1988: THE 'NAM MAGAZINE ISSUE 1 (Marvel Comics)

From August 1988: THE 'NAM MAGAZINE issue 1, published by Marvel New York.

Marvel launched the four-colour comic book version in the last quarter of 1986 (with a December cover date) and successfully tapped into to the Vietnam War zeitgeist that was running hot in popular culture (Marvel's corporate parent, New World, also had the TOUR OF DUTY TV show on CBS from September 1987 and, although not directly linked, the comic book must have helped convince the studio to bankroll the show). Not an obvious choice for a mainstream publisher but, thanks to lots of press coverage, an early hit.

Although the glory days of the category had faded a decade earlier, Marvel were still periodically returning to the black & white magazine genre and launched this reprint title (collecting two issues a time) in the summer of 1988. Presumably they believed it would appeal to latecomers and also older readers who wouldn't entertain a comic but would happily indulge in something less colourful.

The early issues were written by veteran Doug Murray and illustrated by Michael Golden, following a successful collaboration on a similar story for Marvel's oft  overlooked SAVAGE TALES magazine. After the first year, the creative team changed and the title's fortunes began to wane, culminating with the decision to feature The Punisher in the hopes that the run would attract his fans to the book. Despite the turmoil, it still clocked up a respectable 84 issues through to 1993.

This magazine version notched up 20 issues. The early issues were also reprinted (long before Frank Castle became part of the story) in Marvel UK's PUNISHER weekly.

Marvel tried to capitalise with SEMPER FI, another colour book this time dedicated to the US Marine Corps. Lightening didn't strike twice and it shuttered after only nine issues over 1988-89.

1990: STRIP PART 4 - Issues 16-20 (Marvel UK)

From 1990: The final five issues of MARVEL UK's twenty-issue wonder STRIP.

The sixteenth issue saw the arrival of THE PUNISHER to the ranks.  Although this may appear to be a merger of Castle's own weekly (cancelled after thirty issues), it isn't really.  The last issue of his solo title had actually hit the stands in late February) and he didn't join Strip until September.  Nevertheless, the British Bullpen still pushed the boat out with a free fabric patch along the lines of the ones that accompanied the contemporary launch issues of STAR TREK THE NEXT GENERATION and THE COMPLETE SPIDER-MAN (suggesting that there were some economies of scale by having three designs made).

Rather than pick up where the ongoing title unexpectedly left off, Strip went back to the character's roots by representing, albeit now in colour, his first pulp-inspired adventure from two decades earlier.  

See here for the final issues of Punny's own British book.  

The DEATH'S HEAD strip (The Body In Question, collected as a graphic novel the same year.  See here) wrapped with the twentieth issue, leaving a vacant slot destined to be filled by the return of another M-UK here: NIGHT RAVEN.  

Unfortunately, the Marvel axe swung without warning again and despite the investment in the new material (and continuing to offer subscriptions), the 21st issue never appeared.  Ooops.

The new NIGHT RAVEN material did appear in book form.  Twice.  It was first issued in late 1990 as a graphic novel and then, with the GENESIS line in full swing, reissued as a prestige format one-shot.  It's actually the latter that is far harder to find.  Both editions appear here. 

1990: STRIP PART ONE - Issues 1-5 (Marvel UK)

From 1990: The first five (of twenty) issues of MARVEL UK's STRIP.

As the sub-title ("The comic grows up") suggests, this was one of the many 'Mature Readers' title that followed CRISIS onto the shelves of the nation's newsagents in the hope of capturing a chunk of the apparently large, and hitherto under served, market of older readers who were still keen for a bit of paneled action but had little in the way of options beyond 2000AD.  

The publishers, of course, hoped that this untapped revenue stream might (in some small way) off-set the collapse in sales of weeklies AND that one-time reliable cash cow: the annual.

Of the assorted launches of the time (CRISIS, REVOLVER, BLAST, DC ACTION, ZONES, MELTDOWN, DEADLINE, TOXIC and others), only the JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE proved to have any longevity (thanks it part to a bewildering number of relaunches and reboots).  

Strip's clunky slogan inspired TOXIC's "the comic throws up!"

Kudos to the Annex of Ideas for putting some real effort into strip.  You can see from the covers above that it's a top-notch, although possibly not very commercial, roster of strips and creators.  And the British Bullpen, once the home of the low-cost reprints, packaged them up in an appealing but not overly expensive full-colour format.  

The business model herein was, where M-UK had commissioned the material, it was also destined for collection as a graphic novel.  The Grimtoad material was reprinted as done-in-one book, as was (from later in the run) the return of Death's Head.  Night Raven, due to start in the 21st issue, ultimately only appeared in a collected edition when Strip was cancelled without warning.  

As we'll see later in the run, The Punisher snuck in (following the cancellation of his own book) in what looked suspiciously like an unofficial merger (even through the Strip... errr... strip hailed from the Seventies and didn't pick up where the weekly/ fortnightly left off) even through it was supposed to herald a new run of "classic" reprints.  Quite what else was due to follow Frank Castle's formative years remains unclear.  

- TO BE CONTINUED -

1992: MARVEL UK AUTUMN SPECIALS House Ad

From late 1992: a strictly "that will do" MARVEL UK House Ad for three Autumn Specials: THE PUNISHER, CAPTAIN BRITAIN and GHOST RIDER. 

1992: THE PUNISHER AUTUMN SPECIAL (Marvel UK)

As a coda to my recent series of posts, and because Ed reminded me that I had a scan tucked away on file, here is the cover of the MARVEL UK'S THE PUNISHER AUTUMN SPECIAL 1992.

