This came as a pleasent surprise at the weekend… whilst rummaging through a box of assorted Dealer Dross I found this genuine obscurity from the MARVEL UK vaults: an A4 softcover album format (by Proost) edition of the seventies (copyright 1976 according to the small print… the only date I could find anywhere herein which makes dating it difficult, although the publication address is Arundel House) adaptation of the original WAR OF THE WORLDS (by Wells, of course).
There's no credits anywhere (even on the strip itself - which looks gorgeous - which I'm not sure is true of the original or whether they've been deliberately removed from this edition. A quick Google search reveals it to be Claremont, Kane and Cockrum) including this stunning cover which looks like a recreation of the original art used on MARVEL CLASSIC COMICS 14, where the material first appeared.
The back cover simply reproduces the covers of the four books in the series. There are no supplementary notes, text pages or editorial inside.
I would imagine these were published through the MARVEL BOOKS operation and intended for sale in book departments and stores rather than newsagents. I've never seen copies of any before which, I imagine, makes them amongst the rarer M-UK fare.
And it cost me a £1. Hurrah.
That Marvel Classics Comics run was an interesting attempt at trying something different - an entire novel edited into a relatively short comic-strip version but it seemed to work okay - I had a few of them. Contrast that with Peter Jackson who takes one little book (The Hobbit ) and drags it out into three interminably long movies.
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