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Post by tingramretro on Nov 5, 2018 6:56:26 GMT -5
I've always preferred the British cover price versions with the "Marvel All-Colour Comics" banner, because that's what I remember from my childhood. The all-colour part was a major selling point, since most British comics at the time were in black and white. I guess that's what it's all about; what you had contact with first at the time. I did have some b&w British titles (wish I'd kept the one which had a part of the first Wolverine/Hulk story), so I can get nostalgic about them. I still have a long run of the early Marvel Doctor Who weekly/monthly, and they're more 'real' to me then the later U.S. editions in color!  The first Wolverine/Hulk story was reprinted in Mighty World of Marvel in about 1976, split across roughly four issues. I still have them. Likewise the complete Doctor Who run; Marvel US only reprinted the Tom Baker and (some) Peter Davison strips, and were unable to reprint several of the original back-up strips because Alan Moore withdrew his permission for them to reprint the material featuring his Special Executive characters. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 5, 2018 6:50:15 GMT -5
I remember buying New Teen Titans # 2, 3 in the pence version. I was told it's considered a variant and not a second printing. Of course it's not a second printing. They were printed on the same day and on the same machine as the cents copies. About the last 10% of the print run would have had the pence covers. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 4, 2018 9:46:02 GMT -5
Maybe it's just me but I tended to want to avoid the pence variant comics of the '60s and '70s, although I know they would've been printed at the same time as the American issues. I looked at the All-Colour banner on X-Men #101 and said... this is just slightly wrong.  I do have some that are the American issues with a rubber stamp mark of 10p on the cover, those I don't mind. Then again I don't even like the Marvels with the blacked diamond and strike through or blank UPC box, nor DC with Whitman in the corner medallion. Yet I don't mind the Canadian newsstand price variants at all. Basically I'm as much of a freak as any collector!  I've always preferred the British cover price versions with the "Marvel All-Colour Comics" banner, because that's what I remember from my childhood. The all-colour part was a major selling point, since most British comics at the time were in black and white. |
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Post by tingramretro on Nov 2, 2018 6:06:50 GMT -5
DC had pence variants too.
I assumed everyone knew that. I think others may have done, too. Certainly, at least two of our local newsagents carried Charlton, Harvey and Archie, and I don't recall any of them not having British prices. |
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 31, 2018 8:44:35 GMT -5
WH Smiths in Croydon very definitely did sell American comics in the eighties. Really? It must've just been us out in the sticks that didn't get any U.S. Marvels or DCs in the major newsagents then. I know that we've had this conversation before, about how your location in the UK affected this kind of thing. I do remember that Martin's/Forbuoys near me started carrying U.S. comics in the early '90s, but definitely not before (I know...I looked!). I think the simple truth is, all the publishers and distributors hated the people of Buckinghamshire.  |
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 30, 2018 7:20:44 GMT -5
My uncles were the big buyers in the 70s and 80s before my brother joined in. Their main stomping ground was an area that spanned several blocks in Edmonton in the London Borough of Enfield. There were several newsagents that stocked US comics so between them, it was possible to get a generous helping. I think Chuck at Mile High estimated England got about 3%-4% of an average print run...and he's one of the few dealers who sells UK variants at higher prices. I've seen current UK dealers do quite the opposite...so I quite enjoy picking up 40 year old books with 12p on them, as recent as last month.
Yeah, somewhere like Enfield or central London probably had much better availability of U.S. comics than we did out in the sticks in Buckinghamshire. But I'm pretty sure it would've only been independent newsagent shops that stocked them, and not the big majors like WHSmiths or Martins. WH Smiths in Croydon very definitely did sell American comics in the eighties. |
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 30, 2018 7:18:55 GMT -5
Yep, and that ruined them somewhat...I didn't understand why they needed to be reprinted in weekly B&W editions when the actual colour versions were also available...I have loads with cover prices of 9d straight up to 20p. Dave Stevens looks good either way. Well, in the 40s, 50s and early 60s, the proper U.S. comics weren't officially available in the UK. It's my understanding that they used to be brought over as ballast sometimes on container ships and sold cheaply to a few independent British newsagent shops who would stock them. You wouldn't find them in most newsagents though and supply was very spotty. Marvel and DC therefore began publishing their own comics in Britain (as in, printed in Britain and created in Britain, even if they were using American stories). These were, like almost all UK comics in the 60s, 70s and 80s, black and white and of a much larger, magazine-type size. I don't know much about why Marvel in particular printed copies of U.S. comics with UK pricing on them. They were clearly intended for the UK marketplace, but that marketplace already had its own ongoing and very successful reprint series going on. I'm sure tingramretro would be able to shed a lot more light on this subject than I can. All I will say is that, original, colour American comics -- even with UK prices printed on them -- were much, much rarer than the regular UK black & white reprints well into the 80s. None of the major newsagent chains or magazine stockists of the era, like WHSmiths, Woolworths, or Martins, carried them; they only stocked the official British reprints. In my experience, it was only the dingey, out of the way newsagents, up some back street somewhere, that stocked real, colour American comics (and even then, it was always alongside the much more common British reprints). I think this varied tremendously depending on where you lived. I grew up in South London, and by the late 70s there were at least five newsagents within about a mile and a half of my house that carried American comics regularly, including the largest one in Penge. Marvel were making a concerted effort to improve distribution in the UK as early as about 1976. Though they did, for a time, deliberately restrict distribution of titles featuring characters like Spider-Man and Hulk, who had their own Marvel UK books, in order to not sabotage their sales. It was far easier to find a copy of Defenders or Werewolf by Night than ASM. |
