From July 1992: the first issue of the second volume of the British ALIENS comic.
The Dark Horse strips (ultimately the strips that elevated the indie from being just another publisher to being a major player with those all important Hollywood connections) had previously been published under license (or possibly not: a DH published guide to their own output claimed the British editions were unlicensed although, as I've noted before, this seems improbable to me) by Trident.
But, when DH decided to follow the Marvel model and open up a London office, the publishing rights to Aliens, Predator and The Terminator (appearing in "his" own monthly) were brought in-house and relaunched.
The DHI editions looked more classy than their predecessors and benefitted from better feature pages and design work. I seem to recall DHI also claiming that the British edition would feature exclusive strips but, in reality, I expect they just appeared in the UK ahead of a US outing.
DHI pretty much followed the template laid down by their predecessors and also ported across the Predator supporting feature. They'd already crossed over in the comics but were still more than a decade ahead of a cinematic slamdown.
DHI also published (unusually) a three-issue mini-series adapting ALIEN 3.
Other titles in the ultimately short lived DHI stable included STAR WARS, TOTAL CARNAGE and MANGA MANIA. All of which I've posted about in the past.
*** NEW UK TRANSFORMERS COMIC OUT NOW ***
ReplyDeleteI stumbled upon this on Sunday in my local Tesco and it looks very nice. Although Titan shuttered their own TF title last year, it seems that signature publishing have now filled the gap as you can see here :
http://www.allspark.com/2015/10/uk-reprint-for-idws-robots-in-disguise/
and here :
http://downthetubes.net/?p=26302
also , you can see the new thunderbirds mag here :
http://www.dcthomson.co.uk/thunderbirdsmagazine
I think I saw the TRANSFORMERS relaunch at the weekend. But I didn't give it much thought.
DeleteThe new THUNDERBIRDS launch is good. Great gift too. The original series bookazine seems to have better distribution now after a slow roll out.
The current (still, I think) STAR WARS comic comes with a free C3PO gropping hand toy. A must-have for minutes of innuendo!
I like the launch issue of the new GEEKY MONKEY magazine. It reminds me of a combo of DEATHRAY and GEEK. It also has some very high-end advertisers which is unusual for the genre press. I hope it reaches issue 2.
I realised its a while since I saw a new issue of SO FILM so I guess that has expired.
WHS are stocking HEROES magazine, even through I don't think the show has started here yet. It's clearly geared to the US market.
The original DEATH'S HEAD returns to the cover of a British Marvel comic this month thanks to his appearance in the Iron Man story running in MARVEL LEGENDS.
The new Titan FLASH comic started it's run last week, to be followed by the ARROW relaunch next week.
Phew.
phew indeed !
ReplyDeleteI've yet to see GEEKY MONKEY but SO FILM has ceased publication for sure.
Slow, I don't know if you have read the latest issue of STARBURST ( 418 ) but there was a right old ding-dong in the letters page. apparently , some dr who fan took issue with Paul Mount's critique of the show and the editor dashed off a furious riposte. Mount as you may recall used to write the tv zone column back in the 80's heyday of the mag when the letters would run to 4 or 5 pages. You may also remember an on going feud between John Brosnan and the horror writer James Herbert which ran for years in SB.
Those were the days !