The first post-holidays issue of The Real Ghostbusters (with cover by Brian Williamson and Dave Harwood) and the first post-200th Transformers and Action Force (with its cover by Dougie Braithwaite and Dave again) were ready to welcome me to Saturday after the first full week of the new school term back in 1989.
The Real Ghostbusters image looks more like a new range of Action Force figures rather than our New York firehouse residents, and for once it refers to a strip inside rather than the prose story. Also inside, Ozbusters isn’t a tale set Down Under, it’s about Egon’s haunted dream in which he’s the tin man, Winston’s the scarecrow and Ray’s the cowardly lion. Can’t fault the imagination in that comic.
Part Three of Transformers’ epic Time Wars may have some printing errors across its pages resulting in some strange colours but that doesn’t blunt its impact one iota, although it’s almost upstaged by Larry Hama’s incredible Hush Job strip in the back up spot, which may have no dialogue but has plenty of drama! Both of my comics were absolute winners this week but what else did Marvel UK have to offer us? Let’s check the checklist.
Thundercats sounds like a regular issue, the likes of which fans enjoyed for most of its run, until that “games and fun” bit at least. The comic’s relaunch for a younger audience was probably inspired by the success of The Real Ghostbusters, even if Marvel’s top-seller didn’t have to rely on such gimmicks. Some of the best issues of Death’s Head and Dragon’s Claws were covered last week, leaving only our ‘Don’t Miss’ comic.
Action Force Monthly lasted 16 issues, so technically longer than the weekly time-wise, and it and its weekly always sounded great. Especially now that I’m reading the G.I. Joe originals I must make it my mission to get caught up with all of the UK stories too. Finally, our only new comic advertisement this week can’t make its mind up whether it even is a comic!
I was never a fan of the Betty Boop cartoons growing up, but many were and I remember she was always on the telly, her merchandise seemed popular and of course she popped up in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. It’s strange to find out there were only two new cartoon specials in the 80s and the rest were reruns. She’s even had a Broadway musical which only closed in 2025!
I don’t remember this comic/card combo at all, I didn’t even recall the adverts when reading these comics again all these years later. Do you remember Betty’s Valentine special? Did you perhaps receive it from a secret admirer? Or send it to one? As usual, I’d love to hear from you in the comments or on socials, the links to which are just below.
It didn’t really matter what was on the cover of The Real Ghostbusters this week, did it? Your attentions were always going to be drawn to Transformers, which has lost the “The” permanently and Action Force temporarily for the week to make way for the celebrations.
Lee Sullivan’s gorgeous wraparound cover poster deserves a photo all of its own and you can check it out at the link at the bottom of this post as per usual. This was my first milestone issue as a kid and boy did it make an impact! Time Wars really picked up the pace and looked incredible thanks to Robin Smith’s art, the extras were great fun and the highlight in that free booklet surprisingly wasn’t the info on the Transformers for new readers, it was the self portraits of the comic’s artists. Definitely check them out below too!
What a way to start 1989, eh? Not that the Ghostbusters team were resting on their laurels. Phil Elliott and none other than Cam Smith provided the cover of another all matte paper finish for a lovely weighty feel in the hands, Spengler’s Spirit Guide to monsters included The Big Gurgler, The Wigglesbro’ Wyrm and The Not-really-quite-nasty-enough-monster of Chatham, and in a story set on Wall Street the team met a ghost who was the embodiment of greed. The prose story was a Winston’s Diary entry, not ‘Jaws of the Beast‘ (below) which was the name of Nick Abadzis’ story in the recent annual.
Of course Transformers was always going to be the must-buy comic of the week and it more than deserved the accolade. Captain Britain was hanging on in there too and I’ve had so many people sing its praises to me on socials these past few months I might track a copy down someday. Almost as exciting as the 200th edition of one of their comics, the first week of the month (and of the year) brought brand new issues of two certain Marvel UK monthlies too.
The dystopian nature of the shared Death’s Head/Dragon’s Claws future came to the fore in our Freelance Peacekeeping Agent’s third issue with some great depictions of the Los Angeles of the year 8162. This was also one of the funniest issues in his whole run and in Dragon’s Claws little did we know we were two months from the end. The scope of the story was so big, the pace so frantic and the shocks so… shocking, that with hindsight it’s obvious, but at the time readers must’ve been left breathless.
