Original art for sale

I'm selling off one of my original Macho Man strips that I did for Marvel UK back in 1986. You can buy it from my eBay page here:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MACHO-MAN-MARVEL-UK-ORIGINAL-COMIC-ART-by-Lew-Stringer-1986/202811123630

Macho Man was a strip that appeared in Marvel UK's Secret Wars comic. You can read the full saga on my main blog here:
https://lewstringercomics.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-saga-of-macho-man.html

45 Year Flashback: MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL No.1 (1972)

The Mighty World of Marvel No.1 arrived in newsagents across the UK 45 years ago this week. I don't have time to write a new post about it at present but couldn't let the moment pass without celebrating it, so here's an updated version of a post I wrote five years ago, accompanied by scans and photos from the issue I own...

This coming Saturday, September 30th 2017, marks the 45th anniversary of The Mighty World of Marvel No.1, - and 40 years since Marvel UK set up business. (Even though, initially, the comics were edited and designed in New York, with a London office just handling advertising, printing and distribution.)

Marvel UK no longer exist under that name of course. For many years now Marvel have been represented in Britain by Panini UK who have the license to publish UK editions of Marvel Comics (and a great job they do too). However, Marvel UK had a good run and it all kicked off four and a half decades ago with the comic shown in this post.

For some reason I missed the TV advertisements on September 30th for the launch of the comic and the first I knew about it was a few days later when my Mum and I were about to embark on a day trip to Blackpool. Nipping into the bus station newsagent to buy a bottle of pop for the journey I still remember the excitement when I spotted a pile of copies of The Mighty World of Marvel No.1 on the counter. My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. A British Marvel reprint comic to replace the much-missed Fantastic which had folded four years earlier! And with a brand new John Buscema cover to boot!

Needless to say, a good portion of the coach journey to Blackpool was taken up reading the comic from cover to cover. The weather was pleasant that day anyway, but I don't think I'd have noticed if it had been lashing down with rain as I was too engrossed in that issue.

British reprints of Marvel comics had been appearing since the 1950s. Firstly with Len Miller reprinting Human Torch, Kid Colt, and more, and Odhams in the 1960s with their late lamented "Power Comics". Alan Class comics had haphazardly reprinted some Marvel classics too, but Marvel UK had been set up to introduce Marvel to Britain for a new generation. Therefore Mighty World of Marvel was printed Web Offset on matt paper (like Tiger and Cor!!) so it resembled the familiar British format. 

MWOM imitated the format of its predecessor, Fantastic, in that it was a 40 page comic comprised of an anthology of three strips, reprinting half of each of the original comics. Therefore we were given the first 10 pages of The Incredible Hulk No.1, the first half of Fantastic Four No.1, and the Spider-Man origin story from Amazing Fantasy No.15. (Subsequent weeks would continue this serialised approach, so issue 2 presented the second halves of Hulk and FF and the first half of Amazing Spider-Man No.1, and so on.)

Having 40 pages, The Mighty World of Marvel (or MWOM as it was often referred to) was a bit more substantial than the average 32 page UK comic, and its 5p cover price reflected that. (Most UK adventure comics of the time, such as Valiant, were around 3p in 1972.) Like most British comics back then, full colour on every page was out of the question if they wanted to keep costs down, but rather than print in black and white MWOM alternated between green spot colour and pale green paper. (I know some readers hated this but I really liked it. Unfortunately it was dropped several months later and contents became entirely black and white.) 

Only 5 pages were in full colour (increasing to 8 a few weeks later). Issue 1 used the colour of one page for a pin-up by recolouring the cover of Fantastic Four No.1. 

The centre pages of MWOM were used for self-promotion, and who better to present those pages than Stan Lee himself? (Although there's no guarantee he wrote his own editorial every week.)

