|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2019 6:10:14 GMT -5
I presume a lot of members here are outside the UK. You may only have a cursory knowledge of Marvel UK, its output, etc. So I thought I'd post a topic about it (which I will add to, sporadically). I hope my topic search skills are good, I haven't found a topic about this. What will follow is a very potted history. Marvel UK began in 1972, reprinting US issues for a UK audience. The first Marvel UK title was Mighty World of Marvel, providing black and white reprints of the Hulk, Spider-Man, and the Fantastic Four:  Prior to 1972, a publisher known as Odhams Press had put out some titles. One was Smash!. Look at the colouring here (17th issue, 1966):  Pow! was another one, debuting in 1967, reprinting Spidey and Nick Fury:  And Fantastic #1, also debuting in 1967:  Oh, and Terrific, debuting in 1967:  Odhams Press did also do DC reprints. Want to (sort of) see Bats/Robin on the same cover as the Hulk? Here ya go:  We got some interesting colouring here in the UK:  I wasn't born when all of those were published, but I've certainly bought some of those titles at car boot sales and the like. I can add to this topic if anyone is interested (and I appreciate any clarifications/corrections). Obviously these titles were only available in the UK. I bought a bundle of these from a comic shop recently (the last for a while, they cost quite a bit!). Being A4 in size, they are obviously bigger than the US comics published at the time. However, we didn't have the colour (or, it was sporadic, with only certain pages being coloured). Certainly, seeing a pink Hulk or red FF costumes is quite a novelty. And it does feel special having so many strips in one comic, serialised though they are. Did anyone read any of these either at the time or years later? Do non-UK readers know about Marvel UK? I wonder, in this age of eBay, do any non-UK readers buy these? Would vintage black and white UK reprints even appeal to, say, US readers? |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2019 9:50:26 GMT -5
I have been in London 5 times in my life and I have seen variations of these issues and it's bothers me to see them do some strange colorations and I have seen a 11x17 poster of the Fantastic (another variation of) Four back in 1994 walking around London and it was an odd thing to see. I'm surprised to see Marvel Comics did not complain about it. I even visited a couple of stores and seeing weird coloring of both Marvel and DC Heroes looking so odd and one time I have seen Green Lantern wearing a Blue (Hal Jordan) Mask and that back in the early 90's. Anyway, in the UK ... they do a lot of weird things over there and I wished I had extra $$$ to buy some of the stuff over there and take home and share it with my friends at my local LCS. |
|
|
|
Post by beccabear67 on Jun 24, 2019 11:52:31 GMT -5
I had this Fantastic Annual with some very weird color variations for Iron Man inside and out... and also early The X-Men... it was pretty normal to have some two colour printing where in the U.S. you had four colour, so if the other colour was orange you got orange Fantastic Four costumes, or if the other colour was blue you might have a blue Iron Man. We had some children's books like that besides comics papers and books.  |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2019 12:13:24 GMT -5
That reminds me of other changes. When Marvel UK reprinted the first Sinister Six tale, the X-Men's exploits had not yet been featured in Britain (unless, of course, Brits were buying US comics). So they changed something for the 'benefit' of those who were perhaps unfamiliar with the X-Men. Here's the US/UK comparison:  |
|
|
|
Post by beccabear67 on Jun 24, 2019 12:17:21 GMT -5
We had a British candy and papers (and I think tobacco) shop I could go to in town that carried Star Wars Weekly and Doctor Who Weekly/Monthly and some others. I know they had some war and football comics and various titles with a girl's name (Tracy, Penny, Mandy, June, Misty, Bunty... er, was Bunty actually anyone's name? And I thought there were some funny names in Holland... oh and here's another, Jinty... Jinty? What the...) Plus they had a lot of Beano and Dandy, Whizzer and Chips. I got multiple Star Wars and Doctor Whos (from #1 with the rub-on transfers) at one go and some various other Marvel things like a couple of Hulks, one of which had a part of the first Wolverine story in it (which i wish I had kept never imagining any of the reprints would ever have value, but that one does). I think I later saw Warrior. The last thing I bought there was a few The Super-Heroes Monthly that had old DC reprints in b&w with nice full colour painted covers...   I'll bet every kid that saw it would've been lured by that Spider-Matic Pow! gun... probably like the card paper gun that came with a Kiss LP my brother got in the '70s though.  |
|
|
|
Post by codystarbuck on Jun 24, 2019 13:50:45 GMT -5
Marvel UK got some notice here, when Marvel put Captain Britain in Marvel team-Up; and, later, Contest of Champions. I encountered a little Marvel UK in college, in the mid-80s, as a shop had some Captain Britain, with Alan Davis (I think from the Jamie Delano run). They also had some of the Action Force UK comics, based on GI JOE. Marvel would reprint some of that stuff, later.
