THE TITANS COVER CAVALCADE PART 1

It must have seemed a neat idea at the time.  Flip a comic on its side and reprint two US pages on one UK page, thereby increasing the content.  It was called the "landscape" format and worked for a while... 58 issues to be precise (and Super Spider-Man  followed its example for a time), but it was finally abandoned for the more traditional approach as it simply absorbed too much material to be viable longterm.  And, let's face it, it probably never sold as well as expected after the initial novelty had worn off.

However, The Titans  was an interesting experiment, and the title would return in a digest-sized "pocketbook" in the early 1980s, though that incarnation lasted for only 13 issues.  But that's a story for another time, so how about we just soak up the 30 images on display in this post and look forward to another 30 in a future one?  Deal?  Deal!    

And below is The Titans  annual for 1977, released near the end of 1976.

HOWARD THE DUCK COVER CAVALCADE

Reading Howard the Duck  was like having an acid trip without taking any drugs... it was weird.  Steve Gerber's  mallard creation first appeared in a Man-Thing  story before eventually being awarded his own mag, and what a mag it was.  To many readers, the stand-out issue of the series was the 3rd issue, "Master of Quack Fu!", drawn by John Buscema, an artist who could draw anything and imbue it with a sense of realism.  To start the ball rolling in this covers cavalcade, let's look at the first dozen issues.  The rest will surely follow in an upcoming post.

DENNIS THE MENACE BOOKS PART 2

One could argue that, in a sense, the last Dennis the Menace  annual was actually the one for 2009, as Dennis's  visual appearance in the ones for 2010 and 2011 was based on the television cartoon series, rather than the character we knew of old.  Is it a coincidence that they presumably didn't sell as well as previous editions, leading to the demise of the 55 year old series of books?

The final two annuals were also the ones which were rebranded "Dennis and Gnasher", again after the TV series of the same name.  Gnasher's  name had been added to the cover a few times in previous years, but on those occasions the title had been "Dennis the Menace and Gnasher", with his canine chum's appellation in much smaller letters.  Perhaps the change in appearance and name was a step too far for loyal readers, causing them to abandon their childhood chum's annuals on the grounds that he was no longer the Dennis  they were familiar with.

Whatever the reason, Dennis  hasn't graced his own regular annual or book for nearly a decade.  There have been a couple of retrospective "one-offs", but I think it's time for D.C. Thomson  to at least consider releasing a "Best of Dennis the Menace"  annual or special to celebrate this striped icon of British comics.  In the meantime, enjoy this classic covers cavalcade of the last 19 Dennis  books ever to be published.

(As in part 1, where the back cover illustration is the same as the front, it has not been included in order to avoid repetition.)