In-Shallow Profile: Marvel Super Specials

The Marvel Super Specials series was a collection of one-shot comics published from September 1977 to November 1986, most of them featuring adaptations of then-current movies. I have no doubts that the series was inspired by the tremendous success of Marvel's Star Wars specials: their six-issue comic-book adaptation of the movie was repackaged as a …

Rusty’s Reviews Round-Up

Angry news first: WordPress -- the content management system on which this blog runs -- has decided to force me to use its absolutely horrible, baffling and extremely user-hostile new editor, which I utterly hate and despise and hate again. And what's more, I also hate that I don't have the option to switch back …

In-Shallow Profile: Load Runner

I don't know if Load Runner really was "The Galaxy's First Computer Comic" as the cover of each issue claimed, but that's an easy boast because thirty-seven years on we're still not in a position to dispute it. When, oh when, will the Powers That Be see fit to give us proper space travel so …

The Eagle Timeline

The Eagle Family Tree was one of the first major posts on this blog, back in May 2018, but it's always bothered me a little that I did it the lazy way, showing only the hierarchical relationships between the comics and not a proper time-line. Plus, unlike some of the later timelines on this blog …

Oddities: James Whale’s Frankenstein – the photonovel

James Whale's Frankenstein was published in 1974 by Picador in the UK as part of their Film Classics Library series. I've been wrestling with how to categorise this one for a while... Does it count as a noncomic or an oddity? Or is it neither? Or all three? I eventually concluded that it can't be …

Noncomics: William Shatner – The Unauthorized Biography

Once again Uncle Rusty has delved into his Star Trek cabinet, and this time emerged with a rather odd publication indeed... This ain't no comic-book, folks, though it looks and feels very much like one at first glance and first touch. William Shatner - The Unauthorized Biography is one of many similar books published by …

Noncomics: Star Trek – Planet Ecnal’s Dilemma

From the distant past of 1979 comes a Star Trek colouring book -- but this is not just any old colouring book. This is no mere random collection of line-art images: every page in Star Trek - Planet Ecnal's Dilemma is actually a panel in a continuous story (or half a panel, for the two-page …

Star Wars in 2000AD, part 1

Solar Salutations, fellow humans! It's time once again to splice the hatches and batten down the mainbrace and settle in for a long meander down retrospect river, because Unky Rusty has wrangled his trained pedantosaur out of its pen (actually, it's more of a paddock than a pen) and taken it foraging for juicy and …

Noncomics: KP Outer Spacers Free Space Posters

In the late 1970s, uncoincidentally around the time Star Wars was released and gave science fiction a massive boost in popularity, KP Snacks released Outer Spacers. Subtitled "Crispy Corn Snacks for Cosmonauts" these were cheap but tasty fried snacks -- sort of a sci-fi version of the more famous Monster Munch -- available in a …

Star Trek: The Next Generation / X-Men: Planet X — a novel

Apparently the world is going to end again on Saturday September 23rd, thanks to the mysterious “Planet X” gently smashing into our lovely homeworld. News of that has reminded me of this unusual novel from my collection… The Star Trek: The Next Generation / X-Men crossover novel Planet X by Michael Jan Friedman (Pocket Books, …