Doug: Even though the memories of your wonderful moderators may be fleeting, we are pretty certain we've never had a conversation with the BAB community on the various artworks that adorned our bedroom walls. Today we'd like you to trip back through time to the 1970's and share with us some of the posters, wall hangings, tapestries, album covers, etc. that screamed out "This is MY room!"Doug: That being said, however, you could provide an even more interesting tale if you happened to share a bedroom with a sibling.
If you did, was it a sibling of the same gender, only younger? So perhaps you had a boss Led Zeppelin poster right across the room from a picture of the Muppets? How about sharing with a sibling of the opposite gender? Then maybe this iconic image at left could have been looking at the Hardy Boys or the Bay City Rollers... I shared for a time with my sister, who is three years my junior, but although the Tiger Beats and 16 magazines were around I don't recall that she had any Shaun Cassidy posters.Doug: Below you can see six examples of the posters I had at one time or another hanging in my bedroom. As I got older I bought more sports-related posters. In addition to the Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan posters shown, I think I also had one of Akeem Olajuwon, and maybe James Worthy. Even now in our basement hangs a great Nike poster of Ryne Sandberg in pre-lights Wrigley Field! I recall many a time when I was with my mom and at a store that had the poster displays -- the Spidey and Cap posters were purchased from such a cubbie-display. Even though the main images were not original drawings for these posters, the airbrushed effect was pretty cool and really made them pop off the page. I still have the two Third Eye posters, and am presently displaying the Fantastic Four one. If memory serves, and that's risky, I won both of them at a local carnival when I was in elementary school, throwing darts at balloons or ping pong balls into dishes -- some such exasperating activity designed mainly to part one from one's money. By the way, many thanks go out to the ever-wonderful World Wide Web, which made grabbing all of these images not-so-difficult.
Doug: And you know I had the KISS Love Gun poster, too! Now, how about you?
32 comments:
Nothing too exciting, and luckily my brother had moved out of our house by this time, but my big ones I had up for many years were the Steranko FOOM poster and the green-hued Spock with Vulcan harp poster from one of the early Star Trek Poster Books.. Later on I had the Darth Vader poster from one of the early SW Poster Books (first seen walking on Leia's blockade runner).
Since my parents rented for many years, they never let me put up posters or pics because of 'holes in the walls'..
'Course many years later, my last 'cozy living quarters' in Kuwait 2yrs ago had my Belushi 'Animal House' poster (b&w college sweatshirt one..) and my huge 'Keith Richards shrine'..
Hey, one must travel/live in style, y'know.
Huge, framed, cover of Silver Surfer #4. But not when I was young. Right now!
Never surrender !
Richard
Farrah, yes. Somewhat disturbingly, my parents bought it for me.
The only other poster I recall was of Thor. So . . . yeah, two blondes.
I also framed a magazine illustration that had Stan Lee as a maskless Spiderman and the occasional artwork I paid Marvel artists at conventions to do for me: Cockrum's Storm, The Stranger, Iron Man, Wolverine; Colon's Howard the Duck and Dracula; a gorgeous, fully inked Nebres' Dr. Strange.
Let's see...
I had a Bruce Pennington 2001 poster of that long thin spaceship, whatever it was called. I got it by mail order from a magazine called Science Fiction Monthly that was doing the rounds at the time.
A poster of a tyrannosaurus squaring up to a triceratops. It looked like a still from a Ray Harryhausen movie but I'm pretty certain it wasn't.
A John Buscema poster from issue #1 of Marvel UK's Titans comic. I think he originally did it for a comics convention, and it featured a whole bunch of Marvel heroes doing their thing.
A NASA poster of the Earth seen from the moon.
A really dull map of the world, showing trade shipping routes, that I got from an open-air careers fair when I was 15.
The Hildebrandt Brothers Star Wars poster.
A Chris Achilleos Dr Who poster from a Dr Who book of monsters.
A Planet of the Apes poster from issue #1 of Marvel UK's Planet of the Apes mag. I think the illustration was originally on the front cover of one of the US Planet of the Apes mags.
I've just had a quick check and I still have all but one of those posters rolled up in a tube about three feet from where I'm sitting. The excepttion being the 2001 poster which seems to have disappeared.
