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| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS |
Contain your excitement, frantic ones, as we delve once again into yet another 10 covers of The TITANS, British MARVEL's landscape weekly periodical from the sizzlin' '70s. As you'll already know ('cos I told you before), The Titans only lasted for 58 issues, so there are only another 18 to go, which I'll post in two sets of 9.
As you can see, the splash pages for the FANTASTIC FOUR tales were redrawn to fit the page format, with varying degrees of success. Some are better than others, so it's safe to assume that a different hand was responsible for the not so good ones. Not that they're particularly bad per se, but they don't quite capture the style of the KIRBY/SINNOTT pages they're based on.
Okay, no point holding you back from what you came here to see, so dive right in, folks. The water's lovely!
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20 comments:
Hi Kid, thanks a lot for these covers, great work! I think there was some kind of double page spread (so equivalent to 4 classic pages side by side) in these books. Could we by any chance have articles with their scans? Best.
Trouble is, NV, that my scanner wouldn't be able to capture the complete double-page image (which is 'longways', rememeber) in one go, so I'd have to do the pin-up in two parts. Also, I doubt I'd be able to get both parts side by side on my blog page, so one half would be above the other. Having said that 'though, when I work out how to present them in an acceptable way, I may do them as a separate series.
If I was a puerile fella with his mind in the gutter, I'd think the cover of #33 shows a man in a hat breaking wind at Ben Grimm.
Good job I'm not, eh?
You mean it doesn't? Sheesh! And all those years I thought it was.
Great series, Kid, didn't know about those 70's Marvel Classics. What size were they?
I did have the 80's classics pocketbooks, though.
Same size as a normal Marvel U.K. weeejly, JP - but turned on its side.
Kid, I think John means the Marvel Classics comics - Tom Sawyer etc. One thing I'd totally forgotten was the redrawn splash pages (you've missed one out by the way). The issue that stands out here is No.35 because I remember going to town with my sister and Martin and Jane from next door and I saw the Titans #35 on sale but didn't buy it then while waiting in the bus station for the bus home I decided I wanted it after all and raced back to buy it before the bus came. What's interesting about that day is that it was raining cats and dogs, absolutely teeming down but the Summer of '76 is famous for The Drought (capital letters intentional) - however The Titans No.35 is dated "week ending June 16th" and a bit of googling reveals that The Drought didn't begin until June 22nd. Any memories of that famous summer, Kid ?
Ah, of course. (I was half-asleep.) The Marvel Classics were standard U.S. Marvel comicbook size, JP. I don't think I've missed out any of the redrawn splashes, CJ, but not every one was redrawn. If it's not there it's because it was the original that was used. No particular memories of 'The Drought', I'm afraid - when I was young, I took such things in my stride.
The funny thing is I remember the standpipes but not the heat - now the heat would be unbearable but back then I, as you said, took it in my stride. Another thing about No.35 is that it has the wrong cover - the events of that cover occur in the next issue. In the original U.S. version the Thing battling Torgo cover is on the last issue of this story.
That was quite common for British Marvel, CJ. They did the same thing with early issues of MWOM back in 1972. I've got the original U.S. issues of those FF mags - brilliant stuff.
By the way, I HAD missed out a splash page in this post. I thought you were referring to one of the previous posts, where I didn't include splashes that hadn't been redrawn.
Yes,indeed. I also liked the two-parter "A house There Was" and the U.S. cover for the first part of that is really good but unfortunately it's replaced here by that Ghost Rider cover, bah humbug. I was fascinated by that house the Mole Man built and I wanted to live there (minus the death traps). I wanted to live on the Clangers little moon too. I wonder why they went to the bother of drawing those new splash pages - I know they were trying to fill more space because of the landscape design but they could have just shoved in a couple of extra adverts somewhere else in the comic to take up some space.
I guess they just thought that a full-page splash had more visual impact, CJ. Someone I know wants to live on Thunderbird 2. I fancy Fireball XL5 myself.
Interesting stuff, Kid. I don't particularly like the repositioned/revised splash pages and I'm not sure who did the revisions, although I see some Esposito input in some of them.
The majority of covers look like the work of Ron Wilson, although #40 is likely Larry Lieber, the best of the lot to my eye. I like the perspective of the monster and the fact that it doesn't copy the look of the original cover.
Obviously, the originals would've been better, Nick, if they could've been adjusted to the landscape format. However, a few of these covers and splashes are slightly better than most of the new splashes that were supplied for the second parts of cut-in-half strips continued in the next issue. There was no attempt in those cases to match the art styles of the strips themselves.
Don't be a stranger now.
Thanks Kid & Col, I must say I did wonder why there would be normal covers on landscape comics?
You've lost me there, JP. Expand that a little for this old duffer, will you?
I asked you, "What size were the 70's Marvel Classics?"
You replied ( thinking I meant The Titans weekly ), "Same size as the normal Marvel UK comics, but turned on their side."
I looked at the house ad. pics of the covers and thought, "?"
Then I thought, " He must have thought I meant The Titans. Oh well, we all do bombard him with questions. He's bound to get mixed up sometimes. No need to make a fuss. It's not important."
'Nuff said and all that, eh?
Ah, but you confused me by asking about a comic that obviously had a normal cover (going by the ad), thus making the question redundant from the off. Besides, it's Sunday, I'm still half asleep, and I'm old and feeble, remember.
Enjoying these Titans scans!
Regarding the first comment, if you are interested in seeing scans of the Titans Centrespreads, you can find all of them here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/11237574@N07/sets/72157642895409823/detail/
Kid, any chance you will scan the new splash pages for the non-FF stories as well?
As you probably know, much original material was produced for the Marvel British Department by the NY office from 1975-1977 (pre-Dez Skinn days), including many artists trying to break into the industry. In addition to the cover artists like Pollard, Wilson, and Leiber, much of the new interior work (splash pages and pinups) was produced by the likes of Howard Bender, Steve Stiles, David Wenzel, David Hunt, and Jeff Aclin, plus people like John Romita Jr, Marshall Rogers, Mike Nasser, Bob Layton, Bob Budiansky, Frank Miller, Carl Potts, and a host of others(mostly lesser known, including folks from Neal Adams' Continuity, though Craig Russell and Michael Golden did some work). Most of the inking was done by Duffy Vohland, Mike Esposito, and Frank Giacoia.
Would be great to finally be able to give credit to the artists for some of their earlier work (though some might be embarrassed by the quality of some of it. :)).
Probably not, JS - they weren't really up to much, that I remember, and the comics are all put away now. Never say never 'though. Thanks for the link and the info.
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