1979: JAMES BOND MOONRAKER SPECIAL

From 1979: The JAMES BOOD 007 MOONRAKER SPECIAL (read: annual).

World are not exactly known for the quality of their publications (did they ever look at anything their competitors were doing?) but this is one of their better efforts, with plenty of on-message material about the movie.

The cover design is a bit underwhelming however, given that this was released slap-bang in the middle of the STAR WARS fever when anything overtly 'space' had a good chance of finding an audience.  So they slapped a still of a speedboat on the cover...

From memory, and probably because the book is a Moonraker rather than general BOND spin-off, there are no comic strips inside.

1979: LAST ISSUE ALERT! TORNADO CRASHES.

From 1979: Last Issue Alert!  After only 22 issues, IPC's TORNADO ran out of luck and announced its impending merger with 2000AD.

I posted the first merged issue the other day but this is the last of the vanquished, complete with the customary 'great news chums' cover splash... an announcement that meant either an impending freebie (this was the time when announcing an announcement was almost as big as whatever was being announced... sometimes bigger if it was just going to be a Heinz badge taped to the following week's cover) or the axeman cometh.  

It's interesting that the merger page goes big on the 2000AD characters and only mentions Tornado's lucky survivors as an afterthought.  Maybe no one thinks they are a strong selling point!  I'd have also changed how I presented the logo so that - in the advert at least - Tornado didn't look like such an afterthought.

On your marks... Get set... Stop!

1979: THE BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY FOTONOVEL

From 1979: The BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th CENTURY FOTONOVEL.

This was - for the longest time - something of a grail item for me.  I knew it existed but - for some reason - I had never spotted one out in the 'wild'.  Maybe it's not that unusual, these 'fotonovels' seldom seem to surface on the second-hand circuit so why should Buck Rogers be any different?

Except that the BATTLESTAR GALACTICA edition pops up from time-to-time.  And the STAR TREK ones (based on selected episodes of the TV show... and the first two movies) also seem more plentiful.  Others, like THE INCREDIBLE HULK one (adapting the TV pilot/ faux feature), command silly prices on Amazon.

It was clearly intended for sale in the UK although I suspect that the pence price has been added afterwards (or as part of a run-on) as it doesn't look quite right.

I finally managed to track down a copy - at a price I was willing to pay - and here it is.  It's an adaptation of 'The Awakening' and was clearly completed after the edit was finally locked at there are no missing scenes.  Unfortunately.

It continues to surprise me that some mass-market items, like this and the Marvel STAR WARS paperbacks, seem so hard to find despite being based on popular mainstream media franchises and presumably published in numbers that even if small at the time would make most publishers very happy today.

1979: STARLOG MAGAZINE LOOKS BACK AT SPACE:1999 YEAR TWO

From 1979: STARLOG magazine looks back at SPACE: 1999 Year Two:

1979: STARLOG LOOKS BACK AT BATTLESTAR GALACTICA

From 1979: STARLOG magazine's review of the year includes a specific BATTLESTAR GALACTICA retrospective.  The show would have been winding-up reruns on ABC whilst this issue was on sale.

STARLOG REVIEW OF THE TV YEAR 1978-79

From the summer of 1979: STARLOG takes its annual temperature check of the genre with this photo-driven TV guide:

1979: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA'S NOAH HATHAWAY INTERVIEWED BY STARLOG MAGAZINE

From 1979: STARLOG MAGAZINE maganges to stretch out (mostly by interviewing his parents) a very brief interview with BATTLESTAR GALACTICA's Noah Hathaway into a full-page companion to the Lorne Greene piece.

It's a shame they never managed to interview the chimp...

1979: BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY MOVIE FEATURE FROM STARLOG MAGAZINE

From 1979: Another STARLOG MAGAZINE teaser for BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY.

At this point, it had ceased to be a TV project (it was initially shot as the first of three teleflicks for NBC) and had morphed into a fully-fledged feature film.  And then, when the box office ticked the boxes, it landed back at NBC as a series.

1979: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA'S LORNE GREENE IN STARLOG MAGAZINE

From May 1979: Lorne Greene discusses BATTLESTAR GALACTICA with STARLOG MAGAZINE.

1979: STARLOG PREVIEWS BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY

From February 1979: a pre-series (see the last-minute footnote) BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY preview piece from STARLOG MAGAZINE.

1979: FANTASY MEDIA ISSUE 2

From June/ July 1979: Issue 2 of the British fanzine FANTASY MEDIA.

1979: MARVEL UK'S SUPERHERO FUN AND GAMES WINTER SPECIAL

From the Winter of 1979: a battered and much used (but not by me) copy of the SUPERHERO FUN AND GAMES WINTER SPECIAL, one of the first Winter Specials (following a burst of summer one-shots earlier the same year) published by Marvel UK.

