More Atlas

Although they are now 38 years old it still seems to be quite easy to get the 1975-version Atlas Comics for not too much money. Galactus knows why, but on an impulse I’ve just acquired a stack of them from eBay. And I’ve still got loads that I foolishly bought when they were new!! Despite supposedly having given up “collecting” years ago, and as I’m so near to a full set, against my better judgement I feel an overwhelming urge to locate the missing issues now that I have virtually the complete checklist right here. I’m only missing the (difficult to find in the UK ) one-shot Gothic Romances and two Monster Mags.

Marvel Comics had called themselves Atlas for a period in the late 1950s. The UK also had an Atlas Publications producing comics and annuals at the same time. Most likely due to editorial disarray and a belief that as long as it looked like a Marvel comic it would sell in truckloads Seaboard/Atlas only survived for 6 months in 1975. By the time the returns began flooding in, it must have been obvious that the comics weren’t selling.

In 2011 three of the  Seaboard Atlas characters re-appeared with updated versions of The Grim Ghost, Phoenix and Wulf the Barbarian. I dunno if they’re still being published now though. And I don’t think they’re likely to resurrect Vicki…….

Out of the 70 original 1975 comics and magazines spanning 28 titles there were 4 issues of Vicki. The other comics may have been of variable quality but at least they were new, if a trifle derivative of contemporary Marvel material. Vicki comics were derivative of Archie comics and also reprints. The covers may have been new but the stories in the 4 issues had originally appeared in the 1960s in Tower’s Tippy Teen comics. Some of the Tippy/Vicki artwork was slightly re-drawn to make the clothes a little less dated, but they still looked like Archie comics from a decade earlier.