From 1985: a June free gift boom courtesy of the IPC weeklies...
The humor (BUSTER and WHIZZER AND CHIPS) and boys 'adventure' weeklies (EAGLE AND TIGER and ROY OF THE ROVERS) served up, courtesy of a hook-up with stodgy breakfast biscuit provider (now, apparently, making inroads into China if the SUNDAY TIMES is to be believed) WEETABIX for cover-mounted promo badges featuring the briefly ubiquitous marketing creations (stars of TV ads, the improbable Weetabix Club and on-packaging appearances). The badges were, probably, randomly distributed across the four titles.
Odd-man-out was BATTLE ACTION FORCE who were fully engaged in the battle against global terror with a free, no-doubt Palitoy bankrolled, ACTION FORCE poster.
Still on the subject of SFX, I only realised yesterday that they had printed my tribute to Christopher Lee. hurrah ! Its an edited version but still most gratifying.
ReplyDeleteHere is the original full letter :
If I had to choose one moment from Sir Christopher Lee's long screen career, it would be his first appearance as Saruman in THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING ( 2001 ) . We hear the voice first before we see him. THAT voice which graced a thousand genre movies , sonorous, deep and sepulchral, tinged with the vaguest hint of contempt. Here was Lee, already an avowed Tolkien fan playing his dream role and with all of that movie history behind him, walking down the steps of Orthanc to greet his ' old friend ' Gandalf. No wonder Ian Mckellen seems to be in awe, Lee commanded respect in whatever role he played. An extraordinary scene then in which the barriers between the man , the actor and the character fell away to give us one of the great moments in fantasy cinema.
Yay. Nicely done. Congratulations for getting into print. Your place in history is secured!
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