The paraphernalia of youth is a broad church of stuff and things: clothes, toys, music, books, comics, mags and posters to name but a few. Continuing the poster thread from earlier in the week I thought I'd take a look at different decades. First up and probably the most important for my brothers' generation were the black and white posters of the late Sixties as featured above, which appeared in the back pages of Monster comics like Creepy, Eerie and Famous Monsters.
They were marketed by Captain Company, a sort of mail order Athena before Athena had been invented and included icons like Raquel Welch, Che Guevara, Steve McQueen, Brigitte Bardot, Barnabas Collins [of Dark Shadows fame], the fabulous Keep On Truckin' [and the similar Sod Off, not pictured] and last but not least, the huge Frankenstein Monster, which I had over my bed for years as a kid! How I miss ol' lanky features!
Then came Athena iteself! Timed perfectly with my own teenage years, these shops were a mecca for poster lovers and wall adorners everywhere. The Moonbase Jr. bedroom was festooned with all my favourite 'heros' like Tolkein's Rhovanian Mirkwood [above top], Jim Cauty's mesmerising Gandalf, which I had as a wooden block poster [above middle] and Rodney Matthew's fantastic Warriors from the Sky [above bottom]. I still have these rolled up somewhere in our tardistic loft!
Toad's favourite Athena poster was another wooden block, the beautifully simple "Mandolin" by Ha Van Vuong of Vietnam as seen above.
My daughter's generation, the Eighties kids, were treated to a new range of Athena poster boys and girls. Two I remember well gracing her wall were these two pictured: the cheeky tennis girl and the young guy holding the baby. I have a feeling these are rolled up in the attic too! Googling them I was fascinated to see the three beautiful young things all growed up [tennis girl, baby boy]. Next they'll be telling me that the the TV Test Card girl is a Grandma!
So what do modern Yoofs pin up nowadays?
Ah - 'Sod Off!' that image had me rollin about as a kid, i had it on one of those huge button badges and wore it as it invariably gave offence! Also had all the LOTR posters and maps and adored the Rodney Matthews artwork which in turn led me to read the entire Moorcock pantheon, gathered from second hand bookshops. My favourites were always the Eternal Champions Elric, Corum and later Jerry Cornelius.
ReplyDeleteMy wall was covered with posters of book cover artwork given free in New English Library's 'Target' magazine and Science Fiction Monthly.
ReplyDeleteOne cover I really liked was from 'Space, Time and Nathaniel' by Brian Aldiss.
The poster showed a dead withered bug-eyed alien sat on a mound of skulls. In the background is the skeletal framework of what remains of a ruined city, while overhead a fleet of spacecraft hover ominously in the background.
I think I've still got the book somewhere in the loft along with one or two tatty copies of Target, but sadly the posters, just like the alien are long gone.
I know the book cover you describe, Mike.
ReplyDeleteThere was a time when I used to buy paperback books just for the covers. (Only later did I read any of them, and found some were excellent!)
'Space, Time and Nathaniel' was one such. I never thought of the figure on the cover as an alien as such, though now you mention it, I suspect you are right.
I just assumed it was one of the future "humans" in the (final?) story, "The Failed Men". (Been a long time since I read it, so I might have got the wrong name for the story).
That's how i pictured them thanks to that awesome and haunting cover. Thanks for putting me in mind of it again!
You may well be right, P.T. Like you, it's years since I read it but that title from one of the stories does ring a distant bell, and it would fit in well with the picture. The creature just reminded me of the Mekon from Dan Dare and so I took it to be an alien (I suppose the moral of that is don't judge a cover by a book!! ; D )
ReplyDeleteIt is like a Mekon. (although I wouldn't have known that back then).
ReplyDeleteYou know you've gone and made me want to read this again, don't you! (grins).