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| Copyright DC COMICS |
Long-time readers with good memories will recall that I've shown these covers before, but there's a reason for their reappearance - a story behind them, if you will. Y'see, something I only just realised while looking through the SUPERMAN edition of the DC COMICS CLASSIC LIBRARY series (which reprints the covers and the tales they represent), is that it took me around 14 or 15 years to acquire all nine issues - out of sequence and while living in three different houses. Let's call them houses A, B, and C.
I was living in house A when I acquired #s 233, 234, 240, 241 and 242, house B when I bought 237 and 238, and house C when I obtained 235 and 236. Houses A and B comics I bought new off the spinner-racks in the early '70s (US comics didn't always appear in sequence in the shops back then and sometimes repeated), whereas house C comics were purchased as mail order back issues around the mid-'80s ('85/'86).
I bought issues 241 and 242 (from house A) again in house B, even though I still had my originals, but pristine issues of comics I already had always screamed to me to buy them again, and I often found it hard to resist. It's because of this that I associate these two covers with both house A and B, and I had to double-check the back-up reprint stories to confirm that, yes, I had originally bought my first copies in house A. (Because, in memory, I strongly associate these particular tales with house A. In fact, I clearly recall reading the back-up strips while 'perched on the porcelain' in that house, sometime in 1972 or '72.)
You don't care a rat's @rse about all this trivial detail of course, but as my memory continues to fade with my advancing years, it's important to me to record this for my own future reference "ere the gate shuts to behind me" (to quote Kenneth Grahame). But the point I wanted to make is this: it never seemed to me all those years ago that it had taken 14 or 15 years and three houses to acquire a mere nine issues. Nowadays, when I'm not really thinking about it, it feels that I had all nine comics together at the one time and in the one place, not obtained piecemeal in different locations over so long a period.
In fact, I have actually now owned all nine comics at one time in one place for well-over 30-odd years, but that's not how I acquired them before the run was complete. (A task which took well over half my life from start to finish.) Funny how the mind can sometimes play tricks on us, eh? Anyway, seeing as you're here, enjoy looking at the covers again.
(Incidentally, #239 was a Giant reprint issue, which I have, but isn't included here.)
I bought issues 241 and 242 (from house A) again in house B, even though I still had my originals, but pristine issues of comics I already had always screamed to me to buy them again, and I often found it hard to resist. It's because of this that I associate these two covers with both house A and B, and I had to double-check the back-up reprint stories to confirm that, yes, I had originally bought my first copies in house A. (Because, in memory, I strongly associate these particular tales with house A. In fact, I clearly recall reading the back-up strips while 'perched on the porcelain' in that house, sometime in 1972 or '72.)
You don't care a rat's @rse about all this trivial detail of course, but as my memory continues to fade with my advancing years, it's important to me to record this for my own future reference "ere the gate shuts to behind me" (to quote Kenneth Grahame). But the point I wanted to make is this: it never seemed to me all those years ago that it had taken 14 or 15 years and three houses to acquire a mere nine issues. Nowadays, when I'm not really thinking about it, it feels that I had all nine comics together at the one time and in the one place, not obtained piecemeal in different locations over so long a period.
In fact, I have actually now owned all nine comics at one time in one place for well-over 30-odd years, but that's not how I acquired them before the run was complete. (A task which took well over half my life from start to finish.) Funny how the mind can sometimes play tricks on us, eh? Anyway, seeing as you're here, enjoy looking at the covers again.
(Incidentally, #239 was a Giant reprint issue, which I have, but isn't included here.)
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