<![CDATA[we see the world in ben-day dots

Dave Scrimgeour and Kevin McCluskey

#298
Writer- David Michelinie
Pencils- Todd McFarlane
Inks- Bob McLeod
Lettering- Rick Parker & Ken Lopez
Colours- Janet Jackson
Editor- Jim Salicrup
Editor In Chief- Tom DeFalco

#299
Writer- David Michelinie
Pencils- Todd McFarlane
Inks- Bob McLeod
Letters- Rick Parker
Colours- Bob Sharen
Editor- Jim Salicrup
Editor In Chief- Tom DeFalco

#300
Writer- David Michelinie
Art- Todd McFarlane
Letters- Rick Parker
Colour- Bob Sharen
Editor- Jim Salicrup
Editor In Chief- Tom DeFalco

Synopsis

Spidey Vs. Venom. 'Nuf said!

Dave
So it's 'Spidey Vs Venom" time. It's like we've got to one of those big wrestling events and the proceedings are just starting.

Kev
Ha, ha! The main event of Wrestlemania 5.

Dave
It all started back in March 1988. One page in issue 298. It's very much just a teaser page, this, but it’s well put together, with Eddie Brock in the shadows, and the desolate block in which he lives showing how obsessive this guy is about Spidey.

Kev
Yeh, we get a little one page epilogue teaser from issue 298, as David Michelinie, who I don’t think gets anywhere near the credit he deserves by the way, skillfully weaves in plot threads for the future as he heads towards the big 300th issue. This is something I really miss from modern ongoing comics (which, to be fair, I don’t read as many of these days, so perhaps I’m part of the problem), but I think everything is so clearly written for the trade, and as a result, a lot more self-contained, that you don’t get as much of this longer term storytelling. Plus, writers generally are not on books for as long as this anymore, so there’s little incentive for them to plan too far ahead these days anyway.

Dave
It's a good page, because it's showing the simmering danger that is about to unfold, and the panels show a tease of Brock's hand, and then the symbiote hand.

Kev
Yeh, that silhouette of our, as of yet, unknown antagonist is comics 101, and the tier of panels at the bottom of the page gives us the real clue as to, at least some of, what is occurring here. Longer term readers would have recognised that symbiote hand immediately.

"He could've brought down a mountain when he pounded on a table."

Dave
It's a real mood generator of a page.

Kev
Absolutely. And I like the little nod to the X books with the “Down With Mutants” graffiti on the run-down building. And I’m a sucker for a water tower on top of a New York building. I was fascinated by them as a kid. Still am, really.

Dave
And then we have issue 299’s two page build-up as soon as MJ gets into her flat. That panel, of Venom standing there, in front of her, in the dark, with his eyes and emblem showing, and the minimal lighting in the background, is superb. Then we get the close up of Venom, and MJ’s fear in the next panel, which works so well. And finally, the full page reveal of Venom is here. It’s very simple, but works effectively.

Kev
Yep, next we get the two page cliffhanger from #299 that sets-up #300, again, with Bob McLeod providing inks over Todd McFarlane’s pencils, and I have to say, I don’t know if it was just because this was my first exposure to McFarlane’s work on Spidey, (I had seen his work on an issue of GI Joe that was the back-up story in Transformers UK previously), but I don’t think it ever looked better.

Dave
This was McFarlane's launch into the stratosphere of comic book artists, wasn't it?

Kev
Definitely. He was off to the races after this. It’s weird, McLeod, who I suspect was on inking duties on this issue purely to give McFarlane more time to concentrate on the double-sized #300, reigns in a lot of what makes McFarlane, McFarlane, and arguably much of what actually made him stand out from the crowd, but at the same time, I love that it’s that bit cleaner, less busy, with less emphasis on detail, and I also believe that Venom never looked better than this splash page reveal either. I like that he looked like a muscular unit of a shadow, with less roided-out definition and cuts, and the evil, toothy grin (perhaps a little too close to The Joker for some though, which necessitated some deviation) rather than the tongue and saliva, and the “Brains, brains, brains” that he would evolve into. I think what I’m getting at is that I liked the creepiness of the horror that he started with, rather than the more ghoulish gore he would morph into. That said, it’s probably a simple case of less being more, and letting the reader’s imagination do the work. Which you can only do for so long before things start to get stale, so I guess they had to add more and more to the character each time they used him. And he was so popular, boy did they use him.

