A DIFFERENT KIND OF COMICS CODE...

Image copyright MARVEL COMICS

If American comics still operate the same way today as they've

always done, the June cover-dated monthly mags will be coming out

in March.  That said, there was usually a delay in the United Kingdom,

before the advent of specialist comicbook shops speeded things up for

the British consumer.  Forty years ago, I'm not quite sure when we'd

have had access to mags bearing the month of June on them, but one

thing I do know is that the bar-code box made its first comic-
book appearance on all mags bearing that date.

Forty years!  I can hardly believe it, mainly because that little

box still seems like a relatively recent interloper on the covers of my

favourite comics.  Can it really be the case that it's now existed for the

majority of my comics-buying life?  Tell me it isn't so.  You'd think that

after all this time I'd be used to it, but no - it still leaps out at me like a

spot at the end of someone's nose, demanding my undivided atten-

tion and preventing me from being able to properly focus on the

actual cover art itself.  "Out, damn'd spot!  Out, I say!"

Forty years, eh?  I don't even feel like I'm old enough (most

of the time) to have forty years behind me.  Yet for some strange

reason, I find myself fervently hoping that I've got at least that length

of time ahead of me.  If it passes half as fast as the previous forty, my

life will be over before I even know it, a thought that affords me no

pleasure.  Anyway, I'll try and be gracious and wish that little bar-

code box a Happy 40th Birthday.  And from now on I'll try

 not to stare.  No point in making it self-conscious.

Posted in: Cartoons