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| STAR WARS copyright relevant owner |
Here we are again with a humongous helping of cavortin' covers from the halcyon days of Mighty MARVEL's U.K. publications on sale in the '70s and '80s. Does the sight of them bring a tear to your eye as you recall the long-ago days of your youth when most of your life lay before you as opposed to behind you? Same goes for me, effendi!
In some ways, there was no real point to most of Marvel's British output back in the early '80s, because U.S. comics were freely available and still relatively inexpensive. Nowadays, PANINI's collected editions are what British Marvel mags should have been, but sadly weren't.
However, that said, and although I was buying them mostly out of habit by that time, it's good to see again the covers from these mags that hold so many memories of the dim and distant days of my youth. They say you can't go home again, but sometimes you can catch enough of a glimpse of it to temporarily satiate your longing for a taste of an earlier and happier period from your past.
What memories do these mags hold for you, frantic ones? Feel entirely free to reminisce in our captivating comments section.
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| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS |
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| WORZEL copyright relevant owner |
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| STAR WARS copyright relevant owner |
7 comments:
Kid, looking at those covers does bring a tear to my eye but not in the way you mean! For me this is where UK Marvel lost the plot - I started buying Star Wars Weekly at No.2 and the first thing I noticed was it only had 28 pages, the same price for 8 fewer pages than the other Marvel comics! And the artwork on the movie adaptation was atrocious,all told I thought the comic was so horrible that I stopped buying it soon after.It's amazing that MWOM and Spider Man had been going for 6 years but only 6 MONTHS into Dez Skinn's new look versions they had merged. In my opinion the UK weeklies from January '79 onwards are not worth remembering and my attention turned more and more to the U.S. imports, by mid 1980 the only Marvel UK product I was still buying was the Conan monthly.
It's safe to say that, compared to the early issues of MWOM and SMCW, most subsequent titles from the late '70s-early '80s were nowhere near as good. Shame really. Apparently, sales were already declining on the mags, which is why Stan Lee asked Dez Skinn to 'revive' them. Dez says he was successful in that task, which is why he moved on not too long after (job done, on to the next challenge). However, looking at the comics now, it's hard to believe that they could have been that successful, especially, as you say, none of them seemed to last for too long.
Didn't Dez Skinn leave Marvel UK under a cloud or something? I'm sure I've read that their parting wasn't too amicable.I suppose his tenure was "successful" in that Marvel kept going but that probably would have happened anyway. The modern Panini Marvels seem to be popular enough, they've been around for years and they've returned to the American look that the '70s Marvels had.
I don't remember ever reading or hearing anything like that about Dez, Col, so it's probably wiser not to comment on a situation when the facts aren't known for definite one way or the other.
However, there's no guarantee that Marvel would have kept going (with or without Dez) because Marvel U.S. was apparently facing a crisis in the States. If Star Wars hadn't revived the company's fortunes, Marvel U.K. would've expired along with it's parent company.
I found the first few issues of the star wars weekly a couple of nights ago.
Some hopeful person on e-bay has number one at a buy it now price of £200.
I never read them,and I dont know if they were a swap my brother did or if he bought them.
I am not a big fan of Star Wars.
As for the others, I have only seen one of the covers never mind the actual comics,I must have switched off in the 80's.
The Hulk Comic covers are pretty good.
The one with the crocodile I have seen before and the cover statement 'T.V.s number one hero' reminded me how annoyed I was when the school playground was filled with Hulk fans.
70% had never read a book outside of school never mind a comic.
Not me being 'precious' about one of my interests but it was because I was embarrassed.
The pilot or first show was good.
Really well shot and lots of darkness.
But I thought the series was rubbish.
Lou Ferrigno looked small.
The green hair!
The theme tune.
Like watching 'Lassie' or 'The littlest Hobo'.
My kids love the Hulk but I don't think they would like it .
So I wont be sitting down with them to watch a box set.
On the other hand I can just about reach the 'Wonder Woman' box set with Linda Carter.
(Just for the record,Wonder Woman is rubbish as well but that is one hell of a casting job.)
Well God bless Star Wars then for saving Marvel and sorry I didn't give them a fairer try! By the time it got to Worzel & Jedi though I was buying (if not reading!) all of Marvel UK's titles.
Baab, I was never much of a Star Wars fan myself. I remember going to see the first two as a double-bill and wondering what all the fuss had been about.
As for Lynda Carter - ultimate casting. Wotta darling!
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Col, I think I only bought the first few U.K. Star Wars - wasn't too impressed with the comics to be honest, but obviously the originals went down a storm in America because of the movie.
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