Cover Of The Day

[MacNimon]

In 1971, IPC decided to have another shot at cracking the Beano-Dandy market by reviving an old title of theirs which had originally run for 24 years. Knockout appeared in June 1971, 8 years after the cancellation of the original. The cover strip was The Super Seven, drawn by Mike Lacey. Knockout tried to appeal to Dandy/Beano readers by featuring strips of a similar type, and often these were simply rip-offs of strips appearing in those titles.

Unlike other IPC comics of the time which all had B&W interiors, Knockout had colour interiors although many were of the single colour 'spot colour' type which was popular at the time. The page count and cover price were also identical to those of the Dandy/Beano of the time.

...and the back page, for your enjoyment...

Strips included Fuss Pot, Joker, Pete's Pockets, Stinker, The Haunted Wood, The Super Seven and The Toffs and the Toughs. This second volume of Knockout couldn't match the long lifespan of the original though, lasting just over two years being cancelled after 106 issues when it merged with Whizzer & Chips.

[MacNimon]

Another cover from the great Cheeky Weekly this morning...

[Andrew Curnow]

Loving the Cheeky covers!

You'll probably have the facts & figures & info at your very fingertips Mac, so rather than check Wikipedia I'll just ask you this I seem to remember in about 1978/79 maybe (definitely when I was at Primary School) three or four of the big IPC names had a period of perhaps four weeks where each issue would come with a special 'mini-edition' of one of the other titles in it, I guess as a way of trying to increase sales across the range. So, for example, one week's Whizzer & Chips might come with a mini-Whoopee inside it. As a kid of 7 or 8 it all seemed very exciting, but I'm just wondering whether I imagined it, or whether it rings any bells with you.

[MacNimon]

You're quite right, Andrew. I remember those as well!

More details here, but they were simply an easy way of advertising...giving readers a free sample of other comics was much cheaper than advertising space on telly!

Today though, we have another DC Thomson humour comic. One which, although had a decent 12-year run between 1965 and 1977, tends to be overlooked and forgotten these days when compared with the company's Big Guns...Dandy, Beano, Topper and Buster. It is also the one which shows how much attitudes have changed (particularly towards racism) and spotlights how what was generally acceptable at the time was soon to be taboo.

Sparky (which began publication the same week as TV Century 21) had several different cover stars over its 12-year lifespan, the first of which featured the title character, showing the (mis)adventures of a black skinned boy living in the UK, who dressed in African tribal dress. It's a rather contoversial strip nowadays, and used as an example of how badly ethnic minorities were portrayed in the media at the time.
Looking at it from a modern perspective, it's hard to believe that they managed not only to have such a character, but also use him as the comic's cover star for so long! Sparky eventually disappeared from the comic after issue 210 in 1969, never to be seen again so things were obviously beginning to change.

From The Sparky File:

The `Sparky` character has probably been one of the more `controversial` cover stars of a comic as seen from today’s viewpoint. He has caused some debate in his years as both `cover` and back page star in the comic regarding his supposed race and colour. Only issue seven gave a hint to this in his treatment, but I can see why he is deemed Non P.C today. Speaking personally, I find two 1970s `L. Cars` episodes were far worse in this respect. The `Comics Britannia` series theorised that many staff at Thomson’s grew up in the era when Britain had an empire and celebrated `Empire Day` thus, many on the comic could not help in seeing foreigners as `inferior` to the British. I could; and do to some extent, understand this mind-set up to the mid 1960s; but by the 1970s I can see no excuses for comics still having such an ignorant outlook as I see it.

Sparky was replaced as cover star by such strips as The Moonsters and Barney Bulldog, much more traditional and acceptable Thomson-type characters. Some Mummies Do Ave Them was the final cover strip before the comics cancellation...

Just for good measure, here's a back cover from 1969...

[Stuart Wallis]

More likely to laugh at the Sparky strip than with it in this day and age...

[Andrew Curnow]

Thanks for the info, Mac - glad to know I wasn't imagining it!

[MacNimon]

Back in 1983, Eagle Comics was set up in London to reprint 2000AD strips licensed from 2000AD's, IPC, for the North American market repackaged in a format more familiar to that audience. The company lasted 3 years until it closed down after IPC awarded the license to Dez Skinn's Quality Communications, creating the Quality Comics imprint, who then took over Eagle's ongoing titles.

Eagle Comics printed the following comics over their three year publishing period (the majority had all-new covers illustrated by Brian Bolland):


Judge Dredd (Eagle Comics launch title - 33 issues) (1983)
Judge Dredd - The Judge Child Quest (5 issues) (1984)
Nemesis the Warlock (7 issues) (1984)
Robo-Hunter (5 issues) (1984)
Strontium Dog (4 issues) (1985)
The Stainless Steel Rat (6 issues) (1985)
Judge Dredd - Crime File (6 issues (1985)
2000AD Monthly (v1) (6 issues) (1985)
2000AD Monthly (v2) (4 issues) (1986)
Judge Dredd - The Early Cases (6 issues) (1986)


Today's cover is another by Brian Bolland, the first issue of the second volume of 2000AD Monthly in 1986.

