touch wood, I wouldn't be around for a few days so have fun!

The 77 Annual at last!

 

It's not Christmas as I battle with strong winds and rain apart from getting my hair cut at the Barbers this morning  as it's grown  a bit but out of sync one thing has arrived.

It had been announced that a new comic Annual was coming out but like many niche things being dependant upon crowd sourcing from the likes of Kickstarter, it all takes time to get to the point the print run can be set to roll.

The77 annual is a bumper 136 page anthology of original stories in a very modern take on the 80s UK annual format.

Comic annuals always were a staple of Christmas's with me for being something you'd gain much enjoying from reading across the year and given the loss of so many of the comics and associated annuals I grew up with to have a all new one was just a dream.

Created by a mix of the best new talent and creators we know and love including the likes of Glenn Fabry, Lew Stringer, Steve Pugh, Andrew Sawyers and Ade Hughes some that do work for mainstream comics and others mixing with independents.

This Annual features the greatest strips from one of the hottest independent comics around and covers a multitude of genres from Sci Fi to WW2 that makes for a varied read which was more what I looked for back then.

This is just the tonic I've been looking for in the last few weeks.

Blown but reading edition

As I am typing this there is a really awful gale blowing around so I've got my super powerful torch, Not Jamie's magic one ready and a stack of comics ready to read should we lose the electric

Sadly the Dandy isn't one although I'd love there to be one say either monthly or every three months as I'm sure there is a demand provided it is aimed at children and isn't too frequent to making working and publishing too hard going.

I mean they did advertise the Dandy Summer Special to actual children via the Beano and got sales that way even though they'd be lucky normally to had seen an annual recently and a summer special to get a feel for what Dandy was all about.

That's one that is in the pile, this years sixty eight pager of exclusive cartoon strips and obviously this weeks Phoenix.

It's time for a hot cup of cocoa and some dinner here!

Thoughts from between the sheets

It hasn't been the best start to the week to be honest with experiencing a severe migraine that has lasted several days so I've been in bed, curtains drawn and off food which is par for the course.

It's not something I am unfamiliar with having had these from early boyhood missing parties and schooldays and I can remember well staring at the curtains sometimes if I felt a little better reading a little from a Shoot annual or the Blue Peter books I had trying to keep my spirits up.

Days feel long when you're in bed all day.

This weeks coming Beano had arrived in the post as I have a subscription so I was able to look at that a little having a chuckle at Billy Whizz's and Dennis's adventures and the classic schoolboy and girl jokes printed at the bottom of some of the pages.

It isn't how it used to be this is true but when look at the longer picture, whenever new illustrators have come in how each character is drawn such as Dennis changes and with him a part of that is due to tying in with the made for tv cartoon version which given it was aimed to be shown on the BBC, they also placed some content restrictions.

The old school me may regret some of those changes but by doing so, they've kept it and good chunk of the old cartoon strips in children's minds today, relevant to them ensuring the comic is in business and not as with so many of my youth, no longer produced.

Things come together eventually II

Last week I was talking a bit about how in a number of ways I am finding myself acting and being more of my emotional age not least with how the current Pandemic is affecting  life in a lot of ways.

For instance I have read from time to time comics although I haven't had a regular one in the way that growing up (allegedly) I had that you'd know that say every Wednesday you get the Beano come through the door or that at weekends my nan would give me the weeks Dandy although I do have a regular football magazine currently fortnightly.

That will be changing soon but just you know being to just say that able to say that to my parents as an everyday tidbit of chat without it being an issue is an indication that they too have accepted how I've changed.

I mean they do see me in and pre covid we'd been out for meals in grey school shorts, a school shirt with tie and grey turn over socks.

I did mention how I am seen and am treated in the wider community last time but an interesting thing happened this weekend as I was walking back home passing the house next door to a man I've know from (official) boyhood.

I walk passed looking from left to right with a woolly bobble hat on as a woman probably in their 40's or 50's opens the door to put the milk bottles out as I go by just striking my nose with a finger which is probably a nervous tic.

Anyway she looks toward me and shouts "You can look. I'm keeping a close eye on you" without adding any other word such as "Laddie" but the general tone is very much one of a woman addressing and admonishing a child.

It isn't a conversation with an adult. There is no "Excuse me why are you...." just a child pre-judged and cautioned anyway.

Obviously she is reading me as a boy! 

All I can say is it's a feeling I remember very much from being "Told off" for going down a path to the playground by a woman who lived by it. In Public!!!

Comic memories

After last weeks ouchie experiences my mind drifted back a bit to when it was my Gran was still about and not least comics cos she always bought me a comic every week I'd go visit here or if I couldn't they would be saved up until I could.
I didn't generally go much for superman hero type comics but more regular girl or mixed gender ones although I did read the cartoon strips in newspapers .
I also did buy cartoon books usually a yearly annual that collected the whole series on better quality paper and in hindsight it had to be said some of them did have spanking depicted in them because in that era it was just a social norm as it was for us too.

We'd just laugh our socks off at this whole situation envying Superman for his heat resistant can take anything behind.
I also at one time had a annual that had a multi page strip series about the a well to do mother struggling to control her teen daughter using the then contemporary pop psychology of just ignoring episodes as they were 'phases' you'd go through and grown out of which I suspect was a thinly disguised dig at Doctor Spock's child rearing guidance and his followers where she just tears up that guidance and takes her across her lap for a hairbrushing!
Actually this week I've been pretty good, helping out, not making messes and have managed to walk the furthest I've done for years without getting out of breath that helps with weekends as the meals tend to be bigger and more loaded with fats and that although this weekend I had some community magazines to deliver on foot plus a card for Mommy.
I'll just slowly work my way through the easter egg and chocolate concentrating on being good I think.

A note from the dorm, 77 style

Imagine instead of it being 2016, it was actually 1977 where we'd made major technological breakthrough where instead of being sat typewriting a letter leaving a space for illustrations, we'd actually got the internet?

Well, one thing I'd of been writing about from our dorm is my comics because back in 1977 our newsagents had a few shelves full of them for boys and girls of all ages, not mini magazines or tat infested fim, toy and footie tie-ins.

Comics that had stories existing in a self contained world we'd all drift into.

I remember Tiger from Juniors but the one I really got into big time was the War Comic, Warlord that launched in September 1974, to the point my parents went all over Nantwich, Cheshire to get me some back issues I was missing.

It fitted in well with my mania for Action Man.

Roy of the Rovers was a boyhood institution that gave rise to popular phrases, the inspirational footie figure who combined ball control with the kind of emotional control to be a mature player on and off the pitch.

It also had features on the actual game although strangely enough then there were weekly footie magazines for boys our age 10-14 like Score! 

Comics reflected life as we lived it, to the boy of today it may seem another land with different rules and expectations.

The grown ups were our enemy, we'd always be trying to get out of things, playing tricks on them, forever pushing the boundaries but our luck would run out and soon enough our bottoms were made to pay the price.

That's the thing you notice when you re-read a good number of the comics and their annuals today, you were always shown cheek, bullying, lying and damaging other peoples stuff would be punished and adults wherever we were did with immunity.