1977: STAR WARS IN VECTOR (BRITISH SCIENCE FICTION ASSOCIATION)

From August 1977: Some very early heavyweight STAR WARS coverage in VECTOR ("The critical journal of Science Fiction") published by The British Science Fiction Association. 

It's worth remembering that STAR WARS didn't get its' London premiere until Christmas 1977 and didn't go on nationwide release until the following year (which is why Marvel and other merchandisers waited until then to launch their official, and unofficial, tie-ins). So this is very early coverage for a UK publication. 

The BSFA was established in 1958 and is still going strong today. 

I've never been a member, I found this issue in a dealer box recently and it was too good to pass up. 

1987: JAMES BOND ROLE PLAYING GAME ADVERT

From September 1987: Remember the JAMES BOND ROLEPLAYING GAME? Nope, me neither. But it was a thing, at least in the States.

This is a full-page ad, from STARLOG MAGAZINE, for the game and some of the supplements. This was clearly quite a substantial line at the time based on the number of different adventures and soucebooks available. 

No word on whether prolonged exposure crested a generation of geeky, Martini addicted, promiscous, killing machines. 

They were published by an outfit called Victory Games, Starlog just handled the mail order side. 

1985: THE MOVIE SCENE MAGAZINE ISSUE 1

From 1985: Another entry from the random scans department... the launch issue of the more highbrow British cinema mag THE MOVIE SCENE.

I found this recently and picked it up because it was a title that I had no previous knowledge of. It looks like it ran for nine issues between February 1985 and the following January. It started with a monthly frequency but seems to have paused for several months between the sixth and seventh issues.

1995: THE G.I JOE REVIVAL IN DARK HORSE INSIDER

From December 1995: The final issue (in this format) of DARK HORSE INSIDER (48) trumpets the impending (and ill-fated) return of G.I JOE to Comicdom. 

This week saw the return of the MICRONAUTS to print (although it doesn't seem that long ago since the last revival... although time flies) so I thought it would be fun to revisit another, earlier, revival of a classic toy brand. 

The Joes had run out of steam in the early 1990s with sales of the toy line (forced to create ever more preposterous sub-sets to hold the attention of fickle young consumers) and the Marvel comic book way off their highs of the previous decade. 

This was a total reboot that was intended to reboot the franchise for a new audience. But it got lost in the mid-Nineties clutter and never secured the traction it needed. The 1980s "Real American Heroes" characters and continuity returned in late 2001 (days after the 9-11 attacks... giving the whole premise new resonance) and captured the Geek Culture zeitgeist in a way this never did. 

I skipped the four-issue run at the time (I probably would have dabbled if it had been a reboot of the Eighties version rather than a total restart) but I'm pretty sure I've acquired it more recently. I've never read it. Maybe it would have faired a bit better of the pre-launch publicity had used more than one partially obscured image.

Interestingly, ACTION MAN (the British version of the original Joe toy) is poised to make his US comics debut. We really do live in a smaller world now. 

Dark Horse Insider was a holdover from the boom years of 1992-93 when publishers had massive marketing budgets and needed to work hard to get their products to stand out in an oversatuated market. Most of the majors churned out their own (often black & white) plugathons. DHI continued as a cheaper one-sheet poster style fold-out before being abandoned altogether. 

1996: COMICS INTERVIEW SUPER SPECIAL: THE X-FILES

From 1996: a squarebound special edition of COMICS INTERVIEW magazine with coverage of THE X-FILES.

The uninspiring coverage of the show focuses on the Topps comic book, merchandising and an episode guide. So, for the most part, no different to every other genre magazine of the time trying to boost circulation figures with some opportunistic coverage of all-things-X. Plus CI had the traditional disadvantage of black & white interiors which limited the potential for pages upon pages of Gillian Anderson (and an enigmatic filling cabinet) studio publicity shots. 

The one-shot  was a flip book with the reverse cover (and greater proportion of the page count) dedicated to the very 1990s trend in impossibly proportioned "bad girl" comics. 

This isn't a particularly fine example of the run but the COMICS INTERVIEW SPECIALS are generally worth grabbing it you stumble across them as they are good collections of themed material (and sometimes new interviews) from the main mag. 

1987: STARBURST WINTER SPECIAL/ SPECIAL #1 (VISUAL IMAGINATION)

From the Winter of 1987: the first ever (annuals and occasional poster mags not withstanding) special spun off from STARBURST MAGAZINE.

