Free Gift
Jun 1, 2023
Sometimes when UK comics had a declining circulation the publishers would try a quick fix of sellotaping a free gift onto the cover. If that failed to increase sales the next step would be to cut their losses and combine the comic with another in their stable.
This Blog has suffered a drastic decline in viewers. Will a free gift help? Free today is Marvelman’s Space Race to the Moon Board Game. All you need to do is print it onto a sheet of A3 paper and find a dice and two different coloured counters. When Marvelman plays the game with Young Marvelman he uses a silver coin as his counter and Young Marvelman uses a copper coin. They have hours of fun with this game in between saving the world from mad scientists.
PS; What will happen when Young Marvelman grows to adulthood? Will he then be called Marvelman and the original Marvelman be renamed to Old Marvelman?
Send Down An Angel
Jun 1, 2023
MWOM
Jun 1, 2023
Images of MWOM Number 1 are often posted so, for a change, here are Nos 2 and 3.
Marvel UK began with the weekly comic The Mighty World of Marvel. First on sale for 5p Saturday 30th September 1972 and consequently that first issue was only available to purchase from newsagents for 7 days until Friday 6th October 1972. Approx 225,000 copies of this first issue were printed. Issue No 2 appeared Saturday 7th October 1972. Sales were healthy and settled down to approx 200,000 per week for the first few months.
Interior pages were sometimes Black and White, sometimes in Colour and often in the bonkers Green and Black.
Whoops! Someone has cut out the coupon. Fancy placing it in the middle of the comic!
Back issues of these comics are still cheap considering that the early issues are now over 40 years old. Marvel collectors in the USA have yet to appreciate them, probably not being aware that these comics often contained material unique to them. And an added interest was that the reprinted stories were always on larger page sizes then the original issues.
Many covers featured unique-for-us covers drawn in the States by Marvel’s top artists. Even Jim Starlin did at least two dozen covers including issues 2, 3 and 160 shown here. The artwork for the cover of MWOM 160 would appear often in other UK Marvel comics in the autumn of 1975 as part of an advert for the Xmas 1976 hardback annuals. It may well also have appeared as a poster. It is certainly an iconic image.
In 1975 someone made the surprising decision to issue a new Marvel UK comic named Titan in landscape format shrinking the US pages slightly to fit two to each page.. This shape had been tried before in the 1950s by Classics Illustrated. Some K.G Murray comics had dabbled with two reprinted pages of DC strips but as those comics were still portrait shaped you had to turn the comic sideways to read it. The UK Spider-Man comic was produced in landscape format for a while too. All these oddly shaped comics required unique covers (and sometimes pinups/centre spreads) to be drawn.
There would be a surprisingly large number of Marvel UK titles appearing and disappering over the next 20 years. Too many (and too boring for me to list). But Rob Kirby plans to list them if his long promised book ever sees the light of day.
https://a-distant-beacon.blogspot.com/2020/01/from-cents-to-pence-2020-update-story.html
This was the final issue of the UK Captain Britain (Vol 1). The next week the comic combined with Spider-Man so at least the Captain’s adventures would continue for a while longer.
Do You Remember That?
Jun 1, 2023
Time
Jun 1, 2023
Time is too slow for those who wait.
Too swift for those who fear.
Too long for those who grieve.
Too short for those who rejoice.
But for those who love, time is eternity.
Magnolia Wind
Jun 1, 2023
The Magic Robot 