Just the one advert and it’s for another change to Thundercats, albeit a bit late. First the comic was fortnightly, then weekly for the majority of its run, then Galaxy Rangerstemporarily merged into it. Upon their departure the comic became fortnightly again with #84 on Saturday 15th October 1988, and that week’s checklist told us the comic was now full of games, puzzles and posters. Sounds like a comic refocusing to aim for a younger audience, doesn’t it? Yet this is the first advert I’ve seen for it in either of these comics.
Well folks, that’s us one checklist into 1989 and you can expect another checklist post every single Wednesday all the way through to Christmas 2026! In fact, the festive checklist of ’89 would end up being the last of the series. Before that we’ve a full year of reminiscing and of feeling old to look forward to. We’re off to a flying start, but what other memorable moments will there be? Let’s find out together. See you in seven.
It feels fitting that this is our last comics post of the year. I’ll have a New Year’s message later with news of the blog and more in 2026, but as for comics the final issues of The Real Ghostbusters and The Transformers and Action Force are it, their official release date being this day way back in 1988.
Brian Williamson and Dave Harwood’sSlimer fronted a celebratory issue, New Years being something none of my other non-humour comics celebrated. But the Ghostbusters were based in New York where the ball drops, they couldn’t miss out on this. Best of all though, the results of a readers’ poll was presented in strip form with the team attending a dinner alongside the Marvel UK writers and artists in attendance. It’s genius stuff!
But it’s Art Wetherell and Dave’s Galvatron cover that’ll have fans reminiscing the most. The Time Wars had begun! This was my first big epic as a kid and it enthralled me for weeks; no one was safe from being killed off, and I do mean anyone. This would also be the last time we’d see that logo before the big change in seven days. More on that below, but first up what else did Marvel UK wrap up the year with?
Action Force Monthly #8 and Death’s Head #2 continued to entertain through the school holidays. What, you mean you only read your comics once and not multiple times between issues? I’m surprised The Real Ghostbusters isn’t the ‘Don’t Miss’ title, what with it being the only one celebrating what day it was, but instead Thundercats #90 takes that honour in what seems a rather random choice.
This week’s advert is actually the Next Issue promo from the back inside cover of Transformers, but one glance and you’ll understand why I just had to include it. I always loved it when my comics got a new look and this was a big one. I was still a newbie to the world of Transformers comics and looking at that new logo, coupled with that image and all of the contents to come the following week, I remember this page being a real thrill. I’d jumped on at just the right time!
I would eventually stay with the comic all the way to its conclusion with #332 so this logo became the de facto one for me and the issue was an incredible way to start the new year. Was it “The Ultimate Comic”? Pretty much. Even Lew Stringer’s strips were getting a crossover and hyped on the page.
With that, both 1988 and 2025 come to a close. As I said I’ll be back later on today to sign off for the year properly, then the blog’s first post for 2026 will be the next checklist. There’ll be new issues of the monthlies to find out about and no guesses for which comic would be the hot one to see in 1989.
I know, these comics and thus this checklist would’ve been released a few days earlier due to Christmas publishing deadlines and shops actually giving staff time off back then. But we’ve no way of knowing the exact date The Real Ghostbusters and The Transformers and Action Force would’ve hit the shelves so I’m sticking with the official date. It’s Christmas Eve!
I always loved snow on the logo of my comics, didn’t you? This was my first Christmas issue of Transformers and as luck would have it the only one with a snowy logo. As an added bonus Slapdash is on Andrew Wildman’s cover; the blue and yellow F1 car was amongst my first Transformers toys that season. After discovering the comic for myself with the festive Winter Special, getting the classic Cold Comfort and Joy tale so soon into my collection was a thrill. As was the news of what was to begin next week! (You’ll find out soon.)
The Real Ghostbusters always went all-out for the season (they’d have a celebratory New Year’s issue every year too) and this was the first of four such years. Behind Martin Griffiths’ cover Peter goes all ‘Fred Claus’ after busting Santa, Spengler’s Spirit Guide is a transcribed dictaphone recording because Egon was too busy with festivities to write it, so it contains loads of funny interactions and things going on in the background the recording picked up, and Stay Puft finally got his own fact-file. Were there other comics worthy of gift wrapping?
Death’s Head 2 and Dragon’s Claws 7 had already been out a few weeks and weren’t themed but they’re two of the best issues of their respective runs, so still special. Action Force may also have been monthly by now but it did mark the occasion with its main story, the return of fan favourite features and, yes, snow on a chilly, blue-coloured logo. Can’t deny Marvel UK had quite the selection for the holidays. Any child would’ve been happy with all of these in their stocking.
