Thunder's Merge With Lion

[Digifiend]

That really shows how fast adventure comics went out of fashion.

[Lew Stringer]

That really shows how fast adventure comics went out of fashion.

Not necessarily. Warlord and Battle were launched after then and both had long runs. 2000AD was launched in 1977 and is still going. All three took a modern approach for the 1970s which their predecessors lacked.

The problem with both Valiant and Lion is that although they were brilliant and contemporary in the early to mid 1960s they didn't change enough to reflect the changing times of the 1970s. Well, Valiant did have a revamp towards the end but as one ex-IPC staffer said it was done too late. I know those comics are favourites of many here (and I was a regular reader of them too, as well as Thunder and Jet) but one can't argue with sales figures. The majority of readers had lost interest.

Lew

[Raven]

Well, I think Valiant's highest quality period was 1970-73 and its sales figures then were 1970: 305,026, 1971: 265,868, 1972: 265,868, and 1973: 251,993. Quite a bit down on its 60s sales figures, certainly, but by no means bad, and not indicating no interest out there. With the Beano now selling 53,000 and Dandy selling 20,000, they're circulations that today's comics would long for.

Early 70s cinema was saturated with English Gothic horror films, so you could say that early 70s Valiant's rather Gothic, macabre style was quite contemporary with popular culture in a sense - the same way that Action later reflected contemporary cinema (Jaws, etc.)!

I think it's notable that by 1974, though it still contained some good material, most of Valiant's best strips had finished and gone, or run their natural course and were getting tired, adverts were increasing, and reprints were appearing. Like Jet, Thunder and Lion it was beginning to fill with mostly second-division strips; some decent stuff but not enough first-division strips to carry a successful comic. It needed an injection of new ideas and enthusiasm. Perhaps it's a natural result of the weekly treadmill.

I thought the Valiant revamp was very poor, though, and wouldn't have changed things even if it came earlier.

[Raven]

The final "Spellbinder" story circa Dec 72 to Oct 73 where someone called "Goddard" goes back and back in time changing the world to alternative realities was awesome! The effects cumulated to the very break up of creation before the story ended happily!

This was indeed a good serial, well conceived and scripted. The highlight of Lion along with Adam Eterno in that period.

[philcom55]

Actually the 'Quentin Goddard' story wasn't the final Spellbinder tale as the strip carried on until the very last issue of Lion in May 74; nevertheless I've no hesitation in agreeing with Alan and Raven that it was a real high point. In fact, if Steve Holland ever gets another spare 15 minutes in his busy schedule I reckon it'd make a perfect candidate for his Bear Alley Books (especially as I don't own the complete run myself and would love to find out how it ended! )

It seems quite clear to me that Frank Pepper and Geoff Campion had the time of their lives in writing and drawing it, to the extent that it's 'peppered' with in-jokes like the panel below with its adverts for 'Pepper Lane Garages', 'Campion Sprockets' and even 'Lowder Lamps':



_ Phil Rushton

[Lew Stringer]

It seems quite clear to me that Frank Pepper and Geoff Campion had the time of their lives in writing and drawing it, to the extent that it's 'peppered' with in-jokes like the panel below with its adverts for 'Pepper Lane Garages', 'Campion Sprockets' and even 'Lowder Lamps':

_ Phil Rushton

Agreed, and it was the only IPC strip of the time to carry a writer/artist credit IIRC?

Lew

[philcom55]

Also, even after Lion's demise the Spellbinder was popular enough to be awarded what was, to all intents and purposes, his very own Annual in the shape of 1976's Valiant Book of Mystery and Magic!

Frank Pepper always impressed me with his fascination for sophisticated time-travel themes. Here's another sequence from the Goddard series in which the temporal fugitive is seen to be altering the present by eerily 'rewinding' the history of the Great Fire of London right back to its origin point in Pudding Lane (a shame Pepper never got the chance to script Doctor Who! ):



- Phil Rushton

[Peter Gray]

What changes happen next...no St Paul's...Christopher Wren out of work?

[alanultron5]

I have the final episode! The Earth is now breaking up as it spins back to creation. Tom and Sylvester are now the only inhabitants of the planet as it is heading back to when it first formed!

The Spellbinder uses a `Time bubble` to recreate the moment when Goddard first went back in time, he has to leave Tom for a while with the `Time Clock` and Touchstone. When the stone glows, Tom has to adjust the clock so that he and Sylvester arrive when Goddard tries to enter the original time bubble! This time they restrain him and all is well!

It was a truly inventive story, especially the section where Tom and Sylvester travel in a futuristic Earth spacecraft to a distant planet to meet professor Yango-who looks like a humanoid koala bear! Yango knows everything about time, but just as he starts to stabilise events so the futuristic version of creation lasts he, and the whole future world begin to vanish! great stuff!

[alanultron5]

I feel the flooding of the market by IPC in the early 70s with so many titles couldn't have helped! There was only so big an audience by then!

[Lew Stringer]

I feel the flooding of the market by IPC in the early 70s with so many titles couldn't have helped! There was only so big an audience by then!

That's true. Also there were more publishers doing comics, so as well as IPC's output we had lots of DC Thomson titles, Polystyle, those reprints from Top Sellers, Marvel UK, and other odds and sods. Not to mention a boost in the distribution of American comics to Britain. Yes, we never had it so good!

Lew

[SID]

Thunder, Valiant, Lion and Jet - brilliant comics all. Now got the yen to leave work early and go through my collection of Lions.

[philcom55]

What changes happen next...no St Paul's...Christopher Wren out of work?

Worse than that. The Great Plague rages unchecked for years, being carried by ship to the New World which is reduced to a wasteland. As a result there is no progress for three hundred years and cavaliers still brawl with roundheads in the London streets of 1973.

- Phil Rushton

[Phoenix]

The Earth is now breaking up as it spins back to creation. Tom and Sylvester are now the only inhabitants of the planet as it is heading back to when it first formed!

What a pity Frank Pepper stopped short of the God/Big Bang question. It would have been fascinating to get his take on an issue I have been mentally wrestling with for decades - how can planets, galaxies, billions of stars and their systems etc within the universe emerge from absolutely nothing, just like that, and then travel at unbelievable speeds to wherever, while we on this planet think we are more or less standing still? In comparison, my quest for the ITC font will be a doddle.

Seriously, though, I like the sound of this story. I never thought I'd ever hear myself say this but I actually feel like buying the relevant issues containing this Goddard serial. Could somebody please tell me the exact numbers/dates of this comic that I will need to track down. As I have mentioned on another thread, I love time travel stories. It's a rare one that I don't read from beginning to end. One such, however, is Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveller's Wife. I managed about three fifths before I threw in the towel, with my head spinning. I suspect that the Goddard will deliver what it seems to promise.

[steelclaw]

phoenix4ever It's a nice long story running for approx 50 Issues.

October 28th 1972 to October 13th 1973



The start of it all




Covers with Spellbinder on during it's run.There was also a few more but haven't had time to go through them.





The last