On The Newsstand...

[MacNimon]

This thread is intended to look at what was available to buy this particular week (or month), years past. The majority of what I will feature will be comics covers (not only because they're the easiest to find!) but I'll try to add magazines, books and LPs into the mix as well when possible to try to give a bit of context, although these will possibly be more likely when I'm looking at a month rather than a week. Unlike previous cover threads, this won't be a daily one but probably limited to a few per week...


So here we go...we start with the first week or so from January 1982...

Exact weeks covers were hard to find, so to represent this period some January issues of TV Times and Radio Times are next...

Smash Hits...



And the Number One selling LP in the UK this week in 1982 was...



Next time, I'll be having a more general look at what was available in that same month in general, ie magazines, monthly comics, etc

[Rob McCow]

Cor blimey!

What with "Mind-Stains on the Virgin Snow" and that image of the large fellow on Captain America's back, I'm wondering if they were going for the most homo-erotic covers possible.

Love the fashions on the cover of Smash Hits though.

I didn't have any of these comics, I would have been a few weeks off my third birthday! Maybe I chewed one or two?

[SiHart]

I had that picture of Peter Davison on my wall shortly after that Radio Times was finished

[SiHart]

And I'd been given The Visitors for Christmas. It's still a bit of a favourite!

[Dirk Gently]

My Dad had that ABBA album. He played it regularly on Sunday mornings at a "get out of bed" volume.

[MacNimon]

We'll have another look at January 1982 before the month's out, but for now we'll go a bit further back in time to January, 1967.

We'll begin with the Jan 7th edition of the Radio Times showcasing The Forsyte Saga...

...and a couple of weeks later Diana Rigg and Patrick MacNee grace the cover of the TV Times...

Over in America, Avengers of a different sort are in action in Marvel's ever-popular superhero comic, while the Fantastic Four are up against Doctor Doom once again and Spider-Man faces the Lizard...

On the DC front, Batgirl would make her first appearance, a character created specially at the request of the creators of the Batman tv series so that the comics and tv series could more easily tie in with each other...

British comics available in January 1967 included...

TV and film stars of the time to make cover appearances included Natalie Wood, Nichelle Nichols and Elizabeth Montgomery...

and popular tv series included Mission Impossible...

January 1967 was the month of the first ever NFL Superbowl...

Films released this month included...

And a soon-to-be classic group released their first album this month...

[Stuart Wallis]

It's quite obvious even at this early stage what Jim Morrison considered himself in...

The Tiddlers... They don't half look like the Bash Street Kids! And having a guest reader in the strip being bashed about - and they call postmodernism modern.

[MacNimon]

The Tiddlers...it's not surprising that they look like the Bash Street Kids, as the strip was by Leo Baxendale, who actually created the Kids for the Beano a decade or so earlier along with Minnie The Minx

The big difference between working for DC Thomson's Beano/Beezer etc and Odhams Smash/Wham etc for creators such as Baxendale was the fact that they were allowed complete creative control over their creations at Odhams where they also were credited with their work. At DC Thomson, however, everything was anonymous...nobody received credit for anything.

[Rob McCow]

More homo-eroticism on the cover of Tornado as Girly Batman and Robin hug in terror at the site of Tarzan's Man Spear.

Nice to see Uhura on the cover of Ebony.

[Stuart Wallis]

The Tiddlers...it's not surprising that they look like the Bash Street Kids, as the strip was by Leo Baxendale, who actually created the Kids for the Beano a decade or so earlier along with Minnie The Minx

The big difference between working for DC Thomson's Beano/Beezer etc and Odhams Smash/Wham etc for creators such as Baxendale was the fact that they were allowed complete creative control over their creations at Odhams where they also were credited with their work. At DC Thomson, however, everything was anonymous...nobody received credit for anything.

And that the Tiddlers' version of Plug could look so much like him without breaching copyright... It also explains how Leo could plaster his name all over Sweeny Toddler.

[MacNimon]

January 1987...

A couple of 2000ADs to begin with, Progs 504 and 505 featuring Nemesis The Warlock and Strontium Dog, respectively, dated 10th and 17th January...

Followed by Eagle from the same 2 weeks...

From Marvel, we had Spider-Man in his black outfit, Transformers at the Statue Of Liberty and Secret Wars was drawing to a close...

Marvel's monthly range included Doctor Who Magazine #120 and the penultimate issue of Captain Britain, #13...

