GERrY's NOSH, Southend-on-Sea

In 1965, Studio Vista: London published the wonderful paperback 'Signs in Action' as part of their ongoing 'Introductory Handbooks to Art and Design' series. These books are still instantly recognisable on the bookshelf because of the near-square 16 x 20 cms shape, and they look the part, totally capturing the fresh and vibrant spirit of typography, pop art and graphics during the 'sixties'.

In order to convey the language and form of signs, author James Sutton enlisted the help of several photographers including the graphic designer Herbert Spencer to snap examples of signs that "put the literal message across as directly as possible...or are illegible, yet attractive and full of expression".

There are so many lovely images contained within the 96 pages. I've plumped for three of Spencer's photos as a teaser to urge anyone interested in this kind of thing to track down a second-hand copy of the original book...

The original caption reads: A SOPHISTICATED POP SIGN FROM SOUTHEND 

Commercial Road, London

Throughout the book there are super examples of misspelt words that were either hand written or actually printed on signs. I 'definitely' had to present this one snapped in E1, as I well remember this petrol station...

...and there's the bizarre graphic on the round panel above the oddly-shaped hexagonal sign for Vehicle Entry in Deepfield Road. I've owned this book for over 30 years now, and I've never forgotten this image. 

Sign at Bracknell

Back to GERrY'S NOSH. there's a real tip of the hat to the pop artist Peter Blake by the signmaker. But for me it's even better than Blake's so-called 'real' art because it's not created to be hanging in an art gallery. It's a greasy, knowing, irreverent nod to Pop Art made to standout from the crowd on a congested seafront. 

I'm sure that Gerry's Hot Dogs, Burgers and "DOUGH-NUTS" are still well remembered by Southenders to this very day...

Faces in the Crowd 1967/1968

Following on from the most recent addition to my collection of 'Faces in the Crowd' postings, I've just discovered another example, and this time we're in the South Coast of Devon, and the year is 1967. 

It's early on in the season, and fans of Plymouth Argyle are snapped on the terraces of Home Park when their team were playing in the Second Division of the Football League. Just like all the previous images that I've posted, these photographs were published in the club's Official Programmes - with the highlighted individual winning a cash prize or tickets to the next home match. In Plymouth '67, along with Derby back in '56, the person's head is captured within a white square, as opposed to the more familiar method of using a circle.

However, for the first time, the photographer is actually name-checked - Bernard Prince, who was the official photographer of The Pilgrims (the club's nickname is taken from the religious group that sailed on the Mayflower from Plymouth to the 'New Word' in the 17th Century). 

Interesting also that the club described the feature as a 'competition', and they called it "SPOT THE FACE" rather than 'Faces in the Crowd'...

Mr Prince surely took this photo either before the match or during half-time, given that clearly nobody is looking at the pitch! Note that the club gave the One Guinea prize to the person who'd obviously coughed-up 6d on a programme. Perhaps to encourage more people to buy one?

The Delinquents by Criena Rohan

   

When poet Peter Bakowski visited the UK last year, he very kindly presented me with a reprinted edition of the Australian writer Criena Rohan's wonderful short novel 'The Delinquents' - which was first published in London back in 1962.

Thanks Peter - I loved it, and being a passionate collector of vintage paperbacks, I was intrigued to see what the very first soft cover edition of 'The Delinquents' looked like - as up to now it had not found its way onto the web. Well finally I've tracked down Panther Book number 1638, which came out two years after the Gollancz hardback edition. 

For starters, the author of this classic book is the pseudonym of Melbourne-born Deirdre Cash (1924-1963), who worked as a torch singer and ballroom dancing teacher before turning to full-time writing. Taut social realism, with gritty authenticity, The Delinquents is the tale of Brownie and Lola, young and in love, but up against the stifling conventions of 1950s Brisbane as well as mothers, welfare officers and the cops. The book was made into a so-so film in 1989, in Queensland, with a 20 year old Kylie Minogue playing teen Lola. 

