Buddy - the rained in edition

It's been another cold and as when this was typed, wet, week so playground is out and we're in the hall having our playtime.

One of the biggest names in British publishing and for a long time comic publishing was D C Thomson, anyone my generation had at least access to one if not more of theirs and maybe an IPC title.

They devoted quite a bit of time into researching the at times shifting interests of boys and girls tweaking existing comics and sometimes launching a new title to grab a slice of an emergent market.

Buddy was their attempt at going for an all boys action comic, a bit more modern for boys who liked sport, action and adventure, in other words this blogs writer which started up on February 14th 1981.

The main character was a freckled boy in sporty modern attire, no formal suits and no school uniform, just a a boy chilling out (except in 1981 we didn't use that expression).

Billy the Cat starred in it although if you are a Beano fan you might have a sense of deja vu here because Billy the Cat had starred in that comic from April 1st 1967 to September 7th 1974 with his sister Katie.

Billy (and in the Beano Katie) donned cat suits acquired cat like powers  using them to aid the police as a crimefighting boy, in some ways a like a neko-boy for fans of manga and anime.

It was a cartoon strip I loved.

Here's a front cover with the start of February 27th 1982 Billy the Cat adventure.

Sport was covered  and Tuffy, the story of the hopeless boy fighting against the odds to play soccer was a re-imagined form of Scrappy, a Boy all alone from The Wizzard with Tuffy being the boy who was homeless with just a dog for company.

There were also war and adventure series too although it borrowed sometimes literally as reprints from older Beano and Wizzard series.

Buddy run until 1983 when it was folded into The Victor.

There was something in the air and another short lived comic of the same ilk came about by combining Battle and Action which as the name would suggest stories about war, mainly WW2 based and features on equipment such as aircraft.

Boys could write in about war related things such as  grandparents adventures and win a prize

It originated as battle on March 8th 1975 and ended in January 23rd 1988

Needless to say popular boys toy manufactures used the advertising space to sell related toys although boys like me already had bought in to Action Man.

These sorts of comics were sort I loved and to which are difficult to see a replacement for todays as it tends to be graphic books that tend to tackle these themes that are often at least monthly.

Snowy Fridays

 

Go on, have a guess what's being doing here?

Well yes, it is a very white production outside as we've had heavy snow here in North Staffordshire where much of Northern England has been dealing with severe flooding so we have snow disruption and they've got another sort.

Given this is a good few inches, it's rather more than I can safely wobbling around so I'm very much indoors as I type this up.

Listening to the radio was something I did and actually I recall my Grandfather on Mummy's side of the family often listening carefully to the scores before he set off for work as he was both an avid football fan and illiterate only just looking at pictures in newspapers.

I've been reading some of my annuals I had for Christmas and the latest issue of AdventureBox Max's short story which is set in renaissance Italy looking at the development of flight.

You can guess what is on my mind...

Fresh hot food in a scene which is very close to how it was at home growing up where we'd all dash to where the delicious smells were coming from with an expectorant face but we knew we'd have to wait unless there was a spare cake that didn't turn out just right we could ask for.

Time to get the Scotch Broth and bread out for lunch.

Denis at Seventy

This week on what's the second blog we are looking very much at a boy icon here in the UK part of the lives of boys of the past and those of the present.

The first thing to say is there are two Dennis's in the comic world, the American Dennis and there's Dennis The Menace who is British and like most brits I'd say is the one that we all identify with. 

Our Dennis was born in 1951 in the Beano comic drawn together with his faithful dog, Gnasher by Dennis Law and it is his 70th birthday this year so D C Thompson's Beano Studio Ltd is marking it with a special compilation of classic full comic strips.

The Dennis I grew up with the early 1970's was drawn by David Sutherland who was responsible from 1970 through to 1988 and this is a very good example of a Dennis front and rear page strip from September 14 1974 when I was in Junior school.

Dennis was always menacing - the clue's in the name - sometimes it was the grown ups on the receiving end of it  at other times Walter and his gang of softies but it would never go on for long with going unpunished as in this strip where he like many of us in this era was spanked by his dad with a slipper or sometimes his Granny's Demon Whacker.

It was our world reflected in a comic strip.

You often hear people say "He doesn't look the same any more" which is true but the above sample drawn by David Law for February 27th 1954 goes to show that from the outset he has changed although much of what is happening in that strip would be recognizable to those of us of my generation

One big change was the move into the 1990's and beyond into full colour printing on glossy paper rather than newsprint that originally would of been two colour then expanded to a wider range but all relatively low saturated.

The only glossy editions we had prior to that were the Summer Specials being a mini annual time for school hols.

Dennis was still menacing in the year 2000 but his dad's slipper was put away.

The more modern face of Dennis is more rounded and softened which is in part due to the need to have the Dennis The Menace of the tv cartoon series with restrictions on "acceptable content" from the likes of the BBC match the comic edition which has left him more a cheeky rather than menacing boy that is in the thick of misdemeanours sometimes with other cartoon strips characters such as Toots from the Bash Street Kids.

Today it is Nigel Parkinson who usually draws him

The strength of this book really is not that's a "coffee table" anniversary publication but the high number of original front and rear covers of complete weekly cartoon strips that unless you are a avid comic collector you may not have and the extent to which for those of us of a certain "bone" age it takes us back those weekly stories we loved laughing our socks off at.

I'm pleased to have my copy of it.

Resuming little coping

While we wind down from the Christmas period, twelfth night having passed so decorations, cards and the nativity scene being taken down and tidied away following the muted New Year celebrations things here have changed.

