Rusty Staples – Mike Writes About Comics!
Everything you ever needed to know about comics (limited to the stuff that I know and am willing to tell you)!
IPC's Thunder started strong and finished strong, albeit rather abruptly and far too quickly. A couple of minor exceptions aside, its initial line-up of strips remained constant throughout its twenty-two-issue run. Thunder was launched in Autumn 1970 (the cover-date of issue #1 is 17 October), and it maintained the same price right through to the … Continue reading Enfari’s Syndrome: Thunder
There are lots of British Marvel comics in the list this month, folks! Can you name them all? Hmm... I bet there's at least one you've forgotten about (or maybe not even heard of)! We've also got a lot of titles that became part of the My Guy family tree, including My Guy itself and … Continue reading Hatch, Match & Dispatch – March 2020
I'm happy to announce that Rusty Staples' sophomore year ("sophomore" is American high-school slang for "second") was even more successful than its first, even despite the four-month drought in the summer when I was too busy to post anything (due to a heavy workload, a week's holiday in London, the World Science Fiction Convention in … Continue reading Most Popular Posts of 2019!
Launched in 1975, the hard-hitting all-war comic Battle Picture Weekly was a major hit for IPC/Fleetway. It was created in response to rival publisher DC Thomson's successful Warlord, and when word came that DC Thomson was preparing a semi-spin-off all-action comic with focus on more than just war stories, IPC figured they should do the … Continue reading Comics That Never Were #2
Prepare yourself for a shock, comic fans: We are now further away from the last issue of Battle Picture Weekly than its first issue was from the end of World War II. Battle, to use its street name, is arguably one of the most important and influential British comics of all time. Of course, that's … Continue reading Branding: Battle Picture Weekly
As I mentioned before (in Deciphering the Logo), in 1969 the legendary British comic Eagle ended its nineteen-year run when it was absorbed into Lion, which was then absorbed into Valiant in 1974, which was in turn gobbled up by Battle in 1976, and then in 1988 it all came full-circle when Battle was consumed … Continue reading Eaglution of British Comics, part 1
