From December 1986: Readers of MARVEL UK's SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS and TRANSFORMERS (of course) weeklies had a chance to win one of twenty (very generous!) movie posters (not to be confused with M-UK's own TRANSFORMERS POSTER MAGAZINE which used the same advertising key art) as part of efforts to drum up business for the UK theatrical release of TRANSFORMERS THE MOVIE.
I saw the movie (and liked it!) at the cinema (in made in to Chelmsford!) and really enjoyed it. I also had the soundtrack album (on tape!), the poster mag (long since lost me thinks) and the three-part US limited series. More recently I saw the film again on the big screen when it was shown again in London... and still thought it was pretty darn good. Better than the live-action efforts anyway...
the pick of this weeks releases must be the IDW hardback volume of spidey newspaper strips from the late 70s.
ReplyDeletethe other stand out is HOUSE OF HEM, a collection of marvel strips from the satirical artist, fred hembeck. The first story is FANTASTIC FOUR ROAST, the fold out cover of which was also used for FANTASTIC FOUR WINTER SPECIAL 1983 . This was previously covered here:
http://starlogged.blogspot.ie/2012/04/fantastic-four-at-marvel-uk.html
Although its not included, hembeck also drew a special spoof issue of SPIDERMAN which again made for a memorable cover of SPIDERMAN UK WEEKLY . You can see it here:
http://www.comicvine.com/spider-man-581/4000-327835/
Hi there
DeleteMarvel are sure making the most of those SPIDER-MAN newspaper strips. It doesn't seem that long ago that I bought their overpriced softcover edition (which, I suspect, ran the same material as the earlier Panini trade paperback) and now they are at it again. It would have been nice if they had chucked-in THE HULK, HOWARD THE DUCK and even CONAN (although I don't think it was ever technically a Marvel strip... and they don't have the rights now anyway) newspaper outings just to sweeten the deal.
Talking of newspaper strips... it must be about time for the STAR WARS strips to be issues again. It's got to be twenty-odd years since they were reworked for the Dark Horse CLASSIC STAR WARS run.
I was surprised to see HOUSE OF HEM as a comic book rather than a fleece-the-fans trade paperback but I like the format and I appreciate that marvel are using it to unearth - ahem - lesser material (NIGHT NURSE!).
I was disappointed that it didn't include more material (maybe, if it sold, a second volume with follow) because Hembeck did oodles for Marvel. Just the MARVEL AGE stuff from the magazine and annuals could, no doubt, fill a volume. Somewhere at home I have a phone book sized volume that reprints his fanzine work.