STARLOGGED - GEEK MEDIA AGAIN: THE MARVEL BUMPER COMIC

Showing posts with label THE MARVEL BUMPER COMIC. Show all posts

Wednesday, 12 November 2014

1989: A.L.F House Ad (Marvel UK)

Up... Up.. and Away. One-time cultural icon A.L.F stars in this March 1989 MARVEL UK House Ad for his monthly comic. The British edition reprinted material from the various TV tie-in titles (based on both the live-action series and the Saturday morning animated incarnation) from the States.

The British edition merged with THE MARVEL BUMPER COMIC... but it was hard to tell the difference as the Alien Life Form had already been resident in most issues.

Thursday, 21 August 2014

1988: DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH SPECIALS (Marvel UK)

At the weekend I picked-up a new trade paperback, KINGS WATCH, which appears (because I've not actually read it yet) to be a revival of the old DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH concept in all-but-name.

For the forgetful/ young, the Defenders (not to be confused with the multiple iterations of the Marvel team) were Flash Gordon, Mandrake the Magician, The Phantom and Lothar. The thing they all had in common, other than being faded stars of newspaper strips, was that they were all characters owned by King Features Syndicate.

Back in the eighties, KFS and Marvel Productions teamed-up to bring the characters back to TV in a new 65-episode daily animated series (which enjoyed numerous runs on the BBC in the UK). In an attempt to make the somewhat old-fashioned characters more palatable to a modern audience, Marvel stacked the show with an unfeasibly large cast of offspring for the various main characters who, in addition to adventuring, also became educational parental figures.

Defenders was accompanied by a large merchandising push, including figures and vehicles, but never really caught fire with consumers. Marvel, obligingly, launched a comic book version under the Star Comics imprint. Unfortunately, the line suffered a contraction and several titles, including DOTE, were canned suddenly (the toy/ animation tie-in THE INHUMANOIDS expired at the same time, forcing the reprints in Marvel UK's THE TRANSFORMERS to end without wrapping-up the plot). The fourth issue was the last.

The first two US issues, which adapted the show's opening episodes (the Marvel version explicitly establishes that the soon-to-die wife of Flash Gordon is indeed Dale Arden, the screen version is much more coy and never names her for some reason) appeared OVER here in a MARVEL UK annual.

These two specials, both from 1988, reprinted the third and fourth issues of the US series.

The Defenders strips were also serialised in THE MARVEL BUMPER COMIC.

Tuesday, 5 November 2013

1989: WILLIAM TELL ANNUAL (Marvel UK)

MARVEL UK invested a surprising amount of effort into their tie-in to the barely-noticed WILLIAM TELL TV show circa 1989.

They came close to launching a fortnightly title based on the show but, despite running House Ads, plans were scrapped at the last minute and the already-completed material turned-up in THE MARVEL BUMPER COMIC instead.

Those strips were also compiled into a one-shot graphic novel.

There was also a one-shot special which reprinted, from the Bumper Comic, the leftovers not collected in the graphic novel.

And, finally, there was also this hardback annual, published in September 1989, which included strips and text stories that didn't appear anywhere else.

Tuesday, 29 January 2013

1997: COMBAT COLIN SUMMER SPECIAL (Lew Stringer)

Colin will need no introduction to long-time Marvel UK readers. Lew Stringer's "urban survivalist" first made his debut as the resident gag strip in ACTION FORCE. When the weekly succumbed to low sales after only a year, Colin (along with the G.I. Joe reprints) transferred into the pages of THE TRANSFORMERS. He remained a mainstay until shrinking editorial budgets sealed his fate. He also found time to appear in THE MARVEL BUMPER COMIC.

Marvel, in an unusual moment of generosity, transferred ownership back to Lew allowing him to publish this one-shot A5 fanzine for the summer of 1997. The line-up, behind the colour cover, was a new Colin strip supplemented by some reprints, Pete's Pimple (Lew's OINK strip) and Suburban Satanists, a gag strip for a European audience.

