1981: THE FLASH GORDON MOVIE SPOOFED IN MARVEL'S CRAZY MAGAZINE

From June 1981: Marvel America's CRAZY MAGAZINE (not even the Bullpen had any qualms about cloning the MAD formula) spoofs the Sam J. Jones FLASH GORDON movie.

1988: AMAZING HEROES issue 137: FLASH GORDON SPECIAL (Fantagraphics)

From March 1988: An excellent FLASH GORDON themed edition of AMAZING HEROES.  

It's always worth grabbing a copy of AH if you stumble across it in the back issue bins (especially if it's the 50p box) because, whatever the issue, you're sure of a blast of nostalgia and some fascinating Star Age reading.  Later issues featured Andy Mangel's excellent Hollywood Heroes column which also appeared in the UK's FANTAZIA.  

This issue is a particularly good one: devoted to FLASH GORDON in all its forms.

The definitive Flash book has yet to be written (imagine a glorious coffee table jobbie packed full of amazing art, never before seen production design from the movie, artwork from the various animated incarnations and one still, with a sarcastic caption, from the rocketship crash of a TV series) but, in the meantime, this is probably as close as we'll get. 

AH which, amazingly, used to appear fortnightly and spin-off must-have look-ahead Preview Specials, continued into the early nineties before being squeezed out by the more glossy, bust less demanding, WIZARD and its wannabes.  COMICS INTERVIEW, which I always considered a companion piece to AH, went the same way. 

1988: FLASH GORDON in AMAZING HEROES Magazine

This special issue of 1980s fan magazine AMAZING HEROES (issue 137, 15 March 1988) was devoted to the many facets of FLASH GORDON, including the new DC Comics interpretation (which I posted about here many moons (of Mongo) ago).  

1981: WEETABIX FLASH GORDON MOVIE PROMOTION

I never really liked Weetabix very much, despite it being a childhood breakfast staple (I was even a member of their mid-eighties WEETABIX CLUB.  How I wish I'd kept that membership kit!).  But I did love their run of SF and comics licensing tie-ups in the early 1980s (I was too young for the seventies DOCTOR WHO card inserts, which have subsequently become legendary.

I remember the DC Comics masks that you could cut out from the back of the box (I had The Flash.  I had no idea who he was... but he had - by a mile - the coolest mask).  I'm not sure when they ran that promotion but - I assume - it was in the late seventies and pegged to the release of SUPERMAN THE MOVIE (although the license was for DC's comic book superheroes - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman et al - rather than their screen offspring).

Another favourite was Weetabix's STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE tie-up.  That was a series of artwork character cards featuring the regular cast and - in a nod to the Star Wars generation - the Klingons and other barely seen on-screen aliens.

This particular advert (from March 1981) promoted the FLASH GORDON CARDS (18 to collect) inserted into packs.  It's not made clear here but - as I recall - the larger the pack: the more cards that were inserted inside.  That was certainly true for the STAR TREK promotion and - I assume - the same was true here.

1980: FLASH GORDON MOVIE COMICS ADAPTATION

Here's some (frankly stunning) Al Williamson artwork from the 1980 adaptation, published by Whitman, of the FLASH GORDON movie (the greatest movie ever made?  Quite possibly). The adaptation was penned by Bruce Jones.

The strip ran across three issues (31-33) of Whitman's regular Flash comic and was also collected in book form.

Williamson was apparently unhappy with the movie's interpretation of the character as well as the number of changes during shooting and editing which impacted on his work.

The covers are - as you'll see -  a weird photo/ artwork hybrid.  Some have said that this was a result of disagreements over Williamson's portrayal of star Sam J. Jones (also of THE HIGHWAYMAN fame). I'm sure this is entirely possible but I also suspect that someone thought it would benefit both the movie and the comic to get some movie stills on the news stands of America.

I've included the climatic scene where Ming gets spiked because, for many years, ITV would schedule the movie in daytime slots and cut these essential shots to avoid scaring the kids.  That pruning somewhat undermined the ending of the movie.  Shame on ITV.

