Category Archives: Comic Promos

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK SEVEN

SATURDAY 10th SEPTEMBER 1988

It was all change this week across Marvel UK’s best-sellers as The Real Ghostbusters changed to a weekly format and Transformers and Action Force became… Transformers and Visionaries! It was about time too, seeing as how Visionaries fans had been waiting since July for their adventures to continue.

Andy Wildman’s cover may present what was meant to be a shocking moment in Space Pirates but it was the inclusion of the Knights of the Magical Light and a brand new look to the comic which excited me the most when I read this for its real time read through a few years back. The Real Ghostbusters never changed its look at all over the course of its run, although this issue did stray from the typical multi-story formula.

Instead, an epic (for this comic anyway) tale took over the whole issue with a two-part, 11-page strip drawn by cover artists Andy Lanning and Dave Hine who brought us a superb set of Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Even the prose story, Spengler’s Spirit Guide and Lew Stringer’s Blimey It’s Slimer tied into the same story. Unfortunately my Panini sticker album is long gone but I did have fond memories of trying (and ultimately failing) to complete it. There’s also a competition to win a Commodore 64 computer, a machine I’d become obsessed with over three years later!

In Doctor Who Magazine John Freeman hit on a story title that might seem familiar to fans of the show today, Dragon’s Claws had one of their most entertaining adventures from their whole run when they find themselves between warring factions in France and the comic slowly begins to unveil its background story. Then, were we really meant to believe anyone would think Alf was the sexiest alien alive when we’d just had V on TV a few years previous? Come on!

As you can see there was a trilogy of changes on the checklist completed with the merging of the short-lived The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers into the hit Thundercats comic. I don’t think it remained merged for long though before running out of already completed stories for the ranger. The merge was advertised across their range for quite a few weeks with this rather simple advert.

I’m surprised the Galaxy Rangers didn’t merge into Transformers if I’m honest. Space-faring adventures chasing down aliens and mechanoid outlaws with four of the coolest robotic horses sounds like a perfect fit! I’d have lapped them up if that had been the case, but with Visionaries needing a new home too there was only so much back up space to go around. 

Did you collect Thundercats or The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers? What did you make of the merge? Can you remember one of the very best issues of The Real Ghostbusters from its whole 193-issue run? More importantly, did you finish the album? Join in the conversation over on the socials on Bluesky, Instagram and Facebook, and I’ll see you back here next week for another checklist and two classic ads.

TRANSFORMERS 183 (Instagram)

TRANSFORMERS & ViSiONARiES: PART ONE

DRAGON’S CLAWS 4

WEEK SiX < > WEEK EiGHT

MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST MENU

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK SiX

This post was due yesterday but
was delayed due to a health issue

SATURDAY 3rd SEPTEMBER 1988

For the last time (for a while anyway) we’ve only one physical comic to pull from this week. This is all set to change in seven days and the reason was advertised in this week’s Transformers and Action Force. But first, what’s behind this ominous Lee Sullivan cover for #182 of Marvel UK’s top seller?

Part one of the epic Space Pirates strip saw the end of the planet Quintesson and Simon Furman neatly tied it in with the abysmal cartoon episode adaptation from a few weeks ago, and the reason Wreck Gar told the fabricated tale (fabricated for the UK story arc anyway) in the first place. There’s also great news for Lew Stringer fans as Combat Colin took up six full pages in this issue! The comic had finished one Action Force story but the next US import wasn’t quite ready yet so a multi-issue strip of Colin and Semi-Automatic Steve from Action Force’s weekly was reprinted.

For the last time for quite a while we’ve no actual checklist. However, for anyone who was collecting both Transformers and The Real Ghostbusters page 23 of this comic contained some amazing news. To reiterate, as a kid I hadn’t started reading Transformers yet, so I never saw the advert below before picking up #14 of Slimer et all’s comic the following week.