Forget the film, this book deserves every bit of the critical acclaim and recognition from all those Australian writers who still champion the work over 50 years on from its publication. Tragically, Deirdre Cash, only got to write one more novel before dying at just 38 years old. I know neither who illustrated the cover, nor how long the paperback remained in print for, and nor how many people bought the book at the time. But right away it was hailed as "a real find".

Panther Books, published by Hamilton & Co. Brompton Road, London SW3 in February 1964

Faces in the Crowd 1975 - 1979

I'll begin the New Year with another offering of what has now become something of an AFTER YOU'VE GONE staple - the study of what is most commonly known as 'Faces in the Crowd'. This time it is courtesy of Swansea City Football Club between the years 1975/76 to 1978/79. During these seasons, when The Swans were in Division 4 and then promoted to Division 3, their 'Official Match Day Magazine' presented black and white photos of fans standing on the terraces. 

Just like my previous explorations into these intriguing images of 'Faces in the Crowd', the circle around the head of a selected fan - though out of context looks rather sinister - actually meant they'd won a prize of a couple of complimentary tickets to the next home game. It also meant that many decades on, we have a captivating insight into the fashions of the day sported by Swansea fans on the terraces of the Vetch Field (which would be their home ground until 2005, when the club moved to the all-seated Liberty Stadium).

My previous 'Faces in the Crowd' posts dated from 1956/57 (Derby County), 1961/62 (Leyton Orient), 1968/69 & 1969/70 (Millwall). Here in South West Wales of the mid to late 1970s, we get a candid snapshot of match days from Summer to Autumn, to Winter to Spring. The high waisted flared trousers, the mutton chop sideburns, the white and black bobble hats and scarves, the anoraks, the track suit tops - and not a replica shirt in sight.

Compared to the kitted-out world of today's fandom, the terraced landscape still looks as spartan as it did back in the 1950s. Though one thing is for sure - the flat cap had by now been consigned to history (though if you look hard enough, you can still spot one or two...)

Youths in white flares more interested in the grub than the game..  Published in the Swansea City v Scunthorpe United programme, Saturday 27th September 1975

Season 1976-77. Here comes the Summer!

Watching their team, Football League Division Three, 1978/79

From Swansea v Exeter City, Friday 20th February 1976. A light touch with the dark circle on this one.

April 1977, and this time a much chunkier circle - in white

The 1978/79 Season kicked off with a Football League Cup match versus Newport County. So this photo dated back to the previous season when The Swans won promotion to Division 3. Note the two tone circle!

1978/79 again

Smiling faces in a packed crowd looking at the camera - now spot the circle...

1978. Two grandstand tickets to the man in the duffle coat who isn't looking down the camera  lens. 

Please scroll back to my previous explorations of Faces in the Crowds by checking through 'After You've Gone' posts in May 2013, in May 2014 and in June 2015.

I am keen to hear from readers if they know which other clubs published a regular 'Face in the Crowd' feature in their programmes. It would be great to keep this theme going...

Compliments of the Season, Christmas Card 1870

A greetings plate stuck onto the inside front cover of George Buday's 'The Story of the Christmas Card' that was first published in 1954. 

Born in Hungary in 1907, Buday lectured on graphic design at the Franz Joseph University. After emigrating to Britain in 1937, he worked as a book illustrator and as an author. He was elected to the Royal Society of Painters-Etchers (RE) in 1953, and a fellow of the Society of Wood Engravers a year later. He died in 1990.

London's Victoria & Albert Museum holds some of Buday's own designs for Christmas Cards. 

Odhams Press, Long Acre, London

This rather strange 'Compliments of the Season' snowman card dates way back to 1870, and is my favourite of all the cards collected in Buday's slim 48 page book. 

This image was printed in black and white and measured just 5 x 8 cms, so it would be intriguing to know exactly what the original card looked like. 

