THE STEADY STRANDS OF SUN - PHEW!

 

Art by Neal Adams

The past few days have been of the gloriously warm, sunny, summer kind that we imagine all the summers of our childhood to have been like, and as I stepped off the train from Glasgow early yesterday evening with THE DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU #12 in my possession (bought from a back issue shop), my mind drifted back to a similar gloriously warm, sunny, summer late afternoon of 36 years before, when - as a teenager - I had first purchased my original copy of this magazine.

I had also obtained the very first MONSTER FUN Holiday Special at the same time. (IPC were quick off the mark releasing this one, because the weekly publication had only been out for a very short period - a matter of weeks, in fact.) I remember that it reprinted the very first SAM'S SPOOK strip by LEO BAXENDALE, which had first appeared in SMASH! in Jan/Feb of 1971. It still sported the "starts today" blurb on the top left-hand side of the logo, no doubt the result of an editorial oversight as such blurbs were normally removed from out-of-sequence reprintings.

(NOTE: My memory of this was confirmed when, a week after typing the above, I managed to obtain a back issue of this comic also. The cover and Sam strip have been inserted below. Click to enlarge.)

Art by Rudy Nebres

Back in 1975, a friend had been with me when I acquired these two publications, bought at some stage on a day out to Glasgow. When we got back, I accompanied him (still clutching my comics) as he visited his brother-in-law's parents, who resided not too far from the house I was living in when Sam's Spook first made his debut, and from which I and my family had only moved a mere three years before (1972). It's because of this that I associate these comics with my previous neighbourhood just as much as I do with my then (and still) current one. Funny thing, memory, eh?

Art by George Perez, Rico Rival & The Tribe

The main reason I had bought this particular DHOKF issue was for THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN cover and article, having seen (with the same friend) ROGER MOORE's second JAMES BOND movie only a few months before. (The film had it's UK premiere on 19th Dec '74, but my local cinema wouldn't have screened it 'til the beginning of '75.) Reading it again last night for the first time in nearly 40 years, I was surprised to discover how much of it I remembered - right down to actual sentences and paragraphs. The mag also contains a couple of comic strips (SHANG-CHI, MASTER OF KUNG FU and SONS OF THE TIGER), with some nice artwork by RUDY NEBRES and GEORGE PEREZ, plus a Bond pin-up by GRAY MORROW.

Art by Gray Morrow

I often think back fondly to that particular summer day - and many another day from long ago also. (Perhaps I may even have warm recollections of yesterday in the years to come - I hope I've got at least another 50 ahead of me.) Little did I then realize that my friendship with the pal I had known since I was seven would barely last another six years, but such is life - something to look forward to in blissful ignorance of what may happen, and to look back on in fond reminiscence (hopefully) of what did.

I hope all your summers turn out to be gloriously warm and sunny - even if it's only in memory.