Before we get to Marvel UK there was an effort by rival publisher DC to tap into the UK market. Super DC was a black & white anthology title published monthly in Britain by Top Sellers Ltd from June 1969 to July 1970 (14 issues). It featured licensed reprints of a number of DC characters, including Superman, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Superboy and Batman. The first issue came with a choice of free gift for promotional purposes (Batman poster, wristwatch calendar, or Superman magic disc). A good tactic to try and sell 3 copies of issue #1.
Apart from some unimportant minor differences in format, DC's attempt failed for two main reasons: firstly, DC seemed wedded to the very American idea of publishing comics on a monthly schedule, without understanding that in Britain comics were published weekly; and, secondly, DC set too high a cover price -- by pricing each issue at one shilling, it was trying to sell into the British market at twice the price of any British title.
After 14 issues and an annual, the project folded.
Marvel learned from DC's mistakes, and in 1972 the title which Marvel launched successfully (Mighty World of Marvel) had two big advantages over Super DC: Marvel's title was published weekly, and it was priced at no more than any of the British titles with which it was competing.
Prior to 1972 US Marvel comics had been reprinted in the UK by a variety of licensees, including Alan Class and Odhams. These have been covered previously in this thread but a quick reminder…
In 1972 however, this reprinting was brought in-house with the formation of Marvel UK, whose first title was MightyWorldofMarvel. Complete with free gift Hulk t-shirt transfer!
Featuring mainly black-and-white art with spot colouring (except for the front and back pages which were in full colour), the weekly comic was created by slicing up storylines from the monthly American versions of Spider-Man, Hulk and Fantastic Four.
A few months later a second title, Spider-ManComicsWeekly, was launched, containing a free gift mask. Again this contained reprinted American Spider-Man material originally started in MWOM, with the adventures of Thor starting as a back-up feature. The new title allowed an entire issue of the US comic TheAmazingSpider-Man to be reprinted every week in the UK publication. Both of these initial series were huge successes and became the mainstays of the Marvel UK lineup. The Mighty World Of Marvel, in one form or another, was published continuously until 1984, while the Spider-Man weekly comic (under many different name changes) would continue until 1985.
Later on in 1973 the third title was launched, TheAvengers. This comic had glossy covers and the other two titles would follow suit, although the page counts reduced from 40 pages to 36. Free gift transfers were in the first issue.
In all these reprints the layouts were sometimes altered and the spellings changed to the English version, sometimes alternate words were interchanged if they were too confusing to British readers. An example is below…
Of course, the advertisements were British too. Who can remember the Dracula ice lolly?
Copies complete with free gifts sell for hundreds of pounds on today’s secondhand market.
Part Two, next week, sees the start of the first Marvel UK non-superhero titles.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
what is this Dracula ice lolly you speak of? did it taste of licorice? I'm not even sure I get the concept of an ice lolly, is it like what we call a popsicle?
CoolHand thanks for all info on the Marvel UK titles
I didnt even suspect these existed over here in Canada, where we just got the same comics as the Americans, I think even the same price back in the 70s (now most comics show both an American price and a Canadian price).
First I heard of Marvel UK, was an announcement in Stans SoapBox* of a brand new Marvel character called Captain Britain, only available in the Marvel UK titles. Very mysterious and frustrating, even the big specialty comic shop downtown didnt carry this! A year or two later, when my dad took me overseas to meet the step-relatives, I had to find an issue or two of this mysterious Captain Britain, as well as some of the other titles.
*Stan's SoapBox was a monthly text columns which ran in all the Marvel titles through the 70s, where Stan would hype the latest product all us True Believers needed to add to our collections
An ice lolly is an ice cream on a stick - usually flavoured ice water (like a popsicle) in a specific shape, or actual ice cream, or a mixture of both. In this case the lolly was blackcurrant ice water wrapped around a vanilla ice cream which had a strawberry jelly (blood) centre. The stick is usually wooden but later incarnations of the Dracula lolly had plastic sticks with stencil shapes cut into them so you could make pencil drawings. The lolly was produced by Wall’s, a huge ice cream company in the UK. Lyon’s Maid were their big rival.
