The Incredible Hulk #3: The Newton edition

This is the cover to Newton Comics' The Incredible Hulk #3:

It originally appeared as the cover to Marvel Comics' Captain America #110:

The story contents are as follows:

Captured At Last!, originally published in Tales to Astonish #61, November 1964

Enter... The Chameleon!, originally published in Tales to Astonish #62, December 1964

No Longer Alone!, originally published in Captain America #110, February 1969

Captured at Last! is reprinted intact, apart from some minor cropping at the bottom of the splash page to accommodate the Newton Comics indicia.

Enter... the Chameleon! is reprinted intact until the final page. This is a scan of the final page sourced online: 

This is the final page as it appears in the Newton edition:

As you can see, it has been drastically modified. The second tier of panels from the original page has been omitted, and the original Next Issue blurb has been replaced by two Newtonese text boxes - all in the service of a partial Marvel Mailbag instalment. A rather bizarre editorial decision, and quite unlike anything Newton had done to this point. 

But such radical surgery would continue in this issue. No Longer Alone! has been subjected to some of the most idiosyncratic editing in all of Newtondom. 

Firstly, the splash page has been appended with a Captain America title banner across the top:

Compare to a scan of the original page as reprinted in Page Publications' Captain America #4:

This is hardly an indictable offence in the circumstances.

However, consider page 11 of the story as it appears in Page Publications' Captain America #4:

This is the same page in the Newton edition:

As you can see the exclamation It's Hydra has been inserted into the last panel. The rationale for this amendment is to maintain storyline continuity because Newton editorial omitted the following classic two-page spread revealing Hydra: 

This scan is also from Page Publications' Captain America #4. So why did Newton decide to omit this key passage from the story? Because the buggers opted to make it the colour poster in this issue:

Depending on your perspective and predisposition, this is either a bonus, honouring a key Steranko set piece with prime real estate, or a travesty akin to adding lipstick to the Mona Lisa. Of course it's at least a little bit of both, but I'll just say at this juncture that if you are seeking narrative fidelity from Newton Comics, you are looking in the wrong place. It's the idiosyncracies of  this odd little comics publisher that fascinate collectors like myself, and rolling with the punches will help with the bruising.

This poster was also included in The Avengers #3.

There are no in-house advertisements for other Newton comics in this issue. A full letters page, a subscription page and a contest with the expiry date 8 September 1975 round out the issue.

I am not certain of the publication date. This issue would have been scheduled for publication 19 July 1975, but it appears to me it was published a week later 26 July 1975.

Thanks to Mark Muller for providing some of the scans and confirming the poster in this issue.

The Incredible Hulk #2: The Newton edition

Newton Comics' The Incredible Hulk #2 was published 5 July 1975:

The cover image originally appeared on the cover of Marvel Comics' The Incredible Hulk #105:

The story contents are as follows:

Banished to Outer Space, originally published in The Incredible Hulk #3, September 1962 

The Ringmaster, originally published in The Incredible Hulk #3, September 1962 

Face-to-Face with the Magic of Baron Mordo!, originally published in Strange Tales #111, August 1963

This is the splash page to Banished to Outer Space:

Compare to the original splash page as reprinted in the 1978 Fireside collection The Incredible Hulk:

The splash pages in Newton Comics reprints were often cropped in order to accommodate the indicia. In this instance the splash page has not been cropped. However, the page has been modified by the insertion of the "read on" directive between the first two panels. I also note that the original page contained the job number V-869, which is included in some reprints eg. The Essential Hulk Vol. 1, but is absent in the Newton and Fireside editions.

These two interventions  are minor compared to the radical surgery inflicted on the rest of this story and indeed the much of this issue.

Banished to Outer Space is an 11-page story. It is presented as a 9-page story in the Newton edition. This is page 9 of the Fireside edition:

 This is the final page of the Newton edition:

The top two tiers are as per the original issue. However, the bottom tier of three panels is from the final page of the original story:

In other words, the final page of the Newton edition is a composite of page 9 and page 11 of the original story, and two pages worth of material is omitted.

The Ringmaster is a 10-page story. It is presented as a 20-page feature by Newton Comics. 

The Ringmaster is reprinted intact until the final panel. This is the final page as per the Fireside edition:

The Newton edition omits the final panel:

This editorial insertion directs the reader to the following page:

The top tier of three panels is compiled from panels on page 11 of the story The Incredible Hulk vs.The Metal Master!, originally published in Marvel Comics' The Incredible Hulk #6: 

The second and third tiers of the Newton page are from page 12 of The Incredible Hulk #6:

The next page in the Newton edition is this one:

This page was originally published in Marvel Comics' Tales to Astonish #60:

This story is indexed as The Incredible Hulk. It is a 10-page story and is reprinted in full sans the splash page and the final panel, which is omitted in the Newton reprint in favour of a next issue blurb:

It was not uncommon practice for Australian comic book publishers to combine stories and thus contrive extended narratives by omitting a splash page. These extended narratives generally maintained continuity. However, in the case of The Ringmaster, the 10 pages appended to the first 10 pages are sourced from two different stories which do not have any direct relationship to one another. Truly bizarre and inexplicable, especially so early in the publishing program. 

