My diary from April 8th 1977 devotes an unusually generous page to my comic reviews, these normally occupying a quarter of Wednesday's page. Though the weekly comics were mostly cover-dated as coming out on Saturday, they almost all arrived on Wednesday. I went on to write and draw a column of this same name, The Wednesday Column, in the fanzine Fantasy Advertiser in the 80s.
The 'Bumper' Wednesday Column is clearly a result of the Easter holidays, when we've been up with the relatives in Scotland and I've been indulged with extra pocket money for comics. It is quite possible that every single one of those comics still exists somewhere in a box in my office to this day. And the grand total spent on that mountain of comics? AS you'll see at the end of the page it's come to £3.04, which I obviously considered quite extravagant at the time. For eighteen comics? At today's prices each individual comic would cost nearly £3 alone, which means my 2013 contemporary would have no change from fifty quid. Truly we were the privileged generation.
A career as a TV reviewer seemed likely to me at the time, judging by my portentious take on the first episode of Roots. But do I detect a note of accidental racism in the closing line? The 1970s, a different world.
Record For The Day: "Floating" On The Wind (sic) by Roger Daltrey
Yes, sadly, along with rising production costs (aside, as you know, from page rates!) the supermarkets must take blame for the ever spiraling costs of comics with their demands for free gifts etc which simply add to the price of a comic. Plus, they want things to be more expensive - higher price, greater profit per centimeters of shelf space. Same for newsagents.
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