THE REAL ORIGIN OF STARSCAPE
The beginnings of Starscape (though I had no idea at the time) had its roots deep in my childhood imagination. I was lucky in that Central Scotland always had plenty of comics for sale. Not only was the 1970s (for I was born in the late 60s) a boom time for British comics but we also had a plentiful supply of US comics, including DC, which were pretty difficult to get then. Indeed, Paisley had probably the world's oldest comic shop in Yankee Mags, which began life in the 1940s!

The favourite comics of my childhood were undoubtedly Captain Britain weekly and Starlord, so it was only natural that I should name my own comic after these titles (STARsCAPe). CB really excited us at the time. Stan 'the Man' Lee appeared on, at least, Scottish programmes to promote Cap and the stories were something else. Although much derided now, I think it deserves critical re-examination. Chris Claremont wrote some classic bronze age style stories with some great villains. The Reaver should have become a bigger character than a one-shot, whilst Hurricane could have been a villain with enough power to take on the likes of the Hulk and maybe even Thor! The Dr Synne/Mastermind story was absolutely wonderful, combining the supernatural, super-villains, snow-covered landscapes and sci-fi super machines! That's not to mention the fabulous Fantastic Four stories with the Galactus and Gabriel the Air-Walker saga - definately one of my favourite Marvel stories.

Starlord was a companion title to 2000AD. Boasting higher quality paper and more colour, the stories just had that little bit more edge than 2000AD (which was also wonderful). Not so long ago, it was revealed that at the time of the merger, Starlord actually outsold 2000AD. And that 9/11 style centrespread from Ro-Busters was just something else!

Other weekly titles I had a regular order for included Super Spider-Man, Buster, Hulk, Whizzer & Chips, 2000AD, Krazy (THE best humour comic), Cheeky, Tornado (again excellent), Whoopee!, Vulcan, Bullet, Team-Up, Plug (no doubt others I can't remember offhand) with me also picking up Action, Battle, Hotspur, Victor, Sparky, Rampage, Mighty World of Marvel, Look-In and a million others. Thanks to my mother and grandparents for that hefty bill! Though my mother has to take some of the blame - y'see she bought her golden age Captain Marvel at Yankee Mags when she was a girl and the first comic I remember reading was Shazam Family!

Chris Smillie
(Starchief)

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