The rest of the spread was taken up with teasers for 'The World's Greatest Free Gift Offer', encouraging readers to clip out the coupons over 11 weeks and send them in for a mystery gift. Clues were provided every week ("It's bigger than a breadbox") and eventually it was revealed to be an excellent full colour poster drawn by John Buscema of Spider-Man, Hulk, and the FF. (Yes, I clipped out the coupons and sent away for it, and had the poster on my bedroom wall until I left school and decided I was perhaps a tad too old for superhero pin-ups.) 

The free gift tucked inside MWOM No.1 was heralded on the cover as "A Green-Skinned Monster T-Shirt Transfer". It was of course The Hulk, but bearing in mind this comic was aimed at a brand new readership who would never have encountered him before, the words "Green-Skinned Monster" in the topline were probably more effective. 

(Mt transfer remains unused. At the time I felt I was too old for superhero T-shirt transfers. Besides, as you can see, it arrived slightly damaged.)

With such an incredibly strong line up of characters and featuring some of Marvel's most iconic stories, how could it fail? Although I'd read some of the material before in Odhams comics and American reprint comics such as Marvel Tales I bought Mighty World of Marvel avidly every week. I was 13 at the time, and getting a bit jaded by traditional British comics of the day, so this was just the ticket. Seems a lot of other people felt the same, as Marvel UK swiftly expanded with more comics, - Spider-Man Comics Weekly, The Avengers, Planet of the Apes, Dracula Lives, The Superheroes, Savage Sword of Conan, and numerous others. Some were successful, some were complete flops, but Marvel were firmly established as part of the UK comics scene. 

As the message in issue one said, "The excitement is just beginning". It certainly was. I could never have dreamed back in 1972, reading Mighty World of Marvel No.1 on that coach journey to Blackpool, that I'd be a contributor to MWOM's second series in the 1980s with some of my earliest cartoons appearing in its pages alongside Captain Britain by Alan Moore and Alan Davis. 


That second run was short lived, but after a gap of about 20 years Panini UK revived The Mighty World of Marvel. Now published every four weeks, that incarnation is still running and the latest issue (below) is in the shops now. The original MWOM had 40 pages for 5p with only a handful of colour. The current issue has 76 pages in full colour for £3.99. Not a bad evolution for the price. 

If you want to read more about the comics published by the predecessors to Marvel UK, see these old posts of mine...

https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/road-to-marvel-uk-part-1.html

https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/road-to-marvel-uk-part-2.html

https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/road-to-marvel-uk-part-3.html

Marvel UK back in the spotlight

A year ago, the weekly partwork Marvel Fact Files did an issue focusing on Marvel UK (see here) and now an upcoming issue will be a follow up with even more essential info. 

As editor John Tomlinson says, "inevitably there was more to say. This sequel issue profiles some of the stuff we couldn't cram in first time, including the award-winning Panini UK stories and never-before-seen characters and titles from the unpublished 'lost worlds' of 1993". 

Marvel Fact Files No.149, goes on sale 21st January, published by Eaglemoss at £3.50. It not only features a stack of all-new articles on the history of the comics written by ex-Marvel staff and freelancers but also boasts a brand new cover by Alan Davis (above) and a gatefold on Captain Britain, exclusive to this issue, written and drawn by Alan.

Here's a list of the contents:

Spider-Man: Untold Tales

Classic Panini UK Spider-Man stories.

Writer: Ferg Handley

Mys-Tech Wars 

The epic Marvel UK event limited series

Writer: John Freeman

The Road to Marvel UK

How it all began, from 1950s reprints to award-winning originated strips

Writer: Lew Stringer

Nocturne

Short-lived but cool successor to Night Raven, a UK-originated title published in the US.

Writer: Stuart Vandal

Mastermind

Gatefold feature about the sentients super-computer, doubling as a handy history of Captain Britain. Written and illustrated by Alan Davis.

Timesmasher

Long gone but fondly remembered time travel tale by Paul Neary and Mick Austin

Writer: Stuart Vandal

The Cherubim

Walkabout warpies; the mutant children of the Jaspers Warp from Captain Britain's universe.

