IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR AWAY...

Characters copyright MARVEL COMICS and relevant and respective owners

I know I had Star Wars Weekly #71 when it first came out in 1979 because I cut off the cover and affixed the Princess Leia section to one of my bedroom walls.  Well, I actually used Evo-Stik to glue it to the wall - and there it stayed for around four years before we flitted to another house in another neighbourhood.  The picture was ruined beyond repair when I tried to remove it, so it didn't adorn my new room for the just over four years my family and myself lived in that new house.  Nor did it when we moved back to our previous home as it never made it out of there to begin with.  It was absent for around 35 years until I saw the cover on the Internet and copied it, enlarged it, and then returned a print-out of it to pretty much the same spot on the wall it had previously occupied.  It was good to see her there again.

The image you see above is from a replacement copy I received yesterday, having bought it via eBay just a few days before.  Apart from the first couple of interior pages, I remember nothing of the contents*, making me think that I had only purchased my original copy primarily so I could use the cover as a poster, as I thought the pic of Princess Leia was pretty hot.  I don't think I was buying the comic after the early issues, certainly not into the later numbers of which this is one, which tends to confirm (for me) that it was bought just for the cover.  I was therefore surprised to see a Tales Of The Watcher strip in my new copy that I have absolutely no memory of seeing 44 years ago - or at any other time.  I thought it was a nice little story so decided to share it with you here, as a reward for you having to dredge through my weary personal reminiscence.

So enjoy the story - and also that alluring Carmine Infantino drawing of the princess with the red-hot bod!  And feel free to leave a comment - I'll be watching (for I am The A Watcher).

******

*I'd owned the original US presentations of Warlock and Guardians of course, but their inclusion in the UK SWW had obviously eluded my memory so many years after the fact.  (And maybe even not too long after buying it and removing the cover.) 

JUST WHAT HAS The BEANO COME TO...?

Copyright D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd

Oh dear, just what has happened to The Beano?  It's gone all woke and preachy, seemingly more interested in 'educating' and 'inspiring' readers than in entertaining them.  Major mistake.  I bought the Minnie The Minx 60th Anniversary issue of the comic yesterday and could hardly find anything worth a laugh throughout the entire issue.  The only good thing I saw was the representation of a statue of Leo Baxendale in The Bash Street Kids being referred to as 'our founder' - a nice touch.

However, the comic's adopted mantra with which to bash (npi) readers over the head this week was 'don't be afraid to fail', which despite any good intentions, makes it sound that failure is something you should aspire to.  In trying to be all-inclusive and diverse, the comic has lost sight of its purpose in life - to be funny!  The stories feel contrived, with no real cohesion in their construction.  In some strips, it almost seems like the writers came up with the first and last panels to start with, then wrote what was happening between them as an afterthought.

And although the comic contains some nice art, the characters are all too unrelentingly 'cutesy' for my liking.  As good an artist as Nigel Parkinson undoubtedly is, his Dennis (likely drawn according to editorial direction) isn't a patch on Davey Law's original version.  Remember when The Beano was rebellious, anarchic, funny and had an 'edge' to it?  Well, not any more.  Just how much longer the comic will survive if it goes on like this, I shudder to think.

Any thoughts, you know where to let loose.  Oh, I almost forgot - Happy Birthday Minnie.

TWO NEW 'TREASURES' FROM REBELLION...

Copyright REBELLION

Arrived at Castel Crivens today (though I'm using images from the publisher's website) are two new items that all fans of British comics will surely be interested in.  First, #1 of a 3-issue series of Smash! comic and, second, the Treasury Of British Comics Annual for 2024.  Rather than bore you with my tedious waffle, you can work out the contents by the cover illustrations.  So I've got mine!  Will you be getting yours?

A QUESTION OVER KIRBY COLLAGES...

Copyright DC COMICS

Jack Kirby had a tendency to use collages in the pages of his comics every now and then, usually made from various photographs clipped from magazines and newspapers.  I remember seeing Thunderbird 2 in one of them and no doubt other copyrighted material was also utilised in this manner.  The question is, therefore, do you think it was right that Jack used other people's photographic material with no credit or financial remuneration going their way?  Sure, he may've been 'interpreting' those images in a creative way, but doesn't it still make him a bit of a 'rip-off' artist to some degree?  Feel free to comment, even if only to pour scorn on the very notion.

(BOND) BABE Of The DAY - VALERIE LEON...