There are no new comic adverts per se this week, but I do have something rather unique for you, even if it was technically very late to be running a Christmas competition (the prizes wouldn’t arrive until the new year and most of the readers who’d want Marvel UK annuals would most likely have asked Santa for them). But that didn’t stop Transformers from running a contest to win a set of the three books their readers would have coveted the most.
Both the Transformers and Visionaries annuals from 1988 were superb and I have no doubt in my mind the Action Force one would’ve followed suit, so as a prize I can’t fault this. It’s the question which I find simply hilarious, dressing up characters as Santa and asking readers to identify them. Very simple to regular readers and as a new reader at the time I appreciated the fact they used characters from The Transformers: The Movie, probably so as everyone could enter.
Christmas editions of our favourite comics always helped build the hype so I hope this little glimpse back has you equally excited for what may come for you tomorrow. The Mighty Marvel Checklist will return on New Year’s Day with the biggest news imaginable for one of our comics above.
As I mentioned last time there wasn’t an actual checklist in The Real Ghostbusters and The Transformers and Action Force this week, but we’ll try to make up for that with two things.
The first of those is this Martin Griffiths cover to the former which I remember made me laugh when I picked it up from the shop as a kid. With stock images of Winston, Egon and Peter there’s not much here by Martin. It’s a bit pants but that feels deliberate and the gall of having this as the cover to their top-selling comic is what made it really funny to me. On the other hand, The Transformers has something all the more dramatic.
Anthony Williams’ and Stephen Baskerville’s cover refers to an incident in the continuing story set millions of years ago, so regular readers wouldn’t have been too perturbed by this image. It’s still eye-catching but then again Stephen’s inks always were. But the most exciting thing in this comic today is the Next Issue promo. Don’t get me wrong, this is a great issue, but with me covering the Transformers festive issues and annuals every year on the blog I was extra excited to see the promo for what was my first Christmas issue.
Here’s that special advert I promised you last week. It’s yet another of those one-page strip stories and eagle-eyed readers will notice it says “fortnightly” when the comic was weekly by now. I’ll admit, I’ve had to cheat this week. There was no checklist and no comics ads I hadn’t showed you already so I trawled my collection to find this in the pages of an earlier comic from before the checklists began. It also turned up in the first annual which I just so happen to have written about already this Christmas, where you can check it out as an individual strip with its credits intact.
The first time I saw it was in #3 of the Ghostbusters’ comic when it was drawn by a comics fan who had been the recipient of a “Surprise, Surprise” by Cilla Black and Bob Carolgees. (Ask your parents if you don’t know.) Using the commercial from the film with the characters from the cartoon was a clever way of summing the comic’s humour up and remains memorable for fans to this day. Certainly this fan anyway.
That’s us for this checklist-lite edition but join me again in seven days for the Christmas Eve special! Expect details on all the seasonal editions of your favourite comics, a couple of snowy covers and a ridiculous annuals competition page!
It’s been a long time coming but finally it’s time for the next instalment of Transformers at Christmas, my yearly look at the Yuletide issues of Marvel UK’s epic G1 comic on their 40th anniversaries. Well, it’s almost time. There are still seven days to go but first let’s take a look at how 1985’s special issue was promoted in the previous one. In fact, this issue includes its own holiday highlights on the editorial page.
Jeff Anderson’s exciting cover leads to a bit of a damp squib inside, the build up over the weeks to this confrontation leading to an anti-climactic one-page fight where Optimus Prime simply tosses Shockwave into a deep swamp. There’s a neat double meaning on the cover though; for a few weeks Shockwave had had Prime’s head separated from his body, so the headline made me chuckle. The Christmas fun kicks off with an early celebratory Robo-Capers by Lew Stringer and a quick Hasbro Q&A for the kids before Santa brought them their latest (or first) Robots in Disguise.
There’s nothing else marking the season until we get to the final pages and that all-important Next Issue Promo with a jolly-looking, fully costumed Optimus promoting the very first Transformers Christmas strip. Plus the return of Circuit Breaker! PLUS the Iron Man of 2020! Then there’s Prime dressed up as Santa Claus! What’s not to look forward to?
