The latest issue of Toxic, in the shops today, comes with a free gift of a wind-up Giant Bug, - and it ties in with the Team Toxic strip inside.When I was a kid I always liked the idea of the free gift being featured in a story in the comic itself. Usually it'd be on the cover, with Korky the Cat on The Dandy using a Thunder-Bang to scare someone, or a Bad Penny on the cover of Smash! with her free cardboard fighter plane.
The idea of such tie-ins tended to die out over the years but in recent times Nigel Parkinson has drawn a few stories for The Beano connecting a free gift or two with the Dennis the Menace story. So when Andy Davidson, editor of Toxic, asked me to come up with a Team Toxic story to promote the free Giant Bug I was only to happy to oblige. (We'd tried it once before, with some free clockwork teeth, but there was a problem with the gift that delayed it a few issues so it didn't quite work out.)
For the Giant Bug story I decided that just featuring a clockwork toy wouldn't be in keeping with the type of city-endangering threats that Team Toxic usually dealt with. So in the comic strip the bug becomes a mutated giant creature rampaging through a school. However it still resembles the free gift so hopefully once the kids have read the issue they'll be acting out the story with their wind-up bug smashing through their Lego models or something. At least that's the sort of thing I would have played out with it when I was a child.
Toxic No.156 is out now from newsagents and supermarkets.
3 comments:
Lew, I don't always comment on every post because I don't want to say something merely for the sake of it, but how do you feel when a post gets no comments at all? Does it bother you? Do you feel unappreciated? Or do you know that just because there are no comments doesn't mean the post hasn't been read, hence you're not fazed at all? Would you prefer someone to say something - anything, just so you know people are out there? What are your feelings on the matter?
Now come on, tell the truth.
We "still" play these things out when we have read the comics and play with the toys.
Perhaps some of us are a little more honest...LOL.
Great stuff here, mate!
Made me chuckle anyhow.
Best,
(''j)
Hi Gordon, I can't say I've ever thought about it. I can see from the hit counter that people are reading it, but it doesn't bother me if they don't comment. I visit blogs and rarely comment.
Hi Tim, Yes I did get the bug out of the bag and play with it, but only for a few seconds, honest. ;-)
Now, where's that Thunder Bang and Whoopee Whistle? :)
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