Genre Magazines included Starburst #101, and Starlog #114

In America, Marvel was premiering comics based on tv series in a new imprint aimed at younger kids...

...while continuing with traditional superhero fare and fantasy/barbarian action...

DC had just rebooted their entire comics universe with Crisis On Infinite Earths, and Superman was starting out afresh once again and Jonah Hex was transplanted from the Wild West into an apocalyptic future...

The UK had 2 Number 1 albums this month, Now 8 followed by Kate Bush: The Complete Story...

[Rob McCow]

Got some dead links on that one...

But isn't that the Sevans Model Cyberman on the cover of Doctor Who Magazine? Cheeky!

Nothing too homo-erotic in 1987, they must have got over that.

I had that issue of Trans-Formers Comic! Gosh they were pretty rubbish weren't they?

[Dirk Gently]

I had that album. I had Now 7 & 8...until my sister borrowed them & they were never the same again.

[Darren]

I had NOW 8 and I read Eagle.

[SiHart]

I remember that DWM really well, because I'd lost track of the magazine for most of that year and my Mum had somehow managed to get me a subscription starting with that issue... and all the issues I'd missed during the rest of the year! So a big envelope with all them arrived at home and was waiting for me when i got home from school one day. Wonderful!

[MacNimon]

Sorry about the dead links, Steve. They all appear on my laptop in 3 different browsers so it looks OK here...anyone else have any problems viewing images?

[Philipnet]

I can't see any non-loading images from here
(I'm looking for the tell-tail sign of a broken image, and there are none).

I've also run the page through a website tester and that's found no broken images either.


If Steve was at work when he posted that - then they may be blocking some sites.

[Rob McCow]

It's so obvious now Phil says it.

[MacNimon]

January 1975...British comic covers only today...

Spider-Man celebrated his 100th weekly issue here in the UK...

Other British Marvel weeklies from this month included...

And from the competition...

DC Thomson's offerings included...

And from IPC...

I'll cheat a little bit with the Radio Times, this is actually the Christmas 1974/New Year 1975 issue but seeing as it has a January date on the cover...

Tomorrow I'll have a look at what was on sale across the Atlantic at the same time...

[Rob McCow]

Gayest cover of the week goes to Roy of The Rovers, unexpectedly. Witness:
- Tenderly drawn bulges in the shorts, both front and back.
- Taffy Morgan, running camply to 'attend' to Roy with his handbag and towel.
- The guy in the red sitting down ready to 'attend' to the guy with the dark mullet.

[MacNimon]

I remember trying to hold on to that Radio Times for some reason, I had it among my comic collection for a while but for some reason my mum threw it out eventually because it was "useless now, those programmes were on months ago, you're not going to see them again are you"...exactly the way of thinking of people in general in those pre-video days!

American comics dating system works slightly differently from here in the UK. British comics went on sale for a week, being withdrawn for sale on the week ending date on the cover to be replaced by the next issue. In America, it's a similar system but instead of a one-week window, they were on sale for 3 months. So an issue with a January cover date would actually go on sale in America in November and be withdrawn at the end of January, for example. However that meant that those same issues with a January date were actually on sale here in the UK on January...so here are a few of the American comics on sale in January 1975...we tend to think of American comics as all being superhero for some reason, but at this point horror, fantasy, martial arts and sci-fi were very popular as well...

Elton John had the first Number One album of the year in the UK in January 1975 with his Greatest Hits, which remained there for a period of 4 weeks

[Stuart Wallis]

I wish I'd come across more of those 100-page DC titles, they always seemed decent VFM because of their large content.

[MacNimon]

You're quite right, Stuart, they were great value. I've still got a few of them myself, although I'll have to dig them out of the loft to check the prices. I think they were priced at around 10p/12p at the time ( compared with 7p for the regular sized editions although it was probably around this time they rose to 9p...a 2p price rise was a major thing in those days! ) for more than double the content, although they were just cover stamped by distributors in the UK with a UK price tag rather than having special editions printed with the UK price replacing the US one. Those who were around at the time will know what I'm talking about! Unfortunately all these examples are strictly US editions...

[Stuart Wallis]

I have a standard sized copy of Shazam! from c. 1971-2 with the price stamped on the cover - all of 5p! Ebenezer Wallis longs for the old days... "Dollar for dollar, invest in the past!"

[MacNimon]

Back to January 1982 today, with a look at some of the other titles on sale that month...

Released this month from Target Books...

The second UK Number One album of this month...