Comics UK

Up in the north of England, it is a lovely sunny Spring day. So sitting in the sun and reading the last ever issue of Panini's The Incredible Hulks. Sad as it is my second favourite Panini comic (next to Wolverine & Deadpool). Thankfully the new Deadpool Unleashed is coming out next month to fill the void.

Of course times have changed and if this had been forty years ago, it would suffered from the dreaded "Great News Inside, Readers!" syndrome and the following issue would have been merged with a sister paper. I wonder why this isn't done now?

Anyway, it got me to wonder which British comic was Patient Zero - being the first comic to be merged to another comic?

I wonder if it would be Picture Fun and Film Fun in 1920? It's a little difficult as comics like the Funny Wonder and the Jester look as though they are merged comics but there was no merger. They simply changed titles to suit. Some being the one, sometimes another and at other times, neither or a mix of both.

Mergers were common even in Victorian times. An example being 'Side Splitters' merger with 'World's Comic' in Oct 1894. Not that I'm saying that was the first.

SID wrote: Of course times have changed and if this had been forty years ago, it would suffered from the dreaded "Great News Inside, Readers!" syndrome and the following issue would have been merged with a sister paper. I wonder why this isn't done now?

I believe it was only ever a short term boost for the dominant title and the practice fell out of favour with retailers because it was done so often.

In the case of Incredible Hulks, it was a fairly last minute decision because only a few months ago they were talking about the new Champions series coming to its pages. That will now appear in Mighty World of Marvel instead, later this year when there's room.

The other reason is that because I.H. was an unpopular comic it might be detrimental to another comic to move the stories over. With sales being lower on all publications these days it's not worth taking such a risk.

Thanks, guys.

Lew Stringer wrote:

SID wrote:...because I.H. was an unpopular comic it might be detrimental to another comic to move the stories over. With sales being lower on all publications these days it's not worth taking such a risk.

I can't believe that nobody would be interesting in reading the exploits of the Sensational She-Hulk, Lew.

SID wrote:

Lew Stringer wrote:

SID wrote:...because I.H. was an unpopular comic it might be detrimental to another comic to move the stories over. With sales being lower on all publications these days it's not worth taking such a risk.

I can't believe that nobody would be interesting in reading the exploits of the Sensational She-Hulk, Lew.

I always preferred Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp myself.

I've been seeing plenty of complaints about the new Wasp Nadia Pym getting a solo book when Janet has never had one.

For what it's worth, it was obvious that Incredible Hulks was in trouble when Totally Awesome Hulk's sales figures started sinking like a stone. It seems the Americans aren't fond of it either! Someone actually complained on the Panini MCE Facebook page about the content the title had - I replied telling them to blame Marvel. Panini can only work with what they're given.

MWOM was already running Ms. Marvel, so Champions going there certainly makes sense.

Back to the original question, the earliest merger is hard to identify, but the last few are clearer. In 1990 the last humour comic mergers happened, those being Whizzer and Chips into Buster, and Beezer with Topper. The girls papers followed, with Judy into Mandy, and then the merged M&J into Bunty. And Panini/Marvel pulled off one in the 2000s, with Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spider-Man.

Digifiend wrote:Back to the original question, the earliest merger is hard to identify, but the last few are clearer. In 1990 the last humour comic mergers happened, those being Whizzer and Chips into Buster, and Beezer with Topper. The girls papers followed, with Judy into Mandy, and then the merged M&J into Bunty. And Panini/Marvel pulled off one in the 2000s, with Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Spider-Man.

Yup, Phoenix said Bunty with M&J was the last of the original comics to merge (ignoring Marvel/Panini) in the http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/forum/viewtop ... 632#p77632 thread.

Though never knew about the Ultimate Spider-man and X-Men merger so looks like we have a new winner for last ever merger. Thanks, Digi.