Dave
Also, I like how we see Venom’s grinning face reflected in MJ’s pupils. That’s a nice touch as well.

Venom's Turkey teeth.

Kev
Yeh, that reflection of Venom’s face in MJ’s pupil is particularly clever, and the gradual reveal is excellent.

Dave
"I’m home!" Yeah, that splash page is great. Also, the colour in the background, which is muted, contrasts well with the black outfit. Before we go into issue 300, we need to discuss the cover; do you remember when it initially came out in the shops, and how hyped were you for this? Especially as ‘Amazing’ was the series you collected. You had the jackpot of Spidey issues back in 1988.

"Home is where the hatred is. Home is filled with pain."

Kev
You beat me to it, I was going to ask if you had any specific memories of these comics coming out, or what you were up to at the time of them being released? Yeh, this was really when I started to migrate away from the weekly UK comic book collecting of Transformers, to the monthly US comics, particularly Amazing Spider-Man. I got #289 as my first issue the year prior to this and absolutely loved it, but I was so used to 11 pages of strip from Transformers UK, that a US comic with 22 pages seemed like a lot at the time. Plus, 289 was a double-sized issue, so it felt even more overwhelming, and in retrospect, I think it may have scared me off a little bit. In addition to that, the distribution irregularities of Marvel US comics to UK newsagents at the time, and therefore not being able to get the next issue, or certainly not seeing it on the shelves, and it all resulted in a bit of a stop-start, two steps forward, one step back, journey towards ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ for me.

Dave
I can remember us eagerly awaiting this issue to come out by that time it had been built up. And really, it was only built up through the medium of comics. Not like nowadays, where there are so many more promotional avenues, i.e. the internet.

Kev
Yeh, I didn’t get #298, but my brother (shout-out to Bri) got #299. That thing was read to death, and was passed around us all, so let’s just say that it’s not exactly a 9.8 nowadays. I don’t remember seeing #300 on the shelves of the local newsagents, and when I say local, I mean most of Dundee’s, because we used to walk for hours and miles on end looking for any off-the-beaten-track newsagent that there was even the slightest chance might have a comic that we wanted on its shelves. As I was typing that sentence, I realised that, to anyone born with a 2 at the start of the year of their DOB, I’ve just made our childhood sound like something out of ‘Stand By Me.’ However, it was not long after this that we stumbled upon The Black Hole (shout-out to George Cordeiro, RIP), and a few months later, George had a copy of #300 that he was selling for a fiver, which at the time, seemed like a massive investment to a still pre-teen Kev. So much so, that my Mum, in her infinite wisdom, meticulously crafted a dust jacked out of polythene for it, but attached it to the cover with sellotape, rendering it worthless. The road to hell, good intentions, and all that. Her heart was in the right place, and to her credit, it did wear a lot better than any of the other comics I have from that period.

Dave
This came out in May ‘88, so I’m not exactly sure when you would’ve managed to pick it up, but it would have been near the summer time for sure. So as kids, at that time of year, we would have been gearing up for time off school, and all the joys that brought. The cover, with the McFarlane Spidey pose, still looks great. McFarlane was redefining the look of Spidey, with a more, I suppose, up to date look. Also, the 300 plastered all over the cover is making it known this issue is a big deal.

Kev
It's an iconic image, isn't it? And it was iconic pretty much immediately as well. And yeh, they were making sure that everyone knew that this was the big 25th anniversary issue.

Dave
It is such a memorable cover though, so kudos to it for still holding up after all these years. This is probably the first time I have read this since we originally read it.

Kev
Really!?!? That's amazing. No pun intended. I can't wait to hear your ‘28 Years Later’ views on it.

Dave
Well, I probably read it a few times after that, but it’s been roughly within that timeframe.

Kev
Cool. Well, we open with a splash page of a traumatised Mary Jane, cowering on the floor, against the wall, almost in a foetal position.

MJ changed her outfit before filming this and posting it on TikTok and Insta.

Dave
Yeah, that splash page is great. I still remember how good it looks. MJ’s fear is emphasised here to show how much of a threat Venom is as a villain. However she is ".....drowned in an onrushing tide of primal fear," and yet has still been able to change into a completely different outfit as to what she wore coming home in issue 299.

Kev
Ha, ha! I had never even noticed that. Not in 37 years. Well, she is a fashionista, after all. She probably has a "primal fear" outfit. MJ was just ahead of her time; farming for sympathy engagement.