When I read this as part of the blog’s real time read through on the blog’s socials (now restarted on the blog) this promo really had me hyped as it took me right back to discovering the comic myself as a kid via the upcoming story, albeit a few years later in a Winter Special reprint. Even Prime’s choice of costume, while seemingly silly to begin with, adds a surprising amount of depth to the character. I’ll explain all next week.
But that’s not all this year. There’s something else coming this Christmas, namely the first Transformers Annual. Not appearing until the comic’s second festive season, the exciting arrival of the comic’s first annual was met with zero advertisements and only one mention in #37’s editorial at the end of November.
Soundwave was the letter answerer at the time and he’d written the announcement for the book, sounding suitably unimpressed. For fans though, the introduction of the Insecticons and just the news of the book existing would’ve been more than enough! Although I’m sure they’d have known about it long before then. With the way our newsagents would’ve had tables or shelves crammed with annuals every year, the lack of promos wouldn’t have had much of an impact on such a hit property. You can actually check out the adverts for all of the Transformers annuals in a special post from earlier this holiday season.
That’s us ready for Christmas 1985 in the world of The Transformers. So #41 will be right here in just seven days on Sunday 21st December 2025, my 48th birthday! (It originally went on sale on my 8th. Eek!) Then just four days later on Christmas Day itself the first in-depth review of a classic Transformers Annual. Don’t miss either. They’re both fantastic!
Bambos Georgiou brought us his first full cover for this week’s The Real Ghostbusters. He’d taken over from Lew Stringer on the Blimey! It’s Slimer strip but I’d forgotten all about his other contributions to the comic. Across the way Art Wetherell and Stephen Baskerville brought us the latest Transformers and Action Force cover with the trademark Marvel UK stippled background they used so much across their range at the time.
Inside, Bambos’ humour strip had grown to a full page as the green glob’s popularity continued to soar. Through this comic, Marvel Bumper Comic, It’s Wicked and his own monthly he soon became something of a mascot for the publisher, despite not being their property. This is one of those unique issues when the strips and prose story form part of a larger tale. Despite the somewhat simplistic cover, it’s also one of the better issues from the early days of the run.
There’s more travelling back to an adventure from a millennia ago to add previously unknown backstory to Optimus Prime and Megatron in their main strip this week, and ol’ Megs finally gets his own A-Z page to mark the occasion. Elsewhere, a Transformers torch is advertised. It doesn’t actually transform, unless you count it alternating between being lit up and not being lit up as a transformation! What else was on the menu this week?
Apart from what we’ve already covered above and in last week’s checklist the only other entry is the latest issue of the now-fortnightly Thundercats. The previously epic-sounding storylines we’d read about in the checklists seem to have been permanently replaced by ones with somewhat lesser stakes for the characters.
Last week the Marvel Bumper Comic advert hinted at content relating to two recent cinema releases, namely Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and Willow. Fans of the latter had more to celebrate this week with the news of a full comics adaptation of the new movie starring Val Kilmer, Joanne Whalley, Warwick Davis and the brilliant Jean Marsh.
Believe it or not I’ve never seen the film! It’s one of those childhood fantasy movies I always felt I’d missed out on and in recent years I’ve been correcting that (I saw Labyrinth fully for the first time just two years ago) and having seen enough clips of Willow when I was a child, and with such a stellar cast, it’s about time I added it to my Christmastime movie marathons. No, it’s not a festive film but it’s the perfect time of year for such childhood movies, isn’t it?
There’s no checklist next week but don’t fret, it’ll be back just in time for us to reminisce about those special Christmas issues we always looked forward to so much. But first, next week there’ll be another fun one-page strip advert, this time for one of the main comics from this checklist series and it’s a good one. So be here for that in seven days. That’s just enough time for you to get through your third packet of mince pies.
As more and more houses on our streets put their decorations up and the ice over the railway bridge made walking to school an adventure, Marvel UK kept my friends and I warm with the latest issues of The Real Ghostbusters and The Transformers and Action Force, with covers drawn by Dougie Braithwaite with Dave Hine, and Stephen Baskerville respectively.
In #195 of Transformers it comes to light that centuries ago two Autobot cassettes (how 80s) crash landed on Earth with important data about an incoming threat. They were found by a pirate ship’s crew which later sank and that’s why the Decepticons have now built their tropical island (their disguised space craft) in this area as they hunt for the cassettes. This feels like a live-action movie plot, flashing back in time to add a previously unknown plot line. It’s great fun!
