Tuesday 7 July 2015

1979: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA MARVEL SUPER SPECIAL UK HOUSE AD (Marvel UK)


From April 1979: a rare MARVEL UK House Ad (from an issue of STARBURST) for imported copies of the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA edition of MARVEL SUPER SPECIAL.  

Dez Skinn wasn't exactly won over by the good ship Galactica so his Annex of Ideas didn't go all-out to flog the Marvel tie-in in the UK.  His enthusiasm may have been further dampened by the rival strip that was running at this time (thanks to a quirk in the licensing deal... facilitated by ITV's early purchase of the broadcast rights... which they then sat on for over a year) in LOOK-IN.  

Marvel UK never bothered with a British edition of the movie adaptation (they didn't have the rights to publish annuals based on the show, depriving them of another possible outlet) and relied on imported copies of the US editions (magazine, treasury and paperback) to meet demand.  April '79 roughly coincides with the UK theatrical release of the faux feature film pilot.  

The strips made their official UK debut in STAR HEROES WINTER SPECIAL towards the end of the year but the test-the-waters one-shot skipped straight onto rerunning the 4th and 5th issues of the US run, skipping the extended (and fixed) rerun of the pilot in the first three issues.  That version didn't see a UK edition for decades: Titan eventually collected it in the first of two trade paperback compilations of the Marvel material that they released (and then quickly remaindered) to coincide with the new series and the launch of their magazine spin-off.  

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