1985: MICHAEL IRONSIDE DISCUSSES V: THE SERIES IN STARLOG MAGAZINE

From January 1985 (but on-sale in late '84): Genre legend Michael Ironside talks to STARLOG MAGAZINE about his stint on V: THE FINAL BATTLE and V: THE SERIES.

The interview clearly took place during the early days of the weekly series and it is interesting that he notes the problems of balancing a sprawling cast with an action-adventure format.  The producers addressed this issue mid-season... by chopping half the cast.... including Ironside.

I doubt that the mid-season purge was welcomed by everyone who got the chop (and some of the choices were - ahem - odd) but I think Ironside was happy to move on... to the movie TOP GUN.

1984: MARVEL UK'S RETURN OF THE JEDI WEEKLY CELEBRATES 50 ISSUES

From May 1984: MARVEL UK's RETURN OF THE JEDI weekly celebrates fifty issues (and almost a year in print) with a blue elephant and a free glossy booklet, C.Y.R.I.L's DATA FILE, full of photos and saga-related facts.

And - oh look - they've reused the ROTJ US Superspecial cover art yet again.

Despite being the magazine's 'Editor Droid', C.Y.R.I.L had yet to make his visual debut in the comic... that was still a few more months away.  The 'character' himself first appeared, as a letters page gimmick, back in the days of STAR WARS WEEKLY in the late Seventies.

ROTJ weekly itself was still in its first phase of mixing new (chopped into very short chapters) and vintage (sometimes with some weird paginantion) Marvel Star Wars strips (sadly nothing new was ever commissioned for this run) along with vaguely related movie adaptations as the third feature (at this point: JAMES BOND: FOR YOUR EYES ONLY. Next up: KRULL).

The British Bullpen had only just got around to clearing the backlog of pre-JEDI US material (a reversal of the one-time situation where the US colour monthly was reprinting strips already published in the British edition) and was now - finally - relating events after the fall of the Empire.  The cherry-picked SWW era reprints were about to give way to another outing of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK adaptation the following week, the first time the strip had seen print in the UK since 1980.

ROTJ eventually ran for 155 issues (plus specials) before succumbing to falling sales and the decline in the saga's popularity.  The strip ended its days as a back-up feature in SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS before fading away (although the spin-off DROIDS and EWOKS strips, based on the animated shows, continued to appear across the British range).

1985: JOE KUBERT SPEAKEASY FANZINE COVER

From December 1985: SPEAKEASY, the British fanzine, issue 57.

1983: THE FINAL ISSUE OF MARVEL UK'S THE DAREDEVILS

From November 1983: MARVEL UK's THE DAREDEVILS closes after a mere 11 issues.

This is probably one of the most famous failures in the whole pantheon of British Marvel books... and let's be frank... there were an awful lot of short-run titles in the 20+ years the British Bullpen was open for business.

One of the funny things about the failure - and subsequent merger with (the revived) MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL is that it didn't transfer the title star in the merger.  Frank Miller's DD didn't make the cut.  And the tie-up also sqeezed out the new X-Men, stars of MWOM.  Clearly critical success did not automatically secure you a place.

Captain Britain, the main selling point of The Daredevils, did fortunately make the cut.  Which is surprising considering Marvel UK's accountants were always looking at ways to end expenditure on new material in favour of freebie reprints.

The makeweight strip - Sixties Spider-man adventures, rehoused from the SPIDER-MAN POCKET BOOK the previous year, never stood a chance.

I must admit that - at the time - I rather liked the results of the merger.  And I still think the new MWOM was one of the stronger titles M-UK ever published.  Shoddy printing not withstanding.  I think the combined line-up pulled together the best of both worlds and - at the time - I lapped up the fanzine reviews (no longer written - like much of the original content in The Daredevils - by Alan Moore), the reprints of hard-to-find US limited series, the (just reprinted) Night Raven text stories and the showcase feature (my first introduction to H.M.S Conqueror, Britain's STAR TREK knock-off).

1983: STARLOG MAGAZINE COVERS THE FIRST 'V' MINI-SERIES

From June 1983: STARLOG MAGAZINE covers the making of the original 'V' mini-series, aired on NBC in 1983 and a year later here in the UK.

It's interesting to see that thoughts were already turning to a weekly series version.

1987: MARVEL UK SIGNING FOR THUNDERCATS AND ACTION FORCE AT BIRMINGHAM'S NOSTALGIA AND COMICS

From May 1987: The Annex of Ideas takes a road trip to Birmingham for a signing by the MARVEL UK ACTION FORCE and THUNDERCATS (so also - inevitably - TRANSFORMERS as well) creative teams.

Did you go?  Was it good?  Do you still have your signed weeklies?

1980: STAR TREK THE MAGAZINE ADVERT

From August 1980: a fanzine ad for STAR TREK THE MAGAZINE.

I don't know much about this one... despite the official-sounding title I suspect this was actually a fanzine.  It's a UK address on the advert but they may have simply been acting as agents for a US publisher.  Paramount's lawyers may have turned a blind eye to fandom (it did keep reruns of the show on the air and movies in theatres) but I think a title that grand was probably a step too far, especially if it stopped the studio signing a commercial deal with a real publisher.

i assume it is not to be confused with TREK, the seldom-seen fanzine that spawned the series of paperback books collecting articles from the 'zine throughout the 1980s.  They were once certain secondhand bookstore fodder but seem to have become a lot rarer in the wild over the last decade or so.

1988: ARK/ ARKENSWORD ISSUE 24

From May 1988: ARK (previously ARKENSWORD) issue 24.

This is dragged from the Random Scans file.  Back issues of Arkensword don't seem to pop up as often as contemporary copies of FANTASY ADVERTISER and SPEAKEASY which - I'm sure - reflects more patchy distribution outside mail order and marts.

1982: STARLOG MAGAZINE ANNOUNCES THE DEAL TO SHOW STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE ON US NETWORK TV

From February 1982: STARLOG MAGAZINE reports on the CBS deal to show STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE on free-to-air network TV in the States.

It's hard to appreciate now quite what a big deal it was to see the Star Wars films on the small screen.

I suspect that Lucasfilm had a plan to follow the old - and well-established - Disney release plan of rolling out the same classics for theatrical re-release every generation or so.  A proven pre-VHS/ multi-channel TV method of getting maximum bang for their buck and topping up the company coffers for a fraction of the expense and risk of actually making a new movie.

1994: MARVEL UK'S THE REN AND STIMPY SHOW

From October 1994: a MARVEL UK house ad for the launch of THE REN AND STIMPY SHOW MONTHLY, based on the 'cult' (because everyone said it was a cult... so it must have been a cult) US animated series.

I'm guessing, judging from the clever copy, that MARVEL UK had already published one or more one-shots or specials before coming back with a regular monthly version.  

The TV series aired - from memory - on BBC TWO in an early evening slot.  I think I only ever watched a couple of episodes and I found it good... but not great enough to get excited about it.

The contents of the UK version almost certainly came from the Marvel New York specials and ongoing series.

This was launched towards the end of the lifetime of the British Bullpen (note the shortlived logo) and I'm not sure whether it survived the change of management - and swift cancellations - that came with the Panini takeover.