1975: GIANT SUPERHERO HOLIDAY GRAB-BAG House Ad (Marvel UK)

From late 1975: another, more traditionally dimensioned, MARVEL UK House Ad for the 1975 edition of the GIANT SUPERHERO HOLIDAY GRAB-BAG Treasury Edition. 

1974: GIANT SUPERHERO HOLIDAY GRAB-BAG House Ad (Marvel UK)

From late 1974: a MARVEL UK House Ad for that year's festive-themed GIANT SUPERHERO HOLIDAY GRAB-BAG, the latest imported installment in the ongoing run of Marvel Treasury Editions.  100 pages of tabloid goodness. 

1975: GIANT SUPERHERO HOLIDAY GRAB-BAG House Ad (Marvel UK)

From December 1975: a landscape-format Marvel UK House Ad for imported cents-to-pence copies of the GIANT SUPERHERO HOLIDAY GRAB-BAG Treasury Edition.  

The ultimate stocking stuffer....

1974: MARVEL TREASURY EDITIONS - MARVEL UK ADVERTS

The new issue of the ever-brilliant BACK ISSUE MAGAZINE is now on sale on both sides of the Atlantic.  And, if you go down to the Geek Store today, you won't be able to miss it.  Just look for the huge Alex Ross Legion of Super Heroes cover.  Yup, it really is huge.  The new BI looks back at TREASURY COMICS from various publishers and gets in the mood by going - for one issue only - tabloid-sized too.

So I've been rummaging in the Slow Robot vaults and found these early Marvel UK House Ads for imported copies of Marvel's Treasury Editions, starting from the start in 1974.

These ads appeared in the UK weeklies, reminding British Bullpen Buyers to seek out these oversized monsters.  

The dates beneath each ad correspond with the month they appeared, although some may have started to appear slightly earlier... or continued to appear into the following month.

These Treasury Editions are one of the reasons that Marvel UK didn't publish standalone Holiday Specials (a great British comics tradition) until the summer of 1979 (under the stewardship of Dez Skinn), these imports were considered to serve a similar function (although their publication wasn't limited to the traditional school holiday sales dates).

The imports continued throughout the 1970s, although I can't be certain that the entire US range reached British newsagents.  Also, despite the heavy plugging, I'm not sure quite how well they were distributed.

The books themselves were identical to the US editions, just with the US price box substituted for the UK one.

ISSUE 1

September 1974

ISSUE 2

March 1975

ISSUE 3

April 1975

ISSUE 4

July 1975

ISSUE 5

August 1975

ISSUE 6

September 1976