I was a big fan of the movie when it was originally released (and I've become a far greater fan in subsequent decades) and collected as much merchandise as I could get my young paws on (the sticker album, the non-movie continuity Flash novels with movie tie-in photo-covers and the Weetabix cards) but I don't ever recall seeing these comics.  Of course, US comics suffered from notoriously patchy distribution anyway (newsagents in seaside locations always seemed to be the best bit for the second - or lower - tier US publishers) but I don't think the book version (which I've never seen) reached these shores in any great numbers either.  A real shame as - frankly - this is beautiful stuff.

The strips have recently been reprinted - hurrah - as part of an ongoing reprint of the US comics - in a hefty (and pricy) book version.  A luxury purchase but - to be honest - one that was very easy to justify.

Issue 1 splash page

Issue 2

Issue 32

Issue 33

Issue 33

Sample page

Issue 33

Sample page

Issue 33

Sample page

1982: FLASH GORDON: THE GREATEST ADVENTURE OF THEM ALL from Filmation

Here it is: the seldom-seen (and not on DVD goshdarnit) full-length Filmation animated movie FLASH GORDON: THE GREATEST ADVENTURE OF THEM ALL, in nine easy chunks courtesy of a random stranger on You Tube.

Originally produced in the late seventies, the movie was shelved until 1982.

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

PART 6

PART 7

PART 8

PART 9

1978: FILMATION'S FLASH GORDON in FUTURE MAGAZINE

It's back-to-the-FUTURE (magazine) yet again (I'm really getting my monies worth out of these sometimes hard-to-find back issues) for this great behind-the-scenes feature on the Filmation FLASH GORDON animated series.

The show, part of the post STAR WARS rush to get SF projects on-screen, premiered on NBC in 1979 as THE NEW ADVENTURES OF FLASH GORDON (not to be confused with the later DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH).

The show ran for (an unusually high) 32 episodes, split into two 16-episode seasons.  Surprisingly, the second run didn't appear until 1982.

The show remained faithful to Alex Reymond's original creation, even retaining the movie serial-style continuing adventure formula for season one (abandoned, in favour of self-contained episodes, for Year Two), and boasted animation several notches above Filmation's usual standards.

The show, apparently, didn't reach the UK until the BBC aired it from 17 October 1983.

Confusingly, there is a also a feature film version which is much more elusive than the TV series (which has been released on both sides of the Atlantic, although both sets now seem to be deleted).  The film (FLASH GORDON: THE GREATEST ADVENTURE OF THEM ALL) was, apparently, produced before the series but mothballed (possibly at the behest of Dino De Laurentisis to avoid any competition/ confusion with his own spangly Flash Gordon extravaganza) until 1982 (and pretty-much unseen since).  The principle difference between the two animated incarnations is that the movie is set on WWII era Earth.

Unlike the series, it's not been released on DVD but has definitely aired on British TV at some point (possibly a Saturday morning) as I've seen it!

FUTURE

ISSUE 3

July 1978

1983: MANIMAL

Jonathan Chase: master of the secrets that divide man from animal... animal from man... Manimal.

Remember MANIMAL, the blink-and-you-missed it show that, frankly, made no sense but has retained a cult following?

It's due to (finally) get a DVD release in the UK in the near future (Amazon.co.uk currently has a due date of 27 August 2012) so, to set the scene, here's the show's quintessentially eighties title sequence as well as a couple of Professor Jonathan Chase's (Simon Maccorkindale) painfully predictable transformations.

The short-lived show (a suprisingly-sparse 8 shows including the feature length premiere) was another of schlock meister Glen A. Larson's back-of-an-envelope creations and, like so many of his shows, was a neat premise that lacked any substance.  Manimal, by all accounts something of an industry joke even before its premiere.

Manimal hit US screens in September 1983 (and reached the UK, in a prime time BBC ONE slot, in June 1984).  At the same time, Larson was also producing his other short-lived gimmick show of the season: the ever-so-slightly-inspired-by-TRON AUTOMAN (which clocked-up a not-much-better 13 shows).

Even by Larson's undemanding standards, Manimal is a pretty juvenile show and it probably would have had more of a fighting chance as either a comic book or a Saturday morning animation.  It does borrow heavily from Ken Johnson's adaptation of THE INCREDIBLE HULK (still the best screen version despite Marvel's big spending blockbusters), specifically the child-pleasing several-transformations-per-episode formula.

