2016: STARLOGGED NEWS

STARLOGGED doesn't normally do New Stuff News but there are a couple of new releases this week that will be of interest to MARVEL UK readers of old.

This week's issue of the long-running (now extended, according to the insert, to 200 issues) MARVEL FACT FILES (the put-it-in-a-binder weekly artwork) is another MARVEL UK SPECIAL, dedicated to the company, the creators and the characters. One really nice feature this time is a look back at the comics that were spiked, sometimes at the very last minute, in the Genesis Implosion of late 1993. Highly recommended.

Also out this week is the trade paperback collection of the entire FRONTIER COMICS offering, also from 1993. That's a line of long-forgotten (but actually really good) books that I never thought would come into print again. Especially not ahead of the core UK-verse books. Its priced at £30 (Marvel trades are certainly not cheap) which means it would be cheaper to raid the 50p boxes for the complete run (which is what I did) but its well put together with new introductions to each series, some behind-the-scenes art and the MARVEL AGE MAGAZINE article I posted here way-back-when. Marvel obviously couldn't include some of the contemporary fanzine coverage so, for more perspectives (COMICS SPECULATOR NEWS anyone?), look back through previous STARLOGGED posts.

Finally, London's CINEMA STORE is closing this Saturday. I've been a regular customer there since the early 1990s so although I was never a big spender, they've been a constant Geek Stuff supplier to me. I would think that the writing has been on the wall for years (almost everything they sold became cheaper online over time or were superseded by digital equivalents) but they were still good for magazines and books that weren't carried elsewhere. Their pricing was seldom keen (they would sell copies of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY for a tenner... when you could get it for £2.75 in Soho newsagents) which helped, I think, cement their reputation for fleecing shoppers. For many years, prior to the opening of BORDERS (and CS jacking up their prices), they were by regular source of EW... and many other magazines as well. I will miss them. 

1993: FRONTIER COMICS UNLIMITED House Ad (Marvel UK)

A MARVEL UK House Ad from 1993, announcing the imminent launch of the new, quarterly, FRONTIER COMICS UNLIMITED, an anthology spin-off from M-UK's Frontier Comics imprint.

FC aimed to be something more akin to DC's Vertigo line: more edgy output that may, or may not, feature established Marvel characters.  

The line, edited by Michael Bennent, was made up of the Conan-alike BLOODSEED (announced as a four-issue limited series, of which two appeared, with a further two issues scheduled for 1994.  They never appeared), IMMORTALIS, DANCES WITH DEMONS and CHILDREN OF THE VOYAGER.  All of the above were four-issue series.

Not mentioned here are two original strips, Evil Eye and The Fallen which, presumably, were slated as possible contenders for their own FC books or, at the very least, return engagements in the quarterly.

Unfortunately, the Frontier Comics line was one of the first things to be jettisoned when the GENESIS EXPLOSION started to turn swiftly into an IMPLOSION.  Fortunately, with the exception of Paul Neary's own Bloodseed, the existing series were all wrapped-up (not a privilege given to many of the M-UK books as the situation swiftly deteriorated) but the line was shuttered and all future projects abandoned.  The first issue of Unlimited was hastily rebadged FRONTIER COMICS SPECIAL (they forgot to change the small print) and issued as a one-shot.  

MARVEL AGE MAGAZINE covered the launch of the line here and there was also coverage in the short-lived UK fanzine COMICS SPECULATOR NEWS (yuck!) here.

1993: FRONTIER COMICS HOUSE AD (Marvel UK)

Here's a MARVEL UK House Ad, from their US books (cover-dated September 1993), plugging the first (and, as it turned out, only) wave of books from their FRONTIER COMICS imprint.

The core GENESIS 92 sub-universe had been born of a creative rift within Marvel UK.  Many of the creators, no doubt with one eye on the big bucks being splashed around by US publishers, saw M-UK as an opportunity to create Marvel's version of DC's booming VERTIGO imprint: edgy, (sometimes) less commercial books which really (hopefully!) pushed the boundaries of the medium.

Paul Neary, newly ensconced as the British Boss and seeped in the traditions of mainstream superhero fare (as well as accountable to the New York HQ and their demand for more and more product, and profits, during the industry boom years) favoured more commercial fare.

Even the earliest issues of OVERKILL reflected that conflict: the US standalone books were packed full of appearances by US characters (a policy piloted, with great success, in the original DEATH'S HEAD II limited series) in an attempt to get some attention and traction in the ferociously competitive US market.  The British "reprints", chasing the 2000AD audience (and initially billed as science fiction comic), chopped out (by deleting pages in a weird and cumbersome dual running arrangement) the bulk of the appearances by US characters.

