X-Force hate mail

In 2001, the new Editor in Chief at Marvel, Joe Quesada gave a few titles a bit of a facelift, including several of the X-Men titles. One of these was X-Force, which Pete Milligan and Mike Allred took over pretty abruptly on #116. It lasted until #129, at which point the series was cancelled/rebooted/restarted as X-Statix. Here are some letters published in various issues after #116, from some irate readers at the time, who were less than appreciative of the overhaul.

Deathtrap Dungeon treasure

Picked up an old copy of Ian Livingstone's Deathtrap Dungeon in a charity shop for 99p, but if that wasn't good enough the original owner had included a map and his stats sheet. Love it!

Upon further perusal, I discovered a label at the back of the book, showing the name of  the original owner and presumably budding cartographer.

Alex Toth's 7-Zark-7 sketch for Battle of the Planets

I dug out my Official Battle of the Planets Guidebook for a decent scan of Alex Toth's early sketch of the character who would become 7-Zark-7.

BONANZA PRIZE TIME! Spider-Man Weekly #85 Sept 28 1974

The back cover of this issue featured some superb prize winning entries for a Grand Gizmo competition.

Marvel UK Savage Sword of Conan #1 November 1977 back cover pinup by John Buscema

This was a little comic thing that came with Tonka's Supernaturals figures.

Walls Ice Cream fun books 1981 ad 1982

Walls Mini Ha-Ha Ice Cream Fun book 1981 and Ice Scream Fun book 1982, both featuring strips with lovely art by Robert Nixon.

In both books most of the pages are just black and white text pages of puzzles/wordsearches, jokes with spot illustrations of the products or how to make things out of lolly sticks, some illustrated by Nixon and others possibly just stock illustration. These are all the strips and the covers.

This belongs in a museum

I bagged a pile of Indiana Jones related books at a car boot sale, but unbeknownst to me, the real treasure was nestled within the pages one of the books. Someone had drawn out a helpful guide to artifacts and accessories featured in the trilogy! Excellent work!

Spidey's heard nothing but good things...

Almost as if you're trying to sell something, Spidey.  From Questprobe #2 (Jan 1985).

Marvel UK Spider-Man Comics Weekly ads

Advertisements found in early issues of Spider-Man Comics Weekly.

Deadly Hands of colouring

I picked up an old copy of Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #22, only to discover someone had skilfully coloured in the first page.