This is, essentially, a puzzle or activity book of the type frequently deployed to keep kids quiet during the holidays or during long trips.  The contents, themed around Marvel's characters, was recycled from a series of US books.

It must have been a success as a monthly series followed in 1980.  This special, and the ongoing version, must rank amongst the hardest to find M-UK titles of the era.  Deemed less collectable by the faithful, kids were far less likely to keep them in good nick.  As you'll see, even the cover of the copy I managed to track down has been defaced.  Is nothing sacred?

Once again, Conan - a licensed character - is treated as one of Marvel's own with pride of place on the cover.

1979: THE STORY OF DIRK BENEDICT AND RICHARD HATCH

From September 1979: another bit of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA obscura courtesy of the US supermarket tabloids.

It's THE STORY OF DIRK ("sexy Battlestar blond") BENEDICT AND RICHARD ("shy and loyal") HATCH. All completely unauthorised you understand.

Surely this must be one of the rarer bits of Battlestar print tat (unless you know better) by virtue of it being a mail order exclusive, which (like all the best things in life) wasn't available in any store.

Have you ever seen a copy? Did you mail away for the chance to see the Colonial Warriors "out of uniform"? What type of girls did they like?

1979: THE BLACK HOLE UK VHS COVER

From December 1979 (although this hails from much later): Disney's Star Age would-be blockbuster THE BLACK HOLE.

Despite the numerous - and sometimes obvious shortcomings - I rate this as one of the icons of the era. Both because it's an entertaining - and spectacular - movie in its own right but also because of the ubiquitous merchandising it spawned.

This is the UK sell-through VHS cover. I think this is one movie thst really demands a bells-whistles-and-B.O.Bs BR release.

1979: STARBLAZER ISSUE 1 (DC THOMSON)

From April 1979: the first issue of DCT's Star Age pocket library STARBLAZER.

The Dundee publisher wisely decided to avoid trying to lauch a me-too anthology into a market where 2000AD and STAR WARS WEEKLY were already slugging it out (with DWW, STARHEROES and FUTURE TENSE all still to hit within the next year-or-so) and opted to bolster their successful line of black & white digest pocket libraries instead (a market Marvel was also about to enter... albeit without much longevity) with this done-in-one single story title.

SB started on a one-a-month frequency before swiftly upgrading to two issues - released simultaneously - each month. It ultimately staggered on until (barely) January 1991, clocking up an impressive 281 issues.

Despite some top industry contributors (Morrison, McMahon, Ridgway, Kennedy and more), DC Thomson have been slow to exploit the Starblazer inventory. Maybe they should consider a sale to Rebellion...

1979: FILMS ILLUSTRATED SIGOURNEY WEAVER ALIEN COVER

From September 1979: FILMS ILLUSTRATED magazine calls it right with this Sigourney Weaver ALIEN cover.

SILVER DREAM RACER ain't bad either. Honest.

1979: ALIEN UK MAGAZINE ADVERT

From September 1979: A British magazine advert for the UK release of ALIEN...

Prepare to be scared....

1979: WHAT IF SGT. FURY HAD FOUGHT WORLD WAR TWO IN OUTER SPACE (MARVEL COMICS)

From April 1979: One of the strangest Star Age entries from Marvel Comics: WHAT IF SGT. FURY HAD FOUGHT WORLD WAR TWO IN OUTER SPACE? Really.

WHAT IF issue 14 is, as the cover so tellingly teases, silly stuff (a cigar... in a spacesuit) but delivered with a whopping dose of action and is well worth digging out of the back issues boxes if found at a reasonable price.

I was convinced that this had an outing in STAR WARS WEEKLY here in the UK because I'm sure I read it in one of the weeklies when I was little. But I'm struggling to track down the correct issues... Which makes me wonder whether I imagined it. And yet... I must have seen it somewhere in the British line. A mystery! 

Despite boasting a classic Nick Fury in Space cover on its first issue (reviving the old British Marvel tradition of covers that only roughly related to the actual contents), the strip wasn't recycled in the pages of FUTURE TENSE... but probably would have been had the fortuitous failure of VALOUR not alleviated the need to find enough reprints to feed the SF anthology.

1979: SPIDER-MAN STRIKES BACK and THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD Double-bill

From April 1979: a UK print ad for the theatrical double-bill of SPIDER-MAN STRIKES BACK (compiled from episodes of the brief CBS series) paired with THE THIEF OF BAGHDAD.

This was presumably concocted to give the kids something to do during the Easter holidays. The fact that they were released a week apart depending on which side of the Thames you lived suggests that the finite number of prints were hauled off the projectors after a week, chucked in the back of an Odeon van and sent south to new (temporary) homes. 

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.