Dave
We can forgive this slight continuity error, as it would have been a month between issues, and we, the readers, wouldn't have been interested in going back to the final two pages of issue 289 just to do a fit check on MJ. And it does spruce her up, to give the full on fashionista look.

Kev
This is a daft wee thing, but I had forgotten that Venom was inside MJ and Pete’s apartment. I mis-remembered it as him catching her on the landing/staircase. Shows you how unreliable my memory is. And I like how we also go back to the image of Venom’s face in MJ’s pupil, which is a callback to the closing moments of last issue.

Dave
Yeah, that mask-in-the-pupil image is a nice little touch. MJ is really getting shown to be a nervous wreck here, considering all the other villains she's had to contend with. This was, at the time, Spidey's deadliest foe though.

Kev
Exactly. They were really pushing Venom to the moon (to use a wrestling phrase) as the newest, most dangerous, member of Spidey's rogues gallery.

Dave
Yep, I was actually thinking of wrestling as well, probably because we were mad for the wrestling then. The whole concept of entertainment is to keep pushing the boat out, and making things bigger than ever. The same idea with a comic book, promote the next big villain.

Kev
Totally. Bigger always equals better. How very American. Eddie not even knowing that Pete and MJ were married puts this nicely into context with ‘Parallel Lives,’ which we just covered previously.

Dave
That’s true, actually, it does, yeah. I do like that panel of Pete standing in the yellow doorway with his Spidey costume. The contrast of colours work well.

Kev
Yeh, props to Bob Sharen for the colour work on this issue. McFarlane also does a cracking job of providing that panel with a real depth of field as well.

Dave
Yeah, I like that panel of Venom, from a distance, climbing up the side of the building. It works well against the previous panels of the close-ups of Pete and MJ. Then the transformation panels are cleverly done as well. Also, I like how, even as a person, Eddie Brock looks like he could easily go into a WWF ring. He's a mean looking dude.

Kev
Yeh, he's definitely got a bit of a Brock Lesnar look about him. Must be something in the name. McFarlane was always fantastic at putting little details into their apartment to make it look like they actually lived there. Not least, in this instance, with the Patrick Nagel print. Not the first time Nagel’s work has popped-up in our comic book discussions. Someone must’ve been a fan. Maybe McFarlane himself. And I suppose he was in vogue at that point in time, as this wasn’t too long after his death. It's interesting that MJ says, “he grew a mouth,” yet in the 2nd and 3rd panel of page 10, we see Venom without his trademark mouth. Like I said earlier, the character is still being developed as we’re going along here, even visually. It’s not quite locked-in yet.

"Show. No. Teeth."

Dave
True, the character is just getting put to the page, and I guess they are trying to find their feet with him at this stage. The mood of this is quite similar to ‘Kraven's Last Hunt,’ minus the endless rain, but the darkness portrayed in the panels, with the use of muted colours, emphasises this tone, and it works well. These kind-of stories were more prominent in ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ than ‘Spectacular’ and ‘Web Of.’ I suppose they were more the glossy-looking comic series.

Kev
That's a really good point. There was definitely a difference in tone between ‘Amazing,’ written by Michelinie, and ‘Spec’ and ‘Web,’ both of which were written by Gerry Conway at this point.

Dave
‘Amazing’ seemed to cover the grittier Spidey stories. That's not something that dawned on me as a kid, but having revisited this, it's really dawning on me now. Even that panel of page 11, of the outside of where Pete and MJ are staying, shows a darker mood to the story.

Kev
True. It hadn't really dawned on me either. I used to love those McFarlane screentone cityscapes when I was young, but I’m not so sure how I feel about the mixed-media nature of them now. I find it a little jarring.

Dave
I like those images myself. It's presenting a grimier vision of New York.

Kev
They certainly do that, that's for sure. Speaking of Michelinie again, this is another, excellent, skillfully done, recap of somewhat recent Spidey history by him. It’s something that young Kev would’ve really appreciated in helping him fill in the blanks, and get up to speed, so to speak. I like the references to ‘Secret Wars’ and ‘Web Of Spider-Man’ #1. Michelinie is even dropping future plot points embedded in simple lines of dialogue about condos here. Like I said earlier, he’s criminally underappreciated.

Dave
Yeah, we get the backstory of the symbiote outfit here. And the bell scene where Spidey gets rid of it was used in "Spiderman 3" also.