Unbelievably, Marvel UK hadn’t hyped this happening in the previous issue of The Real Ghostbusters! We only found out when we went to pick up our latest issue and it proclaimed it was the first weekly issue on the cover, so Transformers readers found out first a whole seven days earlier. At the time, when I eventually saw the advert through a friend’s collection, I thought “ectoplasmic activity” referred to a cut-out Ghostbusters membership card in #1 and the promise of more such stuff which never materialised. Although #14 would contain a cut-out Doomsday Mask there’d be nothing for months after that. Now, I’m thinking it just means the general ghostly vibes.

Okay, so from next week expect Mighty Marvel Checklists in every post and a liberal sprinkling of classic comic ads to boot! If you thought your grey memory cells had been given a workout so far you ain’t seen nothin’ yet (or some other clichéd 80s’ hype slogan if you wish). I’ll be back this day next week, see you then.

TRANSFORMERS 182 (Instagram)

THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS RETROSPECTiVE

WEEK FiVE < > WEEK SEVEN

MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST MENU

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK FiVE

This post was due on Wednesday 27th August
but was delayed due to a health issue

SATURDAY 27th AUGUST 1988

Well this week is a turn up for the (comic) books! For the first time we’re not choosing between a Mighty Marvel Checklist and a classic comic advert because this week we have both. In fact we’ve more than that, we’ve got two adverts. All taken from the pages of these two comics, on sale Saturday 27th August back in 1988.

Lee Sullivan’s cover for The Transformers and Action Force #181 refers to the second part of the story I mentioned last time and, despite the lengths Marvel UK went to in order to explain away the American story, their editorial still contains a plea asking people not to write in complaining! Unfortunately nothing is made of the issue number for The Real Ghostbusters (cover by Martin Griffiths and Dave Hine) which feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. Inside, the comic teamed up with Sport Aid and had the characters taking part in a sponsored fun run in which Ray comes across a little sprite called The Spirit of Competition.

In the checklist the publisher may have stopped short of the usual “Great News For All Readers” blurb used when our comics merged (and which never convinced us to be happy about it) but it’s obvious what #9 of Galaxy Rangers would mean for its readers. They’d be off to join forces with the Thundercats soon enough, who seem to be welcoming what sounds like a trio of deodorant scents to their ranks.

The Action Force comic here was the later monthly title rather than the original weekly. This smaller format comic was an attempt to sell the British strips back to the US where it was renamed G.I. Joe The European Missions. The addition of the Transformers crossover reprint (originally in the weekly) may have been exciting to American readers but it just meant a third of the comic was reprint for UK fans. Given the talent involved I’m sure the rest made up for it though.

Inside The Real Ghostbusters we have the second of the strip adverts we’ll see during this series, this time for Dragon’s Claws. Written by Simon Furman and drawn by Geoff Senior, this was the final version after a few edits had to be made after a last-minute name change. You can find out more about that in the link at the bottom of this post. There’s also a small cameo for a character who’ll pop up in the checklists soon enough. Or at least, his arm makes a cameo anyway.

It may only be the end of August but it was already the start of the Marvel Annuals hype season on the back cover of Transformers. Strangely, while the annual would be mentioned a couple of times on the editorial and letters pages (and given away in a competition closer to Christmas) this was the only time this advert appeared in the pages of Transformers! It did appear several times in The Real Ghostbusters though. The countdown to the best time of the year had begun!

Okay, so next week there’s no checklist again but that’ll be the last time for a while because Peter, Winston, Egon and Ray would soon be returning every seven days instead of every 14, so between the two comics the checklists will be more consistent. Next week, Transformers announces the good news, so I’ll catch you then.

TRANSFORMERS 181 (Instagram)

DRAGON’S CLAWS: iN REAL TiME

TRANSFORMERS ANNUAL 4 (Instagram)

WEEK FOUR < > WEEK SiX

MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST MENU

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK FOUR

SATURDAY 20th AUGUST 1988

The Real Ghostbusters were taking another break this week before their last fortnightly issue but out in deep space Marvel UK’s The Transformers and Action Force had to get around a problem with their next imported US strip.

I remember receiving a Transformers video for Christmas back then with a particularly dodgy episode on it called The Big Broadcast of 2006. In the UK comic we had stories set after The Transformers: The Movie (which was set in the then-future of 2005/6) and those characters travelled back in time and interacted with the Cybertronians in present day tales skilfully interwoven with the imported strips from across the pond by writer Simon Furman.

