STARLORD cover gallery (1978)

Art: Ramon Sola

As this year marks the 40th anniversary of the short-lived Starlord weekly from 1978, I thought I'd run a gallery of all 22 covers. I've scanned them from my own comic collection, and the art credits (where I didn't recognise them) are from sources online. 

If you didn't already know, Starlord was launched as a slicker companion comic to 2000AD, and introduced us to Strontium Dog and Ro-Busters; characters that are still around today. After just 22 weeks, Starlord merged into 2000AD, but it's still remembered as one of the best comics of its day.

Starlord comic is Copyright ©Rebellion Publishing Ltd.

Art: Brian Bolland??? Anyone know for sure? 

Art: Kevin O'Neill

Art: Carlos Ezquerra

Art: Kevin O'Neill

Art: Ron Embleton

Art: Ramon Sola?

Art: Brian Lewis?

Art: Graham Coton

Art: Graham Coton

Artist unknown.

Art: Brian Lewis

Art: Carlos Ezquerra

Artist unknown.

Art: Alberto Salinas?

Art: Kevin O'Neill

Art: John Higgins?

Artist unknown.

Art: Graham Coton

Art: Ian Kennedy

Art: Jose Luis Ferrer?

Art: Graham Coton

There was also a Starlord Summer Special published in 1978 while the weekly was still in circulation...

As a bonus, here are the free gifts from the first three issues of the weekly... 

The free foil badge was designed by Kevin O'Neill and there were six to collect, each one randomly attached to the front cover. 

Issue 2 gave away a cardboard slide that revealed info on the planets...

Issue 3 presented Starlord's equivalent of the old 'Battleships' game...

Front

Reverse

ZIP (1958)

Zip is a comic that seems quite rare. I'd heard of it but had never seen a copy until this issue turned up on eBay last week for a reasonable price. It was a tabloid sized weekly published by Odhams and ran for 92 issues from 1958 to 1959 before merging into Swift. Apparently Zip was a replacement for Mickey Mouse Weekly after Odhams lost the rights to the Disney strips. (Source: http://ukcomics.wikia.com/wiki/Zip )

The tone of the comic is quite young and seems pitched as a bridge between nursery comics and traditional humour and adventure weeklies. The cover strip is Skippy, The Boy Who Lives in a Barrel by Robert McGillivray. (I'm pretty sure he was the artist who drew The Mighty Smiths and Fairs Please for Tiger in 1969/70.)

The plot of Skippy isn't clear, but he seems to be on the run from the authorities. In which case, perhaps having a postal address to his hideout (and his name above the door) might not have been his wisest decision.

A strip that I'm sure will interest most UK comic fans is Strongbow the Mighty, illustrated by the great Ron Embleton (who gets to sign his art).

Over the page, the humour short The Pond People. There's something familiar about the art style but I can't place who drew it.

On the facing page, another adventure strip that should be of interest; Wells Fargo by Don Lawrence, several years before he'd illustrate The Trigan Empire.

The centrespread of Zip followed the old British comics tradition of being a sort of patchwork quilt design of short strips.

Kiki the Boy Clown wasn't anywhere near as scary as he appeared on the free Kiki mask given away with that issue.

The Brainy B's seems very much in the style of the Famous Five books and the Children's Film Foundation movies of the time. Art by Redvers Blake. 

This issue also featured a competition, with the prize being a flight to Scotland. It didn't explain how readers who lived North of the border could benefit, but perhaps another issue gave them the opportunity to fly to London? (Or was Zip only sold in England?)

Billy Brave, the almost obligatory school strip, was nicely illustrated by Tony Weare...

On the back page, another boy living in a tree house; Robin Alone. Artist unknown.

Zip seems quite a gentle comic but with good art and plenty of variety to its content. I hope you've enjoyed this brief look through one issue.      

Lady Penelope No.42 (1966)

Lady Penelope was a pretty cool character for a puppet, and her comic equally so. Take a look at the cover to Lady Penelope No.42 above, dated November 5th 1966. Its companion comic TV21 often played around with its own logo but never to this extent. A gigantic Lady P logo dominates the cover, even dispensing with the comic's full title that week. (The words 'Lady Penelope' usually ran alongside the logo in the left hand corner.) I don't recall any other comic being as experimental with its cover as this in the 1960s. Also, when you consider that this comic was the size of a tabloid newspaper you can imagine how eye catching it must have been. 

For its target audience of young girls, Lady Penelope must have seemed like the most modern and 'with it' comic they'd ever seen. Its contents were pretty groovy too. On pages 2 and 3, was a strip featuring The Monkees drawn by Tom Kerr. The artist's work was as superb as ever but what's interesting here is that he added little items to the strip in the way that Bill Elder had with Mad a decade earlier. Note for example the UFO in panel three, and the man hanging from the panel border in panel seven. 

Lost In Space was a popular TV show at the time about the Robinson family trapped on a distant planet. Lady Penelope had a Space Family Robinson strip but this had no relation to the TV series. It was instead based on the American Gold Key comics, but with brand new stories for the UK drawn by John Burns. 

The Lady Penelope strip itself ran across the centrespread in the sort of glorious full colour only achievable by the expensive photogravure printing of the time. Artwork by Frank Langford.

The comic certainly employed some top class talent. Ron Embleton delivered fine work as the illustrator of The Man from UNCLE...

There were also a few humour strips in the comic. The excellent Bill Titcombe drawing Bewitched...

The Beverly Hillbillies. (I'm unsure of the artist. Paul Trevillion perhaps?)

Perils of Parker, drawn by Peter Ford...

There was also a prose serial, All the King's Men, featuring an ancestor of Penelope. Art by John Canning...

On the back page, Marina from Stingray had her own series. Nicely illustrated by Rab Hamilton...

The rest of the 20 page comic was taken up with reader participation features and suchlike. I thought you might like to see a couple of adverts from this issue too, which reflect the times. First is an ad for a Sugar Puffs promotion where girls could buy 'Julie... the fashion doll with everything' for 21/- (One pound and 5p). Turns out that 'everything' included stockings and suspenders for the doll. Guaranteed to turn the head of any Action Man. 

The other full page ad was for a variety of Century 21 toys. No doubt worth quite a bit on the collector's market today. 

As you can see, Lady Penelope was quite an impressive comic with some great artwork. Too bad that most of us lads back then were too embarrassed to be seen with a girls comic! If you want to read about its history, check out the brilliant Technodelic website here:
http://www.technodelic.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Upload03/LadyPenelope02.htm