Thursday 27 September 2007

The Mole Man



When i was a mere slip of a teenager there was a sweet shop and tobacconists at the top of Catherine Hill in Frome where you could buy Marvel comics. Not the cheap monochrome British editions of the stories but the real thing shipped as ballast from America and rubber stamped with the price in shillings and pence (D.C. titles could be found at Wards in Cheap St). My copies are long gone but the memory is still fresh.

One of the comics was an early edition of the Fantastic Four where they battle the Mole Man. Moley lived in a hollow Earth, had an army of mindless drones to do his bidding, some sort of earthquake device plus a gert big monster thing at his command. I think he also had a bit of a crush on the invisible girl Sue Storm but i could be wrong. He had no super powers of his own and was a bit crap as a villain. He was ugly , troll like and squinty eyed but, as i was scribbling lyrics on a bit of scrap paper one day, he popped into my memory and the tale of true love that is "I'm In Love With The Mole Man's Girl"was born.

It's not just me that remembers him fondly - there's a character in the Simpsons called Hans Moleman and Bravo have a show called "Saul of the Molemen" that airs amongst their late night cartoon slots.

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