| Also back
in 1976, you could buy US Marvel comics at many
UK newsagent outlets, all of which were so-called
pence price variants. Since the early 1960s, US comic
book titles from various publishers were shipped
to the UK with a printed British currency cover
price, and during the 1970s pence price variants
(predominantly from Marvel, since DC stopped
shipping pence price variants between 1971 and
early 1978) became a fairly
common sight at larger newsagent outlets.
Pence price variants were printed in the US at
the same location, at the same time, and on the
same paper as the regular US run of that specific
issue. Featuring interior pages which are
absolutely identical (including editorial
material and even advertising), they only differ
from the US issues with regard to the cover price
and, as of August 1974, the masthead MARVEL ALL-COLOUR COMICS instead
of MARVEL COMICS GROUP. The masthead change was a direct
reference to Marvel's weekly UK comics, which
featured black and white reprint material (which
could often be picked up at the very same
newsagent).
Bulk shipping from the US resulted in these
variants actually going on sale during the month
indicated on the cover, whereas this was usually
three months ahead in the States to prolong shelf
life.
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Iron Man #86
(Price 9p, May 1976)
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You
can read more about the
history and background of
pence price variants here. |
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| Marvel published a total of 65 regular page-count
colour comic book titles with a January through December
1976 cover date. |
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| For some of these, 1976 was just
another year in their monthly or bi-monthly
publication history, but for some it was the end
of the road (e.g. My Love, cancelled
after issue #39 in March) while things only got
started for others (e.g. Omega the Unknown,
with issue #1, also in March). An oddity in
that respect was Black Goliath, a title
that both saw its debut and its demise take place
in 1976 as it only managed to clock up a total of
5 issues between February and November 1976.
Similarly standing out a bit was Kull,
a title that reappeared with issue #16 in August
1976 - after a hiatus of no less than 21 months,
as issue #15 had been out in September 1974.
| 1976 |
Total |
Non-Distributed |
Distributed
(Pence
Price) |
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|
|
|
Titles
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65
|
18
|
47
|
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|
|
|
Issues
|
463
|
165
|
298
|
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Strange Tales #187
(Price 10p, September 1976)
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| 47 of those 65 titles saw issues shipped to the
United Kingdom with a pence price cover, which equals
almost 75% of Marvel's 1976 output. Some titles, even
monthly ones, saw a complete run (e.g. Daredevil),
while others had an issue here and there published with a
pence price (e.g. Chamber of Chills). Titles that weren't part of the pence
price export production at all often happened to be so
for good reason.
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Marvel Triple Action #30
(Price 10p, July 1976)
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In
some cases the appeal to the UK comic
book market of the mid-1970s was
doubtful, excluding all Romance and
Western titles from distribution as pence
price variants in 1976.
More importantly,
however, it was the opposite concern that
prevented certain titles from being
included - their appeal was considered to
be too much of a threat to the black and
white reprints published weekly by Marvel
UK. And the last thing the House of Ideas
wanted was to become its own competition.
As a result,
some very popular characters were either
banned completely or to a very large
extent.
The Hulk was not
only blacklisted for his ongoing title Incredible
Hulk, but also for his reprint title
Marvel Super-Heroes. The same
applied to Spider-Man, with both Amazing
Spider-Man and Marvel Tales
(along with Spidey Super Stories)
being non-distributed, although Marvel
Team-Up was available as a pence
price variant monthly throughout 1976.
|
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Mighty World of Marvel #210
(Marvel UK, October 1976)
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| The Avengers had also been non-distributed
for most of 1976 (only the November and December issues
were made available), although their reprint title Marvel
Triple Action saw a few pence price copies, albeit
only for every other issue (and in spite of that material
having already featured in the UK reprints two years
prior, in 1974). |
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Spectacular Spider-Man #1
(Price 10p, December 1976)
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Somewhat
surprisingly, Spectacular
Spider-Man #1 was shipped to
the UK and distributed as a pence
price variant in December 1976,
even though the material
contained in that comic book was
to be featured in Marvel UK's Super
Spider-Man #229 only six
months later, in June 1977. It was exactly
the kind of situation that Marvel
wanted to avoid by
non-distributing certain US
titles in the UK - which most
likely explains why after its
first issue Spectacular
Spider-Man would not see a
pence price variant again until
issue #53, four and a half years
later (April 1981).
Marvel's
"First Family", the
Fantastic Four, were obviously
considered less of a competitive
threat for Marvel UK, and their
title was distributed fairly
regularly in the UK, albeit with
the odd exception or break. In
1976, this concerned only Fantastic
Four #176, which never saw a
pence price variant shipped to
the UK.
Regular
and often uninterrupted runs of
pence price copies were also the
rule at the time for Captain
America, Conan, Iron Man, Master
of Kung Fu, Thor and a number of
other titles.
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Super
Spider-Man #229
(Marvel UK, June 1977)
[Note the slight cover
alterations]
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| Marvel faced increasing production costs in 1976 and
raised the cover price for their regular page count
colour comic books from 25¢ to 30¢ price in June. Given
that comic books at the time were three months ahead in
terms of cover date, the first Marvel issues affected by
the higher price carried a September cover date.
In
the UK, however, given the shipping induced delay (which
meant comic books were actually available during the
month indicated on their cover), the price change from 9p
to 10p happened with the June issues - also showing
clearly that the price increase had been planned well
ahead (since US titles with June, July and August cover
dates were printed with a 25¢ price while pence price
variants were printed at the same time with the cover
price already raised to 10p).
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Inhumans #3
(Price 9p, February 1976)
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Iron Man #87
(Price 10p, June 1976)
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Master of Kung Fu #46
(Price 10p, November 1976)
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Chamber of Chills #25
(Price 10p, November 1976)
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| The following table lists all regular page count
colour comic books published by Marvel with a January
through December 1976 cover date. |
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