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| Copyright MARVEL COMICS and CONAN PROPERTIES, Int. |
You're looking at maybe the shortest-running British comic ever printed! IPC's THUNDER lasted twenty-two issues back in the '70s, as did JET not long afterwards, and, in the mid-'80s, SCREAM! vanished after fifteen. No doubt there are quite a few examples of other comics that didn't survive too long, but I'm wondering if there was ever one that lasted less than the three-issue, fortnightly, CONAN The ADVENTURER in 1994. That's a mere month before it stumbled to a halt.
I believe it was meant as a tie-in to a TV cartoon of the same name, which accounts for the classic BARRY SMITH Conan The Barbarian reprints being re-titled to match, but the comic obviously just never sold. I've no idea if the cartoon series was any more popular with TV viewers in the U.K., but I suspect not, otherwise the comic would doubtless have been more successful.
Note that on issue #3's cover, it only says Conan, the rest of the logo having disappeared. An oversight or deliberate? Who knows? Not me for sure. Anyway, enjoy feasting your eyes on the covers and splash pages of one of the shortest comic runs in history - Conan The Cancelled!
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| The splash page to issue #1 |
Don't forget that clicking on any of the above images will enlarge them (it's well worth it), then clicking again will display them at optimum size. By Crom! Do I spoil you Crivs or what?!
You said a month. Don't you mean 6 weeks for 3 fort-nightly issues?
ReplyDeleteI think you'll find that, as issue two comes out a fortnight after issue one, and issue three comes out a fortnight after issue two, then that's a month.
ReplyDeleteSome of the early 90s Viz clones didn't last too long either. Acne (which I used to work for) made it to 31 issues, but spare a thought for Smeg, Igor and Kack...one issue each and that's your lot!
ReplyDeleteThe 1970s quarterly anthology Arcade fizzled out after seven attempts.
Weren't most of them low-profile affairs by small publishers 'though? (Not sure.) I was thinking more in terms of comics published my major companies, which one would think had a much better chance of success.
ReplyDeleteWow I'm a big Conan fan and wasn't even aware of that comic (looks good with the BWS reprint as well)then again the cartoon was really poor - its got to be the shortest lived - even the Conan weekly from the 70s didn't last too long in comparison to the other UK Marvels of the time - Only one i can think of was a comic called Tarken did that last much longer than this? McScotty
ReplyDeleteThe British Savage Sword of Conan weekly from 1975 lasted 18 issues before being swallowed by the Avengers, if I remember correctly.
ReplyDeleteI also remember Tarkan from around 1972/'73 because I used to buy it. I believe the comic was translated from a Turkish strip, the character having appeared in various magazines and even movies in its country of origin.
I can't remember off the top of my head exactly how many issues it lasted, but I don't think it was all that many.
McScotty, according to one of the late Denis Gifford's catalogues, Tarkan lasted for 34 issues.
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