Starting out as 2000AD Monthly, four issues were published by Eagle Comics. With the change of publisher taking effect from issue 5, the title changed to 2000AD Presents (published by Quality Comics) for issues 5-24, before finally becoming 2000AD Showcase for issues 25-54.

THere's an interesting article on the Quality Comics line here on Dez Skinn's blog.

More great US covers from these series coming soon!

[MacNimon]

Today we look at Mad, the long-running American satirical comic magazine, The last surviving title from the famous EC Comics line of the 50s, its format is divided into a number of recurring segments such as TV and movie parodies. Mad's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman, is usually the focal point of the magazine's cover, with his face often replacing a celebrity or character that is lampooned within the issue.

Mad started life in 1952 as a traditional US humour comic published by EC Comics, but by issue 24 they had decided to change to a magazine format which would allow them to break free of the constraints of America's Comics Code Authority, and give it more of a cutting edge.

In 1959, Thorpe & Porter introduced a British version of the title which initially just featured reprint material. But in the late sixties they upped the frequency of the British edition to 11 or 12 issues per year (compared with 8 a year in America) which meant that they had to find new home-grown material (and covers) to fill the gap. Perhaps the most collectable (and most difficult issue to find) is #161 with the UK Dr Who cover, by Steve Parkhouse.

In the late 70s when T&P closed their publishing division, they sold the British rights to London Editions who published it for a while before being swallowed up themselves by Fleetway, who published it until its final edition (#381 in 1994). The American edition is still running, having notched up its 500th issue in 2009.

[Rob McCow]

MAD - there's something that never appealed to me. I was intrigued by that magazine with the hideous ugly teenager on the cover, but never really wanted to read it. I have no idea what it's actually like inside.

[Alex]

It's a shame that the colouring was often so poor with the Quality Comics range, even as a kid I could tell something was off and it led me to not bothering with them.

I was never a fan of Mad either, I bought it once but was left largely confused by it - that said, I was very young at the time, and had no idea what was going on half the time!

[MacNimon]

Today we travel back to late 1974 to look at one of British Marvel's highpoints, a title which undoubtedly would have ran for much longer, had any further material been available. However, they did a decent enough job as it was making the material stretch to 123 issues...

Planet Of The Apes was launched in October 1974 (with this great Bob Larkin cover) along with Dracula Lives, two titles which saw Marvel trying to prove that there was more to their repertoire than just superhero comics. Unlike the superhero comics already on the market at that time (Mighty World Of Marvel, Spider-Man Weekly and The Avengers Weekly) these new titles didn't have the luxury of over a decade's worth of material to draw on...the American POTA b&w magazine, from which the reprint material was drawn) was only launched a few months earlier, with a cover date of August 1974 and so the material was very limited. POTA was the first Marvel UK title to publish material almost simultaneously with the United States. This meant, at times, that the UK edition was actually running material BEFORE the US edition, effectively making the US magazine the reprint. Obviously this meant that occasionally they would get too far in front of the American editions and would have to wait for material being made available...so for issues 23 - 30, Marvel had to devise a brief filler to bridge the gap before regular service was resumed. The cheap and easy solution was Apeslayer, basically reprints of US Killraven strips, simply replacing the aliens with apes!

Back-up strips included Ka-zar, Lord Of The Savage Land, Gulliver Jones Warrior Of Mars, adaptations of Theodore Sturgeon's Killdozer and John Wyndhams The Day of the Triffids, Don MacGregor's classic Panther's Rage, psuedo-sci-fi strips such as Warlock and Captain Marvel, and later Tomb of Dracula and Man-Thing (from the cancelled Dracula Lives) and Conan the Barbarian. POTA ran for 123 issues, absorbing Dracula Lives along the way. The comic finally merged with The Mighty World Of Marvel in early 1977 where the strip continued for a few months with a reduced weekly page count until the last available material eventually dried up.

[MacNimon]

Another tv comics adaptation today. From the mid-70s, when tv and film adaptations were in their infancy as far as Marvel & DC were concerned, they were old hat to the smaller companies such as Charlton, Dell, GolD key etc who had a long history of them...such as this from Charlton...

[MacNimon]

A scantily-clad vampiress threatened by a frog-monster...what's not to enjoy about this cover for a Monday morning?