1990: THE PUNISHER FEBRUARY COVER GALLERY (Marvel UK)

I guess sudden death (along with bad movie adaptations) is an occupational hazard in Frank Castle's line of work.  That might help the sudden and unheralded (and hardly glorious) demise of Marvel UK's THE PUNISHER comic.

Things seemed to be chugging along nicely until the sudden - and apparently last-minute - announcement that, from issue 30, the frequency was suddenly halved... to fortnightly.  And we're still waiting for the 31st issue.

Although he never had a chance to say goodbye, there was a merger of sorts when a reprint of one of Castle's early seventies adventures suddenly appeared in STRIP MAGAZINE, accompanied by a sew-on badge (similar to the ones that adorned the first issues of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION (here) and THE COMPLETE SPIDER-MAN (here).

Cover by John McCrea

Cover by Mark Farmer

Cover by Stewart Johnson

Cover by Larson, Williams and Place.

First fortnightly issue and - err - last issue.

1990: THE PUNISHER WEEKLY JANUARY COVER GALLERY (Marvel UK)

Marvel UK's THE PUNISHER weekly (barely) blasted into 1990 with this run of four covers from January.

Cover by Phil Gascoine

Cover by Phil Gascoine

Cover by Portacio, Williams & Place

Cover by Stewart Johnson

- To Be Continued - 

1989: THE PUNISHER DECEMBER COVER GALLERY (Marvel UK)

Here's another nice run of British covers from the British PUNISHER weekly, dating back to December 1989.

Lock and load.

Cover by Geoff Senior

Cover by Chiodo

Cover by Geoff Senior

Cover by Geoff Senior

Cover by Kev Hopgood

- To Be Continued - 

1989: THE PUNISHER NOVEMBER COVER GALLERY (MARVEL UK)

Here - after a break - are the next four covers from the thirty issue run of THE PUNISHER from Marvel UK.  These all hail from November 1989.

Once again, Arundel House were favouring new covers from British artists over recycling US art.

Cover by Mark Farmer

Cover by Bryan Hitch and Jeff Anderson

Cover by Barry Kitson

Cover by Kev O'Neil

- To Be Continued - 

1989: THE PUNISHER OCTOBER COVER GALLERY (Marvel UK)

Here are the four issues of the MARVEL UK PUNISHER weekly with cover-dates of October 1989.

From 11 onwards, they started to credit the cover artist on the Page 2 editorial so I'll start to include that information here too.

Kev Hopgood

Anthony Williams

Kev Hopgood

- To Be Continued - 

1989: THE PUNISHER SEPTEMBER COVER GALLERY (Marvel UK)

This is the second instalment of THE PUNISHER Cover Gallery, covering the issues with a September 1989 cover date (issues 5-9).

The Marvel UK weekly ultimately ran for 30 issues before shuttering without warning.

- To Be Continued - 

1989: THE PUNISHER weekly (Marvel UK)

THE PUNISHER is one of those late-entry MARVEL UK books that generally seems to get overlooked.  Launched 14 years ago (almost to the week), it arguably peaked too soon: the character was warming-up nicely across the Atlantic but wasn't yet at his early nineties peak where he fitted perfectly into the "big gun" aesthetics of the Dark Age of comics.

The character was about to make his movie debut in the first - New World produced - Punisher "feature" film although its dubious quality (its really not that bad - albeit not terribly faithful to the comics either), patchy distribution and New World's financial predicament all conspired to make its impact minimal.

M-UK were also pitching the weekly (very latterly fortnightly) at an older market: just before it became the flavour-of-the-month potential saviour of the British business.

The Punisher racked-up 30 issues.  The first 29 appeared weekly before - apparently at the last minute - switching to a fortnightly frequency with issue 30.  Things were obvious worse than Arundel House first feared as although the 31st issue was promoted as usual, it never appeared.

Frank Castle, in an old-of-continuity early appearance, did briefly transfer over to the (even more numerically challenged) STRIP.

The title strip initially reprinted the limited series before picking-up with reruns of the ongoing US book.  The back-up strip for the first three issues was another outing of Marvel's ROBOCOP movie adaptation (previously published in a one-shot special) before stepping aside in favour of THE 'NAM.

Marvel's war-is-hell strip, once improbably mooted for a slot in ACTION FORCE, had gathered a lot of buzz (and - initially - a lot of readers) when it made its US debut a few years early.

Harsh economics meant that the second feature was relegated to the the black & white pages (in the former's case it had originally appeared - on both sides of the Atlantic - sans colour) although cover-to-cover colour was added later.

The first issue - a stonking double-sized outing - also came with a free pin badge.  The copy I have still has it attached.

The covers on the earliest issues were uncredited, a policy that was later reversed.  There's a surprising amount of British-created covers for what was - really - an all-reprint weekly.

Marvel's post-movie ROBOCOP adventures made a brief British comeback as one of the strips in the even-shorter-lived HAVOC.

ISSUE 1

5 August 1989

ISSUE 2

12 August 1989

ISSUE 3

19 August 1989

ISSUE 4

26 August 1989

- To Be Continued - 

1987: THE PUNISHER HARDBACK (Marvel UK)

This is another oddity from the MARVEL UK vaults: an A4 hardback compilation of the first parts of THE PUNISHER five-part US limited series published in late 1985/ early 1986 (all with 1986 cover dates).

Despite being labelled as "Book One", I've never seen a second edition... leaving the storyline unresolved (fortunately Marvel have reprinted it plenty of other times, including in the early issues of Marvel UK's own Punisher weekly).

The format was the same as the COMPLETE WORKS (something of a misnomer as they weren't complete at all) reprints of THE TRANSFORMERS, THE GET ALONG GANG and THE CARE BEARS.

The book was published in February 1987 and clearly aimed at the North American, as well as home, market.