I’m enjoying how this thread is going off kilter from time to time - advertisements from the comics will become a regular addition to the stories. Pure nostalgia 😁
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Daily Planet office boy Jimmy Olsen got his own adventure series in "Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen" which made its debut in 1954. The comic was remarkable for its inventiveness and longevity, running for an impressive 163 issues. The lead story of issue #1, "The Boy of 100 Faces" was written by Otto Binder and drawn by Curt Swan. The series was famous for Jimmy turning into a variety of superheroes or monsters. He has a super-sonic watch to call Superman for help. Over to you @caractacus potts 😁
Here is a story from issue #44 loosely based on the movie I Was A Teenage Werewolf.
The issue had another two stories, including Jimmy dressing as a woman in a very early Tootsie story - great value for money…
And finally, one of the advertisements…another comic will be highlighted next week…thanks in advance to Caractacus!
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 27,746Chief of Staff
I’d no idea about any of that with Jimmy Olsen, thanks CHB 😁
A change of pace this week as it’s a cowboy character. Jonah Hex first appeared in All-Star Western #10 (renamed Weird Western Tales from issue #12) and quickly became a popular character. Hex headlined the comic until #38 when he the got his own comic Jonah Hex which lasted a commendable 92 issues. Hex was a no-nonsense bounty hunter who lived by his own code. There were bountiful (teehee) stories around that time that Clint Eastwood was interested in playing the role on screen, it didn’t come to pass but Josh Brolin did in 2010 and typically with DC they messed it up and it failed dismally at the box office.
Excuse the lopsided artwork it really has been misprinted badly in this copy.
Continues in next post…
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Jimmy Olsen is a character who evolved over a decade from an unnamed extra into one of the lead supporting characters, abd that evolution mostly happened outside the comic book medium
first seen as unnamed office boy in Action 6, nov 1938, he already has the bowtie (Siegel and Shuster)
the overinquisitive kid hanging round the office becomes a recurring extra, and certainly fits the skillset demanded by a newspaper reporter. Lois is just the same but gets paid for it.
thrre years later in Superman 13, Dec 1941, he finally is given the name Jimmy and reveals his own ambition to become a reporter just like Lois and Clark. (he would then get the surname Olsen Superman 15 apr 1942) (art Leo Nowak. by this point Joe Shuster was responsible for producing a huge amount of Superman product and had begun hiring his own studio full of ghost artists)
... and the same irresponsible daring as Lois ...
He manages to rescue Lois ...
... and gets his very first published newsstory!
as well as the comic books, and the comic strip, Superman was also the subject of a series of animated cartoons produced by the Fleischer Brothers (highly recommended), and a radio show which ran through the 1940s. Jimmy Olsen became a more prominent character in the radio show than he was in the comics. And again in the 1950s television series. as I recall the teevee series (I havent watched it since I was a kid) Superman only appeared in costume doing Super things for a few minutes an episode, mostly it was a newsroom drama, requiring a cast of newsroom characters to deliver that big city newsroom fastpaced snappy patter we know from long established movie formula. Thus it was a good thing to have a fourth character besides Lois and Clark and editor Perry White. and by this point Jimmy was no longer a mere office boy but a teenage cub reporter.
it was his popularity from the teevee show inspired the spinoff comic rather than any great history within the comics. Really, Lois shoulda got a spinoff series first (and she would in 1958)
Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen first issue nov 1954
thinking about the early history of superhero comics this is remarkable, as almost all superhero comics had been cancelled by 1951 in favour of other genres, and for most of the next decade any attempts to revive the genre quickly failed.
but Superman was immune I guess to more than just bullets. There was already five regularly published comic books featuring either Superman or Superboy (the adventures of Superman as a boy): Superman, Action, Superboy, Adventure, and Worlds Finest. He was still DC's most popular character by far, regardless of what readers thought of other superheros, and also their signature character.
