'POT LUCK' MARVEL COVER GALLERY - PART ONE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

I've was digging through my files recently and rediscovered an assortment of old comics, which I thought I'd share with you here.  When I was younger and needing to make space, I'd sometimes have a clear-out, keeping the first three issues of a title and giving the rest away to a pal.  You see, traditionally, the first three numbers of a British comic had a free gift and were therefore considered to be more collectable.  In the case of U.K. MARVEL mags however, this didn't always apply, as sometimes only the first ish came with a freebie.

Anyway, what follows is a random selection of various comics I possess, in no particular order of significance.  The above comic (SUPER SPIDER-MAN) was one I had originally when it came out, but this particular issue (complete with poster) was lying around the 2000 A.D. offices back in 1985 or '86, and no one had any objections when I asked if I could have it to replace my long-gone original copy - so back it came with me to Bonnie Scotland.  (Hoots mon and och aye!)

The CAPTAIN AMERICA comics below, I acquired when I was living in Southsea in 1981, so that's where I mainly associate them with whenever I look at them.  They still have the free stickers inside too.  I don't think the comic lasted too long, but British Marvel were throwing everything at the wall to see what would stick at this time, although DAZZLER was hardly one of the 'big guns'.

Looking at the cover to PLANET Of The APES #3 today, I associate it with my new town's old village hall, which was holding a jumble sale on the day I bought it.  It could possibly have been another number, but this one seems to be the one I recall.  The hall, a remnant from the '50s at least, if not earlier, was demolished around 20 years ago and replaced by shops and offices, but one glance at the cover and that old hall is instantly resurrected in my mind.

Anyway, be sure to come back and see what's on display in Part Two - you wouldn't want to miss anything!

  

The PUZZLING POW! ANNUAL 1971...

Copyright relevant owner

The POW! ANNUAL for 1971 (on sale in August or September of 1970) is certainly a curious item in comparison to its predecessors.  Published by ODHAMS PRESS, as were the previous three Annuals for '68, '69 & '70, it bore absolutely no relation to them in terms of strip content or style.  True, the logo remained the same, but anyone buying the book having purchased earlier ones (or even the comic, which expired in '68) would surely have wondered what was going on.

What mystifies me is that the WHAM! ANNUAL for 1971 was exactly the same as in previous years and also published by Odhams - even though its former stablemate, SMASH!, was now an IPC comic, whose Annual reflected the contents of its weekly (revamped) counterpart.  I can only suppose that, as the weekly incarnations of Wham! and Pow! no longer existed, Odhams were permitted to produce one more Annual of each, although the subsequent books for 1972, plus the combined '73 & '74 releases, were all IPC publications.

Art by Miguel Quesada

As far as I'm able to determine, the 1971 Pow! Annual contains all-new strips - at least, I've never heard or seen of any of the characters before (or since, come to that) - and therefore represents good value for money, as previous Annuals had a fair amount of reprint material, making them cheaper to produce.  It's interesting to ponder whether the weekly title would've survived with regular strips of the same characters as the Annual, but I guess if SPIDER-MAN couldn't save it, then it's unlikely that unknown British substitutes would've fared any better.

Art by Victor Ibanez

Anyway, I thought you might enjoy seeing a gallery of some pages from over 40 years ago, when children regularly thrilled to the yearly hardback versions of their favourite comics.  Will such a time ever come again?  What do you think?

******

Incidentally, the artists' names were sourced from the British Comics Database, after I had identified ROMERO by myself.  The BCD confirmed it for me though.

Art by Matias Alonso

Art by Jose Ortiz

Art by Enrique Badia Romero

Art by Eustaquio Segrelles

Art by Leopoldo Ortiz

Art by Victor Ibanez

SUPER DC TEXT STORIES - PART ONE...

Copyright relevant owner

Back in the late 1960s or very early '70s, TOP SELLERS had a nifty little monthly comic mag on sale which reprinted (in b&w) various classic superhero tales from the stable of NATIONAL PERIODICAL PUBLICATIONS Ltd., aka DC COMICS.  It also featured U.K. produced text stories, which, I believe, were reprinted (and possibly abridged) from an earlier weekly comic entitled TV TORNADO.

There were only 14 issues of Super DC, so I thought all you 'Criv-ites' might enjoy seeing the first six double-page tales from issues 1-3 (there were two tales per issue) for you to read at your leisure.  Want to see any more?  Then be sure to let me know in the comments section.

INTRODUCING: THE NEW DALEK EMPEROR - PETER RABBIT...

I've been moving stuff in one of my rooms recently, and only just noticed this completely inadvertent, unstaged comic scenario: namely, The DALEKS listening intently to the words of their Emperor - PETER RABBIT!  Let's have a caption competition.  I'll start things off with "I've just invented this sonic carrot with which we shall defeat the Doctor!  The future is orange!"

Just thought of another one:  "Okay, Daleks - to the tune of  'Old MacDonald had a Farm' - sing up at the back now..."

And another:  "Okay, I'll choose who's going for the chips - eeny-meeny-miny-mo..."

Yeah, I know - rubbish.  Okay, all you budding scriptwriters - leave your hilarious attempts in the comments section.  "Or you will be exterminated!"

BUTTONS Of Your MIND...

Back in November of 1968, LILY The PINK by The SCAFFOLD was released, becoming the number one record in Britain for four weeks over the Christmas period.  My brother bought the single, which I enjoyed, but I found myself irresistibly drawn to the haunting B side, BUTTONS Of YOUR MIND, with 'vocals' by ROGER McGOUGH, who also wrote the lyrics.

