Wednesday 1 January 2020

From Cents to Pence! - 2020 update: a story (now) told in 36 chapters!

Since returning to work on From Cents to Pence! with a vengeance in 2018, various discoveries have lead to the expansion of several chapters, and in some cases where they were becoming too unwieldy - and as noted in an earlier post here - sometimes cleaved them in two (or more). In the past year this has happened several times again, increasing the previous of 34 chapters up to 46 in all. As you can imagine, this alone has it made it a busy year, so this has been the first opportunity I've found to finally fill you on what I've been up to over the past year or so.

Oh, and there was also an article on the secret history of Transworld, and its connection to Marvel, that Roy Thomas kindly ran in the Stan Lee tribute edition of Alter Ego (#161) a month or so ago, itself a prequel to an earlier piece that appeared in Back Issue (#63) a few years ago (both from the ever-expanding TwoMorrows Publishing stable). I've included links to the sale pages for both of these issues, should you wish to get a taster for what's to come in From Cents to Pence!

The most recent cause for a further, more modest, expansion in the number of chapters - after those caused by Captain Britain updates and a huge development of the Overkill era - was the discovery of an on-line archive for the entire run of The Real Ghostbusters. I'd been previously unable to say much about the comic, as it wasn't a title that I'd bought at the time, mainly because it contained no mainstream Marvel Universe material unlike the supporting strips in the Transformers and Thundercats etc., and of course I had no idea that I'd start working on any such book until a few years later, and by then it was far too late.

I've almost finished slotting in all of the TRG material now - from a considered overview of the comic's changing contents, its creators, and some previously published extracted interview material - so I should soon be able to return to the final two outstanding areas: the most recent Panini chapters at that end (which need tidying up and extending to a conclusion reaching the end of 2019), and an overhaul of the Doctor Who content to introduce some more personal research on another less-written about side of the magazine (the results of a year-and-a-half-long on-and-off analysis of the title and all the Specials).

For now, here's how the 46 chapters fall, still replete with newly uncovered information from personal archives and copious interviews with the personnel involved with the British division from its origins in both the New York and High Holborn/Sevenoaks Bullpens (and then back to London again through the Kentish Town/Redan Place/Arundel House years before heading back to Kent again)...

1-4: A brief history of Marvel in America; Marvel in British comics up to 1970.

5-19: The secret origin of British Marvel; The confluence of initially unrelated business decisions that led to the formation of the UK wing, and how Stan Lee, Albert Landau and (yes) Chip Goodman became involved; a tale of two cities - how it was all run under the watchful gaze of Sol Brodsky and Ray Wergan; the backstory behind all the comics they produced from 1972-9.

20-26: The Marvel Revolution!; The inside line on the whys and wherefores of the re-shaping of the UK line in 1979 and the comics they produced.

27-43: Title-by-title, from Paul Neary's post-'Revolution' publishing explosion to the 'Marvel UK'-branded years, and from Captain Britain right through to the last knockings of the Overkill-era of UK created American colour comics (which also includes an in-depth title-by-title look at many of the titles that didn't quite happen during that period).

44-46: The Panini years - the story to date.

Anyway, that's the outline of the history portion of the book as it now stands (and apologies again for the lack of any images here). Hopefully I'll have more news soon... and well before the end of 2020 at that!

15 comments:

  1. Rob, I hope you don't mind me saying, but there's a lot of stuff in there that would probably be better told in as concise a way as possible, instead of excruciating, tedious detail. I contributed to The Real Ghostbusters, but I find I have no interest in it, to be honest. Unless there are some earth-shattering revelations, it might be better to just have 'and then (such-and-such) happened', or better yet, just a note of events at the back of the book. Like: 1990 - Panini acquires Marvel UK due to Marvel US's bankruptcy.' That'd do for me. What with all the illustrations the book will hopefully have, it looks like it might have to be in two or three volumes with all those chapters to cover. Once it's completed, go back through it and prune it mercilessly. Well, that's my two cents to pence worth - hope you don't mind me saying.