Specifically as of Wednesday England is in full national lockdown aka Lockdown v3.0 with us being pretty close to but a little different when it comes to the rules set out in law which allows for fines to be issued.

I'm not going to get into any and all of the politics around it not least as a career in the same really messed me up bigtime and the majority of us at this point are bystanders in this event no one would of chosen.

The question arises though to what personal response in terms of daily living this makes and for me it is to use what I learned from last March to ensure I am in the best possible place mentally and physically to survive this latest wave of the pandemic.

The first is to follow the rules to the best of my ability, considering carefully why the rule is there and the risks involved as all rules and guidance is based on most situations and was framed with inner city areas in mind as much anywhere else.

There is little denying I have issues with anxiety which of itself this pandemic is not helping one iota with so while the wording is that people "should" only go out once a day for exercise for reasons connected with immediate mental health I may need to go out briefly for more than once if I'm having an anxiety attack.

In that event I would go the least distance from the front door, keep within areas of very low footfall in the immediate area avoiding where the shops are until such time as I am more stable and okay to be back indoors.

Given parts of the immediate area back on to open countryside and have woodland it's easier for me to do this safely than others reliant on just the park.

Unlike last time playgrounds are open which should help.

The second just staying in the whole headspace of that boy and not focussing beyond any important announcements you need to observe.

It is way too easy to become a news junkie watching 24 hour rolling news with website refreshing on a computer and your phone following tweets and yet actually we have no direct impact upon it save following the rules and keeping everyone safe.

It only ups the anti when it comes to fears and generally feeling anxious about the situation where switching off and doing something active helps more.

For me that decision to have comic subscriptions set up means I have at hand and at no risk of infection by going into town things that will lift my spirits up which given my more boy-like mind makes more sense that I can look forward to.

The other is with care I can continue to play, explore and learn will outdoors replacing screen staring anxiety with activity, creating good feelings and emotions and learn things while being the adult boy I am about and always looking the part.

That for me is likely to be the best way of dealing with this until such time as restrictions may be relaxed or lifted entirely which is expect to run to late spring at least.

The 2020 Review

I usually write something of a reflective piece on this blog but as this year has been rather messed up whatever the pluses (and there's been a few) and the many minus's it will be of necessity different that what I might of expected to have written.

Covid was our wicked enemy preventing planned meets from happening, limiting even regular travel, dominating conversation and virtually every news program from dawn to dusk and between programs public health information.

All necessary for sure but difficult to escape from swamping us to the point many people found coping a struggle because it was pulling them down more than helping them get by in the circumstances.

For me, I just found solace in this adult but little boy world, yes noting anything I needed to do like following rules but otherwise taking my lead from actual boys to which in so many respects I have that much more in common with.

When mentally you are - and it's less of a choice and more of permanent reality - pretty much a boy the only way to cope is by sticking within your own world and so as the weeks passed by I was going full immersion into that world.

I went out as much as we were allowed and in the first months it was just once a day and just explored and even played imaginary games in the countryside as the playground was shut for a big period but I could make my very own playground when I act out the games we played running, crawling across gravel and grass leaving any passing adults to get on with their own thing.

Many person out saw me as that boy, being treated very much as one, being referred to as "Sonny".

I read comics and got subscription's set to ensure that regardless of what was going on with getting to the newsagents and even if they had a delivery, I'd have mine landing through the letter box the way it did when I was ten.

I had at least something to look forward to that was new and different as much as I watched tv shows like Jamie Johnson, Crackerjack that was restored to the schedules and of course Blue Peter that had gained two new presenters  taking the the complement back up to four.

If an animated film was showing on tv, I made a point of watching it.

Not that surprisingly as I became more and more immersed deeply into this world some outward signs changed so from just before this craziness started when I did get away for boys week of activity while I did dress rather more as school boy in the Lake District, hiking, going trainspotting and riding steam trains I started to feel more full on little.

The Forum became busier as many from our MisterPoll group joined it and ASB returned too on an invite only basis both showing the need of many of us to go back in our differing ways to that life.

It was the point in which I had decide that not just moving as I had done more the previous year to more 'classic' jumpers and turn over socks that from now on my shorts were not only what I'd be wearing nearly all the time but were going to be taken way up to where they were when I was that junior boy of ten allowing for growth.

I just feel so much better seeing my reflection as that boy as much as it only adds to the way in which I feel back in the mindset of him going about my everyday life feeling carefree, yes with some responsibilities but only those I could carry-that of boy of that age.

Losing that thinly papered over adult sense whose cracks not only had caused me major problems in the past but got in the way of just being in reality who I am was the biggest gain arising from the pandemic for me.

I was just me and my community looked after me as such.

I don't talk about my family much on this blog, I don't particularly need to but this year every member accepted the adult boy me. They know how I present.

I was with my parents over Christmas dressed in school uniform with those much shorter grey school shorts on, free to be me and I even had an unexpected present that was for once not rooted in adult interest.

They'd bought me some lego. Not a grown up book, a dvd, a gift voucher but an actual boys present presented to my as that - a gift I discovered on my chair when I'm there upon it.

This year has been challenging, as here in North Staffordshire we are in Tier 4 until at least another month or so according to our Public Health person as of yesterday but one where actually dropping right back to pure boyhood fun and interests has not just been good for coping with the same but for feeling so comfortable in my own skin as that eternal boy. 

Looking into the New Year, as we all hope the vaccination programme gets under way with two vaccines now approved while it may be Spring at least until things can get to something more normal so that like many of you I can be with others having fun together, I'm a in better place to cope with whatever we may have to deal with for the foreseeable future.