It was a romantic spoken ballad, and I remember 'singing' it to myself many years later as I saw a young lady off on her coach trip to Edinburgh, realizing the time we'd shared together was now over.  However, my main recollection with which I associate the track is sitting on the floor in front of the record player in the living-room of one of the houses I'd lived in when I was a lad.

The original record disappeared sometime around 1976 or '77, but I acquired a replacement in a second-hand music shop in Buckland (or Fratton) in Portsmouth in 1978, which I still have, over 35 years later.  However, whenever I hear it, I'm once again a ten-year-old boy, sitting on the floor of the house that I lived in over 41 years ago.  Give it a listen - I reckon you'll enjoy it.

And it goes without saying that if you have any memories associated with the single yourself (including the A side), feel free to share them with the rest of us in the comments section.

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

As most of you will know by now, The SUNDAY POST has been giving away a different, free, 32 page magazine about The BROONS for the last three Sundays. I've posted about the previous two issues, so it would be unfair to ignore the latest (and last) one. Here, therefore, are some images of the incredible KEN H. HARRISON's superb artwork from the pages of the third magazine. All images, of course, remain the copyright of D.C. THOMSON & Co., Ltd.

CLASSIC ROBINSON CRUSOE THEME...

Remember the 1965 black and white classic television series ROBINSON CRUSOE?

Then click on the link to be instantly transported back to your childhood.

THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE...

Copyright DC COMICS

I've got thousands of comics and I could never tie down my favourite to one single issue, so the following question is perhaps a little unfair.  However, of all the comics in your collection, if there were to be a fire in your house and you only had time to grab one of them before vacating the premises, which one would it be (and why)?  Oh, go on then - you can name up to three candidates, but you'd only be allowed to take one of them with you in your dash to safety.  C'mon, let's have some fun!

 PhilSee, TC, Jake and the rest - where are you?

WHAM!, POW!, & MARVEL - AN ANNUAL EVENT...

Images copyright relevant owners

Wouldn't it be great if Annuals were kept in print in the same way as most other books?  Just imagine going into a bookshop and being able to buy the latest printing of the 1958 EAGLE Annual for boys, or the 1968 FANTASTIC Annual - or any Annual you please, in fact.  I don't know if he was joking at the time (or merely being optimistic), but LEO BAXENDALE once claimed in the pages of one of his WILLIE The KID Books (second, I think) that they were going to be kept in print forever.  If this was indeed the intention, it must've been dependent on the books being a huge success, which, sadly, didn't seem to be the case as there were only three of them.  (Must've had a three-book deal, I guess, which would've been renewed at regular intervals had they been bestsellers.  It was not to be.)

One of my favourite Annuals was the MARVEL Annual for 1973, which went on sale late, in November of '72, as opposed to August or September.  I first saw it in the window of a great shop that used to be in my town - W. & R. HOLMES - and I bought it at the earliest opportunity.  It's odd that it was released later, so could it, perhaps, have been an afterthought in the minds of Marvel?  Though it's always possible that it was published at the same time as the other Annuals and held back a bit, on account of some of the stories also appearing in the early issues of its weekly counterpart - The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL.

On reflection though, it seems likely it was prepared prior to the release of the weekly as, inside, it refers to (according to DEZ SKINN in a 1979 magazine article) the comic's proposed title, The WONDERFUL World Of Marvel, which was probably changed for any one of three possible reasons.  Firstly, that it was too long; secondly, to avoid any problems with DISNEY who had a television programme of a similar name (ironic in that Disney now owns Marvel); and thirdly, that 'Mighty' just sounds better!  (It seems that there was still some indecision over the name when the cover was prepared, as the book was simply called Marvel Annual.)  Although ads in the comic showed a picture of the cover with a 1973 date on it, the actual published cover was undated.

Funnily enough, that same year ('72), another Annual was also available - WHAM! & POW! - whose weekly comics had once featured some of the very same characters as the new Marvel Annual.  Considering that the title had been Pow! & Wham! when the comics combined back in 1968, perhaps the '73 Annual (and the subsequent '74 one) was only released to redress the injustice of the superior Wham! being subsumed by its lesser stablemate, Pow!  The combined weekly had expired in 1968, and given that the contents of the later Annuals bore absolutely no resemblance to their parent comics, one wonders why they were produced at all.  (Presumably, the previous Annuals sold well.)

Curiously, the Marvel Annual bears the FLEETWAY symbol, though I'm unsure if it would've featured in any brochures of Fleetway books for '73.  Obviously it was produced at the behest of Marvel, as IPC had the means to publish and distribute Annuals, whereas, at that time, Marvel didn't.  (IPC/Fleetway also produced the '74 Annual, still bearing only the name Marvel.  "The Mighty World of" part of the title finally turned up on the cover of the 1977 edition, issued at the end of '76, though it had started appearing inside the books since the '75 Annual, on sale in '74.)

It's interesting that both the Marvel and Wham! & Pow! books had 128 pages (including covers), but that Wham! & Pow! had 30 in full-colour whereas Marvel was mostly black and white with 16 pages of spot-colour.  As both Annuals were priced at 65 pence, I can't help but feel that readers were being a little short-changed in regards to the Marvel book, which would certainly have benefitted from the inclusion of full-colour.  Marvel must have supplied brand-new proofs to IPC for the book, because I once saw some of the original ODHAMS proofs from the '60s in the IPC art vaults and they were all resized two pages-to-one, unlike the '73 Annual.

Perhaps keeping Annuals in print in perpetuity is nothing but a pipe-dream, but, with the advent of the Internet, while actual print editions might never be republished (though it's been done with the RUPERT Annuals), there's no reason at all why online versions of them couldn't be made available (at a modest price), allowing readers to print their own copies.  What do the rest of you think?  Don't be shy about having your say in the Criv-ites' comments section.