COMIC BOOK COMPULSIVE — Pow! Annual 1971
As someone who has been semi-obsessed with British superheroes Pow! Annual 1971 is a comic I’ve been wanting to read for a long time as it is just chock full (80 pages) of British superheroes who as far as I know never appeared anywhere else. Which is odd in and of itself as British Annuals frequently relied, sometimes heavily, on reprints of already published material. It’s possible they are reprints, and, as is often the case, I just don’t know enough about British comics, but this time I don’t think so. For one thing Lew Springer’s wonderful Blimey! blog tells me it was original material, though he suggests that the material “looks European” and might have been reprinted in other countries. Then there’s the fact that 1970 (British Annuals appeared the year before their cover date, arriving just in time for Christmas sales) was a little late to try to jump on the superhero bandwagon. This one also pops up on the Stupid Comics website which I don’t think is entirely fair; these are fairly flat, generic superhero stories to be certain, but they are handsome and certainly serviceable ones.
— Steve Bennett
Prior to the one for 1971, there were three Pow! annuals (’68, ’69 & ’70), which included Spider-Man, FF & Nick Fury reprints. At some stage in between, the comic had been discontinued and the company (Odhams Press) had been incorporated into IPC. The sales of the three previous annuals must have been good enough to warrant continuing, but IPC had let their rights to reprint Marvel stories lapse, hence the ’71 annual bearing no resemblance to previous ones.
As always, I appreciate the feedback.
I should point out that the ’71 Annual still bore the Odhams name even ‘though they had been subsumed by IPC, but the ’72 Annual was published by IPC.