Marvel UK never quite "got" Starburst when they owned the title... their attempts at brand extension were limited and uncoordinated and they didn't seem to do much to leverage the parent company's distribution to make it a serious rival to STARLOG in the States. It just sat awkwardly alongside their move into licensed kids titles and offered little in the way of synergy. 

When Marvel offloaded the title to Visual Imagination the new owners used it as a launch pad for various other even more niche ongoing titles like TV ZONE and SHIVERS. And those in turn launched subsidiary magazines like CULT TIMES. And their acquisition of long-runner FILM REVIEW begat more opportunities. 

This WINTER SPECIAL was the first of 85 (!) specials published on a quarterly basis. The release pattern formed the template for similar schedules for spin-offs from TV ZONE, XPOSE, CULT TIMES and FILM REVIEW.  The spin-off, along with the monthly, ground to a halt in 2008 when the company hit financial difficulties. 

The main magazine has returned but, to date, it has not spawned any spin-offs.

1975: JAMES BOND IN THE DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU ISSUE 13 (MARVEL COMICS)

From May 1975: Roger Moore's JAMES BOND grabs the cover action in THE DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU issue 12. 

As far as I know, this was the first time that 007 graced the front cover of a Marvel mag (albeit published under the Curtis banner)... but certainly not the last.

This (no doubt) Eon unauthorised outing was to accompany a lengthy article about martial arts in the Bond movies. There was no 007 strip material.  

Bond did get two authorised outings in Marvel Comics during Moore's tenure with both FOR YOUR EYES ONLY (1981) and OCTOPUSSY (1983) getting adaptations. 

The former boasted art by Howard Chaykin and appeared as a one-shot magazine and two issue limited series. It was one of the adaptations that appeared as the third feature in the UK's RETURN OF THE JEDI weekly several years later. 

OCTOPUSSY was adapted by the British team of Steve Moore and Paul Neary. I picked up a copy of the UK hardback annual yesterday and the colouring really is terrible. It looks more worthy of a World Distributors annual than a Marvel publication. It appeared in the States as an issue of MARVEL SUPER SPECIAL with no comic book version and no British run in a regular comic. 

1989: FANGORIA PRESENTS CINEMAGIC HORROR FX (STARLOG GROUP)

From 1989: Ever fancied making your own ketchup consuming scarefare killathon?

This Starlog Group one-shot probably told you all you needed to know to craft your own teen massacre for the cameras.

FANGORIA PRESENTS CINEMAGIC HORROR FX combined two of the group's stalwart titles to encourage film makers to get creative with latex. 

I've not looked at this in any detail (another £1 discovery) but it seems chancey to encourage the ill-prepared and the poorly informed to be encouraged to be let loose with chemicals, glue and other skin-blistering hardware. 

Did this kick start any careers? Can any top-notch make-up boffins claim their careers started when they picked up this mag? Are there any lawsuits still pending?

1986: SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS ISSUES 18-21 (MARVEL UK)

From July 1986: issues 18 - 21 of SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS weekly from MARVEL UK. 

It's a stable three-strip line-up this month with the STAR WARS story continuing alongside the two titular mainstays. 

1984: INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM ANNUAL (MARVEL UK)

From 1984: Britain's INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM ANNUAL, reprinting the US comics adaptation and published by Marvel UK and Grandreams.

There was no getting away from this one: in addition to this annual, Marvel London also serialized the strip in the pages of SPIDER-MAN weekly... the first time that they had put a movie strip into the long-runner. I think it also appeared quite a long time before the movie itself opened here in Britain in an age where spoilers were no big deal.

Coinciding with the release of the film itself, Redan Place rolled out an Indiana Jones monthly (see posts past) which kicked off with THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF... reprints (previously seen in the STAR WARS monthly) and, sure enough, the TEMPLE OF DOOM adaptation again. This unfortunate bit of planning meant that all the strip contents in the "new" mag were actually reprints of recent reprints. This may explain why it only ran for 11 issues and a special before becoming the final title to fold into Spider-man (at that point the juvenile THE SPIDER-MAN COMIC) during its last months.

The colouring on the cover, recycled from the US magazine edition, makes it look like Doctor Jones is wearing lippy. 

