1980: DOCTOR WHO WEEKLY ISSUE 44 (Marvel UK)

It's the issue of DOCTOR WHO WEEKLY that never was.

By the summer of 1980, MARVEL UK's new launch was struggling.  It's creator, Dez Skinn, had departed the Annex of Ideas 'by mutual consent', depriving it of its principle champion.

A relaunch chasing younger readers had proven a misfire, sales were down because of the long break between TV seasons and the high costs of origination and licensing hard for a reprint-operation geared to exploiting its own royalty-free strips to stomach.

The writing was on-the-Tardis-door when Marvel management, in a last gasp to keep things afloat, cut the frequency to monthly.  That instantly made each issue more profitable, kept copies on sale much longer and approximately halved the amount of new material required each month.

A cut in frequency is usually a sure sign of approaching armageddon with a succession of titles having their frequency snipped just before being cancelled.

M-UK pulled the same trick with THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK a few months later (the first monthly issue was cover-dated November 1980) although that decision may have been motivated by the reliable supply of new material shipped from the States rather than a calamitous circulation collapse so soon after the release of the second movie.  It's replacement on the weekly schedule, FUTURE TENSE, barely lasted six months before being relaunched as monthly.  It was cancelled six issues later.

More recently (but, scarily, not recent at all), OVERKILL was cut to a monthly schedule in late 1993 (issue 43), only to succumb to the fallout of the GENESIS IMPLOSION less than a year later.

Over at IPC/ Fleetway, the EAGLE soldiered on as a mostly-reprint monthly (effectively replacing the defunct BEST OF EAGLE MONTHLY which failed to set any sales records) as last-man-standing (outside the 2000AD) in the Boys Adventure portfolio.

This cover appeared in the 1989 10th anniversary special (see previous post) and I assume it's authentic rather than some novelty after-the-event flight of fancy by Marvel's design boffins.  If it is the real deal, it's probably a good indication of how late in the day the decision was made to relaunch.  Or, how far ahead, the covers had to be designed.

And, maybe it's just me, but its crazy combination of eye-catching covers seem prescient of Colin Baker's costume.

1989: DOCTOR WHO SPECIALS COVER GALLERY - PART FIFTEEN (Marvel UK)

The 1989 DOCTOR WHO SUMMER SPECIAL was another excuse for a celebration: 10 years of MARVEL UK's DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE, nee Monthly and Weekly.  Although, the bulk of the articles were tenuously connected at best.

It was another square bound, album-format edition with an overview of the title's history, interviews with Nicolas Courtney, Colin Baker and behind-the-scenes bod Tim Coombe, Black Orchid in the Archive, a 'creature feature' on the spud-headed Sontarans, a piece on K-9 and a great redesign for the Daleks by their original BBC in-house mastermind Raymond Cusick.

The issue also featured a portfolio of artwork from past contributors to the comic strip and the cover for the unpublished 44th issue of DWW.  I'll post those separately.

- To Be Continued - 

MARVEL UK HANDBOOK: GUN RUNNER

THE ROAD TO THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR:
THE MARVEL UK HANDBOOK

A dose of early nineties big gun silliness today: GUN RUNNER from MARVEL UK's GENESIS 92 sub-universe of books.

His book debuted towards the end of the Genesis Explosion, cover-dated October 1993 and shuttered six issues later (cover-dated March 1994) as one of the final casualties of the Implosion.

1992: WRAPPED IN PLASTIC MAGAZINE issue 1 (Win-Mill)

It's amazing what you can find out by reading THE METRO on the way to work.

Browsing London's free morning paper today I discovered that this very weekend Hammersmith's Riverside Studios (not a million miles from my abode) is hosting the annual TWIN PEAKS UK FESTIVAL.  Who would have known such a thing even existed? Not me!

It's sold out so obviously everyone else knew.

But, it's given me the ideal excuse to run this cover… the first issue (first printing!) of WRAPPED IN PLASTIC, the TWIN PEAKS fanzine that ultimately clocked-up a highly creditable (nigh on amazing) run of 75 issues between October 1992 and September 2005.