But Marvel US had decided to adapt said dodgy cartoon episode into comic form and it completely contradicted a whole bunch of lengthy British story arcs. The solution? Lee Sullivan’s cover should tell you everything you need to know. One page was added at the beginning and end (next week) of the strip, giving the comic its own Dallas-type moment of “it was all a fairytale”, read out by TV-loving Wreck-Gar. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds. The UK bits, anyway.

More importantly though, we’re Checklist-less this time (don’t worry, very soon they’ll be here every single week) but that doesn’t mean I can’t uphold my promise from the beginning of this series. So I’ve borrowed an advert from another Marvel UK comic this week to plug the gap.

Around this time Marvel editor Richard Starkings knew from launching The Real Ghostbusters that it was possible to tell a story in one page so he commissioned strip adverts for a load of their comics, meaning they could be rerun instead of new ones having to created all the time for individual issues. Mostly these were all created in the style of the comic they were advertising and I particularly liked this one written by Simon, drawn by Lee and lettered by Richard.

Speaking of ads, alongside next week’s Mighty Marvel Checklist there’ll be two more adverts, one in keeping with the style above. Then, when The Real Ghostbusters goes weekly from #14 we’ll have an unbroken run of checklists for at least a couple of months. So I hope you’re enjoying these weekly trips down memory lane to the 80s so far. If so, please let me know on socials over at Bluesky (personal), Instagram (OiNK) and Facebook (OiNK).

See you next week!

TRANSFORMERS 180 (Instagram)

TRANSFORMERS READ THROUGH

WEEK THREE < > WEEK FiVE

MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST MENU

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK THREE

SATURDAY 13th AUGUST 1988

The Mighty Marvel Checklist is back after a week’s rest (that first outing must’ve exhausted the poor thing) and there’s a lot more squeezed into its half-page entry inside The Real Ghostbusters (cover by Brian Williamson and Dave Elliott) from this day way back in 1988. 

There was no checklist in #179 of The Transformers and Action Force but this will happen with either comic at different points over the course of the checklist’s run, and since I’ll be showing adverts from both along the way I’m just going to show both covers every week anyway. It also doesn’t hurt that Jerry Paris provided this Transforms cover, with the new and improved Optimus Prime taking on the role of quippy 80s action hero rather well.

The checklist doesn’t do the ‘busters justice this week, because not only do they meet the ghost of King Arthur of Camelot in the story briefly mentioned below, but in another strip the Containment Unit malfunctions and lots of fan-favourite ghosts and monsters from previous issues make cameo appearances and Slimer enters the unit to make the fix for Egon. Two very memorable strips for me.

Our two comics may get short-changed a bit but at least Huckleberry Hound gets his promotion promoted, the Galaxy Rangers edge closer to their final issue and in Thundercats did they really have to rescue those two? Interesting that the Doctor Who Magazine entry focuses solely on the comic strip when it’s only one part of the publication. Then again, it had a lot less pages back then so the strip was a bigger part of the whole.

Finally, Dragon and his Claws got their first inkling of the true nature of their missions for the National Union of Retired Sports Experts (N.U.R.S.E) in the dystopian future of 8162, the start of an arc that would become the main thread of the final issues the following year. I read the whole series for the first time only two years ago and it was a phenomenal comic, one that deserved to run and run but would ultimately be cut short just ten issues in.

As we go through this weekly series any issues of the comics featured on the checklist (or adverts) that have been covered on the blog (or on Instagram in the case of Transformers) will be linked to at the bottom of each post, alongside any titles that have received a more general round up in the Retrospectives section. You never know, there might be more of these Marvel UK comics to add to these links on the blog as time goes on.

Don’t forget, if you remember reading any of these issues let us know on the socials (links in the menu).