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  2. Of course I don't mind :) I'm sure I won't please everyone with the book, but actually for everything that's gone in, everything has been kept tight. The way I see it - from the masses of previously undocumented material, some of which tells a whole new side of the Marvel US story too - there's a much bigger story that needs telling, and this is perhaps the only chance to do so. Also, many of the people I've spoken to have never talked about their involvement before, and they need to be caught while there still with us. I also made a decision some time ago, to try to write this in such a way that is could also appeal to a wider audience - as parts of the book will appeal to just Star Wars or Transformers fans, for example - and I've tested this with various people and they've all come back saying that they wanted to carry on reading beyond the extracts they were sent. That said, I'll certainly be guided by Dez, who'll I know will have a keen eye if I've gone too far anywhere :)
    Oh, and as for The Real Ghostbusters, we're only talking about a page or two. As one of the longest lived comics, whether it appeals to you or me or not - and it wasn't something that I bought at the time due to its non-Marvel Universe content (Marvel Zombie that I was) - with the huge amount of originated material it generated, and the unusual nature of its cross-publisher arrangement with Now Comics, it deserves coverage too.
    I have considered the idea of splitting the book up into volumes previously, but would rather not if at all possible. Quite what the balance of text to illustrations will be, however, will depend on various factors, but that will become clear once we get to the design stage. Ultimately, I hope that there will be at least one thing on every page that people won't expect, or have seen before.
    Wishing you a Happy 2020!

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    1. And hope you have a great 2020 too, Rob.

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  3. Great! I so look forward to buying the volume (hopefully in less than four or five years...).
    Soooooo... does this mean you now have the time to answer to my email about the list of all Marvel UK comics? :-D

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  4. Sorry, still hectic here, but I'm accruing additional info on the nursery comics as I go along, so I will get back to you... eventually ;)

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  5. Rob, if I recall correctly, Dave Gibbons did some lettering corrections for early issues of MWOM, presumably in the Marvel UK offices. There's therefore a chance that he might be able to give you some info about Pippa M. Melling, or perhaps some interesting anecdotes about her. Might be worth contacting him and asking.

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    1. Firstly, sorry for the long stay away from the blog, but I don't need to say it's been a strange year. Still, I can't believe the last post was back in January - ulp! I've been planning two posts for several months, but have been rigorously locked in to completing the last few chapters - having got through a lot of other material during lockdown #1 - as everything's motoring quickly on!

      Anyway, to answer some comments now :-) Yes, I have spoken to Dave, so they're nice material in there from him, and a few other Marvel related things he was involved in after that which have been pushed to the margins.

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  6. Just read Alter Ego, thanks for putting so much effort into AL, he is a much forgotten character that deserved the effort. Also just food for thought, borrowing the technical term from archivists because these are books, the foreign collecting community refers to localized printings of material in foreign markets as a (Insert country of printing) Edition, not a variant or reprint unless it is a variant or reprint of the localized edition already published. I know collectors like to get super technical about grades and nothing else so it seems ridiculous to most but it matters that the correct language is used.

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    1. Hi, thanks - it was something that I'd planned to extract for AE some years ago, but since then I'd learnt more, so it became a much more rounded piece. Concerning your second point, I haven't got the article to hand so I'm not sure what I said there that you're commenting on, but in the book I refer to the comics etc. as the British or UK editions, with the use of the word 'reprint' only pertaining to the strips themselves, likewise with 'variant', as there are a handful of alternate UK covered editions too. Good point - I'll cast my eye over the text at some point to see that's been maintained.

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    2. It's also been my pleasure to reveal the untold stories of many folks involved with the comics on both sides of the Atlantic, not all of who you'll have heard much of, or would even suspect had any involvement :-)

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  7. Nice to see you make an appearance in this month's Mojo, Rob! As well as an informed response to the previous Marc Bolan feature, a great opportunity to plug From Cents To Pence to the readership. Great stuff! Best wishes, Kieron

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    1. Hi Kieron, well it was a cheeky way to garner a plug, so I was delighted they kept the final bit in, as it could so easily have been cut! Never hurts to try :-) I'll certainly be trying to spread the word out through all such publications that link into portions of the book once we're ready to publish, as I want to reach out to all the specialist collecting areas that will get something out of the book too.

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  8. I'm interested to see how this turns out.
    Peter Judge
    (Marvel mastermind 1975,if anyone remembers)

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  9. Thanks, Peter - I have the latest update to the chapter breakdown almost ready to post... along with something else too :)

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