1988: RARE MARVEL UK LAUNCH ADVERT FOR DRAGON'S TEETH (aka DRAGON'S CLAWS)

From June 1988: Before they had claws... they had teeth!

A rare MARVEL UK advert, published in the UK fanzine SPEAKEASY, for the about-to-launch DRAGON'S CLAWS title in the (almost) US format. DRAGON'S TEETH was the original title, used in all the pre-publicity (including an article in this very same issue), until the lawyers stepped in and claimed a small (?) US publisher had prior claim.

Cue a bit of frantic rebadging (which apparently only delayed publication by a week) and the new title.

DRAGON'S CLAWS ultimately enjoyed a ten issue run before vaguely wrapping with no official notice that the book was closing.  was anyone left looking for the never-to-arrive 11th issue because they hadn't read the runes correctly?  As far as I know, the characters have remained in Marvel limbo ever since.  Unlike DEATH'S HEAD (kinda) and THE KNIGHTS OF PENDRAGON (ditto), they weren't included in the 1992 UKverse reboot.  The complete run was - however - reprinted in trade form by Panini.  Yay.

1989: MARVEL UK US-FORMAT HOUSE AD

Here's a Marvel UK house ad for their late eighties US-format comic books.  DEATH'S HEAD clocked up 10 issues (plus a graphic novel, The Body in Question, followed by a drastic reboot as Death's Head II), as did Furman's other title: DRAGON'S CLAWS (although there would be no reprieve).  THE SLEEZE BROTHERS was a six-issue limited series published by Marvel UK and US imprint Epic Comics.

All three series have been collected in trade paperback form although THE SLEEZE BROTHERS FILE is long since out-of-print (although fairly easy to track down on-line).