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Sunday, April 08, 2007

40 year Flashback: It's Terrific!





Still not recovered from illness so just a short entry today with comics I had to hand. Forty years ago today, Odhams launched the last (and least successful) of their "Power Comics" line. Terrific was, like Fantastic, a 40 page weekly reprinting three Marvel Comics strips but unlike its companion paper the new title was printed on slightly poorer quality paper.

Initially featuring Sub-Mariner, The Avengers, and Doctor Strange (with Giant-Man replacing Sub-Mariner when the reprints caught up with the American originals) Terrific lasted just 43 weeks before merging into Fantastic.

Amongst the reprints was one British strip which I believe was brand new: The Living Dolls. The hero of this two-page serial, Don Starr, later went on to feature in another serial Appointment with Fear, once Living Dolls ended.

I'll be featuring more about those back-up strips in a future blog hopefully. For now, here's a scan of one of the pages from the strip plus a small selection of Terrific covers.

6 comments:

Matthew Rees said...

Thanks for bringing back some good memories and get well soon.

Matthew

Anonymous said...

Hope you get well soon Lew. You and Steve Holland have had a hard time, but we viewers/readers appreciate your efforts.

Now, having bought those first issues of Terrific, I wonder why I have completely NO memory of Living Dolls? But I do half remember the sequel "Appointment with Fear"....weird thing memory!
All the best,
Norman

Lew Stringer said...

Didn't know Steve had been ill too. All the best Steve!

Lew

Anonymous said...

I remember ironing (no pun) that Iron Man transfer onto a t-shirt myself. And I had a wall covered with the back-page "pinups" (taking the concept somewhat literally, except we used tape) from Fantastic and Terrific, which I bought every week (reserved)from the local newsagent until their demise.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure you already have them all, but I saw this auction today and thought of you (17 x Terrific!):

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TERRIFIC-1-5-7-18-1967-Odhams-POWER-COMIC-Marvel-UK-/191030444776?pt=UK_Books_Comics_Magazines_US_Comics_ET&hash=item2c7a4d42e8

Lew Stringer said...

Yes I have the full run Bristle but I'm sure the link will be useful for others. Thanks.

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