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)!
My first proper taste of comic-book fandom -- other than the atrocious comics I drew for myself -- came from Marvel with the December 1974 issue of their in-house fanzine Foom. Foom is an acronym for "Friends of Ol' Marvel" because, well, of course it is. Stan Lee, right? It was a quarterly publication that … Continue reading In-Shallow Profile: Foom #8
In the early 1980s the Powers That Be in IPC decided to test the water with a "lifestyle" magazine aimed at boys in their early-to-mid teens. There was already one-and-a-half plethoras of mags for girls in that age-range, and some of them were selling very well indeed, but there was nothing comparable for boys. So … Continue reading In-Shallow Profile: Look Alive magazine
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!
Hello there (or indeed anywhere) Rusty Staples fans! Can you believe that it's been a whole year already since this blog was launched? Amazing! And what a year's it's been: absolutely packed from beginning to end with days, weeks and even months -- who says I don't give you value for money? It all began … Continue reading Rusty Staples: Year One
A few weeks ago we looked at the Mighty World of Marvel and Spider-Man Comics Weekly family trees, so here's a timeline of the remaining Marvel UK comics of the 70s and 80s. Why only the 70s & 80s? Why, that's simple! Beyond the 80s it's a scary nightmarish quagmire, that's why. Marvel UK was … Continue reading Marvel UK 70s & 80s Leftovers Timeline
In the first part of this highly-acclaimed-by-me series, we looked at how the Doctor Who Weekly comic evolved into the Doctor Who Magazine magazine. This time, it's the turn of another staple of the Marvel UK publishing group, Spider-Man Comics Weekly. A spin-off from The Mighty World of Marvel -- launched four months earlier -- Spider-Man … Continue reading Branding: Spider-Man Comics Weekly
Give me a new magazine and I'll spend as much time studying the design and layout as I will reading the content... In particular I find logos and branding to be fascinating. I'm aware that it's a niche interest, but we live in a market-driven world and branding is key to marketing. For a company … Continue reading Branding: Doctor Who Weekly/Monthly/Magazine