Kev
Yep, Raimi lifted that straight out of ‘Web Of Spider-Man’ #1, didn't he?

Dave
It was an interesting sub note, because I didn't realise that it occurred in ‘Web of Spiderman’ #1.

Kev
Yeh, they went big on that title for the launch, that's for sure. McFarlane loved himself a bit of MJ cheesecake. So did her husband to be fair. Look at her PJs. And he was also quick to switch-up MJ’s hair. The straighteners were out and the volumizers and curlers were in.

Dave
Oh yeah, I think McFarlane was enjoying his choice of MJ outfits for sure. Peter’s housecoat on page 12 is dangerously close to the wardrobe of Alaric from ‘Circle of Blood.’

Kev
Ha, ha! That's a deep We See The World In Ben-Day Dots cut, Sir. I appreciate that. Very well done.

Dave
I've also noticed that the first panel on page 13 is another aerial view of New York, which I really like. There's been a couple of these kinds of panels in earlier pages as well.

Kev
Yeh, despite my reservations on the technique used, I cannot argue against the effectiveness of those cityscape panels as establishing shots. And it’s the little things that McFarlane does that always impress me, such as having the pigeons feature so prominently in the last panel on page 17 here. It’s such a lovely attention to detail. It puts me in mind of a John Woo movie.

"This is what it sounds like when doves cry."

Dave
True, like the John Woo use of pigeons in ‘Hard Target’ and in ‘Face Off.’ I do like those establishing shots. What's your reservation about those panels?

Kev
It’s just the screentone technique that he uses. I think it makes the comic book page look like a mixed media collage, and is somewhat inconsistent with the rest of the comic as an image. But even as I'm typing this, I'm realising what a hypocrite I am, because I love David Mack's use of mixed media in comics, so there you go. It's not the images that are inconsistent, it's me.

Dave
I think the establishing shots give it a more cinematic feel, or at least TV show feel. Page 14 is giving us the new Spidey webslinging pose as well which, as I remember, we hadn't seen any other artist draw Spidey in this way.

Insert obvious joke about Peter being a swinger here.

Kev
Nope. McFarlane really stretched the boundaries of Peter's anatomy with those poses, and they were all the more dynamic and arresting for it.

Dave
Peter’s also looking well ripped on the 2nd panel of page 14, and that panel of MJ on page 13, in her bedtime outfit, is pretty memorable as well. Again, McFarlane’s bringing a more grown-up look to the series, I'd say, aiming it, not only at overactive teen/pre teen imaginations, but overactive adult imaginations as well.

Kev
Definitely, this was definitely going more for a wider, rather than purely a children's, audience. Pete was hitting his protein goals, no doubt about it. And yeh, “Slowly, Peter’s spirits begin to rise.” I bet his “spirits” weren’t the only thing of his that were beginning to rise.

Dave
Yeah, not too subtle here, is it?

Kev
Yeh, I like Pete and MJ’s timid expressions after Aunt May comments on how “healthy” they look, oblivious to the fact that it is nothing more than newly wed, post-coital afterglow.

MJ's rocking that lip filler, alright. Pouty, pouty!

Dave
At that moment he was certainly going up in more ways than one.

Kev
Ha, ha! Indeed.

Dave
At this stage in the relationship, MJ is now the main money earner, and she's got the contacts for sure.

Kev
I always liked this part of the dynamic of their marriage, in that Peter felt guilty that MJ was so much more financially successful than he was. It was all very modern, and it felt like a real problem that a lot of young, newly married, couples at the time might be facing. MJ seems to have recovered pretty quickly from her traumatic encounter with Venom. All it took was getting a luxury New York apartment.

Dave
Yep, MJ has indeed recovered pretty well, and is really going for a glamorous look here. On page 16, after Pete leaves The Baxter Building, where he gets his sonic blaster (AKA anti-symbiote gun), we get those five panels of him walking, feeling like he's being followed. I like how they portray his isolation here, as he is at the forefront of those images, even though he's in a crowded street. And, of course, beefcake Brock is following him indeed. Then, on page 17, before we get the John Woo pigeon shot panel, the panel beforehand is another "Spidey pose.” High kicking this time, and with yet more pigeons in the background.