TRANSFORMERS 179 (Instagram)

DRAGON’S CLAWS 3

WEEK TWO < > WEEK FOUR

MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST MENU

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK TWO

SATURDAY 6th AUGUST 1988

Okay, so as I said on the menu page for this series there were eight weeks in total out of a whopping 74 that The Real Ghostbusters (still fortnightly so no issue this week) and Transformers didn’t print a Mighty Marvel Checklist. However, I did promise I’d also be showing you all of the comics adverts published alongside the checklists as we go, and that they’d help us plug those annoying gaps.

First up though, what’s with that circus-based Stephen Baskerville cover? The Cosmic Carnival is a story I’ve seen derided in the usual negativity-filled corners of the fandom but when I read it for the first time a handful of years back I found it to be a silly but fun story. Taking prisoner the brilliant Sky Lynx and the human children he’s protecting, a space station-based circus puts them to work in small display cages and in the ring for daring feats. It’s actually a clever script that highlighted the problem with zoos of the day, as well as introducing a wider universe of alien species to the comic.

It’s also important to remember we’re talking about a comic starring sentient robots from outer space that can transform into various forms of human transport so sometimes it’s best not to take things too seriously. So, on to that advert and it’s one that brings back memories. Back in 1988 I read the comic advertised this week, the very first edition of The Marvel Bumper Comic. Fleetway had been enjoying great success with their Big Comic Books and had just released their new fortnightly comic version in mid-June. Repackaging reprints had the potential of great returns with little outgoings.

The Marvel Bumper Comic would soon become a fortnightly (then weekly) comic itself but this was the only one I bought as a kid. I remember enjoying it but wishing the strips weren’t so short. Obviously quantity was key here to reinforce the “Bumper” part of the title. Plus it didn’t hurt trying to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. It’s a curious glimpse at the Marvel UK of the day in one purchase if you can find it on eBay. Perhaps one to join the blog at a later date? Perhaps.

Did you buy the Holiday Special edition of the Bumper Comic? Have you any particularly fond memories of it or any of its contents? What did you think of publishers repackaging old strips to coax more pocket money out of our… erm, pockets? Let us know on the socials at Bluesky, Instagram or Facebook, why don’t you? More comics to check off the list next week.

TRANSFORMERS 178 (Instagram)

WEEK ONE < > WEEK THREE

MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST MENU

THE MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiST: WEEK ONE

SATURDAY 30th JULY 1988

Welcome to this new weekly series! Off we go! The very first Mighty Marvel Checklist appeared in one of the earliest editions of The Real Ghostbusters when it was still a fortnightly comic, a week which also saw some fella return to The Transformers and Action Force that was kind of a big deal.

Yes, Optimus Prime had been resurrected as a Headmaster (cover by Jeff Anderson). The Autobot leader now had a humanoid companion who could transform into his head(!), combining to form an insanely powerful version of the character. I wasn’t yet collecting the comic at the time (that would come later in the same year), however when I read them all for the blog’s real time read through on Instagram this issue was a real thrill because this was the version of the toy I had as a kid.

Unlike Transformers, The Real Ghostbusters (cover by Phil Elliott) was made up of a handful of shorter stories, all much more comedy focussed (re: bad puns), the best often being the prose series Winston’s Diary which was told from the perspective of my favourite character. Also unmissable was the text-based Spengler’s Spirit Guide, the hilarious manual on all things supernatural which appeared in every issue, expertly crafted by Dan Abnett. And of course there was also the Lew Stringer-drawn humour strip Blimey It’s Slimer, however this issue was the last time Lew would be responsible before it was permanently taken over by Bambos Georgiou.

That’s the quick introduction of the comics I’m using out of the way, so what else was on sale that very same week in the summer of ’88? The first Mighty Marvel Checklist takes me back to watching The Adventures of The Galaxy Rangers on the telly every morning. I don’t remember much about them other than I enjoyed the cartoon but apparently not enough to buy their comic, a title that would only make it to #9 before being cancelled.

I never got on with Thundercats but its comic was a huge success, amassing over 100 issues in total, although I remember from the checklists that it seemed to go through a lot of changes and different frequencies towards the end. Fred Flintstone et all round things up at a time when comics such as Dragon’s Claws and Death’s Head weren’t on the list yet. I also liked the way The Real Ghostbusters is coloured differently just so they could show off the “Real” part in read. Imagine doing that every time it’s mentioned, eh?

