Mighty World Of Marvel...Comics UK Style

[Blue Meanie]

Recently I've been looking into the British Comics from the 70's. The Annuals looked like something I would be interested in...mainly because they are hardcovers and the art on the covers were amazing. Then I started looking at some of the weekly comics. I know that they are reprints of the US comics...but some of the advantages are better covers and also I think that some of the comics are Magazine sized. More closer to the original art. The black and white interiors really doesn't bother me as much as it may have about 15 or 20 years ago. Learning that Starlin was a cover artist for a substantial amount of covers. As was a couple of other Marvel Bullpen artists like Ron Wilson, Keith Pollard, and Pablo Marcos. Here's just one example of a really nice cover from a UK/British Weekly:



A lot of stock covers were used but ones like the one above and about 50 % of the others were original covers...either taken from a different perspective of the original cover...or a completely new drawing. I know that if I start collecting the UK weekly comics it's going to be a slog. There are about 10 or 15 titles besides the Mighty World Of Marvel. If anyone wants to just look at some nice covers here is a link to the GCD comic database:

http://www.comics.org/series/21497/covers/?page=1

[clemso]

As someone who grew up on MWOM, i concur. I saw the early Marvel universe form before my very eyes in black and white Kirby/Ditko line art and some times red or green shading. It was a while before i read my first American color comic book. it did take some getting used to. John Buscema drew the cover to the 1st issue of Might World of Marvel and at one time I had bought and owned the original cover art. Ah those were the days.

[Bruce Banner]

I read a lot of the Marvel UK editions when I was a kid, but I always preferred the US editions I'd get in Canada.
Preferred the monthly format over weekly, colour over b&w, etc.

But yeah, as with the weekly SW reprints, it often meant some extra exclusive cover art, which was cool.
And the hardcover annuals were neat.

[Blue Meanie]

If I'm not mistaken, as I've gone through my research I see that with a book like "The Titans" (The Avengers) the book using a landscape format had to split books up into halves. The second part of the story would always have a new art 1st page to tie the two halves together. And the new art was just as good as the rest of the art in the second part story in the book.

I'm finding out that there are some other Marvel artists like George Perez that also helped out on the UK/British weekly's. They must have had the "low man on the totem pole" doing all the so called mop up work when it came to international editions.

As an original art collector, I think I would be very happy with any cover from a UK/British Weekly. They are probably a lot more affordable too.

[clemso]

I remember Anthony's Collectible's used to manage to get some covers in. Depends what you mean by affordable these days. BTW. I hated the Titans format, really did not work for me.

[suspense39]

I recently saw the coolest daredevil 1 from Australia .......amazing cover

[Blue Meanie]

I remember Anthony's Collectible's used to manage to get some covers in. Depends what you mean by affordable these days. BTW. I hated the Titans format, really did not work for me.

Anthony usually has some good stuff when he does shows here. As for the Titans...I'll let you know. I just won 3 lots on ebay.

I was checking the gallery in the GCD link and Starlin did the first 26 or 27 covers for Mighty World Of Marvel. It's funny how much the inker affects the pencils. Sinnott is the inker on the majority of the covers and you can see that it's Starlin...but it's not quite what you'd expect from his art. Looks like Dick Ayers and Rich Buckler did a lot of covers too for Mighty World.

[nobody]

I use to buy the Captain Britians when he had the red costume with the yellow lion crest. Loved those comics.

[Blue Meanie]

Love these Starlin covers:

[clemso]

Found this image on the net. Great to see that their out there.

[Blue Meanie]

Got my first batch of Mighty World Of Marvels and Titans UK Comics...Clem, I see what you mean about the Titans books. There are a lot of pages with "Bullpen" artists either doing a new splash page so the book evens up in it's side by side pages inside or it's Bullpen artists re-imagining or lightboxing some original Marvel pages. I did find the Titans centerspread posters interesting. There's a nice Vision done by Nasser and Adams in one of the books.

I have a few earlier issues of Mighty World Of Marvel where the green ink really does add to the black and white pages. Especially in the Hulk stories. I think moving forward with collecting these I think I will stick to the regular books and stay away from the landscape books like Titans. Was Titans the only book to do landscape style books??

[Blue Meanie]

Really have gotten into these UK Comics...and I am not a fan of black and white books. The covers are really where it's at with these books. It also helps that the interior art is closer to the original 2-up art marvel artists submitted for the comic books back in the day. Trying to figure out couple of the covers and these 2 are my favorites so far of the books I've gotten:



The firs is a re-imagining of Hulk 190:



The second might actually be 2 different artists. The bottom with Nick Fury looks to be Jim Starlin....but I can't figure out who the top part might be. Anyone have ideas on who may have done these covers? I can throw some names out there that are associated with having done covers for Marvel UK:

Pablo Marcos
Keith Pollard
Rich Buckler
Mike Esposito
John Romita
Larry Lieber
Herb Trimpe
Bob Budiansky
Ed Hanniagan

That's all the names I have gotten so far after having done a little research.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Hey Berto, you'll probably want to check out Back Issue #63 when it ships in March. Big cover feature on Marvel UK.

http://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_54&products_id=1069

Chris

[Blue Meanie]

Thanks Chris. Going to my comic store today. I'll check and see if he can still order it. I haven't gotten a back issue in a long time. I try to buy them when I go into Manhattan every couple of months....either for a comic show or just to putz around. BTW, I actually have one of the issues of "Titans" that the fold out poster comes from. I was just about to see if I could find the other issues that the foldout poster was in...now I don't have to. Looks like Ron Wilson and Pablo Marcos were THE guys when it came to Marvel UK. What sucks is that I have been eyeing a couple of Marvel UK covers, original art wise, and when this issue comes out I have a feeling I will see a spike in prices on those covers. Thanks for the tip Chris.

[clemso]

Its nice to know someone is appreciating these and that the not all going to recycling.