Kev
Yeh, that bottom tier of five panels on page 16 is superb, but anyone who’s ever read any of our stuff before now, must know I’m a sucker for that sort of stuff. McFarlane’s choice of angles, compositionally, for panels were always interesting, at the very least.

"Every breath you take, and every move you make, every bond you break, every step you take, I'll be watching you."

Dave
Page 18 and 19 do well to show the size of this apartment, and just how big it is.

"This is a nice apartment. Lots of space." Shit! Wrong superhero, again. That was the Bat guy.

Kev
Old Pete was certainly going up in the world at this point, he married well. Some might even say he married up. Going back to Aunt May; I’d forgotten that she had turned her Forest Hills home into a boarding house in order to make ends meet. I like that. Not that a pensioner was struggling financially, but that the characters’ lives were evolving and moving on a bit at this point. I like that they weren’t just stuck in some weird loop of a status quo/perpetual present.

Dave
Actually, on page 20, I was kind-of laughing at the MJ pout. This was way before the youth of today were pouting like this on their endless TikTok videos, or Instagram reels, or whatever else they’re posting on these days. MJ was first.

Kev
Ha, ha! Yeh, this was before everyone was getting injections into their lips to achieve that look.

Dave
Not to be too critical, but she does seem a bit overdressed for a family dinner with a bunch of pensioners. I wonder if Natan Lubensky's spirits were starting to rise as well, judging by that look he has on his face directed at MJ on the 2nd panel on page 20.

Kev
Ha, ha! Crotchety old, gambling addict, and perverted lodger, Nathan Lubensky.

Dave
And look, another establishing shot on the first panel of page 20, and again it’s night time. From a distance, like the first panel on page 18, we see Pete and MJ at their potential new apartment.

Kev
That little domestic scene, with the interaction between MJ and May, is exactly the sort of “human” moment I feel is missing from the Spidey comics these days. Then again, a Spidey reader of 11 or 12 years old, if such a thing even exists anymore, would probably point at exactly these sorts of moments in today’s comics, then tell me to go shout at a cloud somewhere.

Dave
We also get a real human moment with Aunt May here, as she expresses her fear of being too interfering. It kind-of slows the story down briefly to inject a good, human, moment into the proceedings. It’s a nice little moment between MJ and May. And for all MJ’s flashy dressing, and the modelling career, she still values the family dynamic. The pose of her, on the first panel on page 21, is slightly unnecessary. She's just putting something away in a cupboard for God’s sake.

Kev
Ha, ha! Yeh, one for the dads, that.

Dave
And I’m not sure we really needed the heart symbols on the bottom panel of page 21 either. I think we get the jist of the emotion that was felt here.

Superfluous hearts

Kev
I hadn't noticed that, but you're absolutely right, it's a bit overkill, for sure.

Dave
Also, why has the outline of Peter’s nose vanished on those two pages? Is it just because it's a reprint? MJ’s as well, come to think of it.

Kev
McFarlane liked the suggestion of a nose, rather than an actual nose itself. Although you are spot-on, some of these digital recolours don’t do some of the detail in the inking any favours whatsoever.

Dave
I do like the shift in tone on page 22, as we get the church sequence. McFarlane doesn’t half like those establishing shots of buildings. Are you getting used to them by now?

Kev
I do like those establishing shots, just not the screentone ones quite so much.

Dave
The 2nd panel on that page is really good, as the perspective is like a camera that is angled a bit to create more of an edge to the mood of the scene. And Brock shadowed-out is equally effective. I really like that panel, plus the light blue colour adds to the tone also.

Kev
Yeh, I like McFarlane's use of Dutch angles. They always make the page look more visually interesting.

Dave
“Dutch angles,” is that what they are called? They’re always effective.

Kev
Yeh, but not “Dutch” as in the Netherlands. Apparently they were a technique of German cinema, so “Deutsche” angles. Listening to 'Kermode and Mayo's Take' all the time has paid off.  Actually, go and Google "Dutch angle." It's quite clever. I always found the instances of Venom killing “innocents” quite shocking. The suffocation seemed pretty gruesome to me back in the day. Still is now, if I’m being honest.

Dave
Yeah, we have the killing of a cop, and with no nose outline also. Maybe Brock’s got something against people with no full nose outline. It's a quick kill, highlighting how deadly Venom is, he wastes no time. The quicker the kill, the more brutal it looks.

Kev
And, of course, this distaste at taking "innocent” life is what would, relatively quickly, evolve into Venom becoming the “Lethal Protector” anti-hero, once Marvel realised they had a cash cow on their hands.

