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| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS (and respective owners) |
When I bought MARVEL PRESENTS: #3 back in the '70s, I did so only because I liked the look of the cover. I bought a few of the subsequent issues, but have to say that I was never really a great fan of the group. I've thought about tracking down a replacement ish for a number of years now, but a while back someone gave me the collected edition which included the covers, and that assuaged my compulsion to acquire the individual comic.
However, let's be honest here; there's something about the black border around the covers in those reprint books that slightly lessens their impact (you really have to see them 'unframed'), so when I saw that Marvel were releasing a page-by-page facsimile edition of MP #3, I ordered one right away. Well, it arrived today and is truly stunning, and had Marvel published their comics on high-quality paper back in the '70s, this is surely what they would've looked like.
I won't bother showing you any of the story pages because it's the ads which place the comic in context and capture the spirit of the times, so here's a couple of internal pages, plus the back cover. Don't you feel as if you're back in the '70s (assuming you were around then), and don't your memories of that particular period come rushing back on sight of these images?
Do yourselves a favour and buy this comic today! It's a veritable time machine.
Update: I just couldn't help myself and decided to track down an original issue of the mag, which I managed to do for a very reasonable sum. As you can see, there are some very minor colour changes on the facsimile's cover (the little planetoid next to CHARLIE 27's right shoulder for example, and the shape of the colour around some of the 'cosmic crackle'), but that apart, it's pretty faithful. Two internal differences are that the 'continued after next page' lines, plus the page numbers below the art (the corner numbers had been discontinued by this time) are absent, but I'm sure that most MARVELITES can live with that.
I think the original copy I had back in the '70s had the 'MARVEL ALL-COLOUR COMICS' banner and a UK price, but the US edition will do. I've scanned the original and facsimile issues together so that you can compare them side-by-side, below.
I remember the 1976 Bicentennial calendar being advertised in the UK weeklies, it was available via mail-order but I didn't buy one.
ReplyDeleteSo do I, and I didn't either, CJ.
ReplyDeleteMy God, I can smell 76 on that Evel Knievel page alone. I could take you to the exact spot in Cambuslang where I played with my Kneivel toys.
ReplyDeleteNever had the Evel toy, but I noticed it was reissued about 10-odd years ago, possibly by another maker under license. Meant to buy one, but never got around to it. Yeah, the ads take you right back, don't they?
ReplyDeleteSee, now you've said that, I want a new Evel Knievel...
ReplyDeleteI think I do too, OD - and I never even had the 'old' one.
ReplyDeleteI can remember the Evil Knievel add very well as EK seemed to have popularity in the late 70s. I can even recall an EK comic turning up in the shops. But then the big EK movie hit the screens which I watched.. It was shit and Evil spiralled off into oblivion .
ReplyDeleteAnd guess what - Evel wasn't even allowed to do his own stunts in the 1977 movie. And what a way for Gene Kelly to end his career - or was that Xanadu? (Incidentally, there was a movie about Evel in 1971, starring George Hamilton.)
ReplyDelete