Tuesday, 29 December 2015

PLANET Of The APES COVER GALLERY - PART ONE...

Images copyright relevant owner

Released at the same time as DRACULA LIVES, PLANET Of The APES lasted for 123 issues before merging with The MIGHTY WORLD of MARVEL for 16 issues, whereupon its masthead disappeared from the cover.  I read somewhere that the U.K. edition was so popular, the U.S. magazine was kept going just to supply its British counterpart with material.  (If anyone knows for sure, do tell.)

Anyway, here, mainly to keep regular commenter CJ happy, are the first 10 covers from the 1974 weekly periodical.  The TV show wasn't broadcast in Scotland at the time, so we weren't immediately aware that the mag was intended to tie in with a television programme.  Not that it made any difference to me, as I was buying every U.K. Marvel comic going back then anyway.  I even got a letter printed in #8.

And if Nifty NICK CAPUTO is paying attention, perhaps he'd do us all a favour and identify the cover artists.  Good lad, Nick - ta.

The poster free with issue #1









RUPERT COVERS & ENDPAPERS - PART FOUR...


Image copyright CLASSIC MEDIA/EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS

The frog chorus - ooh, lovely.  Apparently, it was this ALFRED BESTALL endpaper that inspired musician PAUL McCARTNEY to do his 1984/'85 RUPERT song and video.  (Just wish Rupert had been coloured brown in it though, instead of white.)  Might as well let you see and hear it, eh?

RUPERT COVERS & ENDPAPERS - PART THREE...


Image copyright CLASSIC MEDIA/EXPRESS NEWSPAPERS

I've shown this before, on an Annual, but the area covering the spine was missing - so here's the full illustration in all its mighty magnificence.  That ALFRED BESTALL fella sure could draw, and that's a fact.  More soon!

BABE Of The DAY - SUZANNE DANIELLE...



Look, SUZIE luv, you don't
need the knife.  If you want my
body you only have to say so.

PART SIX Of MARVEL'S The SUPER-HEROES COVER & IMAGE GALLERY...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

From the backyard of bygone days comes another five issues of The SUPER-HEROES, MARVEL U.K.'s pulse-pounding periodical from the sizzlin' '70s.  I loved this weekly mag, and the ones featured in this series are the actual copies I purchased back in the day, not later replacements.  Hard to believe that I've now had these comics for over 40 years and that this title (along with its companion magazine SAVAGE SWORD Of CONAN) was the first new Marvel weekly to be released after I'd left school and was part of the working world.

That means comics like MWOM, SMCW, The AVENGERS, DRACULA LIVES, POTA, SHIVER & SHAKE, WHOOPEE, BUZZ, and WARLORD were the last new weekly mags I bought as a schoolkid.  I wasn't aware of this subtle distinction at the time though, as life seemed like one single strand of an unravelling ball of string, not the separate, unconnected, compartmentalized events they seem in retrospect long after the fact.  (Wow!  Deep or what?)

As always, cavortin' Criv-ites, your comments are most welcome.
  



The reversed '1' in the image above this one shows that the page was 'flipped' before publishing (on the
original U.S. cover as well), so I thought you might like to see how artist JACK KIRBY first drew it