The TITANS COVER GALLERY - PART FIVE...

Images copyright MARVEL COMICS

So, what can I say about The TITANS that I haven't already said or that you don't already know?  Nothing, actually, apart from the fact that I'm surprised, looking back, to note that it lasted for just over a year.  In keeping with quite a few other titles of their time (like FANTASTIC, TERRIFIC, SUPER DC, The CRUNCH, etc.), it seems, in memory, to have been a much more significant feature of my life and around for far longer than it actually was.  Strange, eh?

However, we're not here to ponder that particular paradox (though you can if you want to), but to go on a whistle-stop tour of nine issues of what was supposed to be MARVEL's flagship title in their fleet of British weeklies back in the 1970s.  Like I said in an earlier post, I feel that, had just a little more care and attention been lavished on The Titans (and that goes for some of the other comics too), then it may well have lasted for longer than the 58 issues it managed to hang on for.

But that's enough pontificating from me, you'll be glad to hear.  Now it's time to lose yourself in the pretty pictures that follow.  Don't hog them all to yourself now - leave a space and let other Criv-ites cop a gander as well. 

Oh dear, the layout and perspective of this page is all wrong

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!