PART THREE Of FANTASTIC COVER GALLERY...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

Heads up, you lucky people.  Here we have the next instalment of cracking covers (Gromit) from the ODHAMS PRESS periodical FANTASTIC, first published in the late '60s.  I believe any new back-page pin-ups were either by BARRY WINDSOR SMITH or STEVE PARKHOUSE (husband of 2000 A.D. letterer, ANNIE PARKHOUSE), and these were alternated with reprints of U.S. pin-ups or illustrations adapted for the purpose.

So without any further ado (must remember to pick up a fresh supply when I'm out), let's get started.

Don't know about all you Crivs, but I just love that pin-up of SUE STORM, originally printed in FANTASTIC FOUR #10.  Tune in again soon - for further Fantastic covers from yesteryear.

LOO MUG - WHAT A THUG...

Interesting to see that a certain comics contributor was accused of bullying tactics on a U.K. comics forum relatively recently (and no - not by me), with people threatening to leave because of his supercilious, patronising manner.  Considering that the character for whom he is best known is a bit of a brainless thug, I find the situation rather ironic to say the least.  Life imitating 'art' perhaps?

And now, in a show of 'solidarity', one his pals has banned me from his site for responding to what I saw as a provocative comment from the first individual, implying that my offer to supply pages and identify their correct source amounted to nothing more than "hassle".  As the site owner had already revealed himself as a disingenuous back-pedaller with no regard for accuracy, I must confess to regarding his actions as not much of a surprise.  Certain types tend to stick together, don't they?   

The UNEXPURGATED BEANO NUMBER ONE...

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

Recently, over on another blog, someone posted scans of the first issue of D.C. Thomson's The BEANO.  Unfortunately, he used an abridged replica edition of the comic given away with The SUNDAY POST a couple of years or so ago.  I politely pointed this out, but he disputed it, saying several experts had confirmed it was the full comic. I sent him some scans of the missing pages, whereupon he grudgingly admitted I was right, but was clearly none-too-pleased about being mistaken, claiming such things weren't all that important.  He strikes me as being a surly, ungracious, immature and slightly unbalanced individual, so I won't be wasting any more of my time trying to help him again in the future.

Anyway, so that Beano fans aren't deprived of seeing the complete first issue, I'm going to post all 28 pages in two parts.  Here's the first one.  Click here for Part Two.

THE BALLAD OF HALO AND ME...

When I was a full-time comics contributor a goodly number of years ago, I was up and down to London like a yo-yo.  I recall being given a BUSTER strip (drawn by REG PARLETT) to deliver to The SUNDAY MAIL in Glasgow during a strike, and, on another occasion, I was given a large HALO JONES pin-up to deliver to JOHN McSHANE and the lads from AKA COMICS at the Virginia Galleries, also located in the heart of the city.

This was a gift from artist IAN GIBSON, and as I knew the AKA lads, I was asked if I'd hand it across.  "Nae bother!" as they say, but when I got home, the first thing I did (apart from grabbing some sleep) was to get someone to snap a photo of me with said page, to demonstrate that I was actually considered responsible enough to be entrusted with such an artistic treasure.  As you can't see my face in the photo, I don't suppose any such conclusion can be arrived at, but let's face it - who's going to look at a drawing when my handsome fizzog is on display?  So it worked out for the best in the end.  (He said, modestly.)

Shame the image isn't sharper, but it's a cropped section of a photo taken from the foot of the stairs.  I'll see if I can dig out the actual comic it appeared in and scan it so you can all get a better look.  Trust me, however, the published version didn't even come close to doing full justice to the original art.   

A DOG'S BEST FRIEND...

...is YOGI BEAR, apparently.  Who'da thunk it?  Cute, eh?

HE IS THE LAW...

Copyright REBELLION

One of the things I really liked about the POWER COMICS of the 1960s was that characters in the U.K. produced strips would sometimes refer to the U.S. MARVEL superheroes reprinted in the same pages.  I remember the brother and sister team known as The HUMBUGS (reprinted as The Terrible Twins in SMASH! a few years later, but originally appearing in WHAM!) pretending to be The THING and The INVISIBLE GIRL in one of their tales.  Likewise DON STARR, in an issue of TERRIFIC, wished he had SPIDER-MAN's spider-sense on one occasion.  This helped foster the illusion that, whether they were humour or adventure strips, British or American, they were all the result of ALF, BART & COS and their team of writers and artists on this side of the pond.

IPC/FLEETWAY don't seem to have indulged in this kind of comics integration to the same extent - at least not that I'm aware of - so the above SWEENY TODDLER strip is a nice-but-rare example of when they did.  I'm unaware of who wrote the story, but the artwork is by the irrepressible TOM PATERSON, doing an absolutely 'pitch-perfect' impersonation of LEO BAXENDALE at his very best.  Tom captures his style so well, in fact, that I ofttimes wonder if Leo has ever looked at Tom's work and wondered why he can't remember drawing it.

It's just a shame that nothing is being done with the treasure-chest of IPC/Fleetway comics characters today. They're a neglected asset deserving of positive ex-ploitation, and which would surely be enjoyed by many thousands of would-be comics reading youngsters up and down the length and breadth of the country. 

******

Update: Since this post was first published, REBELLION have acquired the rights to ODHAMS, HULTON, and IPC/FLEETWAY characters and have published several great volumes featuring some of the better known and more popular ones - Sweeny Toddler being one of them.  Note that I referred to them as a 'treasure-chest', and that Rebellion publish their collected editions under the TREASURY Of BRITISH COMICS imprint.  Maybe they read this post, eh?   