Face-to-Face with Baron Mordo! appears to have been reprinted intact. 

This issue includes the following poster:

This originally appeared on the cover of Marvel Comics' Man-Thing #7. This poster was also included in Newton Comics' Dracula #1.

This issue includes the following in-house advertisements:

The Amazing Spider-Man #3

The Fantastic Four #1

Planet of the Apes #2 

Dracula #1 

The Avengers #1 

 This issue was advertised in-house:

This is scanned from The Amazing Spider-Man #3.

This issue also contains a subscription page for the first five Newton Comics titles and a competition without a specified expiry date. 

This issue was advertised in the Sunday Observer 6 July 1975:

Chatto on Page Publications romance novels

This is Keith Chatto's cover to Page Publications' Romantic Library #19:

This is not a comic book. It's a prose romance story titled One Way Ticket by Monica Blake.

This is Chatto's cover to Page Publications' True Life Library #28:

Clearly the strategy employed by Page Publications to recycle material under new Chatto covers was not limited to the comic books. 

Terror Adventure #1:Chatto skin

This is the Keith Chatto cover to Page Publications' Terror Adventure #1:

It is a swipe from Famepress' S.A.T.A.N #3:

In the Chatto version the figure in the foreground is nude. This is no doubt partly intended as tittilation. However, there is some relevance to the story, as the figure is a wax effigy of a recently departed "hare-brained society dame", as one of the characters describes her.

Now, she is not nude in the story, but in my opinion the nudity, heavy black shadowing,  and garish green and yellow skin hues differentiate the figure in the foreground from the two background characters more effectively than the original cover image.

Having said that I don't doubt that if this issue was published just a year or two later Chatto would have given the figure even more skin. I await subsequent reprintings of this story to surface.

The Newton Comics Nabisco posters

In early 1976 the Newton Comics office was scrambling for traction. New series were added to the roster only to last a couple of issues; issues were delayed; advertised issues and series did not eventuate; new formats were instituted; context expiry dates were wildly out of sync with publication dates; stockpiled back issues were reintroduced into the market; and advertised posters were not included in issues - all of which culminated in the Receivers winding down the enterprise in April.

Amongst the chaotic production in this period a new promotion was instigated. If you blinked you'd miss it, but buried in the Marvel Mailbag of some March 1976 cover-dated issues was the following editorial notice:

That's right - Newton Comics posters were included in Nabisco Weeties and Crispies cereal boxes. In fact, there were 10 posters in the range:

The rear of the posters advertised the complete range, ensuring the collector's bug hit the nervous system:

These posters are the same size as the standard stapled insert covers, but the paper and printing quality is superior. They have a light sheen, and some of the colours pop - especially the red ink on the Captain America, Conan the Barbarian, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man and The Human Torch, The Mighty Thor and Captain Marvel posters. The other way to readily distinguish these from the regular posters is they have two distinct creases - one vertical and one horizontal - as they were folded twice for inclusion in the cereal boxes.

Many issues published c.March/April 1976 advertised posters, but they were not to be found within the issues. It may be mere coincidence that the Nabisco posters were promoted at this time.

Newton Comics readers will be familiar with the images on the Nabisco posters given they were all previously issued as regular posters within the comic books, albeit slightly modified eg. deleted text boxes. 

Needless to say, these posters rank amongst the most difficult Newton Comics items to collect - they are possibly even scarcer than the King Size posters.

Thanks to Robert Thomas for helping out with information and some great scans.

Kull the Conqueror and Kull the Destroyer: The complete Yaffa cover gallery

Here's a cover gallery of my complete runs Yaffas' Kull the Conqueror and Kull the Destroyer series:

 Kull the Conqueror #1, c.October 1977

 Kull the Conqueror #2, c.December 1978

 Kull the Conqueror #3, 1980

 Kull the Conqueror #4, July 1980

 Kull the Destroyer #5, c.March 1981

Kull the Destroyer #6, c.August 1981

Kull the Destroyer #7, c.January 1982

Kull  the Conqueror #'s 1 and 2 are regular/magazine-sized issues. The rest of the issues are digest-sized. Kull the Destroyer #'s 6 and 7 are tall digests, the others are short digests.

Each issue reprints three Kull stories from the respective US Marvel series. They are reprinted in sequential order.

Marvel's Kull the Conqueror ran for 10 issues. The numbering continued in Kull the Destroyer. The crossover point in the Yaffa series is in Kull the Conqueror #4. This issue reprints the main contents of Kull the Conqueror #10 and Kull the Destroyer #'s 11 and 12. 

Some of the Kull the Destroyer issues reprinted short vintage Marvel stories as page fillers. These stories by the likes of Steve Ditko and Joe Maneely are included in the respective Yaffa issues.

It is possible there is a Kull the Destroyer #8 but I have not seen a copy.

Yaffa published some other Kull issues. Kull the King and The Kingdom of Kull are recycled retitled editions.  Kull the Destroyer #NN is a one-off issue based on Marvel Preview #19.