1988: THE LOST ARCHIE COMICS ADVENTURE LINE IN COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE

From September 1988: An issue of COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE with details of a universe untravelled: Plans by ARCHIE COMICS to reboot their superhero characters for the 1980s.

They eventually settled on the name Spectrum Comics as the vehicle to retool and relaunch their heroes for the evolving Direct Sales market.  Ultimately, they decided they didn't want to take the company - or their characters - in that direction and abandoned the whole shebang, making it a fascintaing road untravelled.  The characters next appeared, now licensed to DC Comics, in the Impact line early the next decade.  Copies of most of those books can still be found in 50p boxes across the land.

1975: MARVEL MOVIE PREMIERE: THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT ADAPTATION

From 1975: Marvel's adaptation of the Nazis, submarines and dinosaurs movie THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT, starring Doug McClure.

This dumb-but-fun 1975 update of the Edgar Rice Burroughs novel (two more movie adaptations followed... all are available on disc) was shot in the UK by Amicus Productions and released by AiP.

Thanks to what seemed like frequent outings on the BBC, this was a key part of my TV viewing when I was growing up.  So I was delighted to gett he chance to see it again.  It's not great... but it is great fun.

I hadn't been aware - until I found this copy - that Marvel New York had published a magazine tie-in.  This must rank amongst their earliest movie adaptations.

1980: MARVEL UK's FRANTIC SPOOFS THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

From October 1980: MARVEL UK's FRANTIC (think: Marvel UK knocking-off CRAZY which was knocking-off MAD) spoofs THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

This is issue 8, on-sale in September 1980 with an October cover date.

I would guess this is one of the lesser-known Marvel UK STAR WARS tie-ins, even if it it is of a more unofficial nature than the regular weekly/ monthly and assorted spin-offs.  Marvel NY were unaware of its existance until I alerted them.  It remains to be seen whether this cover will appear in their upcoming omnibus (which will now - it seems - contain less than originally billed) of British STAR WARS material.

1987: NEW FORMAT ALERT: EAGLE GETS A MUCH NEEDED REBOOT

From March 1987: EAGLE gets a much needed makeover.

IPC really let their comics go in the early 1980s... the better formats enjoyed by some of the titles (notably TIGER and EAGLE) had been lost and - across the line - print and paper quality (mostly courtesy of Southern Print) had declined to not far from newsprint standards.  And IPC's standard slighty-more-square page dimensions made the artwork ill-suited for international sales and - in the case of 2000AD - recycling in the States.

Meanwhile, competitors MARVEL UK and London Editions, bolstered by their strong relationships with toy and media properties, had romped ahead with glossy paper and colour interiors.  The IPC line-up, shrinking fast, was beginning to look very tired just as the audience for all comics was declining.

The relaunch (better - but not glossy - paper, new page dimensions, the end of the hefty white page borders and better reproduction) roughly coincided with Robert Maxwell's purchase of IPC Youth Group and the creation of his new Fleetway business (reviving a pre-IPC brand that had continued to appear on the company's myriad of annuals).  The move was probably not coincidental and almost certainly part of a plan (like moving the group out of King's Reach Tower and into neighbouring IPC premises) to prepare the titles for sale.

These format changes are a handy way for collectors to limit filling their home (a problem I really have at the moment) by only collecting and retaining select, format-dictated, sub-runs rather than every copy of long-runners.  

1985: STREET HAWK LOOK-IN STRIP

From June 1985: A random instalment of the STREET HAWK strip from the pages of LOOK-IN weekly.  I always think of this shortlived series as the greatest Glen Larson show that Glen Larson had nothing to do with.

The series, part of the super-machine Star Age sub-genre, had a peaktime slot on ITV and probably had a higher profile here than it did back in the States.  It is now available on DVD and even comes with a new documentary.

1982: E.T THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL STICKER ALBUM

From 1982: Another piece of playground crack: the E.T THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL STICKER ALBUM.  

Some albums get traction some don't. This one did.  Pictures of the E.Tster were in the highest demand and commanded a swaps premium in the playground.  

I think, like many of the albums, this one was a freebie with one of the weeklies.  I have a hunch it was a copy of LOOK-IN but I can't recall for sure.  Book and stickers were also available to buy in the usual fashion.  This copy, which I picked up for a quid, is empty.  Sadly.

Great film as well.  

Here's a question to ponder as well... What was the first sticker album to be given away with a comic?  And which comic?  It was probably a football one.  But within our genre I think it might have been something like the MUPPETS ALBUM (although I'm not sure it was stickers or cards) that came free with a copy of LOOK-IN.  Or the Marvel-published INCREDIBLE HULK album with the first issue of HULK WEEKLY... albeit again cards rather than stickers...

1988: THE BEST OF EAGLE MONTHLY ISSUE 3

From July 1988: THE BEST OF EAGLE issue 3, starring Manix.