1994: GREAT BIRDS OF THE GALAXY (BOXTREE)

From 1994: the British edition of the STAR TREK book GREAT BIRDS OF THE GALAXY, published by Boxtree... and entirely unlicensed.

The title, sure to confuse the book trade and the casual browser alike, was a nod to Trek creator Gene Roddenberry's honorific (and presumably fan bestowed) title of "the great bird of the galaxy". 

In addition to profiling Roddenberry, the book also profiled the other principle guiding lights of the franchise up to this point. Its good to see behind-the-scenes creative talent given their moment in the spotlight. 

This is a nice reminder of a time when TREK was popular enough to spawn its own mini publishing industry of unoffcial tomes of wildly varying quality dedicated to pretty much every aspect of the franchise. Fans lapped them up in the pre-internet age and the studio seemed powerless to stop the deluge... which must have annoyed Pocket Books no end. 

1992: SHIVERS ISSUE 1 (VISUAL IMAGINATION)

From June 1992: the first issue of Visual Imagination's long-running horror mag SHIVERS.

It launched as something of an alternative to the gore obsessed fare being churned out by the FANGORIA stable in the States with a remit to cast the net a little wider with more coverage of British, European, alternative and independent scare-fare. 

But sales weren't great so VI rebooted Shivers to tackle more contemporary frights. And then, of course, THE X-FILES arrived and mainstream audiences were suddenly interested in the genre again. And Shivers, along with the rest of the VI line, shamelessly chased that readership. Suddenly it was virtually indistinguishable to companions STARBURST, TV ZONE AND XPOSE. 

It eventually ran for 138 issues, ending in 2007. Unlike the other VI titles, it didn't spawn a run of quarterly spin-off specials alongside the main mag. 

1987: THE STAR TREK NEXT GENERATION CAST UNVEILED IN STARLOG MAGAZINE

From 1987: STARLOG MAGAZINE unveils the cast of STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION.

This article caught my eye because it feature cast photos that you don't often see today. I suspect they were the glossies that the cast and their agents were hawking around town in the hopes of a gig rather than anything the studio themselves had put together for the media. So it's a fun way to see what caught the Casting Directors eye as they flicked through (presumably) hundreds of potential crew members to staff the NCC 1701D. 

Apologies the Patrick Stewert one has scanned so badly. The source photo must have been a bit ropey. 

1971: ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE HULK COVER

From September 1971: Marvel shows its mainstream appeal by landing the cover of ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE. With no TV or movie tie-in in sight to help seal the deal.

This was back in the days when the "magazine" was still published in a folded newspaper format on newsprint which is why this copy is a bit beat-up and doing its best to turn yellow. 

But I'm not complaining as I found this issue in a stack of old copies from the same timeframe selling for £2 a pop. I couldn't quite believe my luck (and that the store hadn't seen the potential for jacking up the price on this particular edition). Hurrah for the Hulk. 

1992: STARLOG MOVIE MAGAZINES HOUSE AD

From 1992: Another STARLOG MAGAZINE House Ad for their burgeoning line of official movie magazine tie-in titles.

One of the conclusions that we can draw from these ads is that many of these mags must have been very slow sellers once the initial hoopla around the movie has past. Some of them had clearly been sitting in the Starlog warehouse (which eventually burned down... making these a lot rarer now) for a good few years. 

Its good to se that their obsession with all things Stallone even stretched as far as notorious Cannon clunker OVER THE TOP: a gripping expose into the brutal world of championship level arm wrestling. So convincing were Cannon's hucksters that someone even produced a range of action figures! Suckers. 

Its also clear that Starlog steered clear of TV titles (except the Trek franchise) except for a very few turn of the Eighties dalliances with the small screen. It would have been neat to see Starlog devote a one-shot to the decade's action shows. Presumably they felt that the fortunes of a TV show can change so fast that they didn't represent a safe bet. 

SUPERMARIONATION IS GO! (SIG) ISSUE 1 (FANDERSON)

From 1981: the first issue of British Gerry Anderson fan magazine SUPERMARIONATION IS GO!

I think I have posted this launch issue before but I recently acquired another copy (duplicates are an occupational hazard) and was pleased to see that this copy still included the original welcome letter from Gerry himself tucked inside. So well worth a repost. 

I don't think this was originally conceived as Fanderson's main publication but it was soon adopted as such when the various branches of Andrson fandom were encouraged to cooperate more closely by Gerry himself and copyright holders ITC. 

