What This Book Was Supposed To Be
Just to make it absolutely crystal clear: the Topic books were supposed to be for serious
work. Like the other subjects we studied, we were supposed to do something like an hour or
two each week. We didn’t have a timetable as such, so the exact day and time we did these
things might change according to the whims of Mr Geraghty (and/or practicality), but
generally speaking, at some point every week, we’d be told it was time to do Topic, at which
point we would get out our Topic books and start learning.
What this ‘learning’ actually involved was different for every child. Just like the History and
Geography lessons, we were basically supposed to just copy things out of books. But what
we copied was basically up to us - at least within the confines of what was on offer. With all
three of these subjects, we were asked to pick a book from the bookshelf and copy it out -
both writing and pictures - into our Topic books. Unlike History and Geography, however,
Topic wasn’t constrained by having to be about either time or space. We could copy out a
book about anything we liked. Providing it was on the shelf. And that’s where it all falls down.
Topic 1 is the ideal Topic book. I chose a book about dinosaurs from the shelf and copied out
as much of the book as I could fit into my exercise book, telling a consistent, coherent story
with a beginning, middle and end. No other topics polluted the story at any point. Which
basically means that, every time we were told it was Topic time, the dinosaur book was
always available for me to copy from.
Most of the time, that just wasn’t possible. There were only so many books, and usually only
one copy of each. In my History book, I start off telling the story of Nelson, then abandon it
halfway through to concentrate on Columbus. Then he gets booted out in favour of
Napoleon. Maybe I just found them boring - I don’t know - but most likely, one day the book
just wasn’t there any more, so I switched to a different subject. My Geography books are
even worse, lurching from subject to subject, often to things you could barely describe as
Geography at all. You’d think, with a class of just twenty-odd kids in four different school
years, there’d be some kind of system in place to prevent it happening. But there wasn’t.
Then there’s this. If things had gone to plan, Topic 2 should have been as consistent as the
first one. I’d have picked a special subject - space travel, maybe - and each time I picked up
my Topic book, the space book would be there too, waiting for me to copy it out in my own
best handwriting. But that didn’t happen. I started with dinosaurs, then suddenly it’s space
travel, then some infantile rubbish about boats. Then sport, of all things, before ricocheting
right back to dinosaurs again. It’s tempting to think I just couldn’t make my mind up. But
most likely, the right book was never there. And it was probably never going to be.
Why Things Changed
It was all the supply teacher’s fault. Mrs Stoker, I think her name was - she’d fill in for Mr
Geraghty every now and again. No idea what work we were doing, but whatever it was, I
finished early (as I often did) and found myself with the prospect of either sitting there
getting bored (which tended to happen a lot) or having a go at something else instead. Now,
I don’t remember if it was her or me (probably me) who suggested I should draw something
to pass the time, but it was definitely me who decided I would draw a comic strip. And
definitely her who authorised me to draw it on the big posh drawing paper from the big
posh drawing paper drawer.
When Mr Geraghty returned the next day, he was a little uneasy about this liberal use of the
school’s best paper. But for some reason I’ll never quite understand or appreciate - maybe it
was kindness, or maybe he just thought it would get me out of his hair - he saw the wisdom
in my suggestion that I should be allowed to draw more comic strips. Not instead of my
other work, naturally. But if I finished my other work ahead of time (as I often did), then it
would be far better to keep me occupied with something I enjoyed doing. Who knows?
Maybe one day I’d even write something good. But not on the school’s best paper! Maybe it
would be slightly less expensive if I did it in my Topic book.
And that’s how it started. From here on, Topic no longer meant ‘random subject matter I
copied out of a book from the shelf over there, if it’s available’. It meant pure, raw creativity.
Comic strips, pictures, jokes, stories, crossword puzzles, optical illusions - basically, whatever
I felt like doing, until I ran out of time or no longer felt like doing it. It’s not always good or
pleasant - in fact, it’s very rarely good or pleasant at all - but it’s real, it’s tangible and it’s
completely batshit crazy.
I used to do stuff like this at home all the time. Draw pictures, make little home-made
comics, scribble down daft ideas and half-finished stories. Later on, I even learned to keep
some of them. But what I didn’t do was keep them all in the same book - at least not when I
was eight years old. That’s why I kept this, when the stuff I did at home got thrown away.
This only exists now because it was in a school exercise book.
Most of it’s utter rubbish. I’m uploading it all here because I think it benefits from being seen
in its totality, but most of it’s garbage. Bad pictures of Marvel superheroes. Half-arsed,
unfinished adaptations of comic strips I was reading. Scrappy lists of terrible ideas, badly
implemented in crappy biro and blunt pencil. It really is amazingly, unflinchingly bad. But it’s
important to me, because without this, I don’t know if I’d really be me at all.
