The Merchandise GuideCharlton Comics
Compiled by Martin Willey
The Merchandise GuideCharlton published two series of comics, a "magazine" format black and white comic and a smaller format color comic. Note that this US comics company is not the same as the UK broadcast company Carlton, who own the rights to Space 1999. Art by kind permission of Charlton Media Group.
BLACK & WHITE COMIC (Charlton Comics)US 1975-6, bimonthly, $1.00 each Each 68 pages (including 10 pages of adverts -Charles Atlas, mail order, etc). 50-55 pges of art, with 3 stories of 15-20 pages (issue 1 had 4 stories), plus 3 text pieces of 2-4 pages (1 text story in issue 2, series stars/life on Alpha in issues 1, 2 & 5, all others science articles -Moon, computers, nuclear power, etc). Editor George Wildman, art editor Gray Morrow. All cover paintings (superb colour designs of Koenig & combinations of other characters, scenes & abstract designs) by Gray Morrow. Most art by Gray Morrow, also with Adolfo Buylla, Vincente Alcazar, Pat Boyette, Dick Ayers, Carlos Pino. Writers Mike Pellowski, Nicola Cuti, 2 contributions by Joe Gill. The first covering painting was used for ITC publicity art and appeared on the HG puzzles, the Image Entertainment laserdiscs, the CEL videos in Australia and, adapted, as the wrapper art on the Donruss bubble gum packs. Some superb art by Morrow & Alcazar, with good likeness but very stylised equipment & sets. On the other hand, most pages were obviously rushed and some was dreadful (the quality of the printing did not help). Koenig, Victor, Helena & Alan are the heroes and most other regulars are absent. Paul appears briefly - with a beard and based on Art Editor Gray Morrow, not Prentis Hancock. Some of format seemed based on the early 1999 premise (Moon City, Com-Com), but 1999 content was generally incidental. Stories included stock sf adventure, supernatural horror, & frequent social conflicts, quality ranging from indifferent to good. Morrow later became a highly regarded comic-book artist. Alcazar and Pino had drawn strips for the British TV21 comic, based around Gerry Anderson's series', in 1969.
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FULL COLOR COMIC (Charlton)U S 1975-6, bimonthly.36 pages, 11 of which are adverts. One story per issue, generally 22 pages long, plus a 2 page text story. Cover painting by the same artist who did the comic strip. Editor George Wildman, art by Joe Staton, John Byrne, Pat Boyette, scripts by Nicola Cuti and, in issue 7 only, Mike Pellowski. Generally stories were entertaining. Most stories were based away from Alpha, again with only Koenig, Helena, Victor & Alan. Figure work was good, though Boyette had somewhat stiff characters & Alan was often only recognisable by his blond hair. Byrne was especially good at figures & dynamic layout & narrative. Text stories were too brief & dull. Byrne later became a top comic book artist, working on Batman and Superman.
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