CRIVENS! COMICS & STUFF!: THE SUPER HEROES COVER & IMAGE GALLERY

Friday, 23 May 2014

THE SUPER HEROES COVER & IMAGE GALLERY - PART ONE...

Images copyright DC COMICS

When The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL came out towards the end of 1972, I considered it the natural successor to the POWER COMICS of the '60s, which included WHAM!, SMASH!, and FANTASTIC, amongst others. Likewise, when The SUPER HEROES first appeared in 1980, to me, it was the successor to SUPER DC, published in '69/'70. The editor of The Super Heroes was VANESSA MORGAN, who sadly passed away from cancer just recently. Although I never met nor spoke with her - or, indeed, can't recall ever seeing her name attached to any other mags - I thought I'd run a cover gallery in tribute to her, seeing as she was responsible for one of the fondly remembered periodicals of my long-vanished and sadly-missed youth.

Some startling cover art awaits you, but as you study it, give a thought to Vanessa - after all, she was the person responsible for commissioning it. And don't forget to rejoin us for part two.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...: I've mentioned before how I never saw any DC comics on sale and here's another example - never seen this before at all. However by mid-1980 the only UK mag I was still reading was the Conan monthly as I'd defected to the U.S. Marvel imports by then so even if I had seen this I wouldn't have bought it.; 23 May 2014 at 22:47
Kid said...: It was a great little mag, CJ. I'm glad I never missed it 'cos it had some great stories in it.; 23 May 2014 at 23:28
Dougie said...: I wish I had bought more of these at the time but I found them hard to find.; 24 May 2014 at 10:30
Kid said...: Maybe they were sold out in your neck of the woods, Dougie, because they were so popular? I don't recall ever having any difficulty in finding them in any of my local newsagents. There were only 19 issues, so you can set yourself the quest of tracking down a complete set.; 24 May 2014 at 11:11
Unknown said...: This was a great and very underrated wee magazine, loved the covers mostly by (I think) Alan Craddock. Although it was well distributed I found the second volume set of 7 issues harder to track down and missed a couple of them. I think they published this to coincide with the Superman 2 movie release and it seemed to do really well at the time. However I always thought it struggled after that as Superman 3 took nearly 3 years to come out after movie -(well that's my detailed economic analysis at any rate).London editions published some really nice DC books (DC Action etc) in the early 1990s but they never really managed to capture the imagination like Marvel did in the UK.

Although I wasn't that familiar with her work , I was sorry to hear about Vanessa Morgan passing (that disease is sod); 24 May 2014 at 12:45
John Pitt said...: I, too, regarded these as the successor to Super DC and I put this mag on a par with MSHM. I think I used to have the complete set, so it's going to be nice to see them all again.
The only other UK DC comics I ever came across were Supes & Batman pocketbooks and a short- lived weekly or fortnightly comic for both heroes. Although there were annuals as well.; 24 May 2014 at 13:10
Unknown said...: For anyone trying to get a complete set of this book , I seem to recall that along with the 19 issues of the monthly mag, there was also at least one annual.; 24 May 2014 at 13:17
Kid said...: I bought #7 in Sperrings in Southsea (just off Boulton Road) when I was living there in 1981, McScotty, and it's a Superman 2 Special Movie issue. I actually saw the film in the main Portsmouth cinema, but I wasn't as impressed with it as I had been with its predecessor. The cover on #7 is a belter, so look out for it.

Yeah, shame about Vanessa - John Freeman's Down The Tubes site does a nice tribute to her, and I was surprised to see just how involved she was with British comics.

Actually, there were three Annuals and two softcover Specials, McS. I've got the first two Annuals, and used to have the two Specials - only have the first one now, alas.

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JP, I also bought those pocketbooks, but I was disappointed with them because pages were sometimes edited out of the stories. I've got some of the later London Editions mags in my collection, so no doubt we'll eventually get around to seeing them at some stage.; 24 May 2014 at 13:22
Kid said...: Update: Re-added the 2nd Special a while back now. Just thought you'd all like to know.; 30 June 2023 at 01:39

About the artist:

From 1985 to 2000 A.D. (little joke there), I contributed to a variety of high profile comics and magazines for various companies.

For IPC/FLEETWAY/EGMONT, I freelanced as a lettering and logo artist on various weekly comics and monthly magazines, and also as a resize comic artist and spot illustrator on pocket books, summer specials and annuals.

For MARVEL U.K., BLACK LIBRARY, REDAN and USBORNE BOOKS, I again freelanced as a lettering artist, also working as a restoration artist for MARVEL U.S., restoring and re-creating certain pages of JACK KIRBY art for their MARVEL MASTERWORKS editions.

I also lettered the MARVELMAN sample pages submitted to MARVEL U.S. when they were considering acquiring the character, which - as we all now know - they DID.

Supplied comic strips, cartoons and illustrated advertisements for local business campaigns and newspaper publication on a professional basis since the age of 16. Did my first paid art job for publication at 14 or 15 for Lanarkshire Education Board.

Have also made TV appearances as a collector of memorabilia.

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Just some of the titles I worked on are:

2000 A.D. * JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE * DICEMAN * SONIC The COMIC * JUDGE DREDD, LAWMAN Of The FUTURE * CRISIS * REVOLVER * EAGLE * TIGER * BATTLE ACTION-FORCE * BUSTER * WHIZZER & CHIPS * WHOOPEE * NIPPER * SCHOOL FUN * ACE VENTURA, PET DETECTIVE * The REAL GHOSTBUSTERS * DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE * COUNT DUCKULA * RUGRATS * The TRANSFORMERS * DEATH'S HEAD * THUNDERCATS * GALAXY RANGERS * DRAGON'S CLAWS * SINDY * MARVEL MASTERWORKS * The TROLLS * LOADED * INFERNO * WARHAMMER * ROSE BLACK.

Copyright Notice:

Images remain the property of their respective copyright owners and are used here only for the purpose of review, promotion, and nostalgia.

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In the case of images culled from my own collection where copyright of an item isn't mine, I impose no copying restrictions on fellow bloggers.

(Although, if you don't allow copying on your own site, then you really shouldn't be copying from others, should you?)

And while you can credit this blog if you like, it's not mandatory. Who has time to make notes of every casually visited site during an idle browse of the Internet?

In the case of anyone copying images of my own artwork and calligraphy, I affirm my right to be identified as the creator, and any such copying should not be for the purpose of monetary or material gain. (Unless it's mine.)

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Please also note that this blog is not sponsored by, affiliated with, or connected to, any organisation, business, or group, and is wholly independent.