Lets zoom in on that DC logo, which appeared on every DC comic cover from 1941 to 1970, when they began introducing new variations.
DC is the name they used as a recognisable brand in their covers and house-ads. it stands for Detective Comics, the first title owners Harry Donenfeld and Jack Leibowitz were involved with. (but could also stand for Donenfeld comics if you think about it...)
National Comics was the legal name of the company, as seen on the fine print on the first page.
and the word Superman comes first! no matter what comic you bought that was published by DC/National, it was branded as a Superman comic, because that one character was so recognisable. you could trust some other comic youve never heard of was good quality, because you could trust Superman.
Things are different today. now Batman is by far their most popular character, the one recognisable brandname who singlehandedly keeps the rest of the company afloat. Batman is dark and cynical and badass just as we all are these days. and Superman is this sort of naive nostalgic character embodying values from another era, that they struggle to keep relevant in the 21st century
CoolHand probably wants me to post some more examples of the amazing transformations of Jimmy Olsen
eventually all these transformed selves get together to torment poor Jimmy
by the end of the 60s, Marvel began outselling DC for the first time, and there was no longer demand for so many Superman spinoff comics. Starting with the 164th issue in May 1974, Jimmy Olsen was retitled Superman Family, a giant sized format title which also combined the other two cancelled series Lois Lane and Supergirl. The three characters would each alternate lead spot where theyd get a new story once every third issue, and the rest of the 100 pages were filled with vintage reprints
I never read a Jonah Hex adventure before, though I know the comic has a good reputation, thanks CoolHand
so I have nothing to add to this one! (except my opinion: I like the buildup to the reveal of his face, and note he almost ends up with a kid sidekick in his first story, but he's not that kind of character)
I gotta admit my knowledge of early comics ends round the end of the Silver Age, so probably wont have much supplementary info for too many Bronze Age comics. Swamp Things an exception because I was a fan of the Alan Moore run.
even as a child I always liked the reprinted material better than the new content, I already preferred my culture safely nailed down in a museum
I enjoyed the Jonah Hex story, and I've never read any of his adventures before. Yes, I can see Eastwood (around the time of "High Plains Drifter" which has similarities) as Hex.
The content of this comic strip contains very strong language not permitted in the ongoing threads of this site. It also contains themes that some readers may find upsetting. Reader discretion is advised for those who may be easily offended. The content has been cleared for posting by the moderators.
The content of this comic strip contains very strong language not permitted in the ongoing threads of this site. It also contains themes that some readers may find upsetting. Reader discretion is advised for those who may be easily offended. The content has been cleared for posting by the moderators.
Marvel UK launched DraculaLives! on 26th October 1974, the same week as another title, PlanetoftheApes; they were Marvel UK's 4th and 5th titles. Taking a departure from the other stories thus far reprinted by Marvel UK, Dracula ventured away from Marvel's superhero titles to the new 1970s horror comics, reprinting Dracula from TombofDracula as its lead strip, with back-ups initially from Marvel Spotlight's WerewolfbyNight and Frankenstein. “Tomb”, as a comic title, was considered to be a non-starter at that time for a British kids comic. The Living Mummy, Man-Thing, Ghost Rider and Son of Satan would all join later at various points. The final issue of Dracula Lives, #87, was released on 16th June 1976; a week later it merged into Planet of the Apes, creating a somewhat bizarre combination of apes and vampires.
In March 1975, Marvel UK launched two new weekly titles, a fourth superhero weekly called umm…The Super-Heroes and Savage Sword of Conan.
Reprinting US SavageSwordofConan and Kull comics, Marvel UK's weekly SavageSwordofConan comic was launched on 8th March 1975. Poor sales saw it cancelled after 18 issues and it merged into TheAvengers a week later.