Vampirella, created by Forrest J Ackerman and costume designerTrina Robbins, was first published in 1969 by Warren Publishing as a companion title to the successful Creepy and Eerie horror anthologies, and owes much of its inspiration to the camp science-fiction style of the 1960s such as Barbarella. Vampirella was an alien from a planet named Drakulon. The race of aliens which inhabited this planet were known as the Vampiri. The planet of Drakulon revolved around two suns, and at one point one of these stars exploded, causing a massive loss of life among the Vampiri. Some Vampiri managed to survive though and maintain the existence of their race. Eventually the world was visited by astronauts from Earth, who had crash landed on the planet. Vampirella was chosen to investigate, but upon discovering they attacked her. She was forced to fight back to defend herself, and in the process of attacking them she discovered that they had blood inside their bodies, something which she craved. After defeating them she decided to take their spaceship back to Earth, where she discovered that her race of aliens bore a resemblance to the mythical vampires. With the negative stigma attached to her she decided to break the stereotype by acting in a good and honourable manner.

Vampirella ran for 113 issues until 1982 and the character was revived in the late 90s by a different publisher, giving her a revamp and basically retconning the original run out of existence by saying she had been implanted with false memories and that she wasn't really an alien after all...

[Stuart Wallis]

A Vampiri from Drakulon - yes, don't call us...

[MacNimon]

It's an utterly ridiculous premise, isn't it, even for the 60s! As I've never read Vampirella before (she's a character who I'm only familiar with through seeing many covers over the years) I knew nothing of the character until I read the above synopsis just a few weeks ago. Not quite the ordinary 'vampire with a conscience' stuff I expected!

I've got half a notion of actually tracking down some of those issues now...just to see if it's as awful as it sounds! The covers make it look as if it could be quite good...and there were certainly plenty of nice covers published over the years. I wonder how many people bought this simply because of the covers...?

[Rob McCow]

With the negative stigma attached to her she decided to break the stereotype by acting in a good and honourable manner.

And dressing like a lapdancer. Don't forget dressing like a lapdancer.

[Alex]

I've got half a notion of actually tracking down some of those issues now...just to see if it's as awful as it sounds! The covers make it look as if it could be quite good...and there were certainly plenty of nice covers published over the years. I wonder how many people bought this simply because of the covers...?

I'm tempted to try and find some, it could definitely fall in to the 'so bad it's good' genre, or even the 'just batshit crazy and so a lot of fun' one.

[MacNimon]

Some plain, old-fashioned superhero action today from Marvel. A classic X-Men cover from 1980 during the Dark Phoenix saga, which concluded with the death of Jean Grey.

Characters in this storyline were obviously influenced by some classic British tv, with the villain Mastermind looking suspiciously like Jason King and Jean's outfit here reminiscent of Emma Peel's in the Avengers episode A Touch Of Brimstone...

[MacNimon]

And regarding Vampirella, apparently there was a movie version...here's the trailer...

[MacNimon]

And of course they were quite open regarding their influences...the 'Jason' in the above panel is the villains alias, Jason Wyngarde no less. An obvious amalgam of Jason King & Peter Wyngarde...

[MacNimon]

While not one of DC's big guns, Booster Gold is a character that has grown in popularity over the years since he was first introduced into DC's rebooted universe back in 1986. A former attention-seeking football star from the future travels back in time to the 20th Century with a stolen costume to use his knowledge of history to hopefully become a famous superhero...

Why, when there are crossovers between characters from different comics, do they always have to be contrived reasons for them to fight each other...?

[Jonno]

X-Men #134 - I purchased that as an import in the UK having purchased the previous dozen or so US issues while living abroad. The whole Hellfire Club/Dark Phoenix saga really is fantastic. I have to say though that I'd never made the "Jason Wyngarde" connection until now! Mind you, I wouldn't have known about Jason King at the time!

[Alex]

While not one of DC's big guns, Booster Gold is a character that has grown in popularity over the years since he was first introduced into DC's rebooted universe back in 1986. A former attention-seeking football star from the future travels back in time to the 20th Century with a stolen costume to use his knowledge of history to hopefully become a famous superhero...

Why, when there are crossovers between characters from different comics, do they always have to be contrived reasons for them to fight each other...?

I've long been a fan of Booster Gold, if only because he and the Blue Beetle made for such a superb double act in Justice League International. And I've never forgiven DC for killing off Ted Kord, they were absolute shits for doing that. Booster had a second series quite recently which was excellent stuff too, as he teamed up with Rip Hunter (who turned out to be Booster's dad!) and traveled through time a lot, all the time unable to receive any credit for the things he did. Unfortunately it was cancelled when DC launched their shite 'New 52' range, and I've no idea what the character's up to now (if anything) as I've all but given up on them now.

[MacNimon]

As far as I'm aware, Booster appears in Justice League International and is similar in character to his early appearances, so it looks as if all those years of character development etc have been lost. I haven't read any though, so I'm really not sure how big a role he has.

I see that a Booster Gold tv series may be in the works, though...

http://screenrant.com/syfy-booster-g...w-robf-140813/

[MacNimon]

Given the time of year I think it's time to resurrect this thread after a short break with a series of Yuletide covers. So throughout December look out for Christmas-themed covers with plenty of snow, sledging, reindeers, carol singers, santas, mad axemen, lawmen, superheroes and turkeys...

But we'll start things off with a couple of geese...