One of the more interesting comics was the experimental Vulcan comic launched by IPC . It was smaller, had a glossy cover and was in partial colour. I only discovered the existence of the fairly short lived Vulcan by accident whilst reading about comics elsewhere on the web. What attracted me to getting hold of the "first" issue was the reprint of The Trigan Empire an old favourite of mine from Look and Learn back in the sixties.
In fact the comic is full of classic reprints which makes it a great read. Robot Archie (Lion), Steel Claw (Valiant) Mytec the Mighty (Valiant if I remember correctly) and The Spider (Lion) amongst others.
Now I put "first" in inverted comma's as Vulcan has two first issues due to it being experimentally launched in Scotland first which is a bit confusing.
My only disappointment is that whilst it was great to see coloured versions of Robot Archie, the one strip that could have been reprinted in colour as it was originally produced, The Trigan Empire wasn't. Never mind the art and concept is still worth reading if you are not familiar with the story.
In total there were just 36 issues, 28 of which were in the national run plus one Annual. Vulcan later merged with Valiant (in quite an odd way) in 1976.
ah...the infamous "potato guns"...think that would not be allowed nowadays?; health & safety, an perhaps rightly so? Some children go too far...increasing the tension of the elastic band(s) and finding other more hurtful things to put in them. I'm certain one or two poor souls ended up in A&E because of these?!
ReplyDelete