SATURDAY 28th OCTOBER 1989
Just a quickie this week. Kicking things off as usual with the covers for The Real Ghostbusters and Transformers and Action Force and, unlike last year, the former was actually marking the occasion of Halloween, as it really should’ve every year. Slimer is drawn by Brian Williamson, Dave Harwood and Robin Bouttell, the attack on the Autobot Ark is the work of Jeff Anderson.
Medic Ratchet, who was always a favourite character of mine in the early days of the Transformers comic, was going through something of a mental breakdown this week thanks to the Decepticon Micromasters controlling the bodies of his fallen comrades. He was always one of the better developed characters. In the exclusive UK strip one of the best artists at getting real character into these toys was Andrew Wildman. This week, Thunderwing attacked the chilled out (and ill-prepared) Autobots on the Ark and was announced as Decepticon leader after the successful mayhem and destruction. Let the games begin!
The Real Ghostbusters actually contained an honest-to-gosh reprint from an earlier issue this time and as a kid this really annoyed me (unlike Transformers which repeated some series from before I was a reader). Thankfully, they’d soon be replaced with American imports and the rest of the comic was always guaranteed quality. In particular, this week there was a surprise sequel story to an earlier strip about a haunted electric razor and the chaos this had caused for Peter. Both stories were among the funniest the comic produced, not that you’d know it was a funny comic from the advert appearing for the first time in other Marvel UK titles this week.
Then again, any fans of the movie and the cartoon should know what they’re going to get! This image was drawn by regular Real Ghostbusters artist, Anthony Larcombe and taken from one of his earlier strips. It would become synonymous with the comic for the rest of its run, as it was used in this promo for a long time throughout the publisher’s range. From what I recall, this dramatic entry into a client’s property to bust a supposedly terrifying monster was actually happening in Janine’s apartment where demons had taken possession of her mirror. I seem to recall it was more afraid of her than the ‘busters!
As you can see, there was no checklist in either of these comics this week. It was out there somewhere, possibly in the pages of the others I haven’t collected. It was mentioned on the editorial page of The Real Ghostbusters but where it should’ve been we were met with a half-page advert for The Incredible Hulk Presents instead, which you can check out in last week’s post as it happens.
The list reappears next week (for one week anyway) with details of no less than five comics, and our two lead weeklies have covers representing the return of two big baddies. One terrifying, one cuddly and delicious. See you in seven.
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