Marvel UK's fifth superhero title, debuting in 1975 (October), was The Titans, which was notable for its use of a "landscape" orientation. Although this format allowed two pages of Marvel U.S. artwork to fit onto one (magazine-sized) Marvel UK page, reader reaction was mixed, as it made the text small and often difficult to read. The Titans featured well-known characters like Captain America and Nick Fury.
The Super-Heroes lasted fifty issues before being canceled in early 1976, at which point it was merged into Spider-Man Comics Weekly (which changed its title to Super Spider-Man with the Super-Heroes). At this point, the book also changed orientation to become a landscape-format comic like The Titans. The aforementioned Titans title ran 58 issues until late 1976, when it too was canceled. Towards the end of its run, the Avengers were moved over from The Mighty World of Marvel to be The Titans' lead strip. As with The Super-Heroes, with The Titans'cancellation it was merged with the weekly Spider-Man comic (which changed its title again, to Super Spider-Man and the Titans).
Join the Marvel UK Fan Club…
Part Three next Monday…
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Comments
That was a good chapter. And again, where this story leads is unpredictable.
CONTENT ADVICE: Reader discretion is advised for those who may be easily offended.
DANGER GIRL (1998) Part Five
More tomorrow…
🤣 great fun 👏🏻👏🏻
Glad you like it Sir Miles 😁
CONTENT ADVICE: Reader discretion is advised for those who may be easily offended.
DANGER GIRL (1998) Part Six
And the next exciting chapter is next Saturday.
Never mind a bath…I think I need a cold shower 🚿👀🤣
😂🤣
MARVEL UK Part One
Before we get to Marvel UK there was an effort by rival publisher DC to tap into the UK market. Super DC was a black & white anthology title published monthly in Britain by Top Sellers Ltd from June 1969 to July 1970 (14 issues). It featured licensed reprints of a number of DC characters, including Superman, Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Superboy and Batman. The first issue came with a choice of free gift for promotional purposes (Batman poster, wristwatch calendar, or Superman magic disc). A good tactic to try and sell 3 copies of issue #1.
Apart from some unimportant minor differences in format, DC's attempt failed for two main reasons: firstly, DC seemed wedded to the very American idea of publishing comics on a monthly schedule, without understanding that in Britain comics were published weekly; and, secondly, DC set too high a cover price -- by pricing each issue at one shilling, it was trying to sell into the British market at twice the price of any British title.
After 14 issues and an annual, the project folded.
Marvel learned from DC's mistakes, and in 1972 the title which Marvel launched successfully (Mighty World of Marvel) had two big advantages over Super DC: Marvel's title was published weekly, and it was priced at no more than any of the British titles with which it was competing.
Prior to 1972 US Marvel comics had been reprinted in the UK by a variety of licensees, including Alan Class and Odhams. These have been covered previously in this thread but a quick reminder…
In 1972 however, this reprinting was brought in-house with the formation of Marvel UK, whose first title was Mighty World of Marvel. Complete with free gift Hulk t-shirt transfer!
Featuring mainly black-and-white art with spot colouring (except for the front and back pages which were in full colour), the weekly comic was created by slicing up storylines from the monthly American versions of Spider-Man, Hulk and Fantastic Four.
A few months later a second title, Spider-Man Comics Weekly, was launched, containing a free gift mask. Again this contained reprinted American Spider-Man material originally started in MWOM, with the adventures of Thor starting as a back-up feature. The new title allowed an entire issue of the US comic The Amazing Spider-Man to be reprinted every week in the UK publication. Both of these initial series were huge successes and became the mainstays of the Marvel UK lineup. The Mighty World Of Marvel, in one form or another, was published continuously until 1984, while the Spider-Man weekly comic (under many different name changes) would continue until 1985.
Later on in 1973 the third title was launched, The Avengers. This comic had glossy covers and the other two titles would follow suit, although the page counts reduced from 40 pages to 36. Free gift transfers were in the first issue.