As this series continues I’d love to find out if you remember any of the specific issues mentioned in any of the checklists, so mosey on over to the socials on Bluesky, Instagram or Facebook and let’s get the conversation started, shall we? Next week we’ll see our first classic comic advert.

TRANSFORMERS 177 (Instagram)

THE REAL GHOSTBUSTERS RETROSPECTiVE

GO TO WEEK TWO

MiGHTY MARVEL CHECKLiSTS MENU

COMiNG UP: TRANSFORMERS AT CHRiSTMAS YEAR ONE

This must’ve been an exciting cover for fans of the new Transformers comic from Marvel UK, with that crossover event splashed across it, taken from the American comic and drawn by Mike Zeck. But that’s not why it’s being featured on the blog. Inside, this issue contained information on the first of the seven Christmas issues for the Cybertronians produced between 1984 and 1990.

At this early stage the comic was a very different beast to what most will remember. In its first year it was a 32-page fortnightly comic filled with lots of extra features beyond the two comic strips, all of which were given equal billing to the Transformers themselves. Hence why the Next Issue promo has a preview image for Machine Man and our lead characters are nowhere to be seen!

As regular blog readers will know I’ve read all 332 issues (plus annuals, specials etc.) of this series in real time over on the blog’s socials and now I’m bringing that whole series to the blog in the Photographing Transformers UK section. The American Transformers Generation 2 monthly has also had a full read through on the blog, ready for you to check out in full. Now, I’m kicking off special yearly post for the 40th anniversaries of the original comic’s Christmassy editions and books.

Beginning in 14 days and continuing over the next several years, every Christmas I’ll be taking those special issues and annuals and giving them the full blown OiNK Blog treatment on each of their 40th anniversaries. Some of them are amongst my very favourite issues of the comic’s run and the hardback annuals were festive feasts, often including elements of lore that continue to this day in the likes of the recent Transformers One!

The first Transformers Annual wasn’t released until the comic’s second year so in 2024 we’ve just got #7 of the original fortnightly to have a gander at. It’s got a lowkey Christmas vibe compared to what came later but it’s still a fascinating look at how these yearly treats kicked off, and an interesting look at just how different Transformers was in those first 12 months. So come back on Sunday 15th December 2024 for the latest Cybertronian addition to the blog.

GO TO iSSUE SEVEN

TRANSFORMERS AT CHRiSTMAS MENU

MAiN TRANSFORMERS MENU

CHRiSTMAS 2024

PALEONTOLOGiCAL PROMO: JURASSiC PARK ADVERT

When I read Dark Horse International’s UK Jurassic Park comic I wondered what marketing it may have received in their other titles. Throughout the reviews you’ll see adverts for the likes of Total Carnage, Manga Mania and what could probably be described as their flagship comic, Aliens. It’s on the back page of an issue of that film spin-off that I spotted a full-page advertisement for the new movie tie-in comic.

As I announced last Christmas, Aliens will be coming to the blog this year in a real-time read through of Dark Horse’s time with the licence (UPDATE: Now live). Whenever I buy classic comics from eBay I don’t read them until I’m scheduled to do so for the blog, but I do flick through them, solely checking the page numbers to ensure there’s nothing missing. As I picked up #13 (on sale 24th June 1993) to begin flicking from the back cover to the front, counting down the page numbers as I went, this jumped out at me.

As you can see, I wasn’t the only person something was jumping out on. Using the cover from #1 (by Gil Kane and George Perez), this is promoting the initial run of the adaptation of the film, before the American comic began publishing the first official continuation of the story. At this point in the US bets were hedged before telling readers it was an ongoing comic, so naturally over here they’d do the same. Released every three weeks to start with, it all began on 8th July before the movie had even been released here.

The advert mentions how the art of the strip was based on stills from the movie, which is a strange boast to make. It makes it sound like it could be nothing more than traced-like images, but of course in the end it was a genuinely good comics adaptation which successfully tinkered with the script and the running order of the scenes so it’d work better on the page. Well, for the most part anyway, until they got to the final chapter. You can read the reviews to see what happened there.