Despite Larson's experience in the trenches of weekly TV drama production (this is the man that made BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th CENTURY a few seasons earlier), it seems like he failed to anticipate the logistics of trying to replicate the Manimal formula episode-after-episode.  Chase's pre-CGI transformations (from professor-of-prosthetics Stan Winston) are technically excellent but quickly become boring when seen episode-after-episode.  Larson doesn't seem to have had the time or budget to add to Chase's repertoire so we see the same few on-screen transformations (panther and hawk, see below) ever week and anything else conveniently happens off-screen.

The show's other problem is that bugger-all makes sense.  Even as an undemanding child, I was left with a lot of questions (and even more after revisiting the show, via bootlegs, a few years ago):
- How do you "learn" to become a shape-shifter?
- He's clearly British (another example of Larson trying to make his James Bond fetish work on the small screen per chance?) but also a Vietnam Vet.  How so?
- Infamously, where do his clothes go when he transforms?  And how does he get them back afterwards?
- Why does it look (and sound) like Chase is having an energetic wank (specifically the "amusing" back-of-the-cab scene) when he transforms?
- If he's such as animal expert, why is Chase's repertoire of transformations so limited?
- How many animal-related crimes could the NYPD conceivably have to deal with?

Despite the sheer stupidity of the shape-shifting shenanigans, the cast do their best to make it work.  The late Simon Maccorkindale does it with dignity and Melody Anderson (FLASH GORDON.  Hurrah!) may not be a great actress but she's a lot of fun.  It's a shame Larson couldn't find something for her to do when he drafted in her former co-star for THE HIGHWAYMAN.

William Conrad (the - err - fat man in JAKE AND THE FAT MAN) provided the narration.  He was a frequent Larson collaborator, performing the same duties on BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25th CENTURY and THE HIGHWAYMAN.

The show made a greater impact in the UK thanks to its peak time slot on the BBC (and, besides, at that time anything from America had a whiff of glamour and sophistication... even when it was pants) and, according to perceived wisdom, also travelled well in other markets (France is often cited as a bastion of Manimal fans... but it it true?).  Larson's decision to revive the character over a decade later (November 1998) in a sneaky attempt to revive the franchise would seem to support that.

NIGHTMAN saw Larson (by now past his producing prime) return to super heroics by adapting the Malibu Comics character (by the time the show aired, Malibu had been snaffled-up by Marvel Comics).  The show is no-great-shakes (and the costume looks terrible) but it still managed to clock-up two seasons in first-run syndication.  The episode Manimal (what else?) surfaced early in season two and saw Maccorkindale reprise the role.  Inexplicably, not only is Chase still transforming... he's now also a time traveller hunting Jack the Ripper.  Nightman was not a show grounded in reality.  Chase's daughter has also grasped the powers of the beast and Larson was clearly using the episode as a back-door pilot for a possible spin-off.  It never happened.  Larson also plundered his back catalogue for a Hasselhoff cameo in Nightman's pilot and an episode which remade a HIGHWAYMAN script (as well as borrowing a shed-load of footage and getting one of the trucks out of storage).

The show's merchandising was, understandably, sparse although Britain did get a single annual, released in 1984 (top left).

THE TITLES:

THE TRANSFORMATIONS:

1988: FLASH GORDON: THE DC COMICS MAXI-SERIES

Here's a cover gallery for the oft-overlooked 1988 interpretation of FLASH GORDON published by DC Comics.  Flash traditionalists were none-too-keen on some of the liberties taken but at least it keeps the faith, unlike DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH, the TV Gordon or the teen hover-boarding interpretations!

The eighth and ninth issues coincided with a change in DC's cover-date policy, hence the slightly confusing "winter" and "holiday" designations.

ISSUE ONE

June 1988

ISSUE ONE SPLASH

ISSUE TWO

July 1988

ISSUE THREE

August 1988

ISSUE FOUR

September 1988

ISSUE FIVE

October 1988

ISSUE SIX

November 1988

ISSUE SEVEN

December 1988

ISSUE EIGHT

Winter

ISSUE NINE

Holiday

1980: FLASH GORDON MOVIE SPECIAL

He'll save every one of us.  Probably!  Slow Robot is proud to present the complete visual treat that is the US-published FLASH GORDON MOVIE SPECIAL (1980).

It's unclear whether this tie-in to Mike Hodges' Anglo-American-Italian extravaganza reached British shores in any numbers to we present the whole 20-page publication here.