Its Saturday morning at Moonbase.
The coffee is hot and the sun is shining on the first of July.
But something's missing.
Nothing has slapped on the door mat. Nothing has flopped through the letterbox.
I've nothing to read!
It'd odd. My childhood was filled with comics and magazines and the best way of getting them was a subscription from the local 'paper shop' and delivered by a paper boy. I loved how our old address was scribbled in the top corner in pencil, 24 Powis ...
I got a few TV21's this way [respect to anyone who got them all through the door!] but the big mat hitter for me was Look-In.
I got stacks of them through the door as a kid and adored the thing. On The Buses, the free gifts, the lot. My favourite was Kung Fu as it tapped into the oriental craze sweeping through the West and right through my bedroom!
Getting your favourite comic through the door was a joy and perhaps a rare joy these days. I'm not sure if its possible to get comics and magazines from the paper shop now and delivered by a paper boy. Is it?
I did enjoy that weekly buzz once more in the Nineties when I subscribed to Model and Collectors Mart and I have to say it was equally as thrilling. I adored that mag as much as Look-In and consumed every word on the steamy bus to work!
But all good things seem to come to an end and Model Mart's sales dropped and it sadly faded away. My pile of magazines was huge and by 2003 when we moved house I had to recycle most of them keeping a few choice ones to follow me into the future.
I have thought about another subscription but nothing leaps out. It could be an age thing with me now. The modern 2000 AD perhaps [is it any good?] or maybe the revamped Warren Creepy of old called Creeps?
Maybe I'm just being an old curmudgeon but perhaps the golden age of kids' adventure comics has gone and subscriptions have faded like the contrails of Thunderbird 2. I've not heard a single modern kid ever mention a subscription comic or magazine to me. If they do talk about them its always superhero stuff, which they got from a city centre comic shop.
Is 2000 AD the last UK gasp for a genre that filled our lungs with the air of excitement and outer space when we were kids in the Sixties and Seventies - and maybe even the Eighties and Nineties?
Comics were once 'cheap 'n' cheerful' and there were so many that most kids (or so it seemed at the time) could find something that suited their tastes. Also, UK comics had several stories, and even if there were only one or two tales that a reader liked, it was still worth the price of the kid's investment. Nowadays, despite a few unrealistically optimistic individuals wittering on about a resurgent comics 'industry', comics sell in ludicrously low numbers compared to their heyday. That's why comics are now so expensive (comparatively speaking) - fewer readers have to pay more to keep their favourite comics going. There are only two weeklies that immediately spring to mind that are still around - The Beano & 2000 A.D. (We can ignore The Phoenix, which has almost zero presence in the minds of the general public.) There's such a lack of interest in comics (apart from diehard fans) that many small newsagents don't even stock them anymore because it's not worth their time. Therefore, if the newsagents don't stock them, they can't deliver them, and that's not something supermarkets do either (even though they do stock kids' magazines). So, a vanished age, alas, Woodsy.
ReplyDeleteAh that's a shame Kid and sounds fairly definitive. i thought as much. I never bought 2000 AD and I wish I had now right up to the present day. That would be a fine collection and a brilliant body of knowledge. I may look into subscribing if I can find a single copy somewhere to see what its like now. I've a stack of old 2000 AD's I got at a car boot sale somewhere in the loft. maybe I should get them out and read them on that sun-lounger I'm dreaming of this summer, when it starts up again! PS. Has the Beano kept going uninterrupted all this time? That's amazing!
DeleteThere was a time during the war when The Beano and The Dandy were fortnightly, alternating with each other week by week due to paper rationing, but unless there was ever a printer's strike I've forgotten about, then yes, it's been going regularly since 1938. You can still get 2000 A.D. in WHS by the way.
DeleteI will check out 2000 AD when I'm in Pontefract twon centre's WHSmith next Kid, cheers.
DeleteI envy you - actually having the time to read. I have months worth of Playset magazine awaiting perusal.
ReplyDeleteI only have one copy of Playset, its the one with Apollo Moon Exploring on the cover. Get some time off from Opa'ing and read those mags with a cold Becks or two Ed!
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