Not bad for a TV show that briefly burned brightly, withered quickly and only lasted 1.5 seasons (the first is short, the second was a full run).

I used to buy this magazine religiously but eventually drifted away (or it got hard to find) somewhere towards the end.

It launched as a TP zine but quickly broadened its horizons to cover the entire David Lynch catalogue, other shows in a similar vein (EERIE INDIANA, PICKET FENCES) and other projects from the show's cast and crew.

It was WiP that first spotted the potential of THE X-FILES and championed it before the rest of the world's media even seemed to notice it existed.

WiP in turn spun off SPECTRUM which had a broader remit and devoted the same in-depth coverage and analysis to LOIS AND CLARK, BUFFY, ANGEL, ALIAS, SMALLVILLE, XENA, ROSWELL, KUNG FU: THE LEGEND CONTINUES, M.A.N.T.I.S, HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREETS and other contemporary shows of similar quality and integrity.  Heck, they even printed a couple of emails from me!

This first issue was pretty hard to find at the time (and I don't think I ever saw copies of the second and third issues on sale in the UK) and sold-out fast.  A second printing had a colour illustration of Laura.

Wrapped in Plastic, of course, referred to how Laura's body was discovered in the TP pilot.  I'm struggling to recall now but I have a vague idea that this first issue did indeed come bagged.

1983: RETURN OF THE JEDI LAUNCH AD (Marvel UK)

This is an interesting MARVEL UK House Ad, from 1 June 1983, plugging the about-to-launch RETURN OF THE JEDI weekly.

Interesting… why?

Because it implies that the original plan was to continue the ongoing numbering from the final issue of the STAR WARS MONTHLY which, despite four title changes (STAR WARS WEEKLY, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK WEEKLY, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK MONTHLY and STAR WARS MONTHLY) and a frequency change (from weekly to monthly) dated back to the launch of the British comic in February 1978.

ROTJ eventually appeared with a brand new first issue… and clocked-up 155 more issues before succumbing to saga apathy (and Marvel NY abandoning the license) three years later.

It's an odd selection of art (from the official adaptation) as well.  Darth's definitely the iconic image but waggling his finger at a lackey is hardly the most dramatic moment in the movie.  Maybe all the good stuff was embargoed!

1983: MARVEL UK COLOUR PRINTING PROBLEMS

As I posted previously, MARVEL UK's first forays into colour printing (since the original CAPTAIN BRITAIN anyway) were a bit of a disaster.  The first issue, THE MIGHTY THOR 1, wasn't bad but - a week later - the quality control nosedived and subsequent issues, and the early issues of THE X-MEN and THE MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL monthly, were rendered all but unreadable by the debacle.

Here are three clippings, all from THOR, where the British Bullpen apologised, explained and - eventually - 'fixed' the problem by - errr - drastically cutting the colour pagination each issue (down to only 12 pages).

They only really cracked it in 1985 when they introduced the full-colour, glossy 24-page format with THE GET ALONG GANG 1.

It's worth noting that M-UK were still light years ahead of the competition who were still churning out the cheapest possible comics on antiquated presses.

15 June 1983

29 June 1983

20 July 1983

1983: THE MIGHTY THOR JUNE COVER GALLERY (Marvel UK)

I'm not sure how I managed it but I seem to have neglected to post any THE MIGHTY THOR covers for a while, sorry about that!

Here's a Cover Gallery from June 1983, covering (ahem) issues 7-11 of the MARVEL UK weekly.

The 11th issue is interesting as it added Captain America to the line-up.  That's a reversal of the last months of Cap's own weekly which featured the Thunder God as the supporting feature and - judging by the number of times he hogged the cover - was being tested to see if he could support his own book.

- To Be Continued - 

1980: THE BLACK HOLE and STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE MEGO TOYS

It's the battle of the STAR WARS wannabes.

This is an ad, published in US comics dated April 1980, plugging the action figure lines from the two Christmas 1979 would-be SF blockbusters THE BLACK HOLE and STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE.