Dave
Brock is purposely drawn showing that he's built like a brick shithouse, so he’s already threatening enough, then they add in the symbiote costume to elevate his danger to another level. It's nice to see "Young Einstein" make a cameo appearance, on page 24, with the house move. "Whoa! That red headed guy's hairdo is radical.”

Kev
"Young Einstein." Ha, ha! Very good. I mean, he’s not wrong. What normal person has ever had hair like the Osborns? Norman and Harry, not Ozzy and Jack. And I loved the little cameo by Candi, Randi, and Bambi. It was good of them to tear themselves away from sunbathing on the rooftop of the old apartment to help Pete move into his new place with MJ.

I feel like I've seen this collab somewhere else.

Dave
I was struggling to remember the three rooftop babes until you mentioned it there. “Candi, Randi and Bambi?” Really? Haha!

Kev
“...build sandwiches” is more of an Americanism, isn’t it? We don’t really build them over here in the UK, we just “make” them.

Dave
True. It’s not really a phrase we use. This little section is injecting a bit of humour, and I like how some of the other cast are getting their own thought bubbles here, so we get a little insight into their characters. So far, in this issue, Pete hasn't been all self-absorbed, and the relationship dynamic is split about 50/50 with him and MJ, to be fair. It’s been written well. Sometimes that whole, self-absorbed Peter Parker stuff got a bit tiresome, so I’m glad the character dynamics are getting more evenly split. To be fair, judging by the number of outfits MJ has already worn up to this stage in the issue, I can see why they need a bigger house.

Kev
Ha, ha! Yeh, they're really pushing the whole fashion model bit.

Dave
“We're gonna need a bigger house.” Not quite as iconic a line as, "We're gonna need a bigger boat."

Kev
Yeh, doesn't quite hit the same, does it?

Dave
And, of course, a brief interaction with Robbie Robertson as well, before you know who captures Peter’s attention.

Kev
Robbie giving Pete advice to get out of news photography is an interesting plot point, but I’ll be honest, I don’t remember what, if anything, became of it. I do remember him going back into science, certainly via the teaching side of it, though.

Yeah. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Robbie.

Dave
Yeah, I wouldn't know if that plot point about him getting out of news photography had any real relevance to later Spidey issues.

Kev
Me neither. This is one of those instances where I feel I need the context of more issues of the comics. Or at the very least, a good old Google search. And that’s it, it feels like we’re at the end of the first act of a two act play with this issue. We’ve got all the set-up out of the way, Eddie’s trap has just been baited, and so next issue, we can really get into the action of the fights in tights. What did you make of this, so far?

Dave
Yeah, it’s our breaking point for this session. It’s been quite a quick read, to be fair, and looking at this through adult eyes, I see now that ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ seems to be a slightly grittier looking comic book, tackling those darker stories. Some of it reminded me of ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt,’ just via the tone, and I can see why they brought in McFarlane to work on this. His artwork is fresh, dynamic, revealing (MJ), and he makes Spidey look super flexible. Also, his Eddie Brock alone looks like a menacing character, never mind his Venom. What do you make of it? And when did you last read this prior to doing notes for this review?

Kev
I’ve really enjoyed it. This was certainly our era of Spider-Man comic book collecting in our youth and, as such, I have immense fondness for it. Particularly some of these issues. It's been a while since I last read it properly, yeh. This was released as a facsimile not that long ago, and I picked that up, so I was sort-of familiar enough with it as a result of that.

Dave
This is the big one though, indeed. I think, just our anticipation, waiting for this to come out was something I remember. In ‘88 we just had our usual comic books to read. Did we discover The Black Hole by then, or were we just getting what we could find in New Orleans (which, to anyone unfamiliar with our childhood neighbourhood, was a shop in Menzieshill, not the city in Louisiana), or were we going to Lochee on Saturday morning on foot to collect what we could get?

Kev
I don't think we had quite discovered The Black Hole by this time, but yeh, we were definitely using the newsagent on Orleans Place, and the two in Lochee to get comics. Remember that time we went to the swimming baths in Lochee, purely as an excuse to get comics on the way home?

Dave
I remember those Saturday morning ventures to collect our comic books to Lochee, for sure.

Kev
Ah, good times.

(D) & (K)

Next: Ding, ding, ding!!!

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