In all these reprints the layouts were sometimes altered and the spellings changed to the English version, sometimes alternate words were interchanged if they were too confusing to British readers. An example is below…
Of course, the advertisements were British too. Who can remember the Dracula ice lolly?
Copies complete with free gifts sell for hundreds of pounds on today’s secondhand market.
Part Two, next week, sees the start of the first Marvel UK non-superhero titles.
I love this stuff. Some I remember (and that includes the 🧛♂️ Dracula ice lolly), some I don't, but I'm enjoying reading about.
Yea, that Dracula ice lolly brings back memories 😁
what is this Dracula ice lolly you speak of? did it taste of licorice? I'm not even sure I get the concept of an ice lolly, is it like what we call a popsicle?
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
CoolHand thanks for all info on the Marvel UK titles
I didnt even suspect these existed over here in Canada, where we just got the same comics as the Americans, I think even the same price back in the 70s (now most comics show both an American price and a Canadian price).
First I heard of Marvel UK, was an announcement in Stans SoapBox* of a brand new Marvel character called Captain Britain, only available in the Marvel UK titles. Very mysterious and frustrating, even the big specialty comic shop downtown didnt carry this! A year or two later, when my dad took me overseas to meet the step-relatives, I had to find an issue or two of this mysterious Captain Britain, as well as some of the other titles.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
*Stan's SoapBox was a monthly text columns which ran in all the Marvel titles through the 70s, where Stan would hype the latest product all us True Believers needed to add to our collections
An ice lolly is an ice cream on a stick - usually flavoured ice water (like a popsicle) in a specific shape, or actual ice cream, or a mixture of both. In this case the lolly was blackcurrant ice water wrapped around a vanilla ice cream which had a strawberry jelly (blood) centre. The stick is usually wooden but later incarnations of the Dracula lolly had plastic sticks with stencil shapes cut into them so you could make pencil drawings. The lolly was produced by Wall’s, a huge ice cream company in the UK. Lyon’s Maid were their big rival.
I’m enjoying how this thread is going off kilter from time to time - advertisements from the comics will become a regular addition to the stories. Pure nostalgia 😁
SUPERMAN’S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN (DC) 1954-1974
Daily Planet office boy Jimmy Olsen got his own adventure series in "Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen" which made its debut in 1954. The comic was remarkable for its inventiveness and longevity, running for an impressive 163 issues. The lead story of issue #1, "The Boy of 100 Faces" was written by Otto Binder and drawn by Curt Swan. The series was famous for Jimmy turning into a variety of superheroes or monsters. He has a super-sonic watch to call Superman for help. Over to you @caractacus potts 😁
Here is a story from issue #44 loosely based on the movie I Was A Teenage Werewolf.
The issue had another two stories, including Jimmy dressing as a woman in a very early Tootsie story - great value for money…
And finally, one of the advertisements…another comic will be highlighted next week…thanks in advance to Caractacus!
I’d no idea about any of that with Jimmy Olsen, thanks CHB 😁
I loved the line about "I've turned into a wolfman - my date is ruined" !!!!
FAMOUS FIRSTS - Jonah Hex 1st appearance.
A change of pace this week as it’s a cowboy character. Jonah Hex first appeared in All-Star Western #10 (renamed Weird Western Tales from issue #12) and quickly became a popular character. Hex headlined the comic until #38 when he the got his own comic Jonah Hex which lasted a commendable 92 issues. Hex was a no-nonsense bounty hunter who lived by his own code. There were bountiful (teehee) stories around that time that Clint Eastwood was interested in playing the role on screen, it didn’t come to pass but Josh Brolin did in 2010 and typically with DC they messed it up and it failed dismally at the box office.
Excuse the lopsided artwork it really has been misprinted badly in this copy.