I seem to have spelt "exception" with two Ts. I like to think I've reinvented the English language.
Beatles, Beatles, Beatles, then gals from Sports Illustrates like Kathy Ireland
Adam West Batman movie and Lynda Carter Wonder Woman flexing against starry backdrop!
--Matt alias Anonymous
In the early 70s, I shared a room with my oldest brother, about 7 years my senior. Of course, I thought that was the coolest! He had our room tricked out with lots of black light words he'd hand painted on the wall (and of course we always had the black light on after the sun went down). He also had two Raquel Welch posters on the wall (well, technically, the better of the two was on the ceiling above his bed -- he had the top bunk of our bunk bed). Those posters fired my imagination, let me tell you!
In the mid-through-later 70s, I had the room to myself. I had it decorated with a few posters (that extra-sized Superman peace-sign poster, if you know which one I mean... and a fuzzy black-light Spider-Man poster in a classic Ditko pose). Seems like I had one more, but I can't place it. I also tricked my room out with cut-up panels of some comics I had duplicates of, including their covers. Seems like I remember using a Justice League issue (the one in the 120s when Supergirl guest-starred). I also posted the centerfold from the Legion tabloid of Bouncing Boy's and Duo Damsel's wedding. Think I also put up the Sal Buscema Defenders poster from issue #6. All that stuff was on my walls for years!
Good memories of my Haven!
Ric
SDC's picture of a Tyrannosaurus squaring up to a Triceratops may be from the 1950's movie "Animal World." It had stop motion animation by Willis O' Brien (Ray Harryhausen's mentor). IIRC, the same dinosaur scenes were used in the View Master set, "Prehistoric Animals."
I had those very same Spider-Man and Captain America posters on my wall. They were put out by a company called "The Thought Factory". I also had their Thor and Batman posters that were done in the same style as well.
The very first poster I ever bought and put up was a John Buscema Marvel Characters poster (that I still have). It features all the major Marvel characters of the day (Spider-Man, Hulk, The FF, DD, Iron Man, etc.) and also includes such unlikely characters as The Warriors Three, Conan, and Clint Barton as Goliath, all set against a solid white background. It presents quite a striking image and is still one of my all-time favorite posters.
By the time I was 12 or so, the walls of my room were mostly covered with Marvel Comics characters. I bought the "Mighty World of Marvel Pin-Up Book" (c1978) and actually cut out the pin-ups and plastered my walls with them. The cover of the book features a painted image of Captain America, standing in front of a group of images from inside the book in what looks like a museum setting. The posters (pin-ups) inside featured posters of almost every Marvel Character of the day. Most of the art was reproduced from existing covers and other sources, but it was truly awesome to behold. Man, I wish I had a copy of that book today.
I also had a wall next to my bed covered with "pin-ups" that I cut out from Marvel Tales and other reprint comics of the time. I remember I used to lay in bed sometimes and gaze at all the four-color splendor that surrounded me. It was my ultimate comic-book "man cave". Good times.
In my office today, I have on the walls, 3 Spider-Man posters which include an Alex Ross reproduction of the cover of "Amazing Fantasy #15", the first Spider-Man movie poster, and a Todd McFarlane Spider-Man were he is wearing his classic red and blues and crouching on a ledge with the black costume hanging on the wall behind him. I also have a framed original art page from the "Web of Spider-Man" comic, an actual production cel from "Batman The Animated Series: Riddler's Reform", a giant Bruce Lee poster, a seri-cel from the Spider-Man Fox Animated show from the '90s, a Joe Quesada Ninjak poster, and several super hero collector plates. I also have 3 shelves of action figures displayed, and 5 statues (3 Spider-Man, 1 BTAS, and 1 Batman Beyond) on the cabinet above my computer desk. The more things change, I guess.
In addition to the great Dynamite scholastic mags (LOVED the FF poster they had...), the Poster Book magazines were really a cool Bronze Age idea. First Trek, then everyone had 'em after that. I have some of the Trek, SW, some Galactica issues, just great memories.
Add in a few Marvel DC calendar pages from around '75/77 with the likes of Colan, Buscema, and Adams, kids were set. I loved the '75 DC calendar with the classic Adams 'GL/GA coming out at you' and the LSH pages. Very memorable.
