Marvel UK
| Private | |
| Industry | Publishing |
| Genre | Science fiction, action, superheroes |
| Founded | 1972 (launch) |
|
Key people
|
Neil Tennant, Dez Skinn, John Freeman, Paul Neary |
| Products | Comics |
| Parent |
Marvel Comics Panini Comics |
Marvel UK was an imprint of Marvel Comics formed in 1972 to reprint US produced stories for the British weekly comic market. Marvel UK later did produce original material by British creators such as Alan Moore, John Wagner, Dave Gibbons, Steve Dillon, and Grant Morrison.
There were a number of editors in charge of overseeing the UK editions. The first was the then 21-year-old Tony Isabella, whose first job at Marvel was overseeing the UK weeklies, although based in the USA. He was succeeded by UK-based editors Peter L. Skingley (aka Peter Allan) and Matt Softly – both of whom were women who adopted male noms de plumes for the job. In reality they were Petra Skingley and Maureen Softly. They were then replaced by Neil Tennant who later found fame with the pop group the Pet Shop Boys. Nick Laing succeeded him, but with a turbulent market seeing falls in sales was let go so that Dez Skinn could take over. Skinn lasted less than two years and the reins were taken over by Bernie Jaye and later John Freeman. Paul Neary was editor in chief at the time Marvel decided to close the UK arm in 1995.
Panini Comics obtained the license to print Marvel material in 1995 and took over the UK office's remaining titles.
Reprints of American Marvel material had been published in the UK during the 1960s by Odhams Press under their Power Comics imprint. Titles such as Smash! and Fantastic featured a mix of Marvel reprint material (such as the Fantastic Four) and original non-Marvel work. This lasted till 1969 when the last superhero strip was removed from Smash!, leaving no Marvel titles being reprinted in the UK at all.
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Wikipedia