When one thinks of the first series of Smash! comic (1966 to 1969) it may be the Batman strip of the covers that comes to mind. However, the comic's front page shifted and changed a bit before the Caped Crusader took up his position. Here's a look at all the issues leading up to that point.
On February 2nd 1966 Smash! No.1 (above) debuted with a great Leo Baxendale cover promoting the free cardboard gun. The influence of Carl Giles was always evident in Baxendale's work of this period but Leo went in his own direction with it, enhancing his own style and bringing his creativity to every job. And it's incredibly funny too of course.
Leo Baxendale was called upon to produce similarly manic covers to promote the free gifts in issues 2 and 3...
Issue 4 saw the arrival of The Man From B.U.N.G.L.E. (inspired by TV's Man From U.N.C.L.E.) and another cracking cover by Leo...
The cover to issue 5 was also by Leo Baxendale. Incidentally, the villainous 'Doctor Doom' was suddenly renamed 'Doctor Goole' in later issues to avoid confusion when Odhams started reprinting Marvel material.
With issue 6, Ron Spencer became the new artist on The Man From B.U.N.G.L.E. doing a pretty good ghosting of Leo's style...
Issue 7, again by Ron Spencer.
Issue 8, and a slight change, with B.U.N.G.L.E. as two panels this week. More great monsters drawn by Ron Spencer...
Uh-oh, here come the Chinese racial stereotypes on the cover of issue 9...
Issue 10, and an unusual Easter cover, again by Spencer...
Issue 11, again by Spencer...
Issue 12 saw a refreshing change with a split cover between The Man From B.U.N.G.L.E. (drawn by Ron Spencer) and a panel taken from The Legend Testers strip from inside by Jordi Bernet. Note the huge name check for Legend Tester 'Rollo Stones' in an attempt to get fans of The Rolling Stones to pick up the comic...
Issue 13 had a full cover B.U.N.G.L.E. illustration by Spencer again...
...as did issue 14...
Then with issue 15 a drastic change with a striking cover by Jordi Bernet for the latest Legend Testers adventure which was re-named The Trolls of the Under-Earth for that week. (You never knew what to expect in Smash!)
Issue 16 and The Man From B.U.N.G.L.E. was back, but this time drawn by Brian Lewis for one week only. Note that topline, - this key issue is when reprints of The Hulk started and Odhams relationship with Marvel Comics began...
Issue 17 proudly devoted its cover to The Incredible Hulk, reprinting Jack Kirby's cover from Marvel's Incredible Hulk No.1 (even though the story inside reprinted Hulk No.2). Marvel had supplied Odhams with black and white artwork but seem to have forgotten to tell them that the Hulk should have green skin...
Issue 18 saw the final Man From B.U.N.G.L.E. cover. A nice job by Ron Spencer. The character would later return as a comic strip serial inside the comic.
Issue 19 and Smash! had abandoned its plan to pull in U.N.C.L.E. fans with a spoof, and instead went for the real thing by having an artist draw likenesses of Robert Vaughan and David McCallum on the cover. And why not throw in a likeness of Mick Jagger too, just to attract the pop fans? It was a plug for the Charlie's Choice strip inside but I don't know who drew the cover.
With issue 20 Smash! finally settled on a new cover star who would remain in place for the next couple of years. In a great coup for the comic, Batman had arrived, with Odhams gaining permission to reprint the strip from the American Sunday papers. Inside the comic, the contents had been steadily improving and adding new characters too over the first 20 weeks and now Smash! entered its golden age with a great mixture of home-grown humour and adventure strips plus reprints of Batman and the Hulk! Truly a comic to look forward to every week!
Batman ran on the cover every week (with one exception on No.34) until issue 114 when The Swots and the Blots took over for the rest of the run of the first series of Smash! I'm not going to show the rest of the covers as it'd soon become very tedious but I hope you've enjoyed looking through this selection of the early issues. Click each image to see it in more detail.
It was 48 years ago today when Odhams Press Ltd. began their association with Marvel Comics by publishing reprints of The Incredible Hulk in the pages of Smash!
Yes, I know some sources claim that reprints of The Fantastic Four began in Wham! first, but that's not true. (Trust me. I have the comics. The FF came to Wham! a little later.) It was the issue shown here, Smash! No.16, dated 21st May 1966, that was the first Odhams weekly to feature a Marvel reprint.
Curiously, they started by reprinting Incredible Hulk No.2 rather than the first issue, but what a great choice! The opening image of the Hulk emerging from the swamp (by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko) was a perfect and powerful way to introduce the character to British readers. (Parts of Hulk No.1 were reprinted in following weeks, and the origin chapter in Fantastic in 1968.)