A reader also asks is he’s too old to read Transformers, Action Force, Death’s Head and Dragon’s Claws. Little could that 18-year-old have known how these comics would remain treasured for decades. The Real Ghostbusters’ readers are asked to help them save the world with a toy product recall (too much lead in a Ghost Pen Light) and Spengler’s Spirit Guide details lesser known vampires such as Dracula’s gullible brother who was killed with Perrier. How could Marvel top that? Let’s check the checklist.
Dragon’s Claws #7 is probably my favourite issue. It definitely highlights my favourite character. Mercy had the most interesting background of all the Claws with a determination to end corruption and bring down those who think they’re above the law (very ‘Knight Rider‘). Having a copycat on the loose is a great way of getting to know Mercy’s character, and this issue more than any makes me mourn the premature cancellation of the comic; there’s so much potential in Mercy and this only scratches the surface.
Action Force Monthly #7 is the same issue as last week and the Claws needn’t have felt too put out not being the ‘Don’t Miss’ comic, they’re the stars of that one too! After a certain mechanoid guest starred in Dragon’s Claws two months previous it was time for them to return the favour (and hopefully bring across more readers) for Death’s Head’s sophomore release. It’s a brilliant issue and reads like a funny buddy cop movie from the 80s. So yes, it deserved its position on the checklist.
The only new comics advert this week is rather basic but the cover to the latest fortnightly Marvel Bumper Comic was enough to whet the appetite. Did these movies have strips inside or written articles? Maybe we’ll find out at a later stage on the blog? Hopefully, because I’d love to collect this series eventually. I do remember owning a Bros. special from Marvel UK (for some reason) and it contained comic strips. Bad comic strips, mind you.
Did you collect The Marvel Bumper Comic? I think I only ever had the Holiday Special which started it all off. Do you think it’s worth collecting? For now though, it is but a pipe dream. However, we’re now well and truly into this year’s seasonal posts on the blog so there’s plenty to keep me busy and my wandering hands away from overpriced eBay auctions. More checklist fun next week including an advert for a movie adaptation to one of the above. More in seven days as per usual.
The decorations are up and Christmas on the OiNK Blog has well and truly begun, and part of the season’s line up is no less than half a dozen Mighty Marvel UK Checklists, including one full of seasonal joy. First up though, fun stories and a… um, summer holiday.
In The Transformers and Action Force, Club Con begins. It’s another much-mocked storyline but again I found it fun and imaginative. The Decepticons have built a tropical island on top of their submerged base and they end up blasting into space with Buster Witwicky on board. This was the first time I’d seen the Seacons on this Bob Budiansky and Kevin Nowlan US cover and as a lover of everything aquatic I thought they were brilliant, even if the squid one did look daft in hindsight.
Anthony Williams and Dave Harwood provide the cover to The Real Ghostbusters and, talking of imaginative, the stories include Janine and Egon on a date and Janine’s pissed off voice shouting in frustration at a ghost actually busts it, and then we find out Slimer pretends to haunt somewhere for his friends when jobs and income are rare! What else did Marvel UK conjur up for us this week 37 years ago?
The Captain Britain trade paperback may have been on sale for a couple of weeks already but that didn’t stop it from taking the big spot. A bit of a blow to the new comics released this week? Not really, there was a promotional signing coming up at, you guessed it, Nostalgia & Comics. I’ll also assume the new Action Force Monthly would’ve been the one not to miss last week if we’d had a checklist, especially with that collection of talent producing it.
The new-look fortnightly Thundercats seems to have taken a leaf out of The Real Ghostbusters’ book if this issue’s contents is anything to go by. Speaking of comics aimed at slightly younger readers, I’ve commented before about the lack of strip information in the checklists for Flintstones and Friends and the annual’s advert seems to highlight that further. Less a comic book and more an activity book? Well, maybe it kept its readers in bed with their stockings a while longer.
I have to say the adverts for the Action Force annuals always made them look just as exciting as those in the Transformers’ series. Why I never asked for any of these books when I was enjoying the back up strip in Transformers is beyond me. Maybe it’s something I should look into for the blog in the future? I’m really loving the Skybound box set and I’ve wanted to see more of the UK content since reading the few issues of their weekly when they crossed over with the robots. Who knows. This advert definitely has me thinking about it.
We move into December itself next week and there’ll be details of some of Marvel UK’s monthly offerings for the festive season. They may not have had snow on their logos but that didn’t mean they weren’t just as special. See you then.