In a move that was probably beneficial to the magazine but counter-productive to the club, copies were also carried in specialist stores courtesy of Titan Distributors. Thereby eliminating any particular need for casual readers to enroll. The modern version of Fanderson doesn't repeat that mistake, restricting both the newsletter and merchandise to members only. 

The title switched to the less unwieldy S.I.G IS GO! from the fourth issue (Spring 1982). Colour covers were introduced a year later (Spring '83) and the increasingly professional publication eventually ran to twenty issues (Autumn 1988). 

It was published alongside the equally excellent TIMESCREEN which was dedicated to a wider range of  British Telefantasy shows. 

1990: SPACE JUNKK PODULE 3 (VISUAL IMAGINATION)

From 1990: Visual Imagination's long-forgotten (with some reason) incursion into the sphere of mature readers comicdom: SPACE JUNKK. 

This was a comic so cheap that they couldn't even push the lifepod out for a colour cover. Presumably publisher Stephen Payne justified such frugality to himself (and retailers) by pointing to the success of the similarly minimalist Viz. Even through that was pitched at a different audience and reveled in its roots as a cheap and cheerful fanzine made good. 

I swerved this back in the day but picked up this copy of "podule" 3 quite recently. I have no idea how long it ran for so although they were still hawking subscriptions, this could have been the finale. 

Its unlikely Tharg the Mighty lost much sleep over this interloper.  

1987: FANGORIA POSTER MAGAZINE ISSUE 1 (STARLOG)

From 1987: presumably a must-have for Eighties gore fans... the first issue of STARLOG GROUP's FANGORIA POSTER MAGAZINE.

Although not my personal taste (then or now) I'm kinda surprised Fango took so long to launch this one as giant pictures of gruesome things seems a logical brand extension once the main mag settled (after an uncertain start) on the successful guts-and-gore formula. 

Five issues were published on a fairly erratic schedule between September 1987 and January 1990.

I picked this up for a £1 quite recently.   

1986: WEETABIX BACK TO THE FUTURE PRINT AD

From November 1986: a lawyer-baiting BACK TO THE FUTURE themed print ad for hefty British breakfast concoction WEETABIX.

1984: CONAN THE DESTROYER ANNUAL (MARVEL UK)

From 1984: the MARVEL UK edition of the CONAN THE DESTROYER movie adaptation, published as an annual by MARVEL UK.

The strip was also serialized across several months of THE SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN THE BARBARIAN magazine, beginning with the MWOM merger issue. However, despite the introduction of a few colour pages much of the strip was still published in black & white. Herein was the only UK outlet in colour.

Quite how well this sold is anyone's guess. Its hard to imagine the audience for Conan (and Certificate 18 barbarian film fare) were perusing the table (it was always a table in them days) of annuals displayed in WH Smith. But maybe the sheer inability of younger readers to see the movie in cinemas actually helped sales. 

They didn't publish another Conan annual over here and the magazine itself shuttered the following year.  

1986: SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS ISSUES 14 - 17 (MARVEL UK)

From June 1986: the next four issues of SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS weekly from MARVEL UK.

The big news this month was obviously the arrival of STAR WARS as the third feature, ending the long run of the UK title which launched back in February 1978. Wisely, and in a sign of the times, the masthead didn't become SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS FEATURING STAR WARS (or worse: RETURN OF THE JEDI) and even through the strip continued for a while, it didn't rate another cover. 

The SW strip didn't pick up the US continuity from the ROTJ run (placed on indefinite hold for the final months of the run to clear the decks for another outing of the ROTJ movie adaptation from three years earlier) presumably because the continuity was now so far distant (partly because of strict Lucasfilm approvals which prevented Marvel doing anything much with the principle characters) that the menagerie of new supporting cast members and new races would have left casual readers bewildered. 

Instead the British Bullpen opted to reprint the third and final US annual (just a double length comic book published outside the regular run rather than a fancy hardback in the British tradition) which presented a relatively self-contained story... with plenty of Darth. British readers of the 1985 annual, where it shared billing with the Ewoks, had already seen it... but it was unknown to the readers of the weeklies. 

1981: RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK ANNUAL (MARVEL UK)

From 1981: the Marvel UK published (in association with their Jadwin House neighbours Grandreams) RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK ANNUAL.