Continues in next post…
And one of the advertisements…
Jimmy Olsen is a character who evolved over a decade from an unnamed extra into one of the lead supporting characters, abd that evolution mostly happened outside the comic book medium
first seen as unnamed office boy in Action 6, nov 1938, he already has the bowtie (Siegel and Shuster)
the overinquisitive kid hanging round the office becomes a recurring extra, and certainly fits the skillset demanded by a newspaper reporter. Lois is just the same but gets paid for it.
thrre years later in Superman 13, Dec 1941, he finally is given the name Jimmy and reveals his own ambition to become a reporter just like Lois and Clark. (he would then get the surname Olsen Superman 15 apr 1942) (art Leo Nowak. by this point Joe Shuster was responsible for producing a huge amount of Superman product and had begun hiring his own studio full of ghost artists)
... and the same irresponsible daring as Lois ...
He manages to rescue Lois ...
... and gets his very first published newsstory!
as well as the comic books, and the comic strip, Superman was also the subject of a series of animated cartoons produced by the Fleischer Brothers (highly recommended), and a radio show which ran through the 1940s. Jimmy Olsen became a more prominent character in the radio show than he was in the comics. And again in the 1950s television series. as I recall the teevee series (I havent watched it since I was a kid) Superman only appeared in costume doing Super things for a few minutes an episode, mostly it was a newsroom drama, requiring a cast of newsroom characters to deliver that big city newsroom fastpaced snappy patter we know from long established movie formula. Thus it was a good thing to have a fourth character besides Lois and Clark and editor Perry White. and by this point Jimmy was no longer a mere office boy but a teenage cub reporter.
it was his popularity from the teevee show inspired the spinoff comic rather than any great history within the comics. Really, Lois shoulda got a spinoff series first (and she would in 1958)
Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen first issue nov 1954
thinking about the early history of superhero comics this is remarkable, as almost all superhero comics had been cancelled by 1951 in favour of other genres, and for most of the next decade any attempts to revive the genre quickly failed.
but Superman was immune I guess to more than just bullets. There was already five regularly published comic books featuring either Superman or Superboy (the adventures of Superman as a boy): Superman, Action, Superboy, Adventure, and Worlds Finest. He was still DC's most popular character by far, regardless of what readers thought of other superheros, and also their signature character.
Lets zoom in on that DC logo, which appeared on every DC comic cover from 1941 to 1970, when they began introducing new variations.
DC is the name they used as a recognisable brand in their covers and house-ads. it stands for Detective Comics, the first title owners Harry Donenfeld and Jack Leibowitz were involved with. (but could also stand for Donenfeld comics if you think about it...)
National Comics was the legal name of the company, as seen on the fine print on the first page.
and the word Superman comes first! no matter what comic you bought that was published by DC/National, it was branded as a Superman comic, because that one character was so recognisable. you could trust some other comic youve never heard of was good quality, because you could trust Superman.
Things are different today. now Batman is by far their most popular character, the one recognisable brandname who singlehandedly keeps the rest of the company afloat. Batman is dark and cynical and badass just as we all are these days. and Superman is this sort of naive nostalgic character embodying values from another era, that they struggle to keep relevant in the 21st century
CoolHand probably wants me to post some more examples of the amazing transformations of Jimmy Olsen
eventually all these transformed selves get together to torment poor Jimmy
by the end of the 60s, Marvel began outselling DC for the first time, and there was no longer demand for so many Superman spinoff comics. Starting with the 164th issue in May 1974, Jimmy Olsen was retitled Superman Family, a giant sized format title which also combined the other two cancelled series Lois Lane and Supergirl. The three characters would each alternate lead spot where theyd get a new story once every third issue, and the rest of the 100 pages were filled with vintage reprints
I never read a Jonah Hex adventure before, though I know the comic has a good reputation, thanks CoolHand
so I have nothing to add to this one! (except my opinion: I like the buildup to the reveal of his face, and note he almost ends up with a kid sidekick in his first story, but he's not that kind of character)
I gotta admit my knowledge of early comics ends round the end of the Silver Age, so probably wont have much supplementary info for too many Bronze Age comics. Swamp Things an exception because I was a fan of the Alan Moore run.
even as a child I always liked the reprinted material better than the new content, I already preferred my culture safely nailed down in a museum
I enjoyed the Jonah Hex story, and I've never read any of his adventures before. Yes, I can see Eastwood (around the time of "High Plains Drifter" which has similarities) as Hex.
