Look-In - May 1974

A title i've long over-looked and i really dunno why - guess it was a staple of most kids reading back in the seventies as it gave you a weekly dose of your favourite shows, albeit in FAR more ambitious adventures than the show that spawned the strip could ever hope to achieve.
Case in point here, "The Tomorrow People", which has the Jaunters trekking around a jungle planet for two pages. If Thames had tried that, it'd be all cardboard tubes for trees and an awful lot of plastic plants i guess. And the ape-like aliens would've been a couple of moth eaten gorilla suits loaned from the Benny Hill show or sumsuch. Nice art though, which i'm guessing is John Burns?

"Kung Fu" is better, by being an American show, thereby having a decent budget and even more decent locations the crew could visit, making the strip here being much more do-able. Again, nice art. Martin Asbury?

The other strips are all familiar stuff, though for the life of me i don't know why they'd be considered for comic adaptations: "Bless This House", "Doctor In Charge!","Micheal Bentine's Potty Time" etc.
One strip i didn't recognise at all was "The Kids From 47a" as i don't remember the show whatsoever. And i'm not the only one - the tale of some children leaving at home alone while their mum's in hospital is so obscure, there's not one clip of it on Youtube.
Looking at the TV ratings at the back, its interesting to see what the 12 year-old me was watching on Saturdays back then.
The kiddie bit went:

9.55 Captain Scarlet
10.20 Forest Rangers
11.00 Funky Phantom
11.30 Tarzan
12.00 World Of Sport
6.00 New Faces
7.00 Sale Of The Century
7.30 Kung Fu

"Funky Phantom" started ringing bells. So thought i'd refresh me memory by looking for it on Youtube. God, wish they'd been alarm bells ringing - i'd forgotten it for a reason:



Finally, i chose this issue to feature the title as 1974 is a looong way away now but i can so clearly remember even now waiting for that issue to come out as i SO wanted that Kung Fu medallion. And can still very clearly remember buying the issue on the way to school - then losing the medallion on the way. And the upset of being in the playground where i was seemingly the only one there not standing and admiring their new bit of fabbo jewellry.
Though looking at this ad on tips how to wear it, at least it saved me looking a pillock:

Lofty's One-Man Luftwaffe

Just been reading a Battle from 1975 for the first time since then, and its a pretty duff affair.
Even the usually reliable Rat Pack was poor - dull story with dull art.
Two things to note though:
1. Lofty's One-Man Luftwaffe, a story i don't recall in the slightest. Its typical British boys comic fare, of having a highly unlikely and outlandish setup that the hero is plonked down in to. In this case, Lofty Banks has escaped from a prison camp by posing as a German air ace and ends up flying for the Germans. Why he doesn't just fly his plane to the Allied lines and surrender i guess must've been addressed by now.
Or not.
It has another bampot premise in that the Germans have painted their airfield blue so it'll look like a lake from the air and the hills around said "lake" are actually fuel dumps.
In the midst of this hilarious nonsense there's an awful lot of cliche lingo. Of course, at this time, that was pretty common for the Japanese and German characters but here its the turn of the English and there's SO much iof it, you can't help feeling there was a point to it.
If so, i don't see it. What's the point of all the "Drat"'s and "Dashed"'s, calling each other "Bunny" and the downright Ripping Yarns "Drat- He's not going to give up. Better nail the cheeky perisher"
2. The other thing of note is the end of the installment of "Day Of The Eagle", which has Mike Nelson failing to stop Hitler pressing the button that detonates the worlds first nuclear bomb.
Will have to track down the next issue to see how that pans out.
"AIEEEE!" WATCH:
Quite a bit this time:
A cut short "Aiiee!" coming from a downed German fighter in "Lofty's"
Almost the same again with "AIEE!" from a German guard in "Rat Pack". Wonder if its the same unfortunate chap?
An odd "NAIEEEE!" uttered twice in "The Flight Of The Golden Hinde"
And a 100% "AIEEEE!" from "The Terror Behind The Bamboo Curtain"

Cheap Thrillpower at The Works

Just a quick heads-up for any UK readers - The Works have got the rather nice hardback Best Of Judge Dredd and 2000AD's for only £6.99 each.

Action - 10th July 1976

Another pick-up from 30th Century was this issue of Action that'd i'd not re-read since, i guess, when it first came out.
Lets have a look shall we?
First up, Dredger and, as usual, it sure don't waste no time - in THE VERY FIRST PANEL we've learnt that Dredger and Breed are at the "Hampshire Agricultural Fair", that the big guy's intent on shooting a member of the East German delegation, which is giving Breed the wobblies.
Brilliant stuff to do that in the very first panel, but the rest of the tale doesn't live up to it - pretty poor script with even poorer art.
Next, Green Grudges War has Belardinelli's art, which is always welcome. But that's it, and Hells Highway is the usual dull stuff.
But it picks up again with Death Game 1999, which has "Al Rico", the half cyborg baddie featured. He's apparently has his metal parts covered with strips of "artificial skin" to stop his team mates freaking out, but he looks the same to me. This guy is a bit of curiosity, seeming to pre-empt Judge Dredd by having an adversary of the hero called "Rico" and this "half cyborg with a psychotic hatred for a sports team" was in place long before Artie Gruber appeared in Harlem Heroes.

Hookjaw features some garish colour pages, which also seems to bend scale to its will, having the bad guy managing to get practically half a submersible in its mouth.
Back in scale for the next page though, which has a classic, and often used, rendition of someone chopped in two:


Only other thing of note is this classic ad for the Palitoy action figures. Buts its strange though - can understand the Apes bit, with the TV show on around about then, but - Star Trek? Surely it'd finished its re-reuns by then?

"AIEEEE" WATCH:
A really rather over the top "AHIEEEEEE!" from someone who'd been having a bit of trouble getting into the stadium for the match in Death Game 1999.