22-years since Marvel UK's Overkill with Motormouth et al.

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Muffy
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22-years since Marvel UK's Overkill with Motormouth et al.

Post by Muffy »

I've realised it's 22-years since Marvel UK's Overkill with Motormouth et al.

Back in 1992 the idea was that Marvel UK published a weekly title FIRST with 4 strips (including Motormouth; Warheads and more) and then Marvel USA reprinted them.

Issue 1 was pretty good, I thought and re-read it today. More than 20+ years later it's still not bad.

Motormouth was the best comic strip with Gary Frank art, in my opinion.

Does anyone else remember this brave Marvel UK experiment, and if so what comic strips did you rate??

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tony ingram
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Re: 22-years since Marvel UK's Overkill with Motormouth et a

Post by tony ingram »

I do, and so do Marvel. In fact, they brought many of those characters (Dark Angel, Motormouth & Killpower, the Knights of Pendragon, Digitek, Colonel Tigon Liger and his Warheads, Death's Head and Death's Head II and the Super Soldiers) back early this year in a series called Revolutionary War. It's worth checking out. Most of it was written by Andy Lanning, who was one of the original creators of the line in 1992.

Personally, Death's Head and the Knights of Pendragon were always my favourites.

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Muffy
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Re: 22-years since Marvel UK's Overkill with Motormouth et a

Post by Muffy »

tony ingram wrote:In fact, they brought many of those characters (Dark Angel, Motormouth & Killpower, the Knights of Pendragon, Digitek, Colonel Tigon Liger and his Warheads, Death's Head and Death's Head II and the Super Soldiers) back early this year in a series called Revolutionary War. It's worth checking out. Most of it was written by Andy Lanning, who was one of the original creators of the line in 1992.
I've read Revolutionary War 'Motormouth' and 'Omega' (issue eight) Tony – it's nice to see Harley, Captain Britain and the others back in action.
The characters had changed after so many years, quite right too.

Of these two issues I'd say Motormouth was the better. The start of issue 8 was very strong with a good background, though did hurriedly come to a conclusion too quickly. At the very end a few British characters came to a natural way of tying up loose ends - which was nice to see.

Thanks for suggesting it.

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Muffy
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Re: 22-years since Marvel UK's Overkill with Motormouth et a

Post by Muffy »

Digital Comics And The future –
When I bought those 2 'Revolutionary War' issues, I also received the codes from US Marvel to visit their website and keep a digital issue of each FOC.

What do other forum users think of the USA digital comics, and presumably UK ones?

I was very impressed and whilst helping my Dad at a fleamarket he does sometimes (I like to do my duty once every month or two as he is getting older now) I sold both US issues for £2.50 each (I had paid £2.69 each incl postage for them about 3-days before and kept them in NM- condition after reading twice). So I still have the comics and in effect paid 19p each for them!

I had already seen some of the free issues that Marvel had available, but these were the first 2 comics that I wanted to keep for their artwork and to see all the 1992 loose ends tied up in issue 8 'Omega'.

Let me know what you think of these and the future for comics US, UK and the world?

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paw broon
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Re: 22-years since Marvel UK's Overkill with Motormouth et a

Post by paw broon »

Wow! That's a question. I'm very pessimistic about the future for British comics created and published in the U.K. However, imported comics seem to be selling reasonably well, particularly manga. Not sure about American imports as I don't have much connection with comic shops these days and the few newish comics I buy are not from Marvel DC and other mainstream publishers, but are digital editions of things like Bandette from Comixology. And Digital editions of Diabolik from Amazon.
I haven't read 2000AD in years and Beano and Dandy - before it's demise - were depressingly awful imo. But about 10 years or so ago my interest in old British comics was re-awakened and I started to accumulate and read (well, devour is a better word) pocket libraries, Eagle, Buddy, original superhero/MMM comics from the '50's etc. And as can be seen from the bidding on ebay, there seems to be a good market for that stuff.
As for the rest of the world, despite reports that sales of GN's in France and Belgium are declining, when I'm in shops there, they always seem busy and tills are ringing. Customers seem to be buying new GN's and old material. I did note that in Palma, the Norma shop has shrunk back to the original?/old location, offering nothing like the range of 2 or 3 years ago. But Gotham is or seems to be thriving.
Verona Fumetti - in Verona oddly enough - is still there and going strong with a huge range of new material and wonderful old, obscure, collectible back issues of all sorts of formats.
I recently managed to get to some shops in Brussels and, as in Verona, the choice was amazing. Same in the shops I have visited in parts of the Netherlands.
But I do believe the future will increasingly be one of digital editions. Sites such as Comixology and Izneo offer a huge range of comics and the guided view offers on Comixology are increasing. There are some free ones available for anyone who hasn't experienced them yet.
I have to admit to never having read Overkill and despite being hopelessly addicted to superhero/MMM comics, new versions of classic characters leave me cold, probably because they seem to me to be angst ridden and violent. But that could be me getting old. :roll:

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paw broon
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Re: 22-years since Marvel UK's Overkill with Motormouth et a

Post by paw broon »

Muffy, your concern about lack of response seems to have been confirmed. But I'd like to add that, since I posted that last response, I have read that both Hermes and Dynamite will be releasing new Phantom comics. Frew in Australia have manged to stop Hermes from distributing there but I don't know the reasons for their actions. Point is, despite my using Comixology, I will want physical copies of any new Phantom titles. Nothing on the Dynamite site but this on Hermes page:-
http://www.hermespress.com/
So, I'm not done with new, hard copy comics yet.

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