There are only about ten copies in the world. I did it specifically for Mavis (a 19 page comic strip) because she was always saying she wished I'd draw more. Unlike all the other Winky strips there was no swearing or nudity, which was an interesting challenge, so as not to offend her. Not that she would have said anything if there had been (or read it either way, as far as I know).
This is sort of impressive for the amount of effort involved, but it's not very good:
I think for a few years I made kind of comic book christmas cards. It's the kind of thing that grandparents are, or say they are, impressed by. You probably can't read the comic on the front but it's my usual lazy thing of telescoping an 'only a dream' story... I did that a lot. Robert Smith once told me that was how he thought, which was great at the time, but now I think doesn't perhaps reflect that well on him or me.
Speaking of Robert Smith, Mavis kept two issues of Smash Hits which I suppose I'd sent her. This one has an article by me on James Dean (!?) and one on Cheap Trick as well as various other bits and bobs I wrote probably.
Back to my own publishing things, this is a small comic book I had no recollection at all of ever seeing before though some of the content was familiar. How creative I was with the typewriter, and the funny absurdist title.
I couldn't imagine why Mavis had this in her collection of stuff, then I realised the (deliberate? to go with the cut-up cover graphic?) typo in the spelling. Norm would have retained this. In fact, I have a very vague memory of him showing it to me, believing it to be a genuine error, and I suppose it might have been, I just don't know. The interior of this issue is quite interesting, I'll tell you about it sometime.
No idea why Mavis had this. Must look inside it one day. Maybe there's an article about a bowls triumph of hers or something.
This was the school newspaper which Saul and I edited at least one year. It blew out of all proportion, became a millstone then a white elephant. One contribution we agonised about for months because we thought it was so stupid and then we ended up burning it on the stove, laughing (probably giggling if truth be told) hilariously. This was so obviously my forerunner to fanzines.
I was perplexed for a while as to why this was in Mavis' collection - not just the great cover image. It's the Herald and Weekly Times house journal, and Norm worked for the competition. Then I read it.
There is an article on the second last page of the 'Inter-house Bowls Test' inc. this picture of Norm bowling on 19 April 1962 at Middle Park Bowling Club. My sister Tamsin made a copy from the original of this photograph and she has it on her wall (or one of them), she showed it to me only last week, saying Norm didn't usually take a very good picture, but in this case he came out alright. And he's doing something he loved (at least as much as smoking and eating). I will look like him in ten years, but with hair.
Norm served in New Guinea and I guess the four or five issues of Guinea Gold in the pile were things he collected from that time, along with the 'native spear' which now enjoys pride of place under our house, and which I believe is my right to bear particularly as oldest family member of my generation. This is a pretty special issue of GG, isn't it:
Don't know why Mavis had this copy of the Bulletin but once again... it's interesting.* Sorry, that's all I can say right now.
I must have sent her this copy of B-Side! Christ she had to be a tolerant person - well, she was. I mean no disrespect to B-Side, great magazine (though note the misspelling of Lighthouse Keepers on the front - Norm would have loved that).
And look, here's my own fanzine, second issue, usual kind of mental cover. Well done me. Look at that celebrity line-up!
* I asked my father when we went to the football last Friday why Mavis would have had a 1961 Bulletin amongst her things. He said it would have been a mistake, as she was an assiduous thrower-outer.