Bit of trivia, Neil Tennant, of the Pet Shop Boys, was an editor at Marvel UK.
|
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,221 
|
Post by Confessor on Jun 24, 2019 15:17:42 GMT -5
Paging tingramretro. Paging tingramretro. Please come to the Marvel UK thread immediately. Thank you. Actually, member tingramretro covered a fair bit of this ground in his Any Marvel UK Fans Out There? thread...not that that matters, in terms of this thread having been created. But there is a wealth of information on the subject in that earlier thread. |
|
|
|
Post by rberman on Jun 24, 2019 16:10:59 GMT -5
I reviewed Dragon's Claws (1988) by Furman and Senior a few months ago. |
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,221
|
Post by Confessor on Jun 24, 2019 16:20:56 GMT -5
I wasn't born when all of those were published, but I've certainly bought some of those titles at car boot sales and the like. I can add to this topic if anyone is interested (and I appreciate any clarifications/corrections). Obviously these titles were only available in the UK. I was born when these earliest reprints of Marvel first started to appear, but was too young to have been aware of them. I know that the Alan Class reprint compilation comics always seemed to reprint a fair bit of Silver and Atom Age Marvel when I was a lad in the late '70s and early '80s. I've no idea when they started doing that, but assume that it was around the early '70s (if not before). It should be noted though that the original U.S. superhero Marvel and DCs were also available over here, but they were harder to find than homegrown British comic publications. It's my understanding that between the '60s and '80s, a lot of American comics were brought over to the UK as ballast on cargo ships and were then sold cheaply in British newsagents. Supply was pretty spotty and you wouldn't find them in most UK newsagents (although it's become apparent from talking to tingramretro that the availability -- or lack thereof -- of U.S. comics in British newsagents was almost certainly dependent on geographical location). These old UK comics were not exactly A4. They were closer to the standard UK magazine size of 210mm x 280mm, whereas A4 is 210mm x 297mm. Did anyone read any of these either at the time or years later? Yeah, sure. I read a lot of Marvel UK superhero stuff in the late '70s and early '80s, along with the odd DC reprint. Those Marvel UK reprints were my first introduction to such flagship Marvel superheroes as Spider-Man, the Hulk, Iron Man etc. Actually, I still have a box full of late '70s Super Spider-Man comics (this was the series that began in traditional portrait format, but switched to a rather perculiar landscape format, reprinting two pages of U.S. comics side by side on each page). Like this...   Of course, it kinda goes without saying that my favourite Marvel UK title was Star Wars Weekly (and it's many variations... The Empire Strikes Back Monthly, Return of the Jedi Weekly etc). Those comics were my first introduction to Marvel's original Star Wars run, which is to this day my favourite comics run of all-time (along with the first 200 issues or so of Amazing Spider-Man). By the late '70s and '80s, there were sometimes UK exclusive stories published by Marvel UK, that didn't appear in the U.S. That was certainly the case for the British Star Wars comic, which published a number of stories that U.S. readers didn't get to read at the time. Of course, as you mention, the downside to Marvel UK's stuff was that it was all in black & white. I've spoken before in the forum about how, once I found a local newsagents selling proper, colour U.S. comics in 1983, there was no going back. There weren't any UK comics being printed in full colour at the time, so to find the likes of Spider-Man, Captain America, Superman, and Batman comics in colour, seemed like an incredible thing to me at the time. Do non-UK readers know about Marvel UK? I wonder, in this age of eBay, do any non-UK readers buy these? Would vintage black and white UK reprints even appeal to, say, US readers? I once chatted with a big Spider-Man fan on the old CBR forums who collected the UK reprints to supplement his U.S. Spidey collection. And I remember good ol' Chuck Rozanski from Mile High Comics saying in one of his newsletters once that they did a small, but steady trade in UK reprints of American Marvels and DCs for hardcore U.S. collectors. |