Writer: Mike Collins

Creator: Paul Neary

Biog of the other Marvel UK mastermind

Writer: Glenn Dakin

Spider-Man: Tower of Power

UK-originated Spidey stories from the eponymous Eaglemoss title

Writer: Glenn Dakin

Dai Thomas

From hero-hater to Knight of Pendragon

Writer: Stuart Vandal

Avengers: Rampaging Heroes

Award-winning Panini UK Avengers, X-Men and Captain Britain stories

Writer: Ferg Handley

Lost Worlds of Marvel UK

Never before seen titles and characters from the cancelled 1993 Marvel UK explosion

Writer: Stuart Vandal

MI:13

Paranormal investigation agency peopled with classic UK-originated characters

Writer: Simon Furman

As with the nature of partworks, newsagents only usually stock the first several issues before making it order-only, but you may be lucky enough to find it. (The current issue is in my WH Smith.) Failing that, some comics shops stock it regularly, and subscriptions and back issues should be available from the publisher's online shop:

https://shop.eaglemoss.com/marvel-factfiles?gclid=CPO98bankMoCFde6GwodNxoMbQ

The Christmas DOCTOR WHO CLASSIC COMICS (1993)

The early 1990's saw Marvel UK publish a monthly Doctor Who Classic Comics title. The 52 page comic reprinted Doctor Who strips from TV Comic, Countdown, and TV Action, plus The Daleks strip from TV21. 

This issue (No.15) was published in December 1993 and featured an exclusive new cover by veteran artist Bill Mevin, one of the early illustrators of the 1960s Doctor Who strips.

Inside was a reprint of a Christmas adventure by Bill Mevin featuring the first Doctor that had originally been serialised across the centre pages of TV Comic Nos.732 to 735 in December 1965. You'll notice the tone is more childlike and 'magical' than the TV version. The Doctor's grandchildren John and Gillian only appeared in the comic of course, and the Doctor refers to himself as "Dr.Who", not "The Doctor". My apologies for the awkward alignment of the two pages but unfortunately this is how they appeared in Classic Comics, with a little bit of detail lost in the gutter. 

The rest of the issue didn't have a festive theme. It reprinted a 1972 third Doctor serial from TV Action Nos.94 to 97...

...began The Telesnap Archive as a kind of photostrip with images from the 1968 Doctor Who TV serial Fury from the Deep...

...and continued the adventures of The Daleks, drawn by Ron Turner, from  TV21 Nos.76 to 80...

Doctor Who Classic Comics was an enjoyable publication reviving nostalgic memories for older readers and introducing newer ones to the long comics history of the character. I don't know if there'd be enough interest to sustain such a monthly title today but it'd be nice to see the slightly more sophisticated strips from Countdown and TV Action reprinted in book form.


Where will our journey to Christmas past take us next? Come back tomorrow to find out!

Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting

When the Kung Fu craze swept the western world in the early 1970s it was inevitable it would also affect comics. One such publication was Marvel UK's The Avengers weekly which had been tootling along with reprints of The Avengers and Doctor Strange for 27 weeks and then out of the blue came the character seen above. Suddenly even the comic's masthead changed to The Avengers starring Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu and The Avengers strip itself was cut in half to accommodate ten pages of this newcomer's adventures. This was issue No.28, dated March 30th 1974.

I remember thinking that the extended title sounded awkward, and that Shang-Chi seemed an uncomfortable fit as he wasn't strictly a superhero, but over the weeks I grew to really like the series. Master of Kung Fu had only debuted in America a few months earlier, in Special Marvel Edition No.15 (which soon changed its title to Master of Kung Fu) but that comic wasn't distributed in the UK. (Not every Marvel comic was imported into Britain due to some limitation on distribution, although it did start coming through with later issues.)

The script was by Steve Englehart, one of the new wave of Marvel writers, with art by Jim Starlin who had already impressed fans with his early Marvel UK covers and his regular stint on Captain Marvel. The story concerned Shang-Chi being duped by his evil father (no less than the notorious Fu Manchu from Sax Rohmer's books) into killing an innocent man. Upon discovering the deceit and filled with guilt and remorse, Shang-Chi sets out on a path to oppose and destroy his father. Along the way, the strip becomes a spy thriller, with Shang joining British intelligence in their battles with Fu Manchu and his minions.