The full-colour hardback reprinted the US Marvel Super Special magazine with no supplementary text features.

Interestingly, this was the only outing of the adaptation in the UK that was contemporary with the film's the film's theatrical release. Marvel didn't find a slot for it in any of the ongoing books.

Even through the STAR WARS MONTHLY subsequently started reprinting the US FURTHER ADVENTURES OF INDIANA JONES strips, we had to wait until mid way through the brief run of the British INDIANA JONES MONTHLY before it would be serialized.

By way of comparison, we were able to read TEMPLE OF DOOM's adaptation in (of all places) the SPIDER-MAN weekly followed quickly by another outing in the first issues of the Indy monthly (launched to coincide with the UK cinema release of the film). Plus there was an annual as well.

1991: STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION OFFICIAL POSTER MAGAZINE ISSUE 4

From 1991: the fourth issue of Visual Imagination's long-running officially licensed STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION POSTER MAGAZINE, published here in the UK.

This held no interest for me at the time (I don't think ever bought a single issue) and copies seem hard to come by nowadays so this is a random issue that I somehow managed to track down at some point as being representative of the whole run.

1999: BABYLON FIVE VHS BOX SETS ADVERT (HMV)

From September 1998: a highly cost and space effective way of getting hold of the whole series of BABYLON FIVE (to date): the VHS box sets.

It might not sound it now (when you can almost certainly pick up all five years on DVD for less than one shelf-devouring set shown here) but that's probably actually a pretty good deal considering the going rate for a single VHS tape, with two episodes on, was normally £10.99 and found sneak higher depending on the release and the retailer. 

Me? I was just tapping them off the telly. 

1982: CONAN THE BARBARIAN ANNUAL (MARVEL UK)

From 1982 (presumably: there is no copyright date inside): the MARVEL UK CONAN THE BARBARIAN ANNUAL, published in association with Grandreams, and featuring Marvel's adaptation of that year's Arnie movie.

The barbarian had appeared as a supporting feature in several of the previous decade's British hardback (notably THE AVENGERS, reflecting the odd line-up of strips in the weekly) but this was the first dedicated annual.

In addition to the colour adaptation (reprinted from the US Super Special magazine), it also features several pages of colour features dedicated to the making of the movie.

A second annual, dedicated to the sequel, appeared later.

1992: ALIEN NATION TENCTONESE LANGUAGE GUIDE

From 1992 (or thereabouts): a fan created guide to the Tenctonese language, as published by Britain's ALIEN NATION APPRECIATION SOCIETY.

File under: labour of love.

This took the basis of the spoken and written language introduced in the feature film but refined and expanded for the Fox weekly series incarnation, and tried to make sense of it. 

To the show's credit, it really did sound like it was an authentic language... but I'm still not sure I would be inclined to try and make sense of it.

This was a black & white A5 publication with colour cover. The society was run by Pete Chambers who was, latterly, rewarded for his attempts to keep the show alive (after the fledgling FBC shifted their early schedules - which only amounted to a few hours per week - from expensive one-hour dramas to cheaper to make sitcoms) with a guest spot (as an alien, of course) in one of the five TV movies which reunited the cast (and production team) a good half-decade after the show was canned. 

I was a member of the group for years but - stupidly - didn't hang onto any of the regular A5 newsletters. 

1979: STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE PRODUCTION ART IN FUTURE LIFE MAGAZINE (STARLOG)

From late 1979: FUTURE LIFE (nee FUTURE, sister title to STARLOG) previews the Christmas release of STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE (a slow slog worthy of reappraisal... it really does have an epic quality that the other films in the original run were often lacking). 

This is production art from the film's opening sequence (and for many, the highpoint of the film) which introduced the Mars Bar-headed Klingons (and their austere interior decor)... and promptly dispatched them to demonstrate the power of the alien energy cloud. 

Storyboards credited to John Vallone. 

The sequence itself was simplified for the screen (no doubt down to the crushing Christmas deadline and general sense of chaos permeating the production) but still supplied some early tension which the rest of the film sometimes struggled to recover.  

Some of the other articles in the magazine are also interesting. THE MARTIAN CHRONICLES is one of the more overlooked Star Age TV projects and is worth rediscovering today. 

The Men-on-Mars piece, like yer average episode of TOMORROW'S WORLD, was a typical piece of futuregazing that was light years wide of the mark.