BoE was one of a bunch of BEST OF... monthlies published by IPC around this time.  The benefits were obvious: quick to paginate, no origination costs, no back-end payments to the creators.  In short: a very profitable way of making the IPC archives work harder to offset falling sales in the core comics business.

Some of these titles did very well.  THE BEST OF 2000AD MONTHLY ran for a decade AND spun-off a JUDGE DREDD solo version and a few specials as well.  This one, on the other hand, shuttered after a mere six issues.  Despite being a spin-off from IPC's most successful new launch of the decade.  Very strange.

Maybe the strips were too recent.  Maybe EAGLE's readership had no interest in revisiting the past.  Maybe IPC couldn't secure decent distribution.  Or maybe they realised that they would need to run more and more reprints in the core title in the years ahead... so didn't want to run them all in a spin-off.

It's not to be confused with the dying days of the main EAGLE comic.  It switched to a monthly frequency and - with a few exceptions - became a mostly reprint title as the sales dropped through the floor.

These six issues are now pretty hard to find.  They are worth picking up if you do.

ADIOS ELDORADO VHS TAPE

From the VHS shelf: another long-lost tape that never made it into the age of the shiney disc: ADIOS ELDORADO.

You have to admire the bravado of BBC ENTERPRISES for getting this tape into shops just as BBC ONE cancelled the show.  A neat commercial move to capitalise around press coverage of the show's premature (in my opinion) closure.  Especially as the ratings had been on an upward curve for the previous few months.  Maybe the BBC would have had a moderate hit on their hands (and spread the cost of their investment a little further) if they had held on for another twelve months before deciding whether to pull the plug.  Instead, as is often the case, it fell victim to management changes when Alan ('Kids Company') Yentob took over the BBC ONE hotseat.

I can't say that I was a regular viewer (three times a week is a lot of watching... and I'm not much of a soap viewer anyway) but i was there for the start and I was there for the end.  And I dipped in and out inbetween.  There was a lot wrong with it, from writing through casting through to strained production standards but there were the seeds of a good show.  It just needed time to sort things out... and the problem with making ninety minutes of TV a week, 52 weeks of the year, is that there is never time to stop and marshall your forces.  Especially if you need to get more episodes in the can to allow everyone to have a bit of a Christmas break.

1982: BATTLE RELAUNCH ISSUE

From 1982: You've seen the previous week's preview... now here's the first relaunched, now-an-adventure-comic issue of BATTLE.

None of the three new strips fit the existing BATTLE formula and it's obvious that IPC had realised the finite appeal of the all-war format of old.  The three newcomers all feel like they could all have been lifted from a particularly exciting night's viewing on ITV... although the martial arts might have made the IBA a little nervous.

Maybe the management were already thinking about a future without BATTLE and were introducing adventure strips that were better suited to being shifted into another title... possibly the new EAGLE, launching around this time.

By the following year, the rumours of an impending closure had grown louder and were now being reported in the fanzines... but then ACTION FORCE entered the circulation warzone and - much to the grumblings of the old guard - took over half the page count.  Were they really any worse than Truck Turpin?  IPC and Palitoy formed an alliance because the publisher needed the business and the toy company needed a comics partner after their early plans, announced to the toy trade, to launch a new weekly with MARVEL UK somehow collapsed.

1982: TALES OF THE GOLD MONKEY STORYBOOK

From 1982: A fairly rare (at least in the UK) piece of TALES OF THE GOLD MONKEY merchandise: The storybook adaptation of the feature-length pilot episode.

I really liked this show back when it aired on BBC ONE and I still think it is one of the better shows to emerge out of the Universal Action Factory of the 1980s.  A great premise (not really just an Indiana Jones knock-off... although the network was trying to push it in that direction), good cast and characters and - of course - the Goose.  Plus one of the all-time great theme tunes.

Despite the exotic locale, only this pilot episode included any principle photography shot somewhere tropical: Hawaii.  The rest of the series used the Universal backlot, carefully disguised with clever camera angles.  Occasional off-lot filming took the cast to locations like the Queen Mary.  

The really surprising thing is that the show latest only a single season before it was axed.  It had the look and feel of a long-runner. It aired on primetime BBC ONE here which - I think - always magnifies our perceptions of success because an imported show always seemed like a much bigger deal.  Look at the UK vs. US success of the POTA weekly series a decade earlier.  Or the relative high profiles of MANIMAL, AUTOMAN and STREETHAWK over here.  Although no-one other than me seems to remember the weekly series version of FREEBIE AND THE BEAN.  Sigh.

Merchandise related to the show is limited.  There is an excellent UK DVD release which is well worth getting and finally allowed me to dump my long-held bootleg copies.  It's worth getting not least for the very good new documentary, although the relationship between Stephen Collins and Faye ('V') Grant has - ahem - taken a turn for the worse since it was made.  Revelations about Collins may also mean this show is even less likely to get any TV exposure in future.

There was also supposed to be a UK annual but - to be honest - I have never seena copy 'in the wild' so i can't be 100% sure it was ever published.  But I will keep looking.  UK comics rights went to TV COMIC, which is always hard to find.