Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
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Post by Confessor on Jun 24, 2019 19:28:17 GMT -5
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. FWIW, I definitely like the landscape format, with two pages of U.S. comics printed side by side per page. I have a decent collection of those late '70s Super Spider-Man reprints in this style. Although part of my attachment to them is surely nostalgic, I will concede that. 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. Actually, the way that they reminded me of Marvel and DC British reprints was one of the things that I liked best about Marvel's Essentials and DC's Showcase volumes. The black & white reproduction of the colour American issues reminded me of how I first encountered superhero characters as a little kid. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 24, 2019 19:31:07 GMT -5
Anyway, in the UK ... they do a lot of weird things over there...  I understand your concerns here and all that ... but, I just find it rather odd seeing the Fantastic Four in Red Costumes and all that and later on USA did the same thing. I have seen thing so out of ordinary and all that. I wished I could chosen a different word and sorry that I said about it earlier. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Jun 24, 2019 23:09:02 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.  Now I'm wondering what you might've expected a toad in the hole to be which Mister Humphries seemed to order in the store canteen. It's a trick question though as in Canada it's an egg in a slice of fried bread while in England it's a banger sausage in a flour batter sometimes with gravy! 'Weird things' indeed...  |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 24, 2019 23:11:59 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. Yeah, I saw that on the South Bank Show. Bravo used to show some British programming, in the early 90s (South Bank Show, A Bit of Fry & Laurie and one or two others) and I caught the one with the Pet Shop Boys (I have always been a fan, dating back to when West End Girls first ran on MTV) and Tennant took them through the magazine offices (I think it was them; but, it might have been another), where he talked about working for the magazine. I don't believe they mentioned Marvel UK, in the program. Of course, Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders wrote for the NME |
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Post by codystarbuck on Jun 24, 2019 23:22:41 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. From what little I've seen in reference books and a documentary about comics from around the world, your Dennis was way more vicious than ours. He was more of an annoyance who would say embarrassing things to adults, while I saw one strip of your Dennis, where he puts castors on a vaulting horse and someone plows face first into a wall. Your kid would have killed Mr Wilson!   |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2019 4:48:53 GMT -5
This topic has taken a fascinating turn. I did not know Dennis and Dennis had debuted at the same time. Becca, as Confessor stated, there were some A-Team specials. I remember a Hanna-Barbera title which I think had Flintstones and Scooby-Doo in. If I can find out more, I'll post. Right, the second Marvel UK title to debut was Spider-Man Comics Weekly, debuting in 1973. These I bought recently. There were two strips in each issue: 60s Spider-Man strips and 60s Thor strips. And a rather lively letters page. Also, in what would no doubt have John Byrne pulling his hair out, the majority of letter writers write Spiderman instead of Spider-Man.  This title kept being relaunched, but retained its numbering. These are the names it went under: Spider-Man Comics Weekly
Super Spider-Man
Spider-Man Comic
Spectacular Spider-Man Weekly
Spider-Man and Hulk Weekly
Super Spider-Man TV Comic
Spider-Man
The Spider-Man Comic
Spidey Comic (don't tell Byrne!) There were also mergers with many titles, some of which I'm sure we'll mention here. The title eerily ran for 666 issues, ending in 1985. And he didn't even really make the cover in his final issue:  As I said, this is a potted history thread. I'd love to share 666 covers. I can't. But I quite like this one:  |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,221
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Post by Confessor on Jun 25, 2019 6:09:12 GMT -5
From what little I've seen in reference books and a documentary about comics from around the world, your Dennis was way more vicious than ours. He was more of an annoyance who would say embarrassing things to adults, while I saw one strip of your Dennis, where he puts castors on a vaulting horse and someone plows face first into a wall. Your kid would have killed Mr Wilson! I've never read the U.S. Dennis the Menace strip, but yeah...our Dennis the Menace (and his dog Gnasher) were nasty. Really, he was little more than a child hooligan, at least in the late '70s and early '80s, which is when I used to read the Beano. Thing is, even as a little kid, I never really liked Dennis the Menace and Gnasher all that much. They just seemed too "yobby" for me. I enjoyed other Beano strips, such as The Bash Street Kids, Minnie the Minx, Lord Snooty and, over in Dandy, the likes of Desperate Dan and the Numskulls, but Dennis and Gnasher were a bit too scary. I was a well brought up, polite and rather shy kid, and they were just a bit too vicious and out of control for me. Still, that didn't stop me saving up the coupons from inside the Beano and joining the Dennis the Menace fan club, for which I received these badges...   |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2019 6:19:23 GMT -5
Cool. I was in fan clubs, but not that fan club. I wonder if Dennis is the same - or whether he's more PC now. A strip I read (late 80s) saw his dad hitting him with a slipper. I can't imagine that being published now. Regarding Hanna-Barbera, some strips appeared in The Marvel Bumper Comic, published from 1988-89 (31 issues). Here's one:  |
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Post by beccabear67 on Jun 25, 2019 12:06:23 GMT -5
I've seen someone I thought had a Man U scarf that turned out to be wearing a Dennis scarf... I guess they were trying to tell the world, that's right I'm a yobbo?  |
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,221
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Post by Confessor on Jun 25, 2019 17:36:43 GMT -5
I've seen someone I thought had a Man U scarf that turned out to be wearing a Dennis scarf... I guess they were trying to tell the world, that's right I'm a yobbo? A Dennis the Menace fan and a Football supporter!! Yikes....that's a double yobbo!   |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 25, 2019 17:50:18 GMT -5
From what little I've seen in reference books and a documentary about comics from around the world, your Dennis was way more vicious than ours. He was more of an annoyance who would say embarrassing things to adults, while I saw one strip of your Dennis, where he puts castors on a vaulting horse and someone plows face first into a wall. Your kid would have killed Mr Wilson! I've never read the U.S. Dennis the Menace strip, but yeah...our Dennis the Menace (and his dog Gnasher) were nasty. Really, he was little more than a child hooligan, at least in the late '70s and early '80s, which is when I used to read the Beano. You haven't missed a lot. The U.S. Dennis was never menacing in any real way. And to the extent he was it was at the very very start of the panel, circa 1951-53. By the time the TV show appeared the strip had devolved into a pale harbinger of the Family Circus. |
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Post by beccabear67 on Jun 25, 2019 19:28:19 GMT -5
Nobody would let the U.K. Dennis get his hands on this lot!  I think Australia's Ginger Meggs predates them both (though I'm thinking he was probably inspired by either Percy Crosby's Skippy or some similar U.S. strip character like Smitty) and is still going last I'd heard. |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 25, 2019 21:01:22 GMT -5
Nobody would let the U.K. Dennis get his hands on this lot! I think Australia's Ginger Meggs predates them both (though I'm thinking he was probably inspired by either Percy Crosby's Skippy or some similar U.S. strip character like Smitty) and is still going last I'd heard. I seen this before and they are really  ... |
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Post by Deleted on Jun 26, 2019 2:56:25 GMT -5
In late 1973, Marvel UK launched The Avengers:  As the cover shows, Dr. Strange was the back-up strip. 1974 saw two titles launched:   Those two titles eventually merged:  |
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Post by tingramretro on Jun 26, 2019 9:40:34 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? Marvel UK were basically responsible for me becoming a comics fan; my grandmother taught me to read with comics, and one of the most prominent was Marvel's Spider-Man Comics Weekly, back in about 1974. I was a devoted Marvel UK follower from then right up until the company finally bit the dust in 1999, and I still have most of my collection. I did acquire a number of issues of the Odhams titles, but not until years later. |
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