Hey, Crivs - it's Valerie Leon!

What more do you need from me? 

Drool cups at the ready... go!

The ETERNALS Cover Gallery OMNIBUS...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

Welcome to an 'Omnibus Edition' of covers compiled from three separate posts about The Eternals, featuring Jack Kirby's issues from the '70s and the Sal Buscema-drawn issues from the '80s.  Having all 32 images together in one post saves you from having to trawl through the blog's 'back-catalogue' in order to find them, so it's a lot handier.  The Eternals was the longest-lasting title Jack did when he returned to Marvel, but at only 19 issues plus an Annual, it hardly set the comics-buying world alight.  (Nor did the recent movie.)

Jack was still full of ideas, of course, but this series seemed curiously unconnected from the rest of the Marvel Universe.  Did the cosmic-powered android Hulk exist only because there was a fictional Hulk TV show, or was there a 'real' Hulk that the android was based on?  It was all slightly ambiguous.  Yeah, Shield Agents made an appearance or two, but there were no established names or characters you'd actually recognise - and did the initials of Shield stand for the same name of the agency in the MU?  Who knew?

It's a funny old world when comics by the co-architect of Marvel seemed like 'second-banana' mags and not the main and major titles published by the company, but Jack failed to make much of an impact on his return to Marvel.  Had he lost his touch?  Probably not, but Kirby was still producing comics of the kind he'd been doing in the '50s and '60s and, sadly for him, comics had moved on since then, being a tad more sophisticated and relevant than in his heyday.  The 'King' may still have held an honorary crown, but the 'monarchy' had been abolished and he no longer dominated the world of comicbooks in the way he once had.

Anyway, enjoy browsing through Jack's 'last gasp' at Marvel, and if you see things differently from me, don't be afraid to say so in our comments section.  Remember, click on images to enlarge, then click again for optimum size.

******

(As far as I remember, I only ever had the first four [possibly five] issues and the Annual when they first came out [the ones seen here are my originals], not acquiring the remainder of the run until sometime in the early or mid-'90s.  Note that #19 is a cents copy, as is the Annual.)

And just for the sake of completeness, below is the 12-issue limited series from around the mid-'80s.  I think The Eternals may've had other series down through the years since then (not sure), but if so, as I don't have them, I can't show them.  I could never get too invested in the characters, so it's unlikely I'd buy any new issues if they were to be revived in the future.

The CENTS/PENCE DILEMMA - Guest Post By Doctor ANDREW MAY...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Hail, fellow Crivvies!  I have to admit that many of my posts have been rather 'anaemic' of late, mainly due to me being distracted by some medical problems, so thank goodness for contributors like Doctor Andrew May (no, he's not my doctor), who once again has stepped into the breach to supply you all with something worth reading and looking at.  You're getting spoiled with this guest post and I'm taking a risk publishing it as you'll probably never be satisfied with anything I write ever again.  (Never mind, I can always fall back on my 'Babe Of The Day' posts.)

Anyway, be sure to tell Andrew how much you enjoy his efforts to entertain you, and please note that every cover image featured here is supplied by Andrew from his own personal collection.  (Remember to click on any image to enlarge, then click again for optimum size.)

******  

The two comics pictured above share the same cover date, January 1974, and I purchased both of them when they originally came out, but the one on the left is priced in pence and the one on the right in cents.  This reflects two different ways that British readers could obtain US Marvel comics in the 1970s.  As Kid has mentioned previously on this blog, the only difference between the two versions lies in the cover; they were printed at the same time on the same equipment in the US, but copies destined for the British market were priced accordingly.  These were then shipped over en masse as surface freight and distributed to UK newsagents.

The problem for avid collectors (as I was at the time) was that you couldn't count on your particular local newsagent stocking every issue of your favourite comic month after month.  To avoid the emotional stress of losing out, you had the more reliable alternative of buying "cents" copies from UK dealers who imported them on an individual basis.  Since these came over by airmail, they had the additional advantage of arriving about 2 months earlier than the newsstand versions.  On the other hand, they had the major disadvantage that they were quite a bit more expensive.  In the case illustrated above, for example, the pence comic is only 6p yet the cents copies were sold on a "1c = 1p" basis, i.e. 20p in this case.  Hence the dilemma: you had to weigh up the pros and cons to decide which titles to pre-order and which to entrust to the vagaries of newsagent distribution!

