Howie's World of Comics: A "Look-in" to the Eighties: 1983

1983: ITV launch Children's ITV as a separate branding for late afternoon television. The CD is first sold in the UK and the Pound coin is introduced in England and Wales. Maggie Thatcher wins the General Election with a 144 seat majority and despite having as nearly as many votes as Labour The SDP/Liberal Alliance ends up with just 23 seats in Parliament.

Dennis Neilson is arrested for murder and gets life imprisonment. ITV launches Blockbusters with Bob Holness, Octopussy hits the cine,as along with Sean Connery's final outing as James Bond in the rival Never Say Never Again, the Brink's Mat gold bullion robbery takes place and the USA invades Grenada.

Photo: By Source, Fair use

In music Blue Monday by New Order storms the charts with a well packaged 12" version which eats into the profits, Total Eclipse of The Heart by Bonnie Tyler takes the No One spot as does You can't Hurry Love by Phil Collins. Thriller becomes the top selling Michael Jackson album and is joined by Rio from Duran Duran whilst Gold from Spandau Ballet also takes the No One spot

In Look-in, The Fall Guy with Lee Majors gets his own strip and joins the continuing misadventures of Cannon and Ball. Oddly Bucks Fizz get an adventure strip!

The main feature of this issue was Bananarama who were on their way to being one of the British all-girl groups of all time with numerous Top 20 hits over the years. (I have a number of their 12" singles which were also a thing back then). This single Na Na Hey Hey (Kiss Him Goodbye) reached No 5 in the UK Top 40.

A TV programme I had to look up was Murphy's Mob which gets a strip in this issue. Never heard of it but here's a taster. Not a football fan myself but I am aware the game has it's followers...

Last but by no means least was Knight Rider which was a popular programme and even got a remake a few years back but you can never beat the original!