Hurrah at last I've found it!

Yes - after 3 years of trying to get back into my first blog, i finally managed to transfer all the post and stuff over to a new blog with the same details. #the original MilitaryJunkYard for some reason would not let me access it due to changes in the way blogger format was changed.

So after forgetting the password and endless times of trying to log on, or get into my editing features, i decided to create a new version in the new blogger format and just transfer the data over manually... so nothing has been lost and i can now keep it upto date. Three years catching up to do...WOH!

 

Comics - 8 feb 2010

Ah, the memories come flooding back, - comics, a part of growing up and escaping into the two dimensional world of war, not dissimiliar to todays 3D game computers I suppose, except it all seemed so much more innocent then.
It's to be remembered that the late 60's and early 70's were a time before VCRs, before multi-cable channels on tv and before home game consoles. We could either play outside in the fresh air, re-enacting 'Bridge over the River Kwai' or stay in on wet miserable days and play with our Airfix HO-OO 1/72 scale plastic soldiers and read our comics.
I must admit, my imagination easily allowed me to pass the time after breakfast to teatime, either spent in my box bedroom with my Waterloo figures or reading my comics, even on the bright sunny days. I had a neighbour next door who had a son a year older than me, and she used to pass me a big bundle of second-hand comics over every month or so for me to read, they were a mixture of football (Shoot, Striker, etc) and good old fashioned boys adventure war comics. The football ones held no interest for me so my older brother took them, however I dribbled over multi-copies of the Victor, Hornet, Battle, Hostpur, Valiant, Warlord, Hurricane, Action, Fury and Valour.

 

 

 

Most of the strips from the late sixties and early seventies in the comics, especially the likes of the Victor, and  Valiant were pretty much a post war continuation of  how we won the war. Stylised tommies, cut off in either Burma or in Dunkirk, or whatever, desperately fighting off the enemy and WINNING despite the odds. I lapped it up. Of course I did read the silly comics too, the Dandy, Topper, Beezer, Sparky, Cor! and not forgetting the Beano which did have one of my favourite characters, - General Jumbo, the 12 year old boy who radio controls his own miniature army, navy and airforce, ...gawd! how jealous was I.

I understand comic sales in Britain are at an all time low,  - not surprising is it? How can you compare the rather flat old fashioned method of comic strip storylines to the fast pace of Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty, where you can almost smell the cordite and feel the heat of a shell blast. But somehow, the strip for me has its own place in our culture of growing up, the brain still needs to be capable understanding sometimes quite complex page layouts and of processing the information and of course the learner-reading aspect still has its merits. I once bought my daughter a girls comic a few years ago and she couldnt quite fathom out how to use it, I literally had to point out how to read a comic to her....is that progress?

The comics to me were more than just an exciting narrative, the artwork itself was a joy to behold, and the best of the artwork came from the Commando series and War Picture Library set of books. Even now I sometimes buy them if I go on a long train journey, yes I get funny looks, but they really are very well produced and drawn by artists who know their subject matter, as a lad I knew what a spitty looked like and if it had tropical filters for the middle east battlefield, so woe be tide if the wrong rifle was in the hands of the wrong soldier.

Just look at the quality of the linework of the black and white image below,  now that's someone who knows his aeroplanes....

The good thing about the Commando and War Picture Library stories were that some of them were actually based on historical events, I learnt about the tanker 'Ohio' and its heroic journey in the Pedestal convoy to Malta because of these books. But, inevitably as the seventies wore on the micro-chip began to force its way in to our simple flared lifestyle, first it was the calculator, then came the LCD watch, and I distinctly recall mother buying a first generation pong game console, (with gun!!) for my main xmas gift in 1978.

I was still reading comics but had grown up a bit and moved on the likes of Planet of the Apes, Hulk, Spiderman and a new sci-fi comic named 2000 AD, which apealed to my dark sense of humour and aslo had some brilliant artists working for them (some had moved from the Commando/War Library studios), so their attention to detail and imagination could now produce clever, inventive and quite adult storylines.

 

There were a couple of characters in 2000 AD which I particularly liked, Rogue Trooper and Strontium Dog, both I think are ripe for big-movie screen versions, if handled right.

I can't leave this blog without mention of some of the free gifts the comics regularly giveaway in the seventies, the most memorable was with the first edition of Warlord, a set of replica medals in a stand up case, of course they were a gimmick, and it worked perfectly, I used to be up at 6am and sat outside the newsagents door before he opened just to make sure I got the freebie. Other gifts included the three spoked boomerang flyer, which was supposed to do a full circle and come back, I think mine ended up in a neighbours roof gutter, and then there was the clapper or banger, which gave us endless hours of side-splitting laughter as we waited behind a door and made people jump!

 

I had a massive pile of 2000 AD comics, specials and annuals that I lugged around with me for about 15 years, then one day I just downsized and got rid of the lot. I still wonder was that the right decision, and even now if  I see them at boot sales I have to summon all my willpower to just walk away....  

I feel a little sad that the comic has declined as it was a part of my life and many others as we grew from boyhood into adulthood, the modern generation won't have those precious memories, now it seems the only buyers of comics are middle-aged men who gather at conventions and fairs in order to find that elusive edition that will make their collection complete.