This week’s writing prompt is
WISHES
If you had three wishes, what would they be? Cure the world of cancer? Stop all wars? Maybe it’s something closer to home – to see a family member you haven’t seen for a while, to write a best-selling novel, or to have enough money to go on a Caribbean cruise? If you don’t want to share your own wishes, make some up for a character.
You don’t have to share your work, but I always enjoy seeing what you come up with if the prompt gives you inspiration. Here is the work you shared on last week’s prompt COMICS.
Comics in the junk drawer
I jerk the drawer open
The contents spill out
Opening like butterfly wings
They land in a colourful heap
Vintage comics
Not vintage in my youth
Second hand and scuffed
Tossed out by older cousins
Who’d moved on to Archie
Treasured by Cath and I
The world of Richie Rich
So foreign to us girls
Ordinary kids leading simple lives
In a small seaside town
Happiness found at the beach
In the garden and at school
And … within the pages
Of a still glossy comic book
Julian rummaged through the dusty attic, a place he hadn’t ventured in years. Sunlight streamed through a grimy window, illuminating old boxes marked with faded labels. His heart raced when he spotted one labeled “Comics.” With a gentle tug, the lid gave way, and a musty wave rushed out, mingling with memories.
He plucked a yellowed comic book from the pile. The cover depicted a muscular hero in a vibrant red cape, fists clenched defiantly against shadowy villains. His childhood flooded back—late nights spent reading under the covers, dreaming of impossible adventures.
As he flipped the pages, nostalgia washed over him. But then he found a familiar hastily drawn doodle in the margins. A squiggly figure with wild hair and an exaggerated smile. It was his best friend, Sam, who had urged him to skip class for comic conventions.
A pang of loss struck him; Sam wasn’t just a memory. He was gone now, a victim of life’s unpredictability.
Determined, Julian folded the comic under his arm and descended the attic stairs. Outside, he would find a park bench, a sketchbook, and a fresh canvas for their adventures—one comic at a time.
Comics were extremely popular when I was a kid, as were the Christmas Annuals to match.
My pocket money was half a crown (two shillings and sixpence, or twelve and a half pence in today’s decimal money) and I would buy Bunty and Judy for sixpence each, which still left me a shilling to go into my post office savings account and sixpence ‘mad money’ which usually went on sweets. Oh, those were the days!
My brother had The Beano, Dandy or Beezer (later to be replaced with the more ‘adult magazines’ which I found under his bed), but I can’t remember what my sister had, if anything. Maybe Jackie or Fab.
In 1966 I remember taking part in a competition in Judy to find 6 horseshoes in a picture. I coloured mine in so that they would stand out and sent off my entry form.
I was thrilled to win a pink Morphy Richards hairdryer which came in a triangular box and my Mum was still using it in 2000! Those were the days when things were made to last.
I loved Mad magazine. I bought the first issue in 1953 and every one until I entered high school. My mom wanted to ban them but thought better of it when I showed her the intelligent satire.
All the comics I read as a young child were in Sweden and it was only at university that I later enjoyed the wisdom and home-truths of the classic ‘Calvin and Hobbes’.
Gosh, I wasn’t much of a comics nerd, but I do remember Beetle Bailey, and Family Circus. Peanuts, of course, was my favorite.
Squirreljan:
I read Bunty and Mandy before moving on to Jackie (more magazine than comic). My sister read Twinkle before moving on to Cor! and Whizzer and Chips. She climbed trees on the common, I sat under them and read my comics or books.
Cutting out Bunty (or Mandy) and sticking her onto cardboard before cutting out the clothes and dressing her is a long term memory, as is reading about the four Marys. In fact I have an epistolary story called Comic Communications which is a bit too long to share here. It is based on a variety of comic characters including Billy Whizz, the Bash Street Kids, the Marys, Mandy, etc.
I’m not sure if I ‘get’ comics these days. They are too modern for my liking but, hidden away in my Davenport, I have some old copies of Jackie, Disco 45 (not a comic but song lyrics of the seventies), and a very beaten up Bunty annual my sister bought me one 21st century Christmas as a ‘memory’ present.
So, now guess what I’m doing! You’ve got it. Out has come the Bunty annual for a re-read.
Janice Johnson (a lucky child of the sixties and teenager of the seventies)
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Esther Chilton 
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