Neal Adams - Aug 6 1977

Man I loved my Marvel comics when I was fifteen, and no artist beat Neal Adams.

Okay, there was Gil Kane, whose figure drawing I spent the next 30 years copying, and Gene Colan, whose realism I could only ever dream of aspiring to, and Jack Kirby the godfather, and the people I guiltily took for granted like John Buscema and John Romita who turned out to be greater than I realised. Oh and of course Barry Smith, whose Conan I turned into a mural on my bedroom wall and which is still there all these years later.

But whatever, I loved Neal Adams, as these two pages from 1977 - and all those artists who draw DC comics now, in 2015, pretending to be him. You know who you are.

These Records For The Day are an arcane lot, wouldn't you say? Who remembers Marcella by The Beach Boys? Probably not even a Pointless answer as I doubt it troubled the charts. Neither, I'm guessing, did High School Dance by The Silvers, Seaside Lady by Wales O'Reagan (are we sure I didn't dream that up?), and does that say Hairy Sundown by The Outlaws?





(YouTube and the internet have drawn a blank on the existence of Wales O'Reagan and his Seaside Lady)

Because there's been interest in using some of my childhood diary spreads in a BBC TV show called the Peoples History Of Pop - my Records For The Day caught the eye of a researcher - I've dug a few more out and put them up here on the My 1970s Diary. (I kept the Picture Diary from 1974 to 1978 but to date have only found a couple of volumes from 1977).

Conan & The Hawk - August 4th 1977

My figure drawing wasn't perfect when I was 15, was it? So, I obviously thought, why not demonstrate that by putting one of my figures directly opposite a copy of a drawing by Barry Smith?

Peter Cushing's 1954 version of 1984 was on the telly. Was that the last time it was shown (no, I now find, it was repeated in the 90s and again in 2003)? I know there's some sort of dispute stopping it being available on DVD. Whatever, I remember watching it in 1977, and very impressive it was too.

Another show was on that night that they won't be repeating in a hurry - Top Of The Pops was presented by Jimmy Savile. See this page on the BBC's Peoples History Of Pop.

And more long-forgotten Records For The Day, I see. Dark Side Of The Moon by Trammps, Hard Rock Cafe by Carole King, and Tentacles by Patrick Moraz? Actually I may be one of the few people in this country who bought, and thus still remembers, Welcome Back by John Sebastian. It was the theme tune to Welcome Back Kotter, which was never shown in the UK.


Because there's been interest in using some of my childhood diary spreads in a BBC TV show called the Peoples History Of Pop - my Records For The Day caught the eye of a researcher - I've dug a few more out and put them up here on the My 1970s Diary. (I kept the Picture Diary from 1974 to 1978 but to date have only found a couple of volumes from 1977).