The original Incredible Hulk comics (and his following appearances in Tales to Astonish) had been available in some UK newsagents but distribution was unreliable. The reprints in Smash! were the ideal way to showcase a consecutive run of Hulk stories and, for many of us, were our first discovery of the character.
Due to the page size of British comics being considerably bigger than American comics, panels from the Hulk stories were arranged to fit more onto each page. This first appearance of the Hulk ran to six pages in Smash!, - roughly 11 pages of the American comic.
The editorial in the letters section gave The Hulk a shout out, and encouraged readers to hold on to this issue...
What else was in this landmark issue? Well, some excellent new British material, that's what! Let's have a look at a few highlights, starting with the brilliant Man from B.U.N.G.L.E. cover by Brian Lewis at the top of this post.
On pages 2 and 3 was the second chapter of a strip that had begun the previous week, - The Rubberman! Story by Ken Mennell with art by Alfredo Marculeta...
Ken Reid's Queen of the Seas is always worth showing here...
This next offering is The Legend Testers, although it had dropped its regular title that week to be called The Feast of the Trolls. And as I found out, you should never feed a troll. Excellent horror comic art by Jordi Bernet...
On the back page of this 28 page issue, Grimly Feendish. Artwork by Ron Spencer I think, or perhaps Mike Lacey. Someone ghosting Leo Baxendale's style anyway (but it's definitely not by Leo).
These early issues of Smash! were some of the most entertaining comics of the sixties. Humour, horror, superheroes... it had the lot! I remember having a few issues of The Hornet and Victor around that time and thinking how mundane and ordinary it seemed in comparison. Admittedly, Smash! didn't sell as well as many of its rivals, but the more formalised comics have often been the most successful. Smash! had its own identity, as did its stablemates Wham! and Pow!, and they captured the mood of the times better than most other comics. Comics such as Valiant and Hotspur were better structured and slicker, but Smash! was cooler.
Although Smash! is often associated with Marvel reprint as part of its content there was a time before The Incredible Hulk arrived in its pages when the contents were all home grown. One such example is this early issue of Smash! (No.12) which went on sale this week in 1966.
The Man from B.U.N.G.L.E. was the usual star of the cover at this time but he was pushed aside this week for a promotion of The Legend Testers serial. And what a striking image by the fantastic Jordi Bernet. "Rollo Stones" was the name of one of The Legend Testers, and there's no prizes for guessing what inspired that moniker. I'm sure the huge title under the logo this week caused a few double takes from Rolling Stones fans, and possibly a few new readers, which of course was the intention.
The first strip inside this issue's 28 pages was the latest chapter of The Moon Madness drawn impeccably by Brian Lewis. The premise of this series (bits of alien body being drawn together) was completely daft, but it was played totally straight and for many of us who were kids at the time it proved to be completely gripping. When I was seven I couldn't wait for the next chapter every week! (More on Moon Madness in an earlier blog post here.)
Another artist who always gave 100% was Ken Reid, who, in my opinion, was doing the best work of his career at Odhams. Here's the hilarious Queen of the Seas (which was later reprinted in Buster)...
The Legend Testers was about two time travellers from the far future who were assigned to various points in history to test the authenticity of various museum artifacts. A job not as dull as it sounds as you can see, leading Rollo Stones and Danny Charters into deadly danger every week. Spanish artist Jordi Bernet is well known now for his crime series Torpedo and for his recent work on Jonah Hex...
Brian Lewis had an incredible versatility to his style. Here he is drawing Space Jinx, showing he was as much as master of slapstick "bigfoot" art as he was of the realistic style he used on Moon Madness. He also drew many of the Charlie's Choice episodes for Smash!
If you're wondering how The Man from B.U.N.G.L.E. got out of his death plunge on the cover, here's the solution on the Mister Knowall page. Did you guess correctly?
This issue also featured The Swots and The Blots by Ron Spencer, Bad Penny and Danger Mouse by Artie Jackson, The Tellybugs by George Parlett, The Ghost Patrol (a reprint of Swift's The Phantom Patrol) by Gerry Embleton, The Nervs by Graham Allen, Percy's Pets by Stan McMurtry, Brian's Brain by Bert Vandeput, and Ronnie Rich by Gordon Hogg. What a great line up of artistic talent!
And last but not least, on the back page, was Grimly Feendish which this week was drawn by Artie Jackson...
Smash! - Definitely my favourite comic of 1966.