The Jurassic Park comic would prove popular enough to survive many cancellations at Dark Horse

Strangely, it’s advertised as a 32-page comic when it actually had 36, but then again Dark Horse didn’t seem to count their covers in the total. Then in a later issue of Aliens (#17) I discovered the exact same advert again minus the green text along the bottom. However, the promotion of a competition with “50 (count them) 50 fantastic prizes” only applied to #1 and not the competitions in the issues on sale at that later time. What does correlate properly are the Dark Horse Checklists.

In each of the early editions of Jurassic Park the checklist showed the upcoming comics that would be on sale over the next month, so they contained details of the next issue. This means we never got to see the checklist released for the premiere issue to see what it had to say, but #13 of Aliens does, just a couple of pages before that advert.

By the time Jurassic Park moved to a monthly ongoing format with brand new stories set after the movie the checklists were dropped from it. There just wasn’t room anymore, however they still appeared in the larger Aliens. Below is the one which promoted the beginning of the first official sequel to the movie, although it unfortunately doesn’t mention the completely awesome Age of Reptiles back up strip.

The question marks might look like they’re keeping the free gift a mystery for some reason, but it’s actually just placeholder text that they’ve forgotten to delete before going to press because #6 didn’t come with a free gift. A few sloppy errors aside it’s interesting to see how one of my favourite childhood comics was marketed to potential readers.

After the movie proved to be such a phenomenal success I thought they’d have advertised the comic more, that they’d have at least produced a new advert to promote the new stories instead of recycling the one they’d already used before the film’s release. Oh well, hindsight is a wonderful gift. The Jurassic Park comic would prove popular enough to survive many cancellations at Dark Horse, only succumbing to the folding of the company itself towards the end of 1994. You can read reviews of them all on the blog right now.

JURASSiC PARK MENU

WiLDCAT SPECiALS: EAGLE PROMOS

On this day back in 1989 the latest issue of Eagle, edited by blog favourite Barrie Tomlinson, hit shelves across the UK with a Dan Dare cover by David Pugh appropriately enough. Actually, it was the 400th issue since Barrie had decided to resurrect the classic comic in March of 1982. Not that any fanfare was made of this. In fact it’s not mentioned at all, but then again it didn’t have issue numbers on its covers, each issue identified instead by its cover date (the Saturday following release). It had celebrated its 300th but for whatever reason it was no longer keeping track.

So why am I mentioning this issue? Well, as regular readers will know the fantastic Wildcat comic merged into Eagle in April 1989 (#368) and (similarly to when three of OiNK’s characters moved to Buster when it finished) there wasn’t enough of Wildcat in each issue for me personally to justify collecting it. As I mentioned in the review of Wildcat #12 I’ll be covering the remaining adventures of those characters at some point. I wanted to finish Wildcat’s real time read through first, which I’ll be doing six days from now.

The Wildcat Holiday Special had been released a month after the merge (see below), but the name ‘Eagle and Wildcat’ only stayed on the cover of the weekly for three months. However, Loner’s and Joe Alien’s stories continued, with Loner present all the way through until April the following year. (Loner’s original artist had been our Eagle cover artist David Pugh, by the way. In fact, he’d been created specifically for David.) Anyone who had moved over to Eagle (or who had collected both comics) would have loved this promo, even if “a reminder of how the whole adventure began” sounds suspiciously like reprint material.

I’ve been looking forward to finally getting a new issue of one of my most fondly remembered comics to read again and after months of waiting it’s less than a week away. So if like me you’ve been missing Turbo Jones, Kitten Magee, Loner, Joe Alien and the spooky goings on amongst the passengers of humanity’s last hope of survival, join me here on Thursday 17th November 2022 for an in-depth look at the very final Wildcat.

Before you go, as I continue to track down the merged issues I’ve discovered another promo, for the aforementioned Wildcat Holiday Special which was already reviewed on the blog back in April. Here it is in a full-page advert alongside Eagle‘s special and one for the Superchamps TV series.

WiLDCAT MENU