The original creators soon left the series and Doug Moench became the regular writer, with Paul Gulacy becoming the regular artist, and later Gene Day having a long run. It became one of Marvel's landmark series, with its creative teams raising the bar for more mature comics. Unfortunately the strip has never been reprinted due to legal snags with the copyright owners of Fu Manchu and its related characters that Sax Rohmer had created. Until now that is. Marvel recently announced that starting next summer they will publish four Master of Kung Fu Omnibus editions; huge hardback collections reprinting the entire series. Seems like any legal wrangles have finally been sorted out. The books won't be cheap though. The Marvel Omnis usually retail for around $100 each so start saving now!

Going back to the issue of Marvel UK's Avengers, this edition also featured reprints of The Avengers (natually) and Doctor Strange. As you can see, this was during the period when they thought adding heavy areas of zipatone / Letratone would compensate for the lack of full colour. Sometimes it proved effective but sometimes it obscured the art too much and was too distracting, as evidenced by the Doctor Strange splash page here. 

The Avengers starring Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu remained the gobfull of a masthead for quite a while, and the Avengers part of the logo was even reduced in size after a few weeks. It was evident that Marvel UK felt Master of Kung Fu was the selling point, and I'm sure it was. However, with the comic being weekly, the Shang-Chi strips soon caught up with the American monthly. The solution was to create a few brand new 8 pagers that appeared in the UK edition first, which were then reprinted shortly after in America in Giant-Size Master of Kung Fu No.1. Presumably it wasn't financially viable to do that for long so the Shang-Chi strip was rested to enable more US strips to be generated. It was replaced in the UK weekly by Iron Fist, another Marvel kung fu hero, and yes, the comic's masthead became The Avengers starring Iron Fist for a while then too, alternating with it being The Avengers starring Dr.Strange, and simply The Avengers again. Marvel UK could be a bit messy like that back then, but that was all part of the fun.   

More Marvel relaunches for the UK

As reported here a few weeks ago, Panini UK's Marvel reprint monthlies are currently undergoing a relaunch. When the stories within the comics reach the 'Marvel NOW!' point (which instigated significant changes in the American originals), each title is being given a facelift and a renumbering at No.1.

The new first issues of Avengers Universe and The Mighty World of Marvel are in the shops now, and on July 17th Wolverine and Deadpool No.1 hits the stands. Two weeks later, on July 31st, a new volume of Essential X-Men begins.

This will only leave Marvel Legends with its original numbering for now, but that title reaches a significant point too, with No.100 published on July 24th. Marvel Legends will also be revamped in a few month's time, when its stories catch up to the Marvel NOW! issues.

All of these special issues have 100 pages for the usual price of £3.50 and are available from WH Smith, selected newsagents, and comic speciality shops. 

Neil Tennant's FURY

Back in 1977, before the Pet Shop Boys hit the music charts, Neil Tennant was Editor-in-Chief at Marvel UK. The company was putting out a various number of weekly comics at the time, reprinting Marvel strips from the USA, and basically trying to flood the market to rival IPC and DC Thomson. 

However, several reprint titles had failed or at least not had the longevity expected of them, and so something different was required. DC Thomson had made a success out of their all-war weekly Warlord, and IPC had followed suit with Battle Picture Weekly, which became another hit. Allegedly Neil Tennant felt that Marvel UK needed a war comic to compete in this area. The result was Fury. 

Marvel's war weekly was modelled so closely on Warlord and Battle that even the logo was obviously inspired by those of its rivals...

The covers of Fury were also similar to the ones Battle had been running. Powerful images with a punchy message. None punchier than the brilliant one shown at the top of this post by Carlos Ezquerra. The artist had produced many similarly strong images for Battle's covers so it was quite a coup for Marvel UK to commission him for Fury. Unfortunately, the company were not given a budget by their American owners to produce British strips so although Fury looked like a traditional UK war comic on the outside, the interiors were a different matter.