With sales at their peak, and the GENESIS EXPLOSION in full bloom, M-UK did have a belated crack at the Vertigo vibe with the FRONTIER range.

Not creator owned, more risky (there's tit in BLOODSEED) and with one foot (loosely) in the Marvel Universe, Frontier produced some of the best creative work from the entire GENESIS era.

All of the books were initially announced as four-issue limited series although BLOODSEED was subsequently halved to a two-issue run with the promise of the final two issues, bunched as a second series, in 1994.  That never happened.

The problem with the FRONTIER line is that all the books were fundamentally less commercial than the mainstream G92 books.  That still made them viable when business was booming but a disaster once sales dropped off a cliff... which they did, just as the line hit the shelves.

As retailers and readers trimmed their sails (or, simply, bowed out) in the face of a glut of product, Frontier was particularly vulnerable.  Marvel UK found their books, floating at the fringes of the Marvel Universe, the first to get the chop as retailers slashed their orders.  Frontier, an imprint of an imprint, was even more vulnerable.

Marvel UK announced the entire line would shutter once the first wave of books had wrapped (kudos for allowing all of them to run their course) and plans for a quarterly companion, FRONTIER COMICS UNLIMITED (borrowing the brand, and format, from the similar US books), were curtailed to a one-shot, FRONTIER COMICS SPECIAL, using the inventory material (new outings for all the first-wave strips along with several new shorts which were, presumably, considered possibilities for future solo-dom) created for the first issue.

The cuts marked the beginning of the GENESIS IMPLOSION, a wave of cancellations and delays (which, as events turned out, amounted to cancellations) which were intended to trim M-UK back to a core offering but, by early 1994, closed the whole thing down.

The Frontier books are regular 50p box fodder and well worth grabbing if you can find them.  They represent some great hidden gems, from creators about to hit the big time, and are (without doubt) Marvel UK's best kept secrets.

1993: FRONTIER COMICS TEASER AD (Marvel UK)

This is a landscape orientated teaser ad for MARVEL UK's FRONTIER COMICS imprint (think: less superheroes and homicidal 'bots and more VERTIGO) that appeared in the GENESIS 92 books (or, at least, some of them) cover-dated July 93.

This was at the height of what I call the GENESIS EXPLOSION, that six month (give-or-take) period during 1993 where Marvel UK flooded the booming pre-bust US market with more-and-more product.

More on Frontier in future posts...

1993: FRONTIER COMICS from MARVEL UK (Marvel Age Magazine)

FRONTIER COMICS is a long-forgotten Marvel Comics (UK branch) imprint, briefly inaugurated during the last splutters of the speculator-fueled boom years of the early 1990s... and amongst the first to be canned when the collapse came.

Unlike the main Marvel UK line, these comics were to be set outside the main Marvel Universe (cynics might argue that, actually, the entire M-UK line was set outside the main universe) and have a look-and-feel that placed them somewhere between 2000AD and DC's Vertigo line.

Frontier Comics, edited out of Arundel House by Michael Bennent, consisted of the four limited series covered in this MARVEL AGE MAGAZINE (issue 126) and FRONTIER COMICS SPECIAL, one-shot that was originally announced as the ongoing anthology FRONTIER COMICS UNLIMITED before the title was cancelled.

As the market collapsed around them in late 93/ early 94, Marvel London started to retrench their operation and delay certain new launches.  The Frontier imprint was culled completely, although all the limited series reached their natural conclusions.

As with the main M-UK line-up, Marvel have ignored the Frontier characters for the past twenty-odd years and none of the material has ever been reprinted or collected.  None of the Frontier strips were published in OVERKILL.  

1993: FANZINE: COMIC SPECULATOR NEWS

Here's a short-lived fanzine from the comic industry's (equally short-lived) boom years of the early 1990s.

COMIC SPECULATOR NEWS, sold in comic book stores, was the nearest rival to (the considerably longer-lived) COMICS INTERNATIONAL but, as the name suggests, it favoured the WIZARD approach of hyping everything that moved as being "the next sure-fire investment".  Which, of course, they weren't.

This issue, from June 1993, covers the launch of Jim Shooter's DEFIANT COMICS (a short-lived venture most noted for issuing one comic as a set of trading cards and getting into a legal battle with his ex-employer, Marvel Comics, over the copyright of Plasm) and Marvel UK's FRONTIER COMICS (a not-at-all-like-VERTIGO, honest, sub-brand intended to spin non-superhero yarns.  It closed within months).

Details of CSN are few-and-far between but, if Slow Robot's memory banks are correct, it switched from a paid to a free, advertiser-funded, model (the reverse of COMICS INTERNATIONAL) and then, as the market crashed, faded away.