A second CC special followed.

Until the beginning of this year, Lew was blogging regularly at BLIMEY! It's Another Blog About Comics. Although he's not updating the blog at present (making the internet seem a more empty place), his previous posts are an invaluable resource for anyone interested in British comics.

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

1989: WILLIAM TELL - THE MARVEL UK COMIC THAT NEVER WAS

This is a Marvel UK house ad (from February 1989) for a new comic that never happened: WILLIAM TELL.

The comic would have been based on the late eighties multi-national TV action/ adventure show CROSSBOW, which aired (over the summer of 1989) as William Tell on ITV in the UK. I don't remember seeing the series, although the scant information about it online makes it sound like it might have been fun.

This ad shows that the decision to nix the launch must have come at the very last minute.

Marvel were obviously (briefly) confident that this was going to be big. The regular comic might have been scrapped pre-launch but the material already prepared was diverted to THE MARVEL BUMPER COMIC (I've looked at that anthology in a previous post, follow the link below) and a one-shot William Tell Special. All these British-produced strips were also collected into a graphic novel.

Marvel also published a William Tell Annual, which featured more British-produced strips along with text stories and stills from the show.

Quite why Marvel UK put so much faith in the show is unclear, although it's possible that they planned (and probably did) to syndicate their material in countries where the series made more of an impact.

I've got copies of all of the above so I'll run them here once I've unearthed them again.

Thursday, 26 April 2012

1988-89: THE MARVEL BUMPER COMIC

THE MARVEL BUMPER COMIC was Marvel UK's short-lived eccentric anthology, combining various characters from across the Marvel UK line.

The 1988 special and first issues of the fortnightly functioned very much as a sampler for the rest of the M-UK range, throwing together adventure strips (Thundercats, Doctor Who), comedy-adventure (The Real Ghostbusters, Scooby Doo) and humour (A.L.F, Lew Stringer's Combat Colin) in an unruly mix of reprints.

Over time, the editorial focus shifted with an evolving line-up of (mostly) media-based strips (Defenders of the earth, Star Wars: Droids) which enjoyed a TV presence, and a Marvel special, but were presumably deemed an insufficient draw to support their own on-going title.

William Tell, beginning in issue 21, was Marvel UK's adaptation of the long-forgotten live-action TV show. Marvel management clearly hoped for big things from the license and also published a graphic novel (collecting the material serialised here), a one-shot special (also collected in the graphic novel) and an annual (with strip material not found elsewhere).

Demonstrating quite how far superhero fare had fallen by the end of the eighties, Marvel's key characters were conspicuous by their absence for most of the early issues (remember: Spider-man had lost his own regular title in 1987), only belatedly reappearing from issue 26.

The Real Ghostbusters remained a mainstay throughout making The Bumper Comic one of several (IT'S WICKED!, BLIMEY IT'S SLIMER!, Collected Comics and annuals) outlets for their adventures beyond their own title.

The Transformers (as well as, to a lesser extent, other Hasbro characters), despite having amassed quite a back-catalogue of material since 1984, were conspicuous in their absence suggesting the terms of Marvel's license preventing them moonlighting here.

A.L.F, based on the live-action and animated TV shows, appeared in the early issues before fading away... allowing Marvel to officially merge his own comic into the MBC from issue 28.

M-UK had already reprinted all the available US DEFENDERS OF THE EARTH (4 issues!), based on the Marvel Productions animated series, in two specials and an annual.

The MBC can also be seen as a pilot for (the even more short-lived) THE INCREDIBLE HULK PRESENTS (launched later in 1989 and MBC obvious successor), testing a media-based adventure anthology format and using two strips (Doctor Who and The Incredible Hulk) first used here.

The covers of the last two issues show Marvel were still trying to use kid-friendly celebrities (Kylie, Bros etc...) to hook readers in, a recurrent rouse throughout MBC's run (they also tried it in the dying days of Spider-man's weekly in 1985). The decision to cancel seems to have been a hasty one but the editor was able to sneak in several references.