Now read on…………..

I can’t keep track. Wasn’t Patsy seeing Tony Stark until recently? Anyway if I needed a reason to buy this issue the first page intrigues me saying:-

Patsy Walker is a former teen celebrity turned super hero with supernatural and psychic powers. During her storied life she’s been an Avenger and private investigator, was married to the Son of Satan, died, went to hell and was resurrected. Having relocated to the West Coast, Patsy is determined to escape the ghosts of her past and claw out a new future.

Patsy’s new boyfriend, Spalding Grantham, was brutally murdered. Patsy’s memories leading up to the murder are clouded, save for partially recalling a violent fight with an unknown person. Patsy’s friend Hedy, also Spalding’s ex, confronted her with her suspicions while Patsy’s demonic ex-husband Daimon, trapped in the form of a plush bunny, has been secretly observing her.

With Patsy as the police’s lead suspect in Spalding’s murder, she set out to investigate on her own. She discovered her occasional ally Sleepwalker’s Imaginator hidden at the crime scene. When Patsy questioned Rick Sheridan, Sleepwalker’s human host, he revealed that the Sleepwalker collective suspects that he killed Spalding-since he is in love with Patsy!

The Son of Satan “trapped in the form of a plush bunny”? Do they mean a Cuddly Toy? Also there is the fact that Patsy is currently being haunted by the ghost of her dead mother. How can you not want to read on……..

Nuff Said 47

Young Love

You know you’re getting old when dept:       I realised I was getting old when Country and Western music started to make perfect sense. When all the policemen suddenly looked younger than me. When I began making groaning noises as I got out of chairs. When I found myself enjoying “romance” comics much more than the current Batman or Whistling Skull nonsense.

Throughout the 1960s Thorpe and Porter/Top Sellers had a steady output of their own publications as well as being the distributor for the majority of american comic books we received in the UK. There is no date on this comic. A popular trend at the time to extend shelf-life in your local newsagents. The back cover shows a photo of the “Searchers” pop group circa 1964. And 1964 is mentioned in one of the strips.

Young Love No 6 Top Sellers mid 1960s

And whilst I’m still in the mood for Romance comics……. Many years before she became Mrs Hellstrom, Patsy dated her future husband’s father (!?!) or was it an “imaginary story”? But aren’t they all? Can you spot the difference.

and Hedy

After debuting in 1944 as a teenager by 1945 Patsy Walker had her own “Marvel” comic which ran until 1965. She also shared a comic with Hedy Wolfe between 1952 and 1967. Hedy was to Patsy as Chili was to Millie the Model or Betty was to Veronica for that matter….friend/rival/enemy…whatever the story (usually written by Stan Lee) called for.

I couldn’t resist buying this old comic (the one pictured below) recently. I was once given a stack of these years ago…only to discover all the paper dolls had been cut out !! Anyway what I found interesting about this June 1960 issue is the UK price of 9d. It looks like it is a sticker over the USA price but it isn’t….the UK price has been specifically printed on the cover. It is another example of how (pre) Marvel comics printed batches of comics in the States specifically to be shipped over to the UK.

The inside front cover has even lost the usual small print.

When in the regular comics it looked something like this.

The ageless Patsy has been an Avenger and a Defender, survived hell and often pops up as Hellcat in the Marvel universe. Hedy Wolfe still lives in Centerville. I don’t know if they continue to be friennemies but both are Marvel Divas.

PS: Were Patsy’s early adventures written by Stan or (as has recently been claimed) by her mother ? And did they happen inside the Marvel Universe or were they comics you could buy from a newsstand inside the Marvel Universe ?? My brain hurts.

Uncollecting

ITEM:    Perhaps one day I’ll be “carbon neutral” by not purchasing too much more “stuff” that will ultimately need disposing of. However I recently added loads more collectables rubbish to the skip (and ultimately landfill I presume). One box was full of 8 track cartridge tapes. It’s not like I ever played them. Most had lost their outer sleeves and they all looked tatty and water-stained. I believe I found them in the back of a second-hand Triumph GT6 I once bought.

The 4 track cartridge first appeared in the early 1960s and soon found favour at radio stations. Jingles and adverts could be set up on the tape loops so once they had been played they were all ready to go the next time. Players were soon developed for cars to exploit this new format. At least they were an improvement over the car-dashboard-mounted 45rpm record players from a few years earlier.

4 track cartridges were rather clunky as they required you to push one of four buttons to move to the next part of the tape. So the format was soon improved and called “8 track” , but not made backwards compatible with the earlier system. Although called 8 tracks there were still only 4 “programmes” (presumably they now had the capacity to be in stereo) and at least they now played in sequence without too much button pressing. By splitting two-sided LPs into four you often found the ludicrous situation where a tune stopped halfway through as the tape moved over to the next track. Take this example here. “Nowhere Man” isn’t much more than 3 minutes long and yet they’ve chopped it in two !!  Surprisingly you (not me !!) could still buy these pre-recorded cartridge tapes until the early 1980s (often in racks at Car Accessory shops) despite the Philips cassette tape being most people’s preference at home and in the car.

PS: I actually still own a Lloytron Music Centre which plays 8 track cartridges as well as LPs. I believe it also RECORDS onto 8 track tape too which is rather unusual.  Another novelty I’ve still kept is a contraption that you push into the cartridge slot which enables you to play a cassette tape through your 8 track cartridge system…apparently often found in glove boxes in early 1970s Rolls Royces.

ITEM:   Stacks of  books went into the skip but as usual at the last minute I had second thoughts and rescued something. This time I decided to reprieve a dozen Broons Annuals.  D.C.Thompson’s Beano characters now inhabit the C21st and yet Oor Wullie still continues to sit on his metal bucket (??). Didn’t he ought to be sitting on a Wheelie-Bin by now ??

ITEM:    Feeling proud of myself that I’ve disposed of so much stuff I immediately order half a dozen new graphic novels. “Models Inc” looks interesting as it features Millie the Model, Chili, Patsy, Hedy and more !! All the Marvel Comic characters have gone through some massive changes over the years but they certainly haven’t aged. In normal time Millicent would be 80 years old by now. Patsy Walker looks good for her age too. From her romance comic origins Ms Walker is now a “Marvel Diva”. I really enjoyed this 4 part series with its tales of Patsy and her “gal pals” shopping, drinking coffee in hospital waiting rooms and visiting her ex-husband in Hell (??). Highly recommended.

PS: Did you know that Patsy Walker was first seen (along with her friend Hedy, but surprisingly not Millie the Model) in the official “Marvel Universe” in 1965 as a guest at Sue and Reed’s wedding in Fantastic Four Annual No 3.