I found a box in my parents’ loft the other day, that hadn’t been opened since 1994. We moved around a lot when I was a kid (three times in 1994 alone) so we didn’t always unpack every box when we got to the new house, we’d often leave them til they were needed or, like this one, completely forgotten about. It created a fun little time capsule really.
Most of it is just old school work and junk (my year 2 English SAT, for instance, which I vividly remembered doing), but there was a bevy of old comics in there too!
Sonic the Comic!
I do not remember ever reading this (I’m pretty sure it’s my brother’s anyway). Interesting how it’s equal parts traditional British anthology comic and video games mag, with reviews, cheats page, sales chart etc. This has two Mark Millar strips in it, a Streets of Rage one which is really hard to judge because it’s the end of a story, and a Sonic one which is unrecognisable to any of his other work (perhaps for the best, for Sonic). Don’t feel I missed much not reading this regularly as a kid.
Batman Monthly
I remember getting two Batman comics as a kid and this is neither of them (one was an American import of one of the issues of Knightfall, which I was too young to really get and was mostly just confused by how small it was, the other was a Brit-reprint of Jason Todd’s death, which I was also too young to get really, as I was confused by how Robin died in it yet it came with a foil sticker of Nightwing, who I knew was grown-up Robin). This has a reprint of a Grant-Breyfogle story and then a text story. It’s a weird attempt to make the increasingly sophisticated and relatively adult Batman fit the British kids comic format. One that presumably didn’t take.
Thundercats Annual
I don’t think I ever actually read the Thundercats comic as a kid, but on the strength of the few issues reprinted in here, it seems pretty decent, on a par with Transformers UK. The really impressive thing about this annual is that the usual filler of puzzles and text stories is merged into one, with a story that sees the Thundercats fighting Puzzlar, who sets them various puzzles that you the reader have to do. That’s quite clever. There’s art by Gary Frank in here (inked by Stephen Baskerville), including the cover and it was edited by Dan Abnett. This has me a little interested in searching out some other Marvel UK Thundercats comics.
Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles joke book
Ok, this isn’t a comic (I had hoped for those old TMHT Adventures comics to be in the box, but no luck). But it really interested me. Would it just be a regular joke book with the Turtles slapped on the front? Turns out no, someone’s actually been made to come up with Turtles jokes, or crowbar them into regular jokes. For example “If Splinter lost his tail where would he go for a new one? To the re-tailer.”
Incredible Crash Dummies
I think this is a full run of this kids toy comic. It’s hard to tell, because there’s no information about it online really. I’ve got 7 issues here and I can’t imagine it ran much longer. It turns out it’s a reprint comic for an American series by Harvey Comics and you can see where they start running out of material in later issues and have to pad. It’s a very thin comic. I can see why I liked it as a kid, I guess, but yeah.
MASK
Only one issue of this. It’s another one I really don’t remember and it’s almost certainly my brother’s because it’s from 88 or so. How it ended up with these later ones, I don’t know, but I’m glad it survived (shame all those issues of TFUK and Real Ghostbusters didn’t too). It’s a mildly fascinating thing. Produced by IPC, it’s structured a lot like 2000AD – five separate serialised stories running alongside each other, albeit they’re all featuring MASK (and so presumably don’t have any specific continuity with each other). It’s an interesting counterpoint to the Marvel UK titles, which would save money by having tangentially or unrelated back-up strips.
And because it’s from the same stable as 2000AD, it’s absolutely gorgeous. Look at the rendering on these characters
Unfortunately, there’s no creator credits anywhere inside, so I’ve no idea who worked on any of it. But I’m tempted to see if I can pick up more back issues.
), it’s still valid to know what a writer was thinking two or three years ago, as part of the context of understanding his work.
