So here's a story to warm the cockles on a chilly February evening... Mrs B commanded that I clear out the large cupboard in our bedroom that I use as a dumping ground for all sorts of rubbish I can't find a home for. So off to work I went and found a couple of large boxes at the back I'd totally forgotten about. Amongst the things in there was:
- Mexico 86 Panini Sticker album (only England and Brazil completed)
- My entire marble collection. Couple of big stonkers in there, quite a few oilys, and so on
- All my school books between age 13-16.
- The official program for Super Bowl XX. I'm a big Patriots fan, so a friend of my Dad's sent it. Even though the Pats got their arses handed to them
Right, serious danger of going off-topic here, but amongst all this flotsam was a pile of comics. It contained
All Action Monthly issues 1-8, a few
Busters, a
Topper and right at the bottom
Prog 526.
I was seriously happy about this. I used to read Progs at school from the random collection they had there or round a friend's house, but I had no recollection of ever owning a Prog. So to find one was VERY exciting. It also explained a few things...
Firstly, the strongest childhood recollections of stories I have from 2000AD are Dredd in The Raggedy Man, D.R. & Quench and Strontium Dog Bitch. Secondly, I'm very attached to Dillon's Rogue Trooper. And finally, why Anderson's Hour of the Wolf was so familiar, although I didn't recall ever reading it.
I must have literally read and read this Prog to death... But it's in great condition, having spent a lot of it's life compressed between other comics. The Belardinelli cover still shines and looks like the comic was printed yesterday (if someone had ordered some low grade paper, that is, although it's not too bad quality).
So I can now replace the sentence "The first Prog I ever bought was 1824" with "The first Prog I ever bought was 526"! It's quite possible I didn't buy another one after that, and I might have bought others before. I just have no memory for these things...
But I can put a stake in the ground at 526 and I shall treasure it for all time...
Great story, as you say fair warms the cockles.
Also educational. I'd never heard of All Action Monthly. What an intriguing comic that appears to be!