I now know more about Jimmy than I've ever done!
Thank you for the Jimmy Olsen detail, Caractacus, it was a favourite of mine and very interesting.
CONTENT NOTICE:
The content of this comic strip contains very strong language not permitted in the ongoing threads of this site. It also contains themes that some readers may find upsetting. Reader discretion is advised for those who may be easily offended. The content has been cleared for posting by the moderators.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH - Chapter Nine - Revelations - Part One
Continues tomorrow…
I'm grabbed by this. One of those stories you wish would never end.
I love how it just spirals one way then another…never going too far in one direction before bringing you back to the central theme.
CONTENT NOTICE:
The content of this comic strip contains very strong language not permitted in the ongoing threads of this site. It also contains themes that some readers may find upsetting. Reader discretion is advised for those who may be easily offended. The content has been cleared for posting by the moderators.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
THE DEPARTMENT OF TRUTH - Chapter Nine - Revelations - Part Two
The next chapter begins next Thursday.
Thanks, CHB. Currently my favourite thread.
CONTENT ADVICE: Reader discretion is advised for those who may be easily offended.
DANGER GIRL (1998) Part Seven
The ski chase continues tomorrow…
Looking forward to it 😁
CONTENT ADVICE: Reader discretion is advised for those who may be easily offended.
DANGER GIRL (1998) Part Eight
As it says…tune in next weekend.
This is enjoyable nonsense 🤣🤣🤣
And the ‘artwork’ is good too 😬
MARVEL UK Part Two
Marvel UK launched Dracula Lives! on 26th October 1974, the same week as another title, Planet of the Apes; they were Marvel UK's 4th and 5th titles. Taking a departure from the other stories thus far reprinted by Marvel UK, Dracula ventured away from Marvel's superhero titles to the new 1970s horror comics, reprinting Dracula from Tomb of Dracula as its lead strip, with back-ups initially from Marvel Spotlight's Werewolf by Night and Frankenstein. “Tomb”, as a comic title, was considered to be a non-starter at that time for a British kids comic. The Living Mummy, Man-Thing, Ghost Rider and Son of Satan would all join later at various points. The final issue of Dracula Lives, #87, was released on 16th June 1976; a week later it merged into Planet of the Apes, creating a somewhat bizarre combination of apes and vampires.
In March 1975, Marvel UK launched two new weekly titles, a fourth superhero weekly called umm…The Super-Heroes and Savage Sword of Conan.
Reprinting US Savage Sword of Conan and Kull comics, Marvel UK's weekly Savage Sword of Conan comic was launched on 8th March 1975. Poor sales saw it cancelled after 18 issues and it merged into The Avengers a week later.
Marvel UK's fifth superhero title, debuting in 1975 (October), was The Titans, which was notable for its use of a "landscape" orientation. Although this format allowed two pages of Marvel U.S. artwork to fit onto one (magazine-sized) Marvel UK page, reader reaction was mixed, as it made the text small and often difficult to read. The Titans featured well-known characters like Captain America and Nick Fury.
The Super-Heroes lasted fifty issues before being canceled in early 1976, at which point it was merged into Spider-Man Comics Weekly (which changed its title to Super Spider-Man with the Super-Heroes). At this point, the book also changed orientation to become a landscape-format comic like The Titans. The aforementioned Titans title ran 58 issues until late 1976, when it too was canceled. Towards the end of its run, the Avengers were moved over from The Mighty World of Marvel to be The Titans' lead strip. As with The Super-Heroes, with The Titans'cancellation it was merged with the weekly Spider-Man comic (which changed its title again, to Super Spider-Man and the Titans).
Join the Marvel UK Fan Club…
Part Three next Monday…