Bear with me though. I can’t upload this all at once, only a page at a time. To do it all is going
to take months. And the first parts will be slow, as I cover the first few boring pages,
uncovering exactly why something had to change. But I promise you - it will definitely
change…
One More Thing
If you click on the cover image above and move forward to Page 2, you’ll see the inside cover
where, at some point (presumably just after writing Men in Space), I decided to write a list of
contents. Considering I also made an attempt at an index on the inside back cover as well,
this is very interesting, because it means I wasn’t particularly happy with it all just being a
random, meaningless load of rubbish. Or rather, I was aware it was a random, meaningless
load of rubbish but I was keen to stamp some semblance of order on it. An index and a list
of contents might have made it seem like a real book, like it was planned, like it was always
intended to be this way.
What’s weird is that I then obviously changed my mind, decided a Contents page was a bad
idea after all and decided to erase it. Even though two of the entries had been written in biro
and couldn’t actually be erased. Obviously I don’t remember any of my eight-year-old
thought processes from the time, but it’s a brilliant demonstration of how sometimes, in
spite of everything, I really was quite mind-blowingly stupid.
January - May 1980
Topic 2
SCIENCE 1
Sept 1979 - Apr 1980
TERM 2
The birth of the 1980s -
Blake’s 7, Blondie and
battles in space
TOPIC 1
He knows the names of
all the dinosaurs
The Forgotten World
John and Mick fall foul
of some extreme
potholing
Captain Carnivore
Gary Shepherd is
hunted down by a
deadly flying meteor
Optical Illusion Time
Amazing visual tricks
that will boggle your
mind!
The Hulk
Puny humans won’t be
able to resist this
amazing pin-up!
More Puzzlers
A trio of ‘Make You Very
Crosswords’ to make
you slightly cross
Fury Falls
Evel Knievel in a scary
waterfall adventure
with Split Sam!
Grobschnitt’s Page
Meet Grobschnitt, the
dome-headed
Harbinger of Mischief
TERM 3
1980 continues with
the embassy siege and
The Empire Strikes Back
Puzzlemaster
Help Puzzlemaster
escape the clutches of
the Martian spacelords!
Captain Starlight
Know your Starlight
superheroes with this
amazing fact file!
The Yellyog Gang
Meet my latest hideous
bunch of nutty
nightmare fuellers
Lazer Lash
An exciting criminal spy
adventure in a world
made of lasers!
Woman Line
Which of these five
squiggly lines leads to
the woman?
The Human Maze
Meet Whirlwind, the
man whose face is an
impossible maze!
Topic 2
January - May 1980
TERM 2
The birth of the 1980s -
Blake’s 7, Blondie and
battles in space
What This Book Was Supposed To Be
Just to make it absolutely crystal clear: the Topic
books were supposed to be for serious work. Like
the other subjects we studied, we were supposed to
do something like an hour or two each week. We
didn’t have a timetable as such, so the exact day and
time we did these things might change according to
the whims of Mr Geraghty (and/or practicality), but
generally speaking, at some point every week, we’d
be told it was time to do Topic, at which point we
would get out our Topic books and start learning.
What this ‘learning’ actually involved was different for
every child. Just like the History and Geography
lessons, we were basically supposed to just copy
things out of books. But what we copied was
basically up to us - at least within the confines of
what was on offer. With all three of these subjects,
we were asked to pick a book from the bookshelf
and copy it out - both writing and pictures - into our
Topic books. Unlike History and Geography, however,
Topic wasn’t constrained by having to be about either
time or space. We could copy out a book about
anything we liked. Providing it was on the shelf. And
that’s where it all falls down.
Topic 1 is the ideal Topic book. I chose a book about
dinosaurs from the shelf and copied out as much of
the book as I could fit into my esercise book, telling a
consistent, coherent story with a beginning, middle
and end. No other topics polluted the story at any
point. Which basically means that, every time we
were told it was Topic time, the dinosaur book was
always available for me to copy from.
Most of the time, that just wasn’t possible. There
were only so many books, and usually only one copy
of each. In my History book, I start off telling the
story of Nelson, then abandon it halfway through to
concentrate on Columbus. Then he gets booted out
in favour of Napoleon. Maybe I just found them
boring - I don’t know - but most likely, one day the
book just wasn’t there any more, so I switched to a
different subject. My Geography books are even
worse, lurching from subject to subject, often to
things you could barely describe as Geography at all.
You’d think, with a class of just twenty-odd kids in
four different school years, there’d be some kind of
system in place to prevent it happening. But there
wasn’t.