Oh, forgot to mention, but had the Belushi Samurai poster up as well.
Oh yeah . . . I also had this bizarre mirror that had a Frank Frazetta image of some old guy sitting around with a bunch of one-eyed aliens looking toward the stars. The image ate up half the mirror.
Anonymous; thanks for the O'Brien tip-off.
I've had a quick Google and I'm fairly certain the dinosaurs weren't those in Animal World.
I've had the poster out and taken a look at it for the first time since I was at school and, looking at it now, I don't think it was from a movie at all. The dinosaurs look very static in their poses and devoid of any kind of dynamism, so I suspect they were set up purely for the poster. :)
My parents generally disapproved of posters for both practical (holes or marks left behind by cellophane tape on walls) and aesthetic reasons. However, by the time I got to high school they became a little more lax, but by that time I was a bit too "cool" for any super-hero stuff, so all I had was this large Beatles poster (Royal Command Performance at the London Palladium) and a poster of an orangutang in a cage with the caption "Detention ... again."
In my college dorm room, I had a giant black and white poster of Batman and Robin (Adam West & Burt Ward) and another giant poster of a humpback whale breaching...
In the late seventies I had a really cool Starsky & Hutch poster, with them standing in front of the Torino; also had one of the Hulk (Lou Ferrigno).
Later, in the early eighties, I had more: Some Return of the Jedi stuff, various posters from Mad, Cracked or Dynamite magazine (including a cool Sergio Aragones map of the USA) and an Indiana Jones poster with the caption "trust him".
I still have some of them, but unfortunately not the Starsky & Hutch one :(
Mike W.
I don't know if the scenes in the Prehistoric Animals View Master set are from Animal World (or any other movie), or if they were dioramas made specifically for the View Master set. The front cover photo for the View Master set does show a Tyrannosaurus about to fight a Triceratops.
I had the usual. Like every teen-age boy at the time, I had the iconic Farrah poster. I also had one of Fleetwood Mac, but only for Stevie. AFAIR, my kid sister never really got into posters much. My eldest cousin had pictures of Bobby Sherman all over her bedroom sometime around 1967-68. A year later, she had moved on to David Cassidy. They probably weren't exactly posters. More likely pin-up centerfolds from magazines like Tiger Beat.
@edo-- Omigosh, I have that same Beatles poster! I believe it was a gift when I was in college. Many, many, MANY posters over the years-- but the one that stayed with me from, probably, 6th or 7th grade, through junior high, high school, college, grad school, and STILL adorns a "shrine" corner in the ol' comic-book room is a 24"x24" one of the Hulk, against a bright orange background. It's that bursting-through-the-wall-right-at-you pose that has been copied and repeated on merchandise innumerable times (with one hand 'way forward). I'm pretty sure I got it via a Scholastic Books order.
HB
Farrah, Suzanne Somers, Lindsay Wagner, and Cheryl Tiegs. No holes or tape on the walls-I thumb-tacked them to a plywood board and leaned the board against the wall. I remember seeing ads in Marvel comics for super-hero posters, but I never ordered any. DC had centerfolds in 1966 or '67 with pin-ups of Batman, Superman, and the Flash.
HB.. I had that orange Hulk poster too.. Another great Dynamite poster.. Just remembered, I had the 'From the Grave' Spidey poster up at some point with tape, from the LP..
And who here didn't have the White Album pics and poster up at some point..? Just awesome extras for us Fab fans.
I started to put posters up in my bedroom from the age of 10 or so ( '76 / '77 ) and soon covered every spare inch of wall...
These consisted,at various times, of two giant-size Star Wars posters, one of Spidey and his foes by John Romita, black and white pics of Monroe and Bogart and Cagney, some Rodney Matthews fantasy art including Elric, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and anarchist Punk band Crass, Conan by Boris Vallejo, assorted collages I put together and - best of all - Steranko's fantastic FOOM poster...
Phew!
I had that White Album poster on my wall, David, along with various other posters included in several of the albums I collected, such as Wings Over America, Dark Side of the Moon,and Rumours. As for comics, I conjured up my own posters of my favorite Marvel characters. Yeah, very amateurish, but I enjoyed doing them.
'70s: Snoopy, Farrah, and colorful Op art.
