A MARVEL "STICK-UP"...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Nowadays, we live in an age where publishers think nothing of putting a couple of quid or more on the price of a comic and adding a load of useless junk to justify doing so.  I remember when a poster or some stickers were the only inducements required to tempt us to purchase a comic that we probably would've bought anyway - and all at no extra cost to the reader.

Here's an example: The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL #3 from 1972 (dated October 21st, but on sale from the 14th) - plus the free gift included in that week's issue.  Though let's be totally honest - the JIM STARLIN and (perhaps) JOE SINNOTT cover would've sold the comic on its own.

"The NAME'S BOMB... JAMES BOMB..."

Copyright DC COMICS

I must've ordered several back numbers of this particular issue of MAD back in the day.  I loved it so much that, whenever I inadvertently dog-eared a corner or creased the spine of my latest copy, I immediately ordered another one.  Until the day that THORPE & PORTER informed me that they had run out - no more back numbers of #146 to be had.  I eventually managed to buy one from a pen-friend on the Isle of Wight, and that's the one from which I've scanned the following pages.

I remember waxing lyrically and eloquently to one of my school friends about the JAMES BOND parody contained in its pages.  "How do you manage to DO all these things?"  "Magnificently... of course!"  Hell, I'm still using that line today.  Whenever I'm showing off to someone by doing a doodle of OOR WULLIE or POPEYE, inevitably I'll be asked:  "How do you do that?"  And, equally inevitably, I utter my stock reply, stored in my memory banks since 1973.  I guess I'm a creature of habit. 

Brilliantly drawn by the amazing MORT DRUCKER, this parody has everything. Great art, funny one-liners and James Bond - sorry, Bomb - himself.  What's not to love?  If you haven't read it before, you're in for a treat - and if you have, you're still in for a treat, albeit one you've experienced before.  When this issue first appeared, Bond double-bills still regularly featured in Saturday matinees in cinemas all across the country.  It wasn't 'til about 1974 that the Bond movies back-catalogue was sold to television stations, although it was at least another year 'til the first one in the series (Dr. NO) appeared on the box.

Rereading this issue today, I'm pleased to see that it still holds up very well.  And who'd ever have thought that typeset lettering for the speech balloons and captions would work so good - better even than hand-crafted ones?  They just seemed, against the odds, to suit Mad to a tee - bestowing upon it a literary respectability that normal comicbook lettering probably couldn't have achieved.

Just how did they manage to do it?  (C'mon - you must've seen that one coming.)  All together now...

"Magnificently... of course!"

SUPERMAN - FROM THEN 'TIL NOW (ALMOST)...

Images copyright DC COMICS

Most of you will likely have heard of the book "SUPERMAN From The '30s To The '70s", which was published in the U.K. by HAMLYN BOOKS in 1972. (CROWN BOOKS published the U.S. edition the previous year.) With an infor-mative introduction by E. NELSON BRIDWELL, the book featured a mixture of black and white and colour reprints of Superman tales from down through the decades. It was described as a compendium of Superman 'firsts', but not every story really qualified in that department. 'Twas a nice, big, thick book though, and well worth £1.25.

In 1979, Hamlyn reissued the tome in the wake of the success of the blockbuster Superman The Movie, which had been a huge hit only a few months before. Interestingly though, the Other Media In Which Superman Has Appeared list wasn't updated to include the movie - the book being simply a straightforward reprint (on slightly thinner paper) of the earlier edition from seven years before.

Cut forward to 1983, and Crown released a revised edition, called, funnily enough, Superman From The '30s To The '80s.  Apparently DC itself had very little to do with the contents of the earlier volume, which had mostly been chosen by an editor at Crown.  This time around though, it was a different story.  Gone were some of the more whimsical, run-of-the-mill tales, being replaced with newer classics like "The Miraculous Return Of Jonathan Kent" two-parter and "The Origin Of Superman" tale from The AMAZING WORLD Of SUPERMAN tabloid-sized treasury special.  E. Nelson Bridwell revised his introduction from the '70s, but retained the spirit of the original.  If I have one minor quibble, it's that the "Kryptonite Nevermore!" story was omitted this time 'round.  SWAN and ANDERSON at their very best, too.

As far as I know, there was no Hamlyn British edition, so the Crown volume is a nice little collector's item which is well worth having, even if you already own its pred-ecessor.  Start your hunt on ebay today.  In the meantime, enjoy the scans from my personal copy of the book.