Retro Comics: Roy of the Rovers issue #1 (1976 - 1993)

FOR FOOTIE FANS EVERYWHERE

Now this was a great comic featuring the adventures of Roy Race and his team, Melchester Rovers. Other notable series in the comic included: Tommys Troubles, Billy's Boots, The Safest Hands in Soccer, Hot Shot Hamish, Mighty Mouse, and my own personal favourite - Mike's Mini Men, all about a kid and his Subbuteo team. It was brilliant and great fun to read. This first issue came with one of those cardboard fold out thingys that had all the English and Scottish League Division's printed as a template on one side. Each team had it's own little cardboard tab that you slotted into the correct postion in the table after watching the results on Grandstand or World of Sport at Saturday tea-time. Then you'd stand it up on the table beside your bed and realise that your team was never ever going to win anything ever.

Each issue ended on a cliffhanger and I guess once Roy had his foot amputated - what a shocker that issue was - there wasn't really anywhere else for the comic to go. Smashing comic. Nothing like it around today sadly. Kids don't know what they're missing - again.

Retro Comics: TV CENTURY 21 and COUNTDOWN issue #1

STANDY BY FOR ACTION

I am a huge Gerry Anderson fan. His genre epics like UFO, SPACE 1999, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and Stingray where just the best things ever when I was growing up. Had all the toys, games, annuals, models and loved them all with a passion. But what I remember the most were the comic spin-offs which serialised his creations. TV CENTURY 21 and COUNTDOWN were my absolute favourites and were published in broadsheet format on quality paper. Typing this I can even remember that particular smell comics had back then. Noticed a few on eBay. Tempted...

Retro Comics: Monster Fun (1975 - 1976)

MONSTER FUN: THE GOOD THE BAD THE PLAIN OLD SCARY

What a great comic to read when you're a kid. Starting to sound like a stuck record looking back at all these classic British comics but I don't care coz I loved them all. A year or so ago managed to come across a few back issues in an old record shop and they're still a very funny read. MONSTER FUN only lasted 72 issues before it merged with BUSTER comic.

Retro Comic Annuals: Shiver and Shake (1976)

Festive Fun with Frankie Stein and Shiver the spook.

One of the many traditions kids had in the UK when growing up was always getting a number of comic annuals for Christmas. I was a voracious reader of all things comic funnies so I got a whole bunch of them to tide me over the festive period. Back in the 60's and 70's there was a huge selection to choose from and sadly those days are long gone with the slow decline in the industry over the years. Like most kids, I loved them, read them till I knew the stories backwards, traded them, and as middle age sets in, are mooching around old bookstalls, charity shops and car boot sales trying to find the annuals we wished we hadn't traded in the first place. Nitwit that I was. So thought it'd be fun to do a series of posts all about some of my favourite ones. First up is Shiver and Shake from 1976 with its fantastic cover. Enjoy.

Retro Comics: 2000 AD issue #1 (1977)

THE THARG-TASTIC COMIC FROM BETELGEUSE

Crikey, it's been 34 years since I bought this issue back in the 70's. Makes me feel my age looking at the cover. I always was a sci-fi geek and a comic dedicated to all things fantasy and future was just the best thing ever. This was months before STAR WARS was even on the radar and changed everything as far as the genre was concerned. 2000 AD was great and had a decent selection of stories which covered everything from future dystopian nuclear ravaged wastelands and worlds, Dan Dare inter-galactic space wars, future sports with jet packs and aerial slam dunks to time travelling, cigar chewing, dinosaur hunting cowboys. It wasn't until issue #2 did the iconic JUDGE DREDD appear and who eventually became the comics number one strip - and has remained so ever since. Initially edited by a green bug called Tharg from Betelguese (no, seriously - he was green), it is no small achievement that it has lasted so long thanks to its great art and stories. I bought it for over 20 years but then it came down to either continue getting it or feeding the kids. That was one tough call I can tell you...

Retro Comics: Marvel A3 Christmas Treasury Editions.

- Christmas 1975 - 

- Christmas 1976 - 

Wow, these take me back. I loved all of the Marvel A3 Treasury Specials but the one's I loved the most were the "christmas" editions with their superhero festive covers. These were great and brings back memories of keeping them for the big day and spending Christmas Day afternoons reading them whilst munching on mince pies and chocolate. Fantastic.

Retro Comics: Classics Illustrated #133

HG WELLS "the TIME MACHINE."

Am a complete sucker for anything to do with time travel and this is a pulp favourite.

version shown: UK reprint 2010

Retro Comics: Dracula Lives #1 1974

MARVEL UK's DRACULA LIVES - A COMIC WITH BITE.

I was always a huge fan of horror comics growing up and this one is probably my favourite of the many I collected during the 1970's. Marvel UK A4 comics back then used to feature two or three different characters in the same comic which made them much more interesting to read than their USA A5 counterparts. Werewolf by Night, Ghost Rider and Man-Thing were also serialised during its print run which lasted 87 issues where it merged with another Marvel publication (POTApes). 

An interesting point about Dracula Lives #1 is that it came out on the same day as the totally excellent Planet of the Apes #1 comic as a Marvel double premiere.

Retro Comics: Close Encounters of the Third Kind Collectors Edition 1978

HIGHWAY TO THE STARS

In a previous post I said that Close Encounters was my favourite all time movie and was one of the reasons I became such a sci-fi geek. After seeing it for the first time in 1978, I remember going to the most popular bookshop in the big city and purchasing Spielberg's novel of the movie. This Marvel special came free with it. From what I gather it was quite rare and hard to find here in the UK. A real collectors edition. Wish I still had it.

Retro Comics: COR!! 1970.

CRIKEY - it's COR!!!

British comics were a strange lot when I was growing up. On the one hand, you had UK Marvel publishing various superhero comics and on the other, the traditional "funnies" comics from publishers like IPC, Fleetway and DC Thomson & Co. Stuff like the Beano, Dandy, Whizzer and Chips, Monster Fun and so on. I used to buy them all. My pocket money went on everything I could get my hands on.

On reflection, I think my absolute favourite was COR!! The first issue is shown above and it came with a free sachet of goo to make a fizzy drink. Tasted crap from memory. But being a kid you didn't care. COR!! ran for 210 issues before it merged with Buster in the shrinking UK market for kids comics. I loved it. Saturday mornings meant nipping down to Wilsons the newsagents at the bottom of my street and getting all the latest issues. Great memories of really fun times sitting reading them in the back yard whilst eating a curlywurly.

Retro Comics: John Carter Warlord of Mars #1 - June 1977

Marvel's JCW of Mars 1977 - 1979.

Had every issue - then I discovered girls and got rid of my childish things.  Fool that I was...

Retro Comics: UK Avengers #1 1974

When comics were good.