The REAL Annual (can't think of a snappy title for this one, sorry)

Next on the pile... This one!

It's the 1990 (as in, 1989) Real Ghostbusters annual, and this one actually DID arrive on the 25th day of December, all those years ago. Ghostbusters and its related media seems to be one of life's constants, at least in my experience. Early exposure and all that. And out of the four Real Ghostbusters annuals I've got over the years, this is the one that stands out for some fairly unique reasons...

A Marvellous Book

Bear with me here - this is a festive "mini series" sort of thing that I wasn't planning to do until December, but the reality is there probably won't be enough time in that month to do much... So it's being brought forward a bit. All the adverts have been on telly since March anyway, so I may as well.

RIGHT. The "theme" goes like this: What happens on the 25th December, usually? If you're aged between five and twelve, maybe beyond? You get ANNUALS, that's what. Nice hardback books, to keep you busy throughout the festive week. Some people grow out of them, most don't and end up with hundreds of the things stacked in the corner of the room twenty years down the line. Like the majority of people, I fall into the latter category, and so... Well, it's my Top Twenty-or-so Most Favourite Annuals Ever. In no particular order, and I probably won't get that many done by Christmas, but it's worth a go. And we're starting with a bloody Marvel book of all things.

The Bog Paper - fit to wipe with?

In 1989, the UK arm of Marvel made a couple of efforts to "get in on" the humour comic racket. One of these attempts, It's Wicked!, took the Monster Fun approach of having all its characters embody "spooky" characteristics, and whilst mostly dull, it had its moments. The OTHER comic launched in 1989 (and not even lasting as long as It's Wicked!, which didn't make it to its 20th issue) went for a theme that everyone can relate to:

Yep, it's The Bog Paper, the comic of toilets, shitting, pissing and farting. Is it as bad as it sounds? Squat down and find out!

Is it bad? Nah, It's Wicked!

In the space-age year of 1989, Marvel's UK arm decided to have a stab at DC Thomson's racket with a couple of strange comics. One of those shall be looked at right now, and the other at some other time. This is the first one, and it's wicked - It's Wicked!

Yep, that's Slimer from The Real Ghostbusters on the cover - Marvel already had a Ghostbusters comic out, so they must've thought it'd made sense to launch a new bunch of characters off the back of this ugly little spud. The big orange square is where the free tattoos were displayed - and as I don't have the tattoos to hand, we're left with a deceptively spartan cover! The font up there's an obvious Dandy rip-off, but we'll forgive them that much. The covers for the other two issues I have are less lonesome-looking than this one:

 We've got Slimer's hilarious attempt at body-building on this one...

And some advice to the youngsters about not hiding inside the mouths of lions on this one. Makes sense when you think about it.

Right, let's see what's inside them!