The COMPLETE X-MEN POCKET BOOK COVER GALLERY...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

I never bought the first nine issues of STAR HEROES Pocket Book - if indeed I even saw them!  I think I did see the first issue (or an ad for it), but decided against buying it because I wasn't really into science fiction comics.  At the beginning of 1981, walking from Southsea into Portsmouth town centre, I spied the tenth issue in a newsagent's and bought it (two copies actually) immediately.  The reason?  See for yourself - the original X-MEN!  As with some of the other pocket books, it was just like reading '60s comic FANTASTIC all over again, and my then-youthful little heart skipped a beat in anticipation of reliving my childhood.

I've now got all these stories in full-colour MARVEL MASTERWORKS and OMNIBUS volumes, as well as various other reprints, but I couldn't part with my PBs because of the particular time in my life that they represent to me.   Madness I know, but they've got a charm of their own, even though they were far from perfect in their reproduction of these classic strips.  I also acquired the next two or three issues in Southsea/Portsmouth, and that's where I tend to think of whenever I look at these cracking covers from a long-gone era.

The very same covers that you're now about to savour, O dribbling Crivvies, so I won't hold you back any longer - go to it, frantic ones!  And be sure to let me know what you think of them in the comments section!  Lines are now open!

Okay, okay, chill out!  There's no need to shout.  Here, for your viewing pleasure, are the first nine issues of the title to complete the set.

PART FOUR Of The COMPLETE DENNIS The MENACE BOOK COVER GALLERY...

Images copyright D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd

There are two menaces called DENNIS in the world, as I'm sure most of you know.  There's the real one - ours - who lives up to his esteemed name with gusto - and there's the cutesy American version who doesn't really fulfil his anarchic designation in quite the way that the British one does.  There's no way of knowing which of them was created first, but ours saw publication before his State-side counterpart.  U.S. Dennis debuted in sixteen newspapers on March 12th, 1951, whereas U.K. Dennis appeared in The BEANO, cover-dated March 17th, but on sale several days before that date (amazingly, probably also the 12th) and actually published on the 7th.

Anyway, here are the covers of another six DENNIS The MENACE Books (which became an Annual with the edition for 1987) to remind you that when it comes to menacing, nobody does it better than our striped, spiky-haired little 'hooligan'.

The back cover is the same as the front, folks

I must confess that things like the 'Menace-Mobile' leave me cold.  I prefer Dennis strips set in
realistic situations that readers, young and old, can relate to (and laugh at as well, of course).  It
works as a humorous image on a cover though, I suppose