As a young boy, I loved visiting the newsagent. Whenever I was taken out shopping in Stockport, instead of asking to visit the toy or sweet shops, I would pester until I was allowed into WH Smiths. That big two-level store was bliss to me - more books and comics than I had ever seen in one place.
Closer to home, there was the local newsagent on the high street. Back then, things were different. Even from a young age - about six - my parents didn't think twice about letting me walk the few streets to the newsagent by myself with my pocket money clasped in my fist until it imprinted on my palm. I bought the first book I ever read in that newsagent (Doctor Who and the Curse of Peladon) with 15 pence borrowed from my younger brother. My first experience of debt. I didn't like it. I discovered the Secret Seven novels, Texan chewy bars (remember them?), candy cigarettes and a collectable series of dinosaur trading cards that came free with every Curly Wurly! My parents may as well have sent my pocket money straight into his till as that is where it almost invariably ended up.
It was on one of those visits that I was struck by the cover of a different title to my regular TV Comic. It screamed that there was a free gift inside. It had a jungle hero swinging through the trees reminding me of those Tarzan movies on the telly. There were other pictures on the cover of exciting action; someone fighting a massive snake, a bizarrely clad hero hanging in a spider's web and a giant gorilla!
No contest. My pennies were on the counter and I happily carried home Vulcan #2 from October 1975.
I didn't know - and wouldn't have cared - that Vulcan was made up entirely of reprints of The Spider, Robot Archie, The Trigan Empire and others. Each had previously appeared in various IPC titles over the years - The Spider in Lion, The Steel Claw in Valiant and so on. Still, they were all new to me, with a freshness and excitement of whole new worlds being opened up. These stories melted my child brain. My previous experiences with comics had consisted of self-contained pages of inoffensive slapstick with a punch-line. Suddenly I was thrilled with longer narratives of action, monsters and various deeds of derring-do - each with a cliffhanger promising more next week. My six year old mind exploded.
That was until Mum came into the front room and saw what I was reading. Uncomfortable with my unsanctioned move away from the safety of TV Comic to the pulp action of Vulcan, the brightly coloured pages were quickly whisked away. I was clearly and soundly told that my pocket money was not to be spent on violent comics.
Vulcan was extremely tame fare really. I can't imagine what the reaction would have been if I had come home with Action instead - which launched just four months later awash with bloody violence and chewed or exploded body parts. Action would eventually become the subject of questions in the House of Lords. The extremely popular comic was eventually suspended from publication until it returned a few months later in a more censored - and, sadly, boring - form.
Anyway, Vulcan wasn't Action. Not even close.
I was already an obsessive Doctor Who fan in 1975. On the same Saturday when I walked home with Vulcan #2, the Doctor was fighting invisible anti-matter monsters and a Jeckyl and Hyde rip-off in The Planet of Evil. It is hard to understand why it was considered perfectly fine for my young mind to be sent running behind the sofa while men were desiccated into skeletons by alien monsters, while The Trigan Empire or Mytek the Mighty were not deemed suitable.
Comics are often unfairly held to a different yardstick than other forms of childhood media. With various 'horror comic' scares in the 1950s and beyond, it probably isn't too surprising that some parents still regarded them with suspicion. As my Mum wasn't a big reader of comics as a young girl, her experience of them was therefore limited to reputation.
Conversely, my Dad was an ardent comic reader in the 1950s - especially the Eagle with Dan Dare - so his perception of comics as good, safe kids fun would definitely have been different. Was my Mum vaguely aware that there were 'dangerous' comics out there and wanted to ensure my comic reading stayed under her control? These days, Mum says she can't remember the incident, so I guess I'll never really know. Yet my memory is very clear. I can remember crying and pleading with Mum that the comic was great; that it was unfair; that it was my money. From mind-blowing excitement to crushing disappointment in moments.
Happily, thanks to eBay, I was recently able to finish reading a beautifully preserved copy of Vulcan #2 - complete with free gift and as crisp as if it had just been brought home from that very newsagent. It took me 35 years, but I finally got to the back page.
Let's hope issue 3 doesn't take me as long...