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 4, 2018 7:02:04 GMT -5
Count me as another fan who was upset to hear of Carlos Ezquerra's passing. He was, along with Brian Bolland, the quintessential Judge Dredd artist, in my view. I loved his work on Strontium Dog too...and Major Easy. He's really just one of those artists whose work is closely associated with my childhood in my mind. I suspect most British comics fans born in the last fifty years feel the same. Hard to see how they'll continue Strontium Dog without him. |
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 3, 2018 2:37:50 GMT -5
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Post by tingramretro on Oct 2, 2018 5:50:28 GMT -5
Carlos Ezquerra, Spanish comic book artist and co-creator of Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog passed away earlier today. Ezquerra had been diagnosed with lung cancer about a decade ago. Ezquerra's work was mostly for 2000AD, but some of his work was for US publishers, usually paired with Garth Ennis (Preacher: Saint of Killers for Vertigo, Kev for Wildstorm, Just A Pilgrim and Battlefields for Dynamite are some of the works.) Actually, Carlos's career was a lot more extensive than that. He began drawing war and western stories for various Spanish publishers before getting his earliest work in the UK in 1973 drawing for girls comics Mirabelle and Valentine and DC Thomson's adventure weekly Wizard. He started working for IPC in 1974, initially on Battle, for which he drew Rat Pack and over a hundred installments of Major Eazy. He also created Strontium Dog for Starlord. |
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Post by tingramretro on Sept 3, 2018 9:44:56 GMT -5
Missing Doctor Who episodes found! were found in 2013. They've been out on DVD for the last five years. |
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Post by tingramretro on Aug 14, 2018 5:38:36 GMT -5
2000 AD seems to be keen on bringing back od characters in recent years. Very surprised by the sudden, unexpected reappearance of Armoured Gideon in the latest series of The Order.
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Post by tingramretro on Aug 12, 2018 20:14:22 GMT -5
I'm not sure about rebooting Tim Hunter. Whether it appeals to me or not will depend a lot on how close it is to the original. In particular, Tim's relationship with Molly was a vital part of the original series, but will she even exist now?
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Post by tingramretro on Aug 12, 2018 6:00:17 GMT -5
Sorry to contradict, but Dredd didn't always get the colour centrespread. In early issues, other strips were occasionally awarded that honour, most notably Dan Dare, and on at least one occasion the ABC Warriors. Ah, OK. I'm sure you're right. My best mate and I were reading 2000AD from about 1980 onwards and I always remember Dredd having the two colour pages during that period. Actually, thinking about it, I did know that Dredd started in black & white, before it became popular enough to get the colour pages, I guess, but that was before my time reading the comic. Dredd usually got either the opening or closing slots in the early days, while Dan Dare was considered very much the star of the book and usually got the colour centrespread. I don't think Dredd's popularity really took off until The Cursed Earth, which was really his first epic storyline. That began with #61 in April 1978. |
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Post by tingramretro on Aug 11, 2018 10:09:16 GMT -5
Sci-fi military series, with genetically engineered soldiers; one of whom breaks programming. The Kurt Russell film, Soldier, swiped much of the premise (though there were already prose sci-fi antecedents). Good, mature, well done feature. Started out with Dave Gibbons on art. Gibbons came back to it in 1989, with Will Simpson, called War Machine, which altered things, with a new Trooper. It was printed in Heavy Metal, as well as its own album, in the US.  You're missing the core of the concept : the soldier's weapons and gear (helmet and backpack) all talk to him constantly, because they all have a chip with the mind of previously deceased platoon members fully bio-digitalized. This makes for a very unusal dialogue (which also probably is why the series never got Judge Dredd/Slaine popular, as the technique can feel a tad annoying at times, despite its charm). And it also is not really a military series but an anti-military one, owning quite a lot to Johnny's got a gun from Dalton Trumbo in concept, and to an "all sides are evil in war" mentality. But of course, being that 2000AD still was a boys magazine, it's not that subtle as even if highly anti-military in essence, it still mostly features battles and man to man combat  At fist it was also essentially a US civil war riff. The original Finlay-Day run ran for about 200 issues between 1981 and 1985. Alan Moore wrote three single issue stories. Several other writers such as Tomlison, Milligan, Rennie, Dillon, Geller, Mills, Morrison, etc also took part. There's even an IDW original ongoing from a few years back. The 1989 Gibbons reboot missed the point (he eliminated the biochip parts) that the series was enjoyed as an odd team book. He was swiftly removed from the series to be replaced by a series of first aid writers, incuding Mark Millar, having to figure out how this new Friday character fitted out in hte previous continuity. This run ended in 1996 and saw crossovers with Judge Dredd. It isn't fondly remembered. That's an understatement! When the original Rogue first reappeared in 2000, there was a great opening splash page of him standing in front of a wall on which someone had scrawled "Thank God it's Not Friday"! |
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I do have some that are the American issues with a rubber stamp mark of 10p on the cover, those I don't mind. Then again I don't even like the Marvels with the blacked diamond and strike through or blank UPC box, nor DC with Whitman in the corner medallion. Yet I don't mind the Canadian newsstand price variants at all. Basically I'm as much of a freak as any collector!
At fist it was also essentially a US civil war riff.