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| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS |
A few regular commenters have been conspicuous by their absence recently, but as they're still commenting on other blogs, I'm left to assume that they've found many of my last few posts rather boring. Time to up my game, methinks, and what better way than to bring on the big guns - and you don't get any bigger than The FANTASTIC FOUR!
So here are another three issues of The COMPLETE FF to thrill and amaze you, featuring covers, splash pages and pin-ups. This was one of the better weekly titles by MARVEL U.K. from the '70s, and far superior to the subsequent FF periodical which popped up only a few short years later. I wish PANINI's monthly mag featuring the cosmic quartet was still around, as that was 72 pages in full colour and, like the subject of this post, was devoted solely to Marvel's first family of the '60s.
Will REED, SUSAN, JOHNNY and BEN ever star in their own U.K. periodical again? Only time will tell, frantic ones - but in the meantime, why not share your reminiscences of this particular mag with the rest of us? You know where the comments section is, true believers.
14 comments:
Captain Britain, Rampage and The Complete FF were the only Marvel UK weeklies of which I had every single issue. These Complete FF covers remind me of the back-to-school period after Christmas in early 1978 in my first year of Comprehensive school. I remember No.18 particularly well because there was a power-cut when I got home from school and in those days they lasted for hours. I decided to read Complete FF (and Rampage and Super Spider-Man) by candlelight rather than wait for the electricity to come back on which might not have happened till bedtime (which was 9pm when there was school the next day) - of course I could have waited till the next day to read my comics but I'd looked forward to them all day in school and I wanted to read them straight away !
Ah, the enthusiasm of youth, CJ. I'd have been the same, although I'd have used a torch rather than candles. I remember those power strikes of the '70s, and still have the paraffin lamp my parents used to light the livingroom when the electricity was off.
Kid, those power cuts (along with the strikes) are now held up as examples of how terrible life supposedly was in the '70s compared to how wonderful it is now - when my father was a boy he lived through the 1930's depression and then the Second World War while in contrast I suffered a few power cuts. Luckily we had a coal fire so if there was a power-cut we could make toast on the fire and boil water for tea :)
I'm not sure exactly who regards those strikes as examples of how 'terrible' life was in the '70s, CJ. I actually have quite fond memories of them. (Although maybe I wouldn't if I'd been a pensioner instead of a teenager, right enough.)
Kid, the political class regards them as such - the Tories and "New" Labour often say that we mustn't return to the failed economic policies of the '70s. Those times are used as a justification for the divisive, neoliberal policies we've had ever since. I have rather fond memories of eating toast by candlelight - I remember once we had no butter and spread a thin layer of lard on the toast with salt sprinkled on top which was quite nice actually.
Ah, but everyone knows that politicians will say whatever they think will get them voted for. No one believes them - if they even listen to them anymore. I enjoyed the '70s - and the '60s before them.
Nostalgia for the 70's phillipen 'eck, yeah I suppose certain aspects where ok, chicks with ringlets and cheese cloth shirts but otherwise forget it, It's not quite the 70's but 1981 is close enough, I had cause to take a flight from Heathrow, one cafeteria in terminal three, I queued up, bought a sandwich, at five times normal retail, yeah that's right five times. The bread could have been Masonite it so stale and the cheese, don't ask. An experience that had a lasting impact on me, it took me a while to get out of the habit of pre packing sandwiches for trips as the 80's progressed. Grief, even the music was terrible, Rubettes, Bent City Danglers, any Herbert with taste for mascara and platform shoes. There were so many strikes because the money people earned was worthless, I've little insight into contemporary economic policy but you know, at least there is one, a policy that is. What did they do in the 70's when the needed cash? Lets just print some more.
I couldn't get a job in 70's either, can you believe it but they actually stopped people they didn't like getting jobs in the print and reprographic trades, so I was stuck selling crap in a furniture store. It was quite common for typographers and other graphics trade workers to go abroad cos they couldn't get work, South Africa and Saudi Arabia being two of the common destinations. No one did anything about it, it was normal, the NGA was king of the hill and what they said was the law, so unless you were someone's nephew (that's no exaggeration, -all- the people I knew working in Fleet Street got their union cards through relatives) or connected in some other manner, usually some political connection, you were stuffed. I'm gladded they killed those people off, they should build a moment to 'em, somewhere discreet from public view though, in a urinal perhaps?
I was listening to Bond soundtracks and Jim Reeves back in the '70s, DSE, so the musical output of the era largely passed me by. And the '70s was an age when I never had the slightest trouble getting a job whenever I felt like one. And it always seemed to be sunny - and we had The Mighty World Of Marvel and loads of other great comics. The '70s? I had a brilliant time.
Aspects of the 70's were cool, Basil Brush for instance, when he did a comeback, he was a pale shadow of his prior incarnation and somehow he turned into a woolly woofta. Tom and Jerry, Top Cat cartoons on the box they were all pretty good. Other than that, aspects of the comic scene and Kung Fu flicks at the local flea pit, I'm glad they're gone. Oh yeah, I don't recall single day of sunshine after August 76, right up until spring 84.
Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads, DSE - they were part of the '70s as well. Sunshine for me lasted right up to 1980 - probably because I'd asked Morecambe & Wise to bring me some.
Yeah the Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads was pretty good along with Reggie Perrin, The Good Life, they were pretty good and some others. There was also I Claudius, which grabbed the historical drama genre by the throat and throttled it, till its eyes turned pink. Cinema was generally terrible though, mostly dross aside from a few gems which actually stand out as some of my faves: Rollerball, Soylent Green oh yeah and, Zardoz which is the flick I would've made in 1970 something.
Zardoz? You almost had me with you there, DSE - until you mentioned Zardoz. Sean Connery in his pants? What a pile of sh*t that movie was. Live & Let Die - now THAT'S what I call a movie.
Lol, yeah I guessed that might invoke a startled response, I've only seen it the once, it's disappeared off the radar since, so my recollection of it might be somewhat rosy. He's wearing pants, and they're orange! I liked it though, if fact, there's a bit of social satire about it, you could regard it as a social critique, in the similar vein as The Prisoner was a few years earlier, Zardoz being more pertinent to its time. And there's that all time greatest line, '...the penis is evil,' now you can't tell me that wasn't uncannily prescient.
From a feminist's point of view, maybe. And we men know it's all down to envy.
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