Friday, 8 July 2016

1981: STARBURST POSTER MAGAZINE ISSUE 1: EXCALIBUR (MARVEL UK)

From 1981: another, along with the annuals and the short-lived CINEMA MAGAZINE, of MARVEL UK's abortive attempts to grow the STARBURST brand beyond the core magazine. Visual Imagination managed, once it dropped into their hands, to use it as the basis for a whole publishing empire. Albeit one where quantity often seemed to trump quality.

STARBURST POSTER MAGAZINE ISSUE 1 was devoted to the movie EXCALIBUR. Marvel obviously had a lot of faith that this one was going to have a bit of mainstream success as they also packaged up some US reprints as, rather cheekily, the MERLIN AND EXCALIBUR SPECIAL. I don't remember knowing anyone who went to see this at the cinema (or expressed any desire to do so) so I think Marvel's confidence was misplaced.

The Starburst Poster Magazine did, however, continue. And we'll get to that.


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1 comment:

  1. ed8 July 2016 at 12:13

    Just for the record, EXCALIBUR is one of my all time favourite movies but I certainly did not see it at the cinema , being much too young at the time.

    I do remember a ' making of ' special on tv which hasn't been seen since, not even on dvd or Blu-ray.

    Like so many cult movies, I first saw EXCALIBUR on tv and then dvd. And I did go to a one off cinema screening with a hard core bunch of fans. Nicol Williamson's merlin was their clear favourite.


    Sadly, Nigel Terry ( who played king Arthur ) passed away last year.

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