Then there’s this. If things had gone to plan, Topic 2
should have been as consistent as the first one. I’d
have picked a special subject - space travel, maybe -
and each time I picked up my Topic book, the space
book would be there too, waiting for me to copy it
out in my own best handwriting. But that didn’t
happen. I started with dinosaurs, then suddenly it’s
space travel, then some infantile rubbish about
boats. Then sport, of all things, before ricocheting
right back to dinosaurs again. It’s tempting to think I
just couldn’t make my mind up. But most likely, the
right book was never there. And it was probably
never going to be.
Why Things Changed
It was all the supply teacher’s fault. Mrs Stoker, I
think her name was - she’d fill in for Mr Geraghty
every now and again. No idea what work we were
doing, but whatever it was, I finished early (as I often
did) and found myself with the prospect of either
sitting there getting bored (which tended to happen
a lot) or having a go at something else instead. Now, I
don’t remember if it was her or me (probably me)
who suggested I should draw something to pass the
time, but it was definitely me who decided I would
draw a comic strip. And definitely her who
authorised me to draw it on the big posh drawing
paper from the big posh drawing paper drawer.
When Mr Geraghty returned the next day, he was a
little uneasy about this liberal use of the school’s best
paper. But for some reason I’ll never quite
understand or appreciate - maybe it was kindness, or
maybe he just thought it would get me out of his hair
- he saw the wisdom in my suggestion that I should
be allowed to draw more comic strips. Not instead of
my other work, naturally. But if I finished my other
work ahead of time (as I often did), then it would be
far better to keep me occupied with something I
enjoyed doing. Who knows? Maybe one day I’d even
write something good. But not on the school’s best
paper! Maybe it would be slightly less expensive if I
did it in my Topic book.
And that’s how it started. From here on, Topic no
longer meant ‘random subject matter I copied out of
a book from the shelf over there, if it’s available’. It
meant pure, raw creativity. Comic strips, pictures,
jokes, stories, crossword puzzles, optical illusions -
basically, whatever I felt like doing, until I ran out of
time or no longer felt like doing it. It’s not always
good or pleasant - in fact, it’s very rarely good or
pleasant at all - but it’s real, it’s tangible and it’s
completely batshit crazy.
I used to do stuff like this at home all the time. Draw
pictures, make little home-made comics, scribble
down daft ideas and half-finished stories. Later on, I
even learned to keep some of them. But what I didn’t
do was keep them all in the same book - at least not
when I was eight years old. That’s why I kept this,
when the stuff I did at home got thrown away. This
only exists now because it was in a school exercise
book.
Most of it’s utter rubbish. I’m uploading it all here
because I think it benefits from being seen in its
totality, but most of it’s garbage. Bad pictures of
Marvel superheroes. Half-arsed, unfinished
adaptations of comic strips I was reading. Scrappy
lists of terrible ideas, badly implemented in crappy
biro and blunt pencil. It really is amazingly,
unflinchingly bad. But it’s important to me, because
without this, I don’t know if I’d really be me at all.
Bear with me though. I can’t upload this all at once,
only a page at a time. To do it all is going to take
months. And the first parts will be slow, as I cover the
first few boring pages, uncovering exactly why
something had to change. But I promise you - it will
definitely change…
One More Thing
If you click on the cover image above and move
forward to Page 2, you’ll see the inside cover where,
at some point (presumably just after writing Men in
Space), I decided to write a list of contents.
Considering I also made an attempt at an index on
the inside back cover as well, this is very interesting,
because it means I wasn’t particularly happy with it
all just being a random, meaningless load of rubbish.
Or rather, I was aware it was a random, meaningless
load of rubbish but I was keen to stamp some
semblance of order on it. An index and a list of
contents might have made it seem like a real book,
like it was planned, like it was always intended to be
this way.
What’s weird is that I then obviously changed my
mind, decided a Contents page was a bad idea after
all and decided to erase it. Even though two of the
entries had been written in biro and couldn’t actually
be erased. Obviously I don’t remember any of my
eight-year-old thought processes from the time, but
it’s a brilliant demonstration of how sometimes, in
spite of everything, I really was quite mind-blowingly
stupid.
Captain Carnivore
Gary Shepherd is
hunted down by a
deadly flying meteor
Super Jesus
A special pin-up of your
favourite Nazarene
webslinger
The Origin of Electro
Waen Shepherd, TV
Star, turns evil and
drains the city!
Optical Illusion Time
Amazing visual tricks
that will boggle your
mind!
Grobschnitt’s Page
Meet Grobschnitt, the
dome-headed
Harbinger of Mischief
TERM 3
1980 continues with
the embassy siege and
The Empire Strikes Back
Lazer Lash
An exciting criminal spy
adventure in a world
made of lasers!
Woman Line
Which of these five
squiggly lines leads to
the woman?