PART TWO OF STRANGE TALES COVER GALLERY...

All images copyright MARVEL COMICS

And now, a leap back to the 1960s, to take a look at an earlier, more innocent age, when comicbooks sold in far greater numbers than they do today.  On the whole, I think I preferred these more basic tales, which one could read in 20 minutes without getting bogged down in a multi-part serial consisting of talking heads - where nothing very much happens in a story you can't fully understand until you've read the collected edition many months down the line.

That's the difference between these comics and today's crop:  All the writers and artists wanted to do back then was entertain the readers for a short while.  Today's current creators seem far more interested in demonstrating how clever they are, and using comics as a showcase for how suited they'd be working in more 'mature' mediums, like movies or TV. With a few exceptions (like FRANK MILLER's DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN, for example), give me the 'cheap and cheerful' comicbooks of the '60s and '70s any day.

With that in mind, let's now enjoy these STRANGE TALES covers together, as we return once again to yesteryear.  Anyone else miss these simpler types of comics as much as I do?

BABE OF THE DAY - KIM KARDASHIAN...

Frankly, the only thing I know

about her is she's got an @rse you

could sit a dinner tray on, but ain't she

a babe!  Let's all now kneel in awe and

adoration of the amazing beauty of

 KIM  KARDASHIAN - yeah.

FIVE FANTASTIC FUN-FILLED FRANKIE STEINS...

From WHAM! #52, June 12th 1965.  Copyright REBELLION

Oh, your luck's in, Criv-ites!  Here are five - count 'em, five - panting pages of KEN REID's barmy strip, FRANKIE STEIN, from one of Britain's finest comics of the '60s - WHAM!  Who else gives you such value for money ('specially as you don't pay any) in this day and age?  I'm unsure if I've posted any of these classics already ('cos I'm too lazy to check), but it doesn't much matter as they're always worth another look regardless of whether you've seen them before.  Surely that's a sentiment with which you'd all agree?

So don't hang about - fling yourselves right into these masterpieces, from a time when comics were funny and well-drawn - not something that can be claimed for many of the mediocre 'magazines' of today!

  

From WHAM! #53, June 19th 1965

From WHAM! #54, June 26th 1965

From WHAM! #55, July 3rd 1965

From WHAM! #56, July 10th 1965

And below is the cover of a super book that you may be able to track down on eBay.  It contains every strip that Ken Reid drew for Wham! - including JASPER The GRASPER.  That reminds me - I once created a character-name clearly inspired by Jasper, called THATCHER The SNATCHER.  This was a few years before anyone had heard of a certain Prime Minister with the same surname.

  

BABE OF THE DAY - VICTORIA VETRI...

I'm sure you're uninterested in anything

I have to say when you have VICTORIA

VETRI to slaver over - so take it away.

PART FOUR OF THE TITANS COVER GALLERY...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Contain your excitement, frantic ones, as we delve once again into yet another 10 covers of The TITANS, British MARVEL's landscape weekly periodical from the sizzlin' '70s.  As you'll already know ('cos I told you before), The Titans only lasted for 58 issues, so there are only another 18 to go, which I'll post in two sets of 9.

As you can see, the splash pages for the FANTASTIC FOUR tales were redrawn to fit the page format, with varying degrees of success.  Some are better than others, so it's safe to assume that a different hand was responsible for the not so good ones.  Not that they're particularly bad per se, but they don't quite capture the style of the KIRBY/SINNOTT pages they're based on.

Okay, no point holding you back from what you came here to see, so dive right in, folks.  The water's lovely!

PART FOUR OF THE CRUNCH COVER GALLERY...

Images copyright D.C. THOMSON & Co, Ltd

I've pretty much said everything that can be said about The CRUNCH in the previous instalments, so let's just skip the boring preamble from me and jump straight to the front and back covers of issue #s 13-15.  However, if you have an observation or reminiscence about this weekly comic from the late 1970s to the early '80s that you'd like to share with the rest of us, then go for it, pilgrim.

(BOND) BABE OF THE DAY - IZABELLA SCORUPCO...

IZABELLA SCORUPCO, from

JAMES BOND film GOLDENEYE, is

more than worthy to be a 'Babe of the Day',

don'tcha think, Crivvies?  Utterly stunning,

she's what you'd call a 'sassy lassie with

a classy chassis', sure enough.

PART TWO OF THE COMPLETE FABULOUS FANTASTIC FOUR POCKET BOOK COVER GALLERY...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

Here it is - the second part of the FANTASTIC FOUR Pocket Book cover gallery, designed to give all you cavortin' and crazy Criv-ites the panting pleasure of perusing these pulse-pounding covers.  Note that the cover of #28 is almost the same as that of #1, which was shown in Part One of this double bill, except for the background colour and SUE & JOHNNY STORM.  Are you all ready?  Okay, then let's go!