Season's Greetings!

Young Love #52, DC Comics, 50 Years Ago

I expect that every collector has a a bunch of favourite items that they've picked up over the years. These don't have to be the rarest, the most valuable or prized artefacts in your hoard, but they're the pieces that you're just pleased to have come across and filed away.

I began collecting American comic books as a twelve year old around 1973. Back then my faves were the Marvel superheroes, especially The Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Daredevil and Captain America which I'd discovered a number of years earlier in pared down black and white strips reprinted within British comics like 'Fantastic' and 'Wham!'.

Ever since, I've continued to add comics to what remained of my original collection - the ones that had not been passed on to younger siblings of friends and neighbours. Nowadays I've all sorts of titles spanning different genres and eras, but I've always had a particular interest for the comics that date from the 1960s - a decade dubbed the 'Silver Age' by the specialists. One of the comic book artists that I always admired is Gene Colan (1926 - 2011), who was nicknamed 'genial' or 'gentleman' Gene by Stan Lee, his boss at Marvel Comics.

For this post though, the comic book that I've selected is one of Gene Colan's many essays in romance stories for DC Comics, the company that was Stan's mega rival. It appeared a year before Colan had hopped over to join Lee's expanding team of key artists that defined the iconic look of Marvel's Universe which thrilled me to bits during the 1960s and the first half of the 1970s. Along with Gene Colan, who couldn't fail to be bowled over by the brilliance of Jack Kirby or Steve Ditko or John Buscema or Jim Steranko, and the mind-blowing cosmic worlds visualized by Frank Brunner or Jim Starlin.

Anyway, DC's Young Love No.52 was published exactly half a century ago in December 1965. I bought it for the cover, though in fact along with the 'splash' page, it's the only part of the comic that's actually illustrated by Gene Colan. I was drawn to the bold background colours, and those two 'before and after' panels. The joyful pigtailed girl-next-door transformed into a sophisticated 60's vamp, bathed in pitch black. Amazing stuff, and a concept that seems to be way too adult-looking for the readership of such a title!

All my troubles began on the day I looked like THIS! Fantastic...
The interior newsprint page has opted for softer colours, and different lettering from the glossy cover

Unlike the majority of Gene Colan's superhero art, his romance work for DC (and later on, several love stories for Marvel too) are all relatively unknown to US comic book enthusiasts - and they're sadly quite hard to track down here in the UK as they weren't distributed beyond America, except perhaps its military bases overseas. My guess is that the demand may just not be big enough to justify a reprint anthology of Colan's work in the likes of 'Secret Hearts', 'Girls' Romances', or 'Heart Throbs', but not having everything easily accessible makes it more exciting to discover his superb romance gems tucked away in DC's 12 cent priced four-colour originals.

FREE 5p VOUCHERS

An advert for the ABC Cinemas' Saturday morning Minors Matinees - this one dates back to October 1972. I remember going quite regularly to Saturday morning pictures at this time. Usually rather noisy affairs with kids being dropped off by parents, and often very rarely in time for the beginning of the screenings. So there'd more than often be a racket all the way through the ABC Minors song sing-along , the shorts, the trailers - and which continued well into the main feature as well!

According to the history books, these kinds of matinees had begun in the early 1920s, and the screenings for young folks continued into the early 1980s. But in reality the audiences had dwindled way before then, as had the amount of cinemas left who had bothered to put on kids matinees. So perhaps that's why the ABC decided to run this promotion?

Some of the special Children's Film Foundation titles which we'd be watching on a Saturday morning are still cherished today - such as 'The Boy Who Turned Yellow', which was made by cinema legends Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger in 1972. 

Coincidentally, the film was released the very same year that all those readers of Sandie, Buster and Lion comics had cut out their vouchers and got a seat in their local ABC cinema for just 5 New Pence...

I spotted this advert in SHOOT! magazine, published by IPC Magazines who were based in Farringdon Street, London EC4.