MARVEL MONEY

I joined a Facebook group called "Marvel UK Comics" today. I'm already in one called "Make Mine Marvel UK". I'm not yet sure what the difference between them is, if any. They are both nostalgic for comics I grew up reading.

I recognised the banner used on the Marvel UK Comics Facebook group, as it is on a cheque I was very excited to receive back in the 80s when I had a drawing published in Transformers...

As I mentioned on the group, that Spider-Man and Hulk cheque got a funny look in the bank. It was like trying to use Monopoly money in the real world.

WILD SPACE

I’ve been looking forward to this book for months. It’s a collection of odds and ends.

Back in the 70s and 80s Marvel UK reprinted Marvel US comics. They generally did so in black and white on a weekly basis instead of monthly, and hence used up more of the material than was being produced.  For Spider-Man and the Hulk and the other heroes, there was a ten year backlog of comics, and so this wasn’t going to cause a problem any time soon. For Star Wars though, there was a problem, and so Carmine Infantino got to work pencilling, with two inkers alternating to get the stuff produced more quickly. The result was that uniquely, Star Wars Weekly was printing the stories before they were appearing in the US comics. The Marvel US comics are the reprints.

By the time The Empire Strikes Back movie was released in 1980, there were a good few stories that were just dropped from the Marvel US schedule. I didn’t realise the extent , and was surprised that so many are therefore seen as obscure.

Also from Marvel UK are a series of original comics produced in the UK by creators such as Alan Davis, Alan Moore, Steve Moore, John Stokes, etc. Some of these were already reprinted in the 1990s by Dark Horse in colour, and are presented as such here. With these stories, original covers like this one by Alan Davis aren’t included in the book.

A cheeky thing to note is that although Dark Horse are not hiding altogether that these are Marvel Comics, they have gone to the trouble of whiting out “Stan Lee Presents…” from the start of every chapter and replacing it with “Lucasfilm Presents…”

Of note too are Blackthorne’s 3D comics, published between the 1986 cancellation of Marvel Star Wars and the 1991 Dark Horse series starting up. All three are here, starting with the “Tenth anniversary” #1. The 3D effects have been done away with, and it’s nice to look at these for the first time in 25 years without straining my eyes. I do miss the effect Blackthorne created for the camouflage net on these pages though.

A lot of nice curiosities here, nice to have the Pizzazz magazine stories by Howard Chaykin and Tony Dezuniga, and Gary Erskine’s art is good clean fun too.

SPIDER-MAN AND ZOIDS

I just enjoyed a blog article by Steve Goble on Spider-Man and Zoids. I enjoyed it as I read that Marvel UK comic every week back in 86, so Steve's piece was a nostaglic trip. He goes into detail about the differences between the original US comics and the British reprints throughout the entire 51 issue series. Except he wrote that he didn't have issue 51, and so missed the end of the series. I felt his pain, and leapt to his rescue. If you can stomach two grown men waxing lyrical about mid 80s Marvel comics, have a look here.

CHRISTMAS COMICS: Spider-man

Here is a lovely painting by Bob Wakelin published in the Marvel UK Spider-Man Christmas Special 1984.



Have a Merry Christmas!

TRANSFORMERS CLASSICS UK

In the interests of full disclosure, I must write that I was involved in a small way during the production of this book. However I would have written favourably on it even if I hadn’t been. This book is a collection of comics which were produced by the Marvel UK office in the mid 1980s. I enjoyed the initial run at the time, as mentioned here.

As well as the stories themselves, with terrific artwork from John Ridgway, Geoff Senior, and many others, there are really fascinating behind the scenes articles. These include photos of the offices, and new interviews with most of the artist and editorial staff involved. Lots of artwork produced for poster, sticker and transfer giveaways is reproduced.

It was interesting to note that so many of the team producing the comic were practically novices, learning their craft on the job. Amazing, when you consider the big success Transformers quickly became, and the all-conquering multimedia franchise it has ended up as.

It’s also amusing to see British pop culture explained for an American audience. Hence the description of British annuals as being hardback books that come out close to Christmas and bear the following year’s date on them.

One gripe I would have is that as someone that read the original comics, I am used to seeing these stories in their original dimensions, as opposed to their new smaller size here. I imagine this shrinkage wouldn’t bother you if you hadn’t seen them before in the first place.

The volume is sizable, just shy of 300 pages. A lot of love has gone into the production, as evidenced in IDW editor James Roberts’ introduction. A terrific volume.

MORE ADULT THAN MEETS THE EYE

There is a new series from IDW Publishing called Transformers: Best of the UK. It is collecting the original British stories from the Marvel weekly series which began in the 1980s.

The odd thing is it is clearly marked, "Not intended for anyone under the age of 13". I wonder what IDW are thinking? I looked through the thing, and it's big robots hitting each other, changing into trucks, alien lizard weirdoes running around; all the usual stuff. I can't imagine what they would be concerned about.

The labelling is a surprise, and surely a change from when these stories were originally published. Those comics were sat on the shelves alongside Eagle, 2000ad, Star Wars Weekly and other kid-friendly material.

I remember reading those Transformers comics well. Here is a young artist's work published in an issue way back when...

(I wanted to draw a picture from the toys; not copy a drawing from the comic. My only access to a photo of the toys was in the Kays catalogue, and Skywarp was the toy featured therein.)