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Only four more issues of FOOM to go before we reach the end of the road, but what a journey it's been so far. Look at the article below about European MARVEL mags - written by NEIL TENNANT of The PET SHOP BOYS in his days as Editor of the British Marvel line, before he hit it big in the music industry.
Following that is an interesting interview with Jazzy JOHNNY ROMITA, the artist who took SPIDER-MAN to even greater heights of commercial glory after Sturdy STEVE DITKO left the mag in 1966. Right - get stuck in!
Be sure to join us for part ten to see what goodies await us then (oh look - a poem). And remember - click on image to enlarge, then click again for optimum size.
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I've read interviews with Neil Tennant where he gives the impression that his time at Marvel UK was just a chore he endured for the money. I like the way the merger of Spider-Man and Captain Britain is described as the merger of two "titanic" titles - in CB's case titanic would refer to the doomed ocean liner lol. The same article talks about possible new monthly titles but there's no mention of Savage Sword of Conan which was launched only three months or so later, surely it must have been well into development when this article was written ?
ReplyDeleteIt probably was - his dreams seem to have lain more in the music industry than the comics one, CJ. I suspect the British Conan monthly was a last-moment decision. After all, it just reprinted tales from the American mag.
ReplyDeleteKid,what's really odd about the UK Savage Sword is that it printed all the stories in a completely different order from the US original. I didn't discover this until 2008 when I bought Volume 1 of Dark Horse's reprinted Savage Sword tales and didn't get what I'd expected ! I'd mainly bought the tpb to re-read Iron Shadows In The Moon which was included but at #4 and not #1 as it had been in the UK Conan monthly and other stories which had been in the UK Conan #1-8 weren't included at all in the volume I bought as it was reprinting the US Conan's order. It seems really bizarre and it never happened with any other Marvel UK titles, they were all printed in the same order as the US originals.
ReplyDeleteI remember noticing that at the time, Col, but perhaps the U.K. edition skipped a few issues so that British readers weren't buying stories they already had from the U.S. edition, which I suspect may not have been distributed as freely over here once our own version was released.
ReplyDeleteI was especially fond of the Romita issue of Foom because it featured a lengthy Q&A by Chris Claremont (IIRC) and images of X-Men 101-105, which weren't distributed in our neck of the woods. I was desperate to read about Phoenix at the time but that wouldn't happen until early 1978.
ReplyDeleteMust've been another issue, Dougie - just had a quick look (not put #18 away yet) and there's nothing fitting that description. When I dig out the last four issues for scanning, I'll see if I can find that Q&A.
ReplyDeleteI was always fascinated by those amazing self portraits the artists did at their desks with their "characters" milling about- I think they had others with Kirby, Herb Trimpe, John Buscema and Steranko but Romita's was always my favourite, great stuff.
ReplyDeleteThat illo also appeared in FOOM #3, McScotty, in almost full-colour, making it look even better. You should be able to find it by typing Friends of ol' Marvel into the Blogger search box on the top left-hand side of the home page.
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