Comics Club on Tour - Marts (part 1).

In the very talented company of Dave Stokes, Marc Laming, Matthew Harrower, Martin Shipp and Dave Houghton I attended the Royal National Hotel's Comics Mart in Central London this weekend.

I have been attending Marts on and off since the 1980s and have always enjoyed the Royal National and was interested to see if it still had the same attraction in these days of dwindling sales and fan apathy.

It was actually a pretty good day (buoyed by the company I am sure) and I managed to pick up quite a few things I had gone with the intention of buying (always a good sign). I also bagged a signed Iron Man issue 1 for the Boy Wonder by Kieron Gillen who had a signings table in one of the halls.

The hall was not as packed as in recent years and I still recognised some of the same old faces. 

I managed to plug a sizeable amount of my gaps in First Comics Warp, Starslayer and E-Man. And all for 50 pence each!

 For me First Comics were a landmark company during the boom 1980s and I read nearly all of their titles and find them very enjoyable still to this day. They attacked genre without mercy and are worthy of a much more extensive review than this (I promise). Badger and Nexus (and especially their crossover issues) were always leaders of the pack for me. Both characters never really fully exploited since. You can’t help but notice how much Deadpool owes in tone and character to Badger.

Just take a look at this incredible cover by Steve Rude.

 I grabbed a couple of issues of Starblazer digest comics for the sake of nostalgia. This series along with the War books DC Thomson put out have a quintessentially British feel to them and often (as was common at the time) fail to credit writers and artists.  If you can figure out which issues to order you can find stories written by Grant Morrison or drawn by the likes of Cam Kennedy, Mike McHahon, John Ridgway and John Smith.

These digest books seemingly ran on and on and there were almost 300 issues running between 1979 and 1981.

The stories reek of old school pulp sci-fi and often have a Trevor Hoyle or John Wyndham 'pre Star Wars' feel to them. I genuinely wish I had paid more interest to them as a kid. They are closer in style to the European books of the time than the American comics. Often slightly over dramatic but certainly weirdly British (think Blake's 7 rather than Buck Rogers and you will be half way there).

Great reads nonetheless.

A great day but what the fuck is up with non stop DVD salesmen!??

More Mart to come tomorrow.

NIA.

PS If you are on Twitter you can find me @Ezohyez

My Esteemed Comics Clubs pals can be found at the following.

Dave Stokes (@davestokes), Marc Laming @monkey_marc), Matthew Harrower (@hp_matt), Martin Shipp (@ShipptEsq)

Err Dave H doesn't approve of Twitter :)

Cover of the day - Star Trek.

Cover of the day comes from the superb Gold Key reprinting, BBCtv authorised, weirdly coloured 'Star Trek Annual' from 1972.

For those outside of the UK (and not in the know) these annuals were released on the run up to Christmas and usually featured reprint material with some added text pieces and puzzles.

Mostly aimed at keeping the kids quiet over the holidays in the pre digital age.

They were actually pretty cool and nearly all hardbacks that many I have kept to this day.

This particular annual however was a 'Comics Club on Tour' purchase at the ever reliable Notting Hill Book Exchange for the princely sum if £2.

Can't be bad.

Enjoy.

NIA.

Cover of the day.

'Forces in Combat' issue 35 from January 1981.

From Marvel UK again.

Marvel must have been scratching their heads for a cover on this one? It looks like they just used a panel from the original book and didn't even bother to take out the thought bubble and the panel.

Let's all sing 'We miss ROM'!

Great image by Sal Buscema though.

NIA.

Panel of the day.

From the incredible Joe Kubert presents issue 4.

This series blows my mind every month and I am really enjoying 'The Redeemer' strip.

Hopefully this will make it into a hardback soon!

Enjoy.

NIA.

Early Thor and Alan Davis.

As part of our ongoing series we thought that it might be worth a look at a couple of Alan Davis' early Marvel UK pieces.

Going through some boxes I found a couple of Thor pieces that seemed worth a post after Mr D's recent runs associated with the character.

Alan Davis (perhaps to most more than anyone) has long been associated with Marvel UK due to his work on the revamp of Captain Britain with Alan Moore.  He was also apparently in the same pot as the likes of John Higgins and Steve Dillon (among loads of others) as a jobbing comics artist and illustrator who worked on alternative fill in covers and pinups.

A lot of this work never got seen by the US market.  

Here is a double page pin up that made it's way into 'Super Spider-Man TV Comic' issue 486 from June 1982 and a personal favourite. I just love the darkness and detail. (The sword in Valkyrie's hand just looks so great).

Here is a cover that Alan did for 'Marvel Action' issue 1 (I think from 1983).  This was the first issue in a little revamp of the titles where they were given new paper covers (rather than the shiny stock paper used for a while on titles like 'Planet of the Apes', 'Dracula Lives', 'The Mighty World of Marvel' and 'The Avengers'. They were pleasingly a lot better than the crap they printed Spidey's TV Comic on.). Each issue focused on the bigger characters and went back to reprinting more classic stories from the late 1960s and 1970s.

To me this cover lacks the detail seen in his work normally. The faces (other than the Thing who seems fully realised) seem a little lacking in detail. Knowing Marvel UK at the time this may be a style they pressed on the artists, a speed requirement or merely an image that was mean't to be used in a smaller format. Who knows.  But it does have an iconic and striking quality and was an image used later by the company in some advertising.

And just for a bit of fun (and because we saw him on the cover to the above issue) here is a great pinup of Dr Strange.  Loved this! I actually bought this issue twice so that I could remove the poster for the bedroom wall!

Hope you enjoy them.

NIA.

Cover of the day.

This a cover from a British black and white weekly that predates the Marvel UK stuff that I have been posting recently.

Being from July 1968 it also predates me by a few months too.

It also reprints early Marvel US material in a magazine size format.

Enjoy.

NIA.

Panel of the day.

From Marvel's Planet of the Apes.

Written by Doug Moench with art by Mike Ploog and Tom Sutton.

Superb stuff!

So reprint it soon for fucks sake!!!

Enjoy.

NIA.