Unlike Kid, I hardly ever remember when and where I bought a particular comic.  In the case of Fantastic Four #142 pictured above, however, I can say with certainty that I bought it in London in the course of a school trip to the Science Museum.  I vividly remember, as I was reading it in the coach on the way home, our physics teacher making a profoundly ignorant comment to the effect that I was "too old for such things" (this was shortly after my 16th birthday).

As for imported "cents" copies, my main source of these throughout 1974 and 1975 was the Andromeda bookshop in Birmingham - about 12 miles from where I lived in those days, and which I visited at least once a month.  Its main speciality was science fiction - a subject I was just as fanatical about as comics - but along with huge numbers of US paperbacks and magazines they also imported Marvel and DC comics.  This was where I bought all the cents comics pictured below - but not the above copy of Marvel Two-in-One #1, which predates my discovery of Andromeda.  That occurred a few weeks before Christmas 1973, and - because cents copies generally arrived a couple of months before their cover dates, I'd guess I got the January 1974 issues in November 1973.

These would have been acquired by mail order from one of the listings in Fantasy Advertiser (which was the closest thing we had to eBay in those days).  Looking through my remaining, much depleted, hoard of comics just now, the only other cents copies from those pre-Andromeda days that I still have are a few issues of Spider-Man - including #129, which featured the first appearance of The Punisher, and is now considered "important" enough to have been reprinted in facsimile form recently.

Although I was happy to wait for a pence copy of The Fantastic Four issue pictured above and also the one after it, my newsagent failed me with #144 (March 1974), which created a gap in my collection.  I promptly vowed never to miss another issue, so from #145 onwards I pre-ordered it on a monthly basis from Andromeda - along with Spider-Man, The Hulk and The Avengers, though I didn't hang onto my collections of the latter two titles.

It seems like I've been writing for ages with no pictures, so it's high time for some more.  Below are two comics from August 1974: Spider-Man #135 (cents) and Thor #226 (pence).  You'll notice a price hike in both cases, to 25c and 7p respectively - and that the banner in the latter case now reads "Marvel All-Colour Comics" instead of "Marvel Comics Group".  I guess that was to make them stand out from the line of weekly black-and-white comics that Marvel was selling in the UK at the time.

I said a moment ago that I didn't hang on to all the Hulk comics I purchased in those days.  Fortunately, I'm not a complete idiot (not all the time, anyhow) and I did have the foresight to retain the three issues (#180-182) featuring the first appearance of Wolverine.  Below is #181 (which has also been given the facsimile treatment recently) alongside another comic from the same month (November 1974) that, speaking personally, I enjoyed a lot more - Spider-Man #138, featuring The Mindworm.  Gerry Conway was my favourite Marvel writer during that period - and, as a science fiction fan, this particular tale reminded me of the similarly titled short story by Cyril Kornbluth.

I'd guess that, during the two years 1974-75, at least three quarters of the comics I bought were pence-marked newsagent copies, for blatantly obvious economic reasons.  But looking at my remaining collection now, more than half the comics I've chosen to hang on to are cents versions - presumably because these were the ones I wanted badly enough to spend more money on.  Around a dozen of them are "Giant-Size" format, which I particularly liked.  The first of these that I acquired is pictured on the left below - Giant-Size Super-Stars #1 (May 1974), which consisted of 52 pages for 35c.  I think this was originally conceived as a rotating anthology series, but then they changed their minds and the next issue (in August 1974) was simply Giant-Size Fantastic Four #2 - with a slightly tweaked format of 68 pages for 50c and a great cover by Rich Buckler.  For variety, though, I'm also showing you Giant-Size Avengers #1 (also from August 1974), mainly because I particularly like the cover by John Romita.

Finally, below are two more covers I really like, in this case by Frank Brunner: Doctor Strange #4 (pence) and #5 (cents).  I would have bought the latter comic first, because (as explained earlier) cents copies generally arrived in this country a couple of months before pence copies.  But then I saw #4 in a newsagent (probably around the time of its cover date, October 1974), and bought that as well.  All my subsequent Doctor Strange issues are pence copies, too, so it looks like I decided it wasn't in the "unmissable" category. 

Andrew would be interested in knowing which comics fellow Crivvies chose to hold onto for decades and for what reasons, so feel free to chat about your long-cherished items in our comments section. 

******

And thanks again, Andrew, for taking the time and trouble to write this guest post while I sit back and stuff my fizzog with tea and toast.  I'm sure everyone appreciates your sterling efforts in producing such a fascinating article.