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,221
|
Post by Confessor on Jun 24, 2019 16:32:35 GMT -5
Bit of trivia, Neil Tennant, of the Pet Shop Boys, was an editor at Marvel UK. He also used to edit British teen pop magazine Smash Hits. Which is kinda how he first got involved with the music industry. |
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,221
|
Post by Confessor on Jun 24, 2019 18:32:19 GMT -5
Anyway, in the UK ... they do a lot of weird things over there...  |
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2019 18:44:56 GMT -5
I'll respond to a few of Confessor's points. Where I grew up (80s), there were US comics, but it was inconsistent. One month might see The Incredible Hulk, Detective Comics and Superman on the shelves. The next month might see Avengers, The Mighty Thor and Batman. You couldn't always follow a particular title. That didn't matter in an era where stories were mainly standalone, but it was probably that which led people to follow the Marvel UK reprints. Those titles were at least consistently on the shelves. Comic sizes? You're speaking to the "King of Imperial" here who just doesn't understand metric - so I speak from a position of ignorance.  Some of the comics I bought a while back had the landscape format. Not for me. Too small, too distracting. There is actually one letter-writer in current Marvel UK (Panini) titles who has advocated a landscape format for today's market. Be interesting to go back in time and find out how many liked that landscape format. Regarding colour, I would prefer colour. And it's very fun to actually find the colour versions of the black and white stories I own. I will say, though, that some Marvel stories work well in colour, especially those of a gritty nature such as Punisher, Rampaging Hulk, etc. I've never really enjoyed DC in black and white, though. I have some "Showcase" volumes here. They were purchased at a good price so that's a benefit, but DC - and this is another topic - is fantastical compared to Marvel. I don't think the nature of the DC Universe lends itself to any black and white reprints. |
|
|
|
Post by beccabear67 on Jun 24, 2019 19:00:17 GMT -5
Anyway, in the UK ... they do a lot of weird things over there... Perhaps he means your insistence on calling french fries 'chips', and potato chips 'crisps'? I was wondering, when Marvel had the rights for Edgar Rice Burroughs, Hanna-Barbera, Dennis The Menace, The Smurfs and The A-Team, did any of those properties turn up in Marvel UK comics? |
|
|
|
Post by Icctrombone on Jun 24, 2019 19:11:59 GMT -5
Perhaps he means your insistence on calling french fries 'chips', and potato chips 'crisps'? I was wondering, when Marvel had the rights for Edgar Rice Burroughs, Hanna-Barbera, Dennis The Menace, The Smurfs and The A-Team, did any of those properties turn up in Marvel UK comics? I fell in love with the way words were used In England when I was watching " Are you being served? " on the BBC Channels in the USA during the 80's. And I'd rather call Potatoe chips " Crisps", they sound more yummy.  |
|
Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,221
|
Post by Confessor on Jun 24, 2019 19:18:53 GMT -5
I was wondering, when Marvel had the rights for Edgar Rice Burroughs, Hanna-Barbera, Dennis The Menace, The Smurfs and The A-Team, did any of those properties turn up in Marvel UK comics? Ummm...I couldn't give you a definitive answer on all of those titles, but I know that a digest-sized Conan series ran here in the UK in the early '80s, and Marvel's A-Team comics were published as summer or winter specials, at the very least. I'm gonna guess that Dennis The Menace never saw publication over here because we have our own VERY famous -- iconic, even -- Dennis The Menace, who appeared in the pages of the Beano. Despite the characters having the same name, there is no relation between them. However, in a case of ridiculous coincidence, both charaters first saw publication on 12 March 1951. Just think of that: two characters with the same name, debuting on the same day on either side of the Atlantic...and it's a case of pure coincidence. |
|
