Tornado Time!

Tornado was a 1979 IPC weekly, aimed at the 2000AD readership. It failed because its mix of strips was too broad (and mostly not good enough) - after 22 issues it merged with 2000AD ('great news chums!') and any vaguely popular, vaguely sci-fi-ish stories (including Blackhawk, which clumsily transmuted from a story of Roman slavery to an intergalactic adventure) were transferred over.
Superhero editor Big E was portrayed in photographs by an awkward looking Dave Gibbons.

Dr Who, Who Are You?

Although there were Dr Who novels and annuals from the late Sixties on, the merchandise only really began to kick in with the Tom Baker era.

Marvel's Dr Who Weekly proved an instant success with its mix of new material, reprints and photo features. Rubbish free gift though.

This dreadful poster magazine from the mid-Seventies was bought at the Dr Who exhibition in Blackpool.

The series inspired this Top Trumps card game.

The basis of the game was that the various monsters, aliens and villains from Dr Who were attacking Earth, and only a coalition of the Doctor and earth's greatest heroes could save us. Annie Oakley vs the Cybermen? Possibly the shortest war in history. Note that the designers have got their monsters muddled in the examples above.

A range of Dr Who action figures also appeared, including - oddly - the one-shot monster The Giant Robot.

King of the Swingers

Technical issues have kept me from updating for a couple of weeks, but hopefully that is behind me now.
Here are a couple of UK Tarzan comics from the 1970's - one a weekly, one monthly, and both unconnected with the US Marvel comic from around the same time. Neither lasted very long.
The 'survival kit' turned out to be a plastic bag with a bit of paper inside it. Very poor. And sadly, I've forgotten all the ape language learned, so I'm screwed if gorillas invade my house.

The Eagle Launches

The first annual from the famed Eagle comic, circa 1951. It came my way in the mid-70's, and as a Marvel-obsessed nipper, I was less than impressed with the frightfully polite, rather dull middle class contents. Today - it's still awful.








The Eagle was revived in 1982, complete with Dan Dare and The Mekon (both of whom had already had a more dynamic reinvention in 2000AD back in 1977), alongside some ill-considered photo-strips. A terrible effort that somehow kept going for years.

Feel The Crunch!

The Crunch appeared in 1979 and was DC Thompson's attempt to capture the Action / 2000AD market. Strips included the futuristic Arena, 'Injun' bounty hunter Mantracker, a vaguely sci-fi themed soccer story (!), The Walking Bombs, Hitler Lives (always a good standby) and the conspiracy thriller Who Killed Cassidy? Oh, and a feature on Eddie Kidd.


Issue 1's free Black Band was ill-fitting and uncomfortable, and the stickers were rubbish.





I can't recall how exciting (or more likely not) the Crunch Crazy Cars were, but four issues of freebies? You have to like that.




















Sadly, though The Crunch was almost laughably macho and as violent as would be allowed in those post-Action days, it never quite hit the spot, and I stopped buying it after issue 9. Great cover though!

Spooky fun for kids!

This 1974 softcover spin-off from kids comic Buster mixed humour (Rent-a-Ghost, Davy Jones' Locker, The Creepy Crawleys), adventure and 'true life' ghost stories














Frankie Stein was one of the most popular characters in weekly comic Whoopee! and here gets his own 1976 special (though he had to share it with Mervyn's Monsters, Weird Wolf, Ghost Ship, Headless Harry and the dull Crabbe's Crusaders)


Shiver and Shake was a weekly comic that mostly (though not exclusively) had stories with a spooky theme. Characters included here are Ghoul Getters Ltd, Scatty Bat, The Hand, Frankie Stein, Sweeney Toddler, Creepy Car, Lolly Pop, Scream Inn and the legendary Grimly Fiendish (as later immortalised by The Damned). The comic itself was defunct by 1977!

The Damned perform Grimly Fiendish:

Free Inside This Week's 2000AD!

Two badges that came cover mounted with 2000AD in the early 80s.
The lower one was a bit too big and cumbersome, while the replica shield looked impressive, but oddly came without any means of attaching it to you.











After the Space Spinner in issue 1 and the 'biotronic' arm stickers in issue 2, the Mighty Tharg gave away this bit of cardboard tat in issue 3, encouraging readers to mutilate their comics by slicing out pages containing 'hidden codes' which would help on those all-important missions of going to the shop for some sweets.

Marvel UK 1980

Throwing as many ideas as they could out there in the hope that one would stick.





Valour proved just as unpopular as The Savage Sword of Conan weekly had five years before, while Marvel Team-Up was another superhero free-for-all.
Star Heroes was revamped as a pocket book later; Future Tense had some success as a 2000AD copycat.
Forces in Combat tried to appeal to the war comic crowd (although the genre's popularity was by now on the decline) and Savage Action was a beefier monthly.