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Perhaps one of the things that worked against SUPER DC was that it was a monthly mag, as opposed to the weekly publications that British kids were accustomed to. Back then, U.K. readers got their comics fix every seven days, and although some also bought American comicbooks from time to time, they tended to choose from whatever was periodically available, rather than follow a specific title month after month. That's because U.S. mags had a spotty distribution on these shores and one simply had to take what one could get.
Therefore, had it come out on a weekly basis, readers wouldn't have had time to forget when it was next due on sale. Further, being weekly would've meant sharing the shelves with the other U.K. comics, instead of being in the spinner-racks with the monthlies. It was in the spinner-rack of my local CORSON'S that I spied the first issue of Super DC, and as not everyone who bought British comics also bought American ones, there were probably quite a few potential readers who never even saw it during its short existence.
However, that's by the by. What we're concerned with for now are the text stories in the 14 issue mag, which barely managed to limp into 1970 ('71 if you lived in Scotland, where it was released a year later). Here are another six titanic tales, from numbers 10-12, which first appeared in TV TORNADO, a weekly comic published in 1967. The stories were slightly abridged this time around, and I suspect that some of the conclusions seemed hastily arrived at, given that explanatory sentences (and perhaps even paragraphs) were jettisoned in order to fit the page.
There's another SUPERMAN tale still to come, plus three other completely unrelated generic adventure stories. Don't dare miss 'em - or I'll be sending the lads 'round!
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I reckon you're spot on as to the reason for Super DC's short-lived success. It was certainly cheap enough to be a weekly, but as there was so much crammed into it, perhaps Mick couldn't get it ready in 7 days?
ReplyDeleteThe ONLY text story I remembered before you started showing them was A Is For Acid in TV Tornado.
Anyway many thanks for sharing this batch so soon ( you know I was after them! ) and look forward to the rest!
Thing is, JP, at a shilling (or 5p) it was more expensive than weeklies with mostly all new material. (The licence for DC characters couldn't have been that high, surely.) Weekly comics sold for around 7d (3 & half p) so that might've put some readers off. Most weekly comics are prepared about 8 weeks ahead, monthlies longer than that, I'd guess, so Mick should've had more than enough time. I doubt he slapped them together the day before going to the printers.
ReplyDeleteWhich shows just how little I know about the business! I had this mental image of him furiously beavering away over the presses, sweat flying off his forehead underneath his skipper's cap, like a Reid/Ditko drawing, desperately trying to get it finished all by himself!
DeleteI was comparing the 1/- price to the 9d of Fantastic/Terrific. Coming a couple of Yeats later and with more panels crammed into it, you would expect to pay 3d more. But putting it in the spinner racks wouldn't have helped as kids much preferred full colour US comics for that same shilling (or were they still only 10d in '69? )
Yeah, but Fantastic was only two years before, and most other comics hadn't raised their prices in that time, if I recall correctly. Also, for the first 50 issues or so, Fantastic had new material alongside the reprints (Missing Link/Johnny Future). I suspect Super DC was a monthly for the sole purpose of justifying its higher cover price. Had it been a weekly, it would probably have been about 9d or 10d.
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