With no option but to use American reprint material, Tennant chose to serialise Sgt.Fury and His Howling Commandos as the main strip, with each 20 page story spread across two or three weekly instalments. Art by Dick Ayers...

The same applied to Captain Savage and His Leatherneck Raiders, which had been a short-lived Marvel strip from the late sixties with art by John Severin...

The rest of the 32 page weekly was taken up with five-page complete war stories from Marvel comics of the 1950s. Some of which were looking quite dated by 1977. The Jap Trap is from 1959, art by Jay Scott Pike...

Despite its American content, Fury tried hard to be as close to a traditional British weekly as possible, such as running a letters page 'hosted' by Sgt.Fury himself...

...and following in the footsteps of Bullet's Fireball Club, Fury encouraged its readers to send in 30p for items such as a club badge, Identity Card, and Secret Codes...

Sadly, Fury failed to attract as many readers as its rivals, probably because the content just wasn't traditional enough. Had Neil Tennant been given free reign to develop a truly British war comic then perhaps it would have lasted longer. As it was, Fury ended after just 25 weeks, merging into The Mighty World of Marvel. Tennant left comics to work for Smash Hits, and a few years later became a huge success in the music industry.

*******************************

Incidentally, the cover to Fury No.1 was by Dave Gibbons and there's currently a copy for sale from Silver-Acre on eBay if you're quick! Click here!

First comics of 2014

Years ago, shops used to be closed on New Year's Day but times change. Amongst the newspapers delivered to newsagents today were the first of this year's comics; 2000AD and Toxic. 

2000AD Prog 1862 continues the new stories that began in the Christmas triple-issue Prog 2014 a few weeks ago, so we have the second chapters of Strontium Dog, ABC Warriors and Ulysses Sweet, plus a complete Future Shock and the beginning of a new Judge Dredd epic, Titan. 

Britain's sole surviving adventure comic weekly enters its 37th year with a strong line-up. 36 thrill-packed pages and still only £2.35.

For younger readers, Toxic magazine No.231 comes bagged with several gifts including a Toxic Catapult Pen, a sturdy metal and plastic freebie ideal for kids to flick whatever they choose across a room. Use such power responsibly. 

Inside, there's a bunch of breezy features on movies, games and suchlike, an Angry Birds board game, and a few strips including Team Toxic, written and drawn by myself. As you may recall, Team Toxic went to reprint about ten months ago, but this issue marks the return of brand-new episodes. In this first new adventure, the Team encounter Guffzilla, a fart creature from Kid Zombie's nether regions. 

Toxic is £2.99 and is published every three weeks.

A new publication that launched at the end of 2013 was the Marvel's Mightiest Heroes Graphic Novel Collection. These hardback books are being packaged by Panini UK for Hachette, with Ed Hammond as editor and Alan Cowsill writing background material about the comics and characters. The books will reprint classic 1960s material alongside more contemporary stories. The first edition reprints Avengers No.1 from 1963 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and Avengers vol.3 No.0, and 19 to 22 by Kurt Busiek and George Pérez. Launch price is a very cheap £1.99. The second volume (featuring Spider-Man) will be £6.99, then the partwork settles on its full price of £9.99 per book.

If you're quick you'll still be able to catch the annual Comicraft New Year's Day Font Sale. Every Jan.1st, for one day only, Comicraft price their excellent fonts at just $20.14 each. These are the top quality lettering fonts in the business, perfect if you're producing your own comics, or if you're a designer in any capacity. Some of those fonts adorn this very blog, used for the Blimey! title banner and elsewhere. Don't settle for less. Buy the best!
http://www.comicbookfonts.com/      

Finally, my wishes to you all for a healthy and prosperous New Year. 2013 was a very bad year for me, with the passing of my mum, the last of my family, (details here if you're interested) but I'm hoping 2014 brings better fortunes - for all of us.