THE OFFICIAL SUPERMAN ANNUAL 1980 – RETURNED TO THE FOLD… (Up up to now)

Copyright DC COMICS

It’s a extremely unparalleled discipline for me to search at an item and bear fully no trace of an notion as to when and the set I first sold it, but such is the case with the above Annual.  Existing that or no longer it is an ‘respectable’ Superman Annual, though up to now as I do know, there had been by no scheme any unofficial ones – absolutely no longer in the UK at the least.  It’s dated 1980, which scheme it went on sale around August or September of 1979, but however laborious I strive, I correct can no longer recall the set I purchased it from or in what three hundred and sixty five days.  Became it 1979 or one day in the early ’80s?  Did I aquire it original from a store or by mail assert as a ‘again explain’, or did I get it in a jumble sale?  Maybe a chum (constructive, I make bear some) gave it to me – I correct do no longer want a ruddy clue.  I gain this extremely annoying as I’ve continually prided myself on having a accurate memory, but here’s a book that somehow slipped via the cracks.

What I make be aware is I gave it to a a respectable friend by the title of Bob Billens (or one thing near that) in the early ’80s, after I’d already extracted two pages that made up a Superman poster, plus a third page by Curt Swan (presumably first revealed in a US mag) exhibiting how one can design Superman’s face in a diversity of expressions.  I changed into going to throw the book out, but he acknowledged he’d seize it as an different, no topic the extracted pages.  I composed bear those pages, though I substituted the poster, which changed into on my wall, with a print-out of a scan of it just a few years in the past.  Now no longer too long in the past, I purchased the speed to music down a change, but I might presumably no longer even recollect what the quilt appeared love.  I appeared at UK Superman Annuals on eBay, and there had been just a few which confirmed photos of one of the most contents.  When I noticed the double-page poster I knew that changed into the one I changed into browsing for.

So that is one more item from my formative years returned to the fold, 40-plus years after proudly owning my fashioned, and or no longer it is real to bear all over again.  It jogs my memory of that fair accurate friend (before he proved to be a exiguous a d*ck – no, I make no longer indicate ‘duck’), as nicely as a time in my existence when it gave the influence that the world changed into my oyster and I had unlimited time to ‘domesticate’ it.  Funnily ample, though I extracted the poster in the early ’80s whereas living in my present residence, it wasn’t till my family moved to 1 more in 1983 that, around a three hundred and sixty five days later, it went up on a wall in my original mattress room.  As traditional readers know, we returned to our earlier residence correct over four years after flitting from it, the set the poster assumed the grief on the wall it changed into intended for had we by no scheme moved in assorted locations.  Extraordinary whenever you imagine about it, eh?  It ended up the set it began, and per chance that is precisely how it wishes to be.

Any tips, theories, observations, or accusations (y’know, love “You would possibly presumably nicely be bonkers, Robson!”) made welcome in our comments piece.

A page in the same vein to this one appeared in SUPERMAN #245 for Dec ’71/Jan ’72