Legacy: A Memory, and a Note to Self

When I was a kid, I had a particular fascination with titles: book titles, magazine titles, newspaper titles.

I also had a fascination with logos, especially book publisher's logos. (I guess I could say I was interested in logos long before I was interested in Logos.)

I was also an avid reader of comics: Transformers, Battle, Eagle, Roy of the Rovers, and so on. (Not American comics, which I never really encountered. British comics.)

One feature of British comics was that they would regularly amalgamate. Falling circulation for one title meant that it would be merged with another, more successful title. They would usually sell under a combination of titles for a while, but eventually would revert to one title. And frequently, little remained of the "junior partner" after some time except perhaps one particularly popular story. They were somewhat similar to political parties in this regard. (I might write a whole post about the comics of my youth, one day.)

I began reading Eagle because Battle was merged into it. Some time later, another comic with the title Wildcat was merged into Eagle.

Wildcat was an attempt to make a science-fiction comic, based around a spaceship which took human beings from Earth to seek new worlds. I think there had been some sort of catastrophe on earth. There were lots of different characters and comic-strips based around this premise. Obviously, it didn't sell too well, and most of the stories it brought to Eagle didn't run for long, with the exception of "Loner" (which was actually one of my least favourite stories in Eagle-- too action-oriented, and I didn't like the inky, fussy draughtsmanship).

Anyway, this is a lot of build-up, just to draw your attention to the logo of Wildcat.

One morning I woke up in a state of intense excitement. I had dreamed of a comic with a logo in the style of Wildcat, but with the title Legacy instead.

It's hard to describe just how much this galvanised me. I felt it was my destiny to create this comic.

All these years later, I have no more interest in comics, but (as my regular readers will know) I'm increasingly preoccupied with poetry, and especially with the need to revive traditional poetry.

I keep thinking that a magazine, or perhaps initially a blog, will be an important standard-bearer for this.

I'd been trying to come up with a good title, for ages, when I remembered my childhood dream. What better title for a traditionalist poetry blog/magazine than Legacy?

So instead of making a note in my diary, which is not to hand at the moment, I decide to blog about it instead. If Legacy ever comes about, this will be the first mention of it ever.