Both lines, scaled to Kenner's Star Wars figures, came from MEGO in their unsuccessful attempt to make amends for not snapping-up the Lucas license (they also took a punt on BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th CENTURY and - err - THE DUKES OF HAZZARD) but neither line proved very successful.

According to the Mego multi-part history published in Tomart's toy magazine, The Black Hole license proved a major stinker for the company (which is a shame as the figures were really rather nicely made) but they recouped some of the dollars they'd lost by striking a deal with Disney over the TRON name, trademarked by the toy maker through the MICRONAUTS line.

The HEROES WORLD name would loom large in the future history of US comics.  That was the retailer Marvel rashly snapped-up in December 1994 (the company was originally spun-off from Marvel's own mail order business in the mid-seventies) with grandiose plans of upgrading the local retailer and distributor into Marvel's exclusive in-house distribution business.

That sparked the dash-for-exclusivity that saw other publishers rush to sign their own deals.  The fallout left Diamond Distributors, alongside Heroes World, as last-man-standing.  HW proved a stinker and was eventually closed in 1997 as Marvel struggled with bankruptcy.  With no other options available, Marvel were forced to go cap-in-hand back to Diamond.  Whoops.

1988: DOCTOR WHO SPECIALS COVER GALLERY - PART FOURTEEN (Marvel UK)

Happy 25th DOCTOR WHO!

MARVEL UK diligently celebrated WHO's 25th anniversary, even as the BBC were doing their best to knife it, with another square bound album-format special edition.

The contents included brief overviews of the Docs-to-date, a skim through books, comics and merchandise, pieces on effects and horror and a new (uncredited?) text story (cheaper than a comic strip!).

- To Be Continued - 

1985: GET ALONG GANG ISSUE 1 (Marvel UK)

This is a Blast-from-the-MARVEL UK-past which, at first glance, probably wouldn't be deemed worthy of interest to many fans.

But. It is. Honest.

The first issue of the GET ALONG GANG weekly was the first M-UK comic to introduce the 24-page, full-colour glossy format that became the standard for the weeklies and fortnightlies over the next few years.

Marvel had been experimenting with colour interiors, with varying degrees of success, since the painful launch of THOR and X-MEN in 1983 but all their previous attempts all relied on a mix of colour and black & white pages, occasionally recreating the sensation of watching a TV about to die.

GAG (hmm!) was the first to crack all-colour interiors on a regular basis (THE TRANSFORMERS issue 1 was full-colour… but that was a one-off lure that didn't last).

The Robots in Disguise switched from issue 27 (cover-dated 21 September 1985), followed by RETURN OF THE JEDI (26 October 1985) and SECRET WARS from issue 19 (9 November).  SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS adopted it from launch (8 March 1986), as did ACTION FORCE (7 March 1987), THUNDERCATS (21 March 1987) and THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS (26 March 1988).

New additions to the range for younger readers, including THE CARE BEARS, MUPPET BABIES and ACORN GREEN all followed the same formula.

The comic itself was based on the US syndicated animated show which, as was the eighties way, expanded out to encompass all possible licensing opportunities.  The gist of the cartoon was that friendship and co-operation (some would say conformity) was the key to a better world, all delivered in a heavy-handed kid-friendly pro-social way.

The show itself formed part of TV-am's weekend line-up, the theme tune ("Get up with the Get Along Gang") being an absolute gift to the breakfast broadcaster (who was seldom averse to running merchandising-flogging animation unless chastised by the IBA).  For what it is, it isn't bad but it seems to have escaped the DVD era entirely.

Marvel US picked-up the GAG license and published a mere six issues under the just-created Star Comics brand.  Those six outings crossed the Atlantic and appeared in the UK edition but, with such poor pickings, the bulk of the British editions contained new strips from British creators.  The first back-up strip was Top Dog, also from the Star line.

The British edition ran for a highly creditable 93 issues through to early 1987 and also spun-off Collected Comics specials (from Winter 1985), annuals and other sundries.