The Groove of the early 80's

Greetings Barbarians!

Hey dont spook out I was out for a while , you know  since the IT culture has hit our shores we indians get less and less time for ourselves! While that's a debate for another time and date i will try to makeup for my readers for my leave of absence for such a long time with timeless classics.

Yeah before you guys go and doze off remember i mentioned about the fragmented indian comics market ?
No? Well back in the 80's we had publishers who used to reprint DC and Marvel stuff here in India!

Incredible isn't it  much before Gotham tried their hands on the same and gave us readers an "Achilles heel"!
OK back to the main story then, I got my hands on a couple of books which i could salvage from my own crypt.

IBH

DALTON

MODERN CLASSICS

FALCON

FALCON #1

Incidentally Falcon books used to publish Conan,Popeye and Spiderman,The Falcon #1 of Conan is the reprint of Marvel's Conan's Annual #1 Cover art by Barry Windsor Smith.

And now for the surprise that i have - back in the 50's when US was going through the Television boom era, comic sales had come to a record low,and then the American comic publishers thought on the lines of introducing comics in 3D format. This trend was later replicated in the Indian market  in the middle of the 80's with Kiran Comics coming with 3D comics of Tarzan,Although i do not have any copy of these books but i managed to get my hands on a HINDI reprint of Jack Kirby's Battle for a 3-D World # 1 : 3D Cosmic - "Battle for a Three Dimensional World"

http://www.marvelmasterworks.com/resources/kirby_chronology5.html 

I call it a day for now , By Crom!

Others UK

By Crom!
Barbarians as promised i'm back with some scans of Commando,well there has been some changes and the dark gods from northern cimmeria schemed to put the best first !

So uploading one of only 2 Annuals published in Commando series -

Behold Annual 1990 (In color!) the other was published in 1989 these were the only 2 annuals printed in color in it's entire run since 1960's.

 

Next in line TOP SECRET HOLIDAY SPECIAL - 

Featuring John Havoc !

Coming soon HAWK Comics SCIENCE FANTASY HOLIDAY SPECIAL 288 pages featuring The Claw,Archie and the robot and more...stay tuned folks by Crom!

There you go - HAWK, 2000AD & EAGLE

By Crom!

Here you go barbarians a few scans of 2000AD,HAWK and EAGLE covers from good old 80's.

First is my favourite the unique concept of making a game out of comics this awesome issue brought Diceman and Slain in one issue.

All in black and white the panels were very nicely done judge for yourself!

UK Imprints HAWK and 2000 AD

Almost forgot to mention about HAWK comics and 2000AD!

An entire generartion of UK comicoholics would be up in arms for this omission.

Yeah , Hawk books and 2000AD were published monthly,annually and holiday specials.
It had charecterizations which fed to the imaginations of an entire generation notably Dan Dare,Judge Dredd, Slain etc.

2000AD alos had an intresting format of books they had panels wich the reader can construct and make a parallel story basically with alternative endings.
Remember those days Comics were still in vogue and SONY PS3 were eons away, just to rub it in Atari had just come out with 2-D 8 bit games.

Im no fan of Judge dredd though, but i liked Dan dare will be uploading some pics!
I know that i haven't been able to post some scans yet the reson being digital camera is tooooooo cumbersome to use.
waiting for my i-phone to come which makes it far easier.
Signing off for now

Other UK Published books

The sense of loss which had gripped me over the news of the unavailibility of Marvel's UK imprint soon eroded.

I was feeding on Indrajaal for some time i quite liked their Flash Gordon,The Phantom and Mandrake series but it was routine and common.
I took a leap of faith by indulging in purchasing my first Combat Picture Library.
these were stories in picture format on second world war but the art work was just about average.

During the same time i also got hold of a few old copies of Commando ,the art work was good and i liked their representation.
Few notables would be "A noose for a hero" and Attack Picture Library.

These books were all "Shyaam shweth" and of 65 pages ,nothing to talk about the paper quality same as Indrajal.
Also the same publishers had 3 concurrent series "Starblazer" , "Top Secret" and "Wild West".
While Starblazer was on intergalactic sci-fi (much on the same lines as STARTREK except Cpt.Kirk)
Top - secret had their protagonist John Havoc - An ex test pilot with a strife for adventure,although the dude was reluctant to work for any intelligence agency but gets tricked eventually in all the stories.

Good read especially "The 50 th Kill" and "Invisible Death"

Will be uploading the covers soon! Stay tuned.

The coming of Indrajal - Nomad,Buzz,Rip Kirbey &Bruce Lee Covers

 To be honest Rip Kirbey,Nomad,Buzz and Bruce lee were never in my list of favorites i felt their artwork was below average especially Bruce lee ,so never actually collected them but now since IDW has been publishing a re-run of Rip Kirbey and Modesty Blaize im considering them.

The problem with the IDW series are that they are 2 expensive!

 

The coming of Indrajal - Flash Gordon Covers

 Incidentally Flash Gordon was very famous amongst us,they were a great bargaining chip amongst our comic exchanges and usually fetched 1:2 :)

 They were also my first whiff with science fiction fantasy!

 

The coming of Indrajal - Garth Covers

 I remember that i also have a few titles one that i liked most was "The Iron Maiden". Will have to bring all of them here.

The Other problem with the Garth series was that they had explicit contents and hence were censored at home!

The coming of Indrajal - Drake Covers

The coming of Indrajal - Bahadur Covers

The coming of Indrajal - Mandrake the magician Covers

#302, June15,1978

#356, 1980

#Unknown,1980

Vol 23 #32 1986

Vol22 #32 1985

#422, 1982

Vol 23 #7,1986

Vol 22 #23 1985

The coming of Indrajal - The Phantom Covers

#302,May 15,1978

#326 - 1979

#349 - May 1,1980

#350 - May 15 1980

#355 August 1,1980

#357 - Sept 1,1980

#391, Dec 13-19,1981

These are my recent acquisitions of Indrajal ( last 5 years ) , havent been able to get hold of my old lot which is still dusting at my parent's house - My dad has been threatening me that he will sell them off ;p