'80s: movie To Live and Die in L.A.
Garett - if I could have found a poster of "To Live and Die in LA" it would have been on my wall when I was a teen; as it was, I had the soundtrack on cassette, which I wore out due to repeated play. Still love the movie: now I have it on DVD, and yes, the soundtrack on CD...
I never had much if any artwork on my walls as a kid. Posters just never made a mark on my psyche, though I will admit I always craved that "life-size" Jack Davis Frankenstein which I saw from time to time.
Later of course it was the "life-size" Vampirella! Hubba hubba!
In more recent years I've had a few key images I've kept on whatever walls I'm renting or owning at the time. A Doug Wildey poster for Jonny Quest I had framed decades ago is always key, and just this past summer I added a vintage and rare Charlton promotional poster for E-Man sporting artwork by Joe Staton! Fantastic!
Rip Off
Rip- I have that Wildey JQ poster as well; was it the one that promoted Comico's 80's series? Very nice.
Like Cerebus660, I too made a few collages: took a few really rough comics and cut out panels and logos. I recall carving up Marvel 2 in 1 #2, Amazing Spiderman 130, and some Tales to Astonish with the Silver Surfer and the Hulk.
Otherwise, my walls featured some psychedelic , wildly colored scene with black felt; a world map, the FOOM Steranko poster, some old Coke ads and a movie poster from an old Beach Party film starring Rod McKuen...
Redartz..:
LOVED the Wildey Jonny Quest poster.. for many years was the only poster my wife would let me put up in our home office.
Guess it was considered the 'least geeky'.., when I didn't have my 90s Perez Avengers poster (with the Wasp-outfit border).
I had a Mike Schmidt poster that was big so he was pretty much life-sized----and a couple times I woke up and i thought someone was in the room with me when i glanced at it.
And yes, I put up the White Album poster, too! (even though i bought the album in the 80s)
My favorite ever was a great mid-80's poster with the East Coast Avengers on one side/ tele-talking (?) to the West Coast team on the other half. I think the guy from the MARVEL COMICS of THE 1980s site showed it before. His site is very cool, but I guess it doesn't fall in the Bronze Age. I highly recommend it anyway!
starfoxxx
Oh yeah-- count me in on the White Album collage poster & head-shots (in my college dorm room, in fact). Also, when I bought the Sgt Pepper album (in the mid/late 70's), it was still being produced with the cut-out "disguise" inserts. . . and when I loaned the album two a couple of guys across the hall, they somehow lost them. . . (grrrnaaaaAAARGGHHH!!). . .
The Steranko FOOM poster is also on the wall downstairs. . . but I think I've always been a vocal minority in thinking that it's far from his best work. I can't help but think it looks like a very rushed, somewhat sloppy job. There are some very serious issues with symmetry and perspective (and heck, I'm not even an artist. . . !). But make no mistake-- I love it regardless. It represents an age when it truly felt like we were an unquestioned part of Greater Marvel.
@anonymous: Dude, lordy- TMI-! I mean, TRULY more than we need to know-!!! Sheesh! (What if. . . what if your mom's reading this blog? Heck, what if MY mom's reading it???)
(Still worried about going blind)
HB
The comment to which HB refers has been deleted in the interest of taste and class. My apologies for not deleting it as soon as it came across. We don't have our comments set up for approval prior to visibility, as 99.9% of our readers "play nice". And many thanks to those who do!
Doug
I had an Incredible Hulk poster from that Dynamite magazine that Scholastic used to publish when I was in grade school, and the requisite Kiss poster (also from that mag, I'm pretty sure). Later on, I had an SI poster of Earl Campbell (my favorite player at the time, still one of my G.O.A.T.'s) and a Jimi Hendrix poster from his Woodstock appearance, I think. Does anyone remember when Berkeley (I think) published some of Robert E. Howard's stories in the mid to late 70's? They included mini-posters of the book covers. I put those on the door to my room...I think I had several of the Conan posters, plus on from Almuric (which wasn't a bad read, from what I remember).
Darpy
I remember those paperbacks (Berkeley, IIRC) from the late 1970's but I had forgotten that some of them had fold-out mini posters of the cover scenes. Red Nails, Hour of the Dragon, People of the Black Circle, Marchers of Valhalla.
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