When I first came across this Newton Spectacular #1 some ten years ago I thought it was another in a substantial line of crudely-coloured Newton montage covers with a random mess of Marvel reprints within.
Of course, the cover is not a Newton contrivance, but is in fact a reprint of the cover to Silver Surfer #10:
Sure, I should have known better, but I wasn't a Silver Surfer reader as a kid, and as familiar as I am with the covers of some classic Silver Surfer covers through osmosis, this one did not register with my spider sense. And frankly, from my vantage point, the figure in the hat and trenchcoat looked to me more like Rorschach from Watchmen than a disguised Silver Surfer - especially in the purple.
Anyway, my copy is better than yours. Why? Because my copy comes with this poster:
Now, as you can see from the folds, this is not a regular Newton poster.
The first phase of Newton Comics included posters and cards stapled into the comics, and the covers advertised the Free Super Color Poster. Then things started to go off the rails a bit. Posters may have been advertised but not included; posters may have been included but were in black and white; or posters may have been offered, but you had to send away for them.
This is an oversized poster, folded and loose in the centre of the comic. The issue has all pages intact, the centre pages being 2xletters pages, and 2xBay City Rollers ads. However, the cover does promote a Free King Size Super Hero Poster - and sure enough, here it is!
And in case you missed it, there's an advertisement on page 16 for the same issue (!) which also mentions the "super colour poster with every copy":
And in case you missed it, there's an advertisement on page 16 for the same issue (!) which also mentions the "super colour poster with every copy":
I have not seen another one of these, or a similar one in any other Newton comic, nor do I recall seeing them when I was a kid. It stands to reason that loose posters would be much more likely to go awol than the stapled posters, which are missing often enough as it is.
And as for the random contents, check out the details on Ausreprints.net.
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1 comment:
Being an oversized poster it would have to be "tipped-in" - printed separately and (usually) attached. In this case, it would have been machine inserted or, maybe with Newton being cheap-skates, hand inserted... hence many copies may have potentially missed getting the poster.
Most likely, a kid would grab the poster and stick it on a wall. I sure as heck woulda!
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