Around September time back in the 80s my local newsagent would bring out a huge table to began displaying that year’s annuals. I remember this being really exciting and I’d flick through the ones I’d already asked Santa for, impatiently waiting to get my hands on them on the morning of 25th December. For those three months I’d drool over that table (figuratively speaking only, don’t worry) and we couldn’t escape them at home either, with a plethora of adverts appearing in our comics. The Christmas hype had begun. With the Annuals section of the blog well under way now, I’ve decided to take a look at all of the adverts relating to them I could find in my collection.
1984
As a kid I only started buying comics toward the end of 1986, so any adverts before then are from my now complete Transformers Marvel UK collection and I’m surprised to see only one amongst the issues from 1984. The heading may be awkwardly placed but it’s a wide range from the publisher, including everything from Culture Club (“Karma, karma, karma, karma, Karma chameleon”) to The Fall Guy (“It’s only hay, A-hey-hey!”) via the BMX craze, the short-lived Manimal and, erm, the S.A.S.?
I do remember watching Fraggle Rock early Saturday mornings and my vocal impression of Roland Rat was always awful but that never stopped me from annoying people with it. For blog readers the obvious point of interest here is the Knight Rider Annual, the second in a series of five. It was reviewed a couple of years back and I’ve even interviewed its artist, David ‘V for Vendetta‘ Lloydon the blog too. In fact, the fourth edition will be here a fortnight from today, on Friday 19th December.
1985
Speaking of coming up on the blog this year, in 1985 the first Transformers Annual appeared in shops exactly one year after the debut of the comic. Strangely, this momentous occasion wasn’t marked by any adverts at all, just one brief mention in #37 on 23rd November. It doesn’t say much either, however it does mention the first story to feature the Insecticons, which would’ve been enough for young fans to get frothing at the mouth.
The Transformers at Christmas 40th anniversary posts return this year for their second outing and in fact that’s the very reason for the post you’re reading now. Marvel UK’s Transformers had seven annuals altogether and they’re very fondly remembered. They’ll be taking prime position on Christmas Day every year with a full review. This post marks the occasion of these books joining us, they feature predominantly and many of these ads have been taken from the pages of said comic.
1986
Moving on to 1986 and Marvel finally began to take the importance of advertising these books to their young readers seriously. With other successful comics to plunder for the Christmas market the Transformers weren’t alone anymore, joined as they were with legendary Marvel stalward Spider-Man, his co-stars the Zoids (Spider-Man and Zoids was the oddest combination comic yet somehow it worked) and newest hot toy and cartoon franchise, those Thundercats.
These ads were also broken up into half-pagers to be squeezed in wherever they could across the publisher’s range. It was a huge step up from previous years. Although, I must admit when I was reading Transformers for the blog’s real time Instagram read through and I came across this advert I did a bit of a double-take and had to check if this was the right image, it’s not that much different than the previous year’s Transformers Annual.
1987
All Transformers Annuals after that would have very different, stand out covers but surely no annual stood out as much during 1987’s final months as OiNK’sfirst book. I can remember the teases of that fantastic image all summer during 1987 and the final reveal was hilarious, never mind seeing it in its shiny glory in the shop for the first time. There’ll be a special post on Thursday 8th December featuring that cover, when I’ll be speaking with photographer Ian Tilton about the original back cover and what happened when he went to get the photos developed.
On the Fleetway Publications side there was nothing of comparison cover-wise, although the Big Comic Book’s shear size made up for that. More impressive were the covers for Marvel’s lot, with Action Force (G.I. Joe) joining Thundercats and their top-seller, Transformers. However, it’s only now I realise they were quite a bit more expensive (for the time) than the Fleetway books, despite having fewer pages (Fleetway’s had 112 pages, with 84 for OiNK and 256 for BCB, Marvel’s had 64). Well, they were licenced I suppose, and as kids we never felt short-changed with the amount of stuff crammed into them.
1988
This was the biggie. 1988 was a huge year for comics in the UK, even if a lot of the new titles released didn’t last that long. Nevertheless, it still meant a bumper crop of annuals were produced for that holiday season and the vast array of advertisements, particularly across Marvel UK’s range, reflected this. But we’ll begin with Fleetway again and the second (and sadly final) OiNK Book. A fantastic J.T. Dogg cover almost made up for the reduction in pages to 64, which was all the more disappointing when the comic had 48 pages in every monthly issue by that time.
