HAVING A SMASHING TIME...

Copyright REBELLION

As I said in the previous post (here), when SMASH! shuffled off this mortal coil (on 27th March 1971), its ghost haunted VALIANT for a while - but that wasn't the only way in which it managed to maintain a presence for another few years past its final issue.  Right up until 1975, a SMASH! Annual appeared every year in August/September for the following year.  (That is, the Annual which went on sale at the end of a year in the run-up to Christmas was for the year to come.)

SMASH! had ten Annuals in total - four in its ODHAMS incarnation, six in the IPC/FLEETWAY one, but there was an eleventh book in the form of the SMASH FUN BOOK 1971.  Feast your eyes on the covers for 1971 to 1976 in the pic-fest which follows.

Might as well throw in the 1969 & '70 Holiday Specials - just so I can show off my recent acquisition of the latter.  A replacement for the replacement of my original, as it were.  (Relax, it makes sense to me.)  Also included is the 1971 Valiant & Smash! Holiday Special, seeing as how Smash! is part of the title.

And now, for completists, here are the four original ODHAMS PRESS Annuals.  (Published by Hamlyn Books.)  The front and back cover for 1968 are included.



(Click on any image to enlarge, then click to enlarge again.)

Considering that the new SMASH! hit the stands in March of'69, it's odd that the 1970 Annual reflected the previous incarnation of the comic rather than the new one.  The Annual would've been prepared at roughly the same time as the comic was due to be relaunched, so that makes the discrepancy even more puzzling. Quite a few readers must have been confused as to why the Annual of their weekly comic bore very little resemblance to it when it went on sale in August or September of '69.

The 1971 Annual for its former companion title, WHAM! (the weekly having vanished from the shelves in 1968) must've seemed even more of an anomaly in contrast, the tone and format being in the old ODHAMS style as published by HAMLYN.  I can only conclude that the Annual usually sold well, hence its inclusion in the publishing schedule that year.

The name SMASH! survived for nearly ten years, from its first issue in 1966, to the final Annual for 1976 - surely a success in anyone's book.

SMASH, BANG, WALLOP, WHAT A COMIC MAG...

The 1st issue of Smash!  (February 1966)

It lasted a total of 257 issues - and there would've been more if not for a printing strike lasting several weeks in 1970.  It outlived companion titles like WHAM! (187 issues), POW! (86), FANTASTIC (89) and TERRIFIC (43), essentially becoming a "best of" repository for all of them - but only for about 6 months or thereabouts.  Then it was out with the old and in with the new, and what would've been #163 became the first issue of the 'NEW' SMASH!, devoid of MARVEL reprints and more like traditional British boys comics like VALIANT and LION. (It's the 42nd anniversary of that relaunch on the 8th of this month, unless I'm very much mistaken.)

  

SMASH! was a superb comic, and the one in which I was first introduced to the FANTASTIC FOUR.  When ODHAMS PRESS initially presented the awesome origin of the FF, they did so in WHAM! and SMASH! simultaneously - curiously (and erroneously) claiming exclusivity for each title at the conclusion of the first episode of the four-part tale.  Would you like to read the next instalment of the quartet's dynamic debut adventure?  You could only do so in the next issue of WHAM! - according to WHAM!, that is.  If, however, you were reading SMASH!, it was claiming sole publishing rights for the next part of the story.  Was this an intentional two-pronged promotion of the FF to double their readership potential, or a sudden emergency measure necessitated by the non-arrival of a regular strip for SMASH!?  I guess only ALF, BART and COS know for certain - I sure don't.



Art by Jack Kirby & Vince Colletta

When I later discovered that REED, BEN, SUSAN and JOHNNY were regularly appearing in WHAM! ("The COMIC With The FANTASTIC FOUR!"), I started buying that title too in order to feed my romantic infatuation with The INVISIBLE GIRL, though I continued to purchase SMASH! as well.  Then POW! (after WHAM! was merged with it) and also FANTASTIC and TERRIFIC. It's somewhat ironic that SMASH!, having been the first 'POWER' periodical I read - and the one in which I first discovered Marvel's most famous family - was also the last title standing, as well as the comic in which the FF made their home for the last few months of their Odhams Press existence.

   

The 1st revamped issue (March 1969)

As mentioned, the title was relaunched - in March 1969 - in a completely different format, featuring some stories originally intended for a comic called BLACKJACK, which, for reasons unknown (to me anyway) , was sadly never published.  (CURSITOR DOOM, and - eventually - The PILLATER PERIL being but a couple of examples.)  It lasted for 95 issues before being merged with VALIANT on 27th March, 1971 (issue dated 3rd April).

 

The Codemaster cards & envelope

All things come to an end, alas - but SMASH! didn't quite die with the last issue of its regular weekly comic.  Click here for the rest of the story.