Magnus Robot Fighter
Jul 30, 2008
Growing up in the UK with a plethora of weekly comics I never understood the reason for Dell and Gold Key to issue comics like this that only appeared quarterly. How would you ever remember to pick up the next issue?
I presume “Now only 12 cents” on the covers in 1962 and 1963 refers to the fact that Gold Key had recently taken over a number of titles from Dell Comics who had been charging the outrageous price of 15 cents for their (admittedly advert-free) comics.
Back covers with “pin-ups” were just asking for the comic books to be defaced.
Painted covers always look impressive. The interior artwork by Russ Manning was ok in a neat/sanitised sort of way but the boring layouts of mostly six panels to a page gave Gold Key comics an old-fashioned appearance. I actually preferred the regular back-up strip called “The Aliens”.
The Magic Robot 
Nov 1, 2009 at 9:12 pm
WOW! What a rush. This was one of my first five comic books I purchased as a kid back in 1974 or 75. I still have a collection of hundreds but I fear this copy was one lost in a storage bin in North Carolina. This was also the first type of material to spark my latter Science Fiction writing. Just seeing the cover compels me to purchase it again.
Thanks.
Nov 2, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Yes, don’t old comics press that “nostalgia” button in the brain. This series seemed to run forever but there were only ever 21 issues. Dark Horse collected them into book form a few years ago. I see that volume 1 is out of print, but volumes 2 and 3 are still available. I think Russ Manning also drew quite a bit of Tarzan.