Their group advertisement from the back page of the last OiNK is a rather different mix of books compared to the previous year’s. Buster is conspicuous by its absence and then there’s the addition of annuals you’d assume would’ve been more Marvel UK’s bag (such as SuperTed and Maple Town).
This was the year Marvel really went to town on their promotions. In 1988 group advertisements were accompanied with full-page promos for individual annuals and I’ll begin with the two that bring back the most memories for me, The Transformers and The Real Ghostbusters. Having only just started collecting the former with its Christmassy Winter Special in mid-November this was my very first Transformers Annual, and as for Dr. Venkmen etc. 1988 was the year they arrived in the UK and I had been swept up in it all.
I have so many fond memories of that Real Ghostbusters Annual. You ever own something that just takes you right back to your childhood when you see it in front of you? I was obsessed with the cartoon, comic and toys for a few years and I remember this book surprising me with just how fantastic it was. Would it live up to that now or is it best to reminisce? We’ll find out on Thursday 4th December when The Real Ghostbusters join us for an annual read through for four Christmases. I’ll admit I’m excited at the prospect of this one!
Another book that brings back plenty of childhood memories is the Visionaries Annual. The comic had already been cancelled by this stage so it didn’t get its own advert but it was a part of a group ad and a special page in The Transformers, featuring the annuals relating to it and the two comics that had merged into it at different points. The main strip in the Visionaries book may have been a reprint but as I hadn’t known there’d been a comic it was all new to me and a huge surprise to receive that Christmas (and the next, because my newsagent also sold it the following year and my parents bought me it again thinking it was a new book).
The Real Ghostbusters were grouped in with the lighter-hearted annuals such as Count Duckula. The Marvel Super Heroes didn’t have their own comic in the UK but there were always various Spider-Man and Hulk comics now and again. Finally, The Flintstones comic must’ve been more popular than I gave it credit for because its annual got its own promo too.
1989
In contrast, the following year Marvel only ran one advert for their entire range, which is a shame because that Transformers book was superb and there are some fantastic covers here that should’ve been shown much bigger (although the Indiana Jones cover seems to be phoning it in). I never knew there was a Dino-Riders annual! I only had one or two of the toys but I did see some episodes of the cartoon (I think one was packaged with a toy?) and enjoyed it. They joined a league of potential obsessions for me that never played out because they weren’t around for long.
1990
In 1990 a whopping 22 annuals graced the shelves from Marvel UK, featuring a mix of ongoing comics, cancelled titles, original nursery books, licences and a few characters who appeared in anthology comics given room to breathe in their own publications. It was also the first time G.I. Joe’s annual was given the proper international name after Hasbro’s relaunch of the brand, and a few years after their TV show was cancelled I was surprised to see Hannibal, Face, B.A. and Murdock make a reappearance.
Spider-Man fans were in for a treat too with his usual appearance in the Marvel Super Heroes Annual and his own book. Over the next year or two he’d also get his own UK comic again after a lengthy hiatus. Transformers and G.I. Joe also got their own joint ad which had a good idea behind it but not exactly the most exciting of executions. Oh well, at least they got something this year I suppose.
1991
We move into our final year. Not necessarily the last for annual adverts but it’s the last for those in my comics collection (after this year it’s all Dark Horse International comics on my shelves who didn’t publish annuals) and Marvel UK came up with an overall look for a handful of adverts of various sizes. With a few ads to fill they could’ve made each genre-specific but decided not to. The first one is fine and G.I.Joe got to enjoy some space with annuals its readers could also have been interested in. I can’t say the same for Transformers, The Real Ghostbusters and Thundercats though, who seem to have been given something of a raw deal.
Perhaps the person responsible for the adverts weren’t au fait with the titles they were being asked to market? These were the last annuals for some of these licences (definitely for those covered on the blog) so it’s a bit of an ignominious end for a few, but for those already reading the comics these ads were always going to be exciting; we easily ignored the books we weren’t interested in and concentrated on those Dinobots!
There we go, a trip down not one but eight Christmas memory lanes all in one post. I’m so glad I decided to do these yearly (re: slow) read throughs and these adverts have me hyped for the years to come. There’s more love for comics annuals/books on the blog this Christmas too, with no less than six up for review, including on Christmas Day and Boxing Day! Keep an eye on the Annuals menu, the Christmas 2025 introduction, or the blog’s socials for updates on when they’re published.
