General Items
This section will concentrate on ittems that don't fit in the other sections.
IStar Wars - Official Collectors Souvenir Edition (1977)
Published by Marvel Comics International / Heron House
Cover by Hildebrandt Brothers
The Amazing World of Doctor Who
was published by World Distributors in 1976 in conjunction with Typhoo Tea as a mail-away offer.
The book's stories were mostly DW annual reprints, but it did contain two original Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith short stories as well as monster profile articles.
In addition to the book, there was also a mail-away wallchart poster on which you stuck a set of collectable cards (12 to collect), with the cards coming free inside each box of Typhoo Tea packs.
The poster art is by renowned Doctor Who Target Novels cover artist Chris Achilleos.
The Happy Warrior: The Life Story in Picture-Strip of Sir Winston Churchill
An Eagle Book compiling the picture-strip that featured in the weekly Eagle comic during 1957/8 highlighting all the major events from Churchill's life from birth through to his resignation from parliament in 1955.
This book was also known to be a favourite with the grandchildren at the Churchill home.
Published by : Hulton Press in 1958
Foreword by Marcus Morris (Editor of Eagle)
Edited by : Clifford Makins.
Illustrated by : Frank Bellamy
Type: H/B, 64 pages, large format (26cm x 32cm)
Published by Century 21 Publishing Ltd.
The New Avengers - TV Times Souvenir Extra (1976)
A great magazine to help promote the launch of The New Avengers on ITV, although it actually did a pretty good job of covering the whole spectrum of the Avengers past and present, including an article by Ian Hendry about filming season one-- a great little insight into the behind-the-scenes workings during that time of the show, plus this interview giving a nice link for Steed getting his first male partner in 14 years.
Published by Fleetway. Conceived, plotted and edited by Neil Gaiman, Richard Curtis, Grant Morrison and Peter K. Hogan, this Comic Book featured contributions from a vast array of British comics talent, including Jamie Delano, Garth Ennis, Dave Gibbons, Mark Millar, Simon Bisley, Mark Buckingham, Steve Dillon, D'Israeli, Jamie Hewlett and Bryan Talbot. (Alan Moore, arguably Britain's most famous comics writer, was not credited as working on the book having sworn never to work for Fleetway again, but was said to have worked with partner Melinda Gebbie on her pages.)
The comic was unique in that it featured appearances by characters from across the spectrum of comics publishers interacting with one another, including Marvel and DC superheroes, Beano, Dandy, Eagle and Viz characters, Doctor Who, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, in addition to a cavalcade of British comedy figures (both real and fictional). These were all linked by the twin framing narratives of the Comic Relief night itself, and the tale of "Britain's meanest man" Sir Edmund Blackadder being persuaded to donate money to the event.
The comic "sold out in minutes", raising over £40,000 for the charity.
Alien: The Illustrated Story is a graphic novel adaptation of film of the same name that was first published by Heavy Metal magazine
in June 1979.
Originally published in black and white, the story was written by Archie Goodwin, based on the original screenplay by Dan O'Bannon, illustrated and inked by Walt Simonson, lettered by John Workman and edited by Charles Lippincott, with cover art by Simonson.
Book Credits
Written by - Archie Goodwin
Illustrated by - Walt Simonson
Inked by - Walt Simonson
Lettered by - John Workman
Cover(s) by - Walt Simonson
Edited by - Charles Lippincott
Publisher - Futura Publications Limited
Titan Books (reissue)
Release date(s) - June 1979
September 7, 2012 (reissue)
Pages 64
96 (Original Art Edition)
Prior to release, the comic was partially serialized in Heavy Metal — two eight-page segments from the beginning of the graphic novel, serving as a teaser for the full release. These were published in Heavy Metal, Vol. III Number 1-2 from May-June 1979.
Due to an editing oversight, the title used at the start of the second of these preview segments was erroneously retained in the original full release, although this was edited out for the 2012 reissue.
The comic adaptation of Alien was reprinted and re-released by Titan Books in September 2012. This edition was colored by Polly Law, Bob K. LeRose, Deb Pedlar and Louise Simonson (wife of Walt Simonson) and featured a different cover, using art of the Alien taken from the scene where it attacks Brett by Walt Simonson.
Unusually for a comic book adaptation of a feature film, Alien: The Illustrated Story was critically acclaimed and it became the first graphic novel ever to make the New York Times Best Seller list.
Some have even labelled the comic superior to the movie upon which it is based.
Simonson later commented that 20th Century Fox themselves expressed a reservation for the distinctive cover artwork, as they considered it to be superior to the posters that had been created for the film itself.
Credits
Comic strip adaptation to Steven Speilberg's blockbuster
Published by Marvel Comics Group USA
Editor-in-Chief: Jim Shooter
Cover Artists: Bob Larkin
Writer: Archie Goodwin
Penciler: Walt Simonson
Inks: Klaus Janson
Colourist: Marie Severin
Letterer: Gaspar Saladino
Marvel Comics Super Special was a 41-issue series of one-shot comic-magazines published by Marvel Comics from 1977 to 1986. They were cover-priced $1.50 to $2.50, while regular color comics were priced 30 cents to 60 cents, Beginning with issue 5, the series' title in its postal indicia was shortened to Marvel Super Special. Covers featured the title or a variation, including Marvel Super Special, Marvel Super Special magazine, and Marvel Weirdworld Super Special in small type, accompanied by large logos of its respective features.
These included, primarily, film and TV series adaptations, but also original and licensed Marvel characters, and music-related biographies and fictional adventures.
Issue 7 was withdrawn after completion, and never published. Issue 8 was published in two editorially identical editions, one magazine-sized, one tabloid-sized.
Issue 3 (above) featured an adaptation of Close Encounters of the Third Kind by writer Archie Goodwin and artists Walt Simonson and Klaus Janson. Simonson described working on the adaptation as "the worst experience of my comics career" due to the lack of visual reference and the inability of Marvel to obtain the likeness rights to the lead actors in the film.
Located next to the Dapol toy factory, the LLangollen Doctor Who Experience was the largest Doctor Who exhibition to have ever been staged, and open continuously.
Collecting props from over 30 years this was one of the largest exhibitions of Doctor Who props. There was over 6,000 square foot of space dedicated to the exhibition.
PLAYBACK COLLECTORS SPECIAL 1995
The Best of Television Past and Present.
The TV dedicated one-shot profiled numerous different TV shows across all the key genres.
Much like the HAMMER HORROR one-shot this special was intended as a primer for a regular TV-devoted monthly. Marvel did the same thing with BIZARRE devoted to unusual and obscure movies.
Unfortunately, this coincided with changes within the cash-strapped Marvel empire.
Responsibility for Marvel UK was transferred to Panini (soon to be sold) and the new management axed everything that wasn't core to their target audience of younger readers. DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE survived (although the spin-off specials, yearbooks and poster magazines all shuttered) but the rest of the magazine group (Hammer Horror, Hellbreed, Bizarre and Playback) were all unceremoniously canned.