UNSEEN DITKO...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Feast your fortunate eyes on an un-inked and unused pin-up of The INCREDIBLE HULK by STEVE DITKO, intended for an issue of TALES To ASTONISH, but presumably vetoed by STAN LEE on the grounds that ol' Greenskin was facing away from the audience instead of lumbering towards them.  Such a display of bad manners from BRUCE BANNER's alter-ego would surely never do, eh? 

This and other pages can be found in The Incredible Hulk Vol 2 in the softcover MARVEL MASTERWORKS series, which often features pages of a higher archival standard than even some OMNIBUS editions.  Why not run along to your nearest comic shop and schlep down your shekels in exchange for a copy?  You know it makes sense.

ISBN # 978-0-7851-5883-7

MOEBIUS PASSES AWAY...

JEAN HENRI GASTON GIRAUD.  (May 8th, 1938 - March 10th, 2012)

JEAN GIRAUD, also known as MOEBIUS, has sadly passed away. I have to confess that I wasn't a fan of his SILVER SURFER graphic novel, PARABLE, with STAN LEE (nor did I share his rather strange views on lettering), but when it came to doing the stuff he was good at (which was a lot), he was very good indeed.  Comics are the poorer for his passing.

I'll leave it to others better acquainted with the man's life and career to pen a more detailed tribute than I'm capable of.  I just didn't want his passing to go by without commenting upon it myself.  No doubt some of the many fine blogs in the list on the right of the page will have their own thoughts to express about the legendary artist, so keep your eyes peeled.  I'm sure they'll do him proud.

A FISHY TALE Of FOUR (NOW FIVE) SUBS...

FANTASTIC FOUR #11.  Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Sufferin' Shad!  Take a long lingering look at the above pin-up from the 1962 issue of The FANTASTIC FOUR #11 - it's none other than the awesome avenging son of fabled ATLANTIS himself, PRINCE NAMOR The First, the sensational SUB-MARINER - mighty monarch of the seven seas!

TERRIFIC #1

This pulsating pin-up next appeared (in Britain) on the back cover (above) of TERRIFIC #1 in 1967, before turning up yet again in 1973 as a back page pin-up (below) in the collectors' item classic that every true believer should have, The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL #15.

The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL #15

It turned up again in The COMPLETE FANTASTIC FOUR #24 (below) in 1977, but this time was printed in black and white (with a little touch of Letra-tone), and lacked some of the 'punch' of the three earlier full-colour versions.  Still nice though.

The COMPLETE FANTASTIC FOUR #24

The next one (below) was produced by semi-regular reader and commenter Baab, who digitally coloured a picture of the original art after the MWOM version.  Didn't he do a good job?  He first showed it on his own blog, but I'm sure he won't mind me 'borrowing' it for mine. 

Bah Boy Blog.  (See comments)

I suppose the first two versions have more of an 'oceanic feel' to them due to the blue and green colour scheme, although the MWOM page had more of an impact on me at the time and is consequently the one I prefer.  Luckily, I'm not restricted to just one and can enjoy all of them depending on my mood.  Okay, you've had more than enough time to compare all four five of them - which one is your favourite?

Imperius Rex!

BATMAN'S WORLD OF ADVENTURE - NO PARACHUTES INVOLVED...

BATMAN copyright DC COMICS.  Art by WALTER HOWARTH

Here's a nice little item I picked up in Gosport when I was living down in Southsea in Portsmouth back in 1981.  31 years later, I'm reminded that I probably had my original copy for only a few weeks when I first bought it back in the faraway 1960s.  Looking at it today, I remember having quite a few issues of this run, and also seem to recall a SUPERMAN companion series.  (Even though there isn't one listed on the back-page ad, below.  I could be wrong though.)

If memory still serves, I got all four of these titles in my sadly-missed local WOOLWORTHS, and - on the day I bought them - I recall standing in line for a visiting fairground's 'parachute jump' (slipping into a harness and jumping off the edge of an iron fire-escape staircase - no actual parachute involved) situated in the rear car-park of the tenpin bowling alley in the main shopping precinct of my home town.  As I waited, some ned kept asking me to let him read my new acquisitions while the queue wound its way along.  I refused of course, because even at that tender age, I was smart enough to realise that he'd be off the moment I handed them over, never to be seen again.

Never got my parachute jump that day - the queue was moving so slowly that my parents, hovering in the background, got fed up waiting and summoned me and my bruv back to the car (a blue and white NOBEL 200).  Ah well, at least I had my BATMAN and U.N.C.L.E. World Adventure Libraries to console me.

A SAINSBURY'S supermarket has been built on the site of the long-gone bowling alley, and an ICELAND shop now occupies the premises that once belonged to Woolworths, but - somewhere in the back of my mind and in surviving black & white photos of the period - the way things used to be still exist whenever I feel compelled to reconnect with my past.  And who knows?  Maybe one day I'll even make that long-abandoned 'parachute jump'.

******

Click here for more of the same.

FANTASTIC COVER GALLERY PART TWO...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

And now, starting with the first ever issue of FANTASTIC that I actually bought, here's the second part of our 1960s' cover gallery of the jewel in the POWER PACK crown.  There's something about the cover to #7 which gnaws at me - the speech balloons have been relettered and, if I'm not very much mistaken, the art has certainly been retouched in places - if not completely redrawn (traced, most likely).

On what do I base my opinion?  By comparison with the cover of the original U.S. published version of TALES Of SUSPENSE.  If you check it out, you'll see that the faces of KALA and STARK's friends differ slightly from the U.K. printing.  I'd be interested in what anyone else thinks, so don't be shy now!