IPC Media, owners of classic comic archive, considers title closures

IPC Media - owners of classic but no longer published titles such as Lion and many comic characters such as the Steel Claw, the Spider and Robot Archie - has announced that it is undertaking a strategic review of its niche and specialist titles.

This is 'corporate speak' for cutting and selling off titles if they aren't doing well.

IPC Media publishes over 85 media brands, with print brands alone reaching almost two thirds of UK women and 44% of UK men – almost 27 million UK adults. In January, it re-organised its publishing businesses, the first phase in a long-term strategy to maintain readership.

IPC Media CEO Evelyn Webster says the strategy, creating a new, audience-facing structure comprising Connect for mass market women, Southbank for upmarket women and Inspire for men, is "working well". But clearly, like many media companies, the company is facing challenges to its publishing business, and there have been many redundancies behind the scenes as it retrenches to better deal with the new media market challenges of web, mobile and print... and magazine closures are also on the cards.

"While print remains the engine that drives our business, we are increasingly focusing on accelerating the development of our multi-platform offerings to our consumers," says Webster.

"As a result we need to review whether it is desirable for IPC to continue to publish the full range of brands that we currently own.

"This review may lead us to conclude that we sell some of our smaller titles to publishers where they would have a stronger strategic fit and will therefore benefit from a greater focus.”

The review will be conducted over the next few months.

If only they would sell off their comics library so someone make something of some of Britain's best-loved comic characters...

Striker bounces back again - into Nuts

Football comic Striker has kicked off its 25th anniversary year by signing exclusively to Nuts, Britain’s biggest-selling weekly mens lifestyle magazine published by IPC. (We're betting the team mascot might just be a bit racier than its past cheerleader, pictured here). The computer-generated adventures of Warbury Warriors football club, which previously featured daily in The Sun and, for a time, in their own weekly comic, will launch in the issue going on sale on Tuesday 26th January. Striker will have its own page in Nuts and will feature all-new adventures, starting with the resurrection of the destitute Warriors by Arab billionaire Sheikh Mustapha Futti Kulub (Gedditt!?). Striker was created by journalist and artist Pete Nash back in 1985 and made its debut in The Sun newspaper in November of that year as a three-panel black-and-white cartoon, switching to colour four years later. In 1999, Striker became the first daily newspaper strip in the world to be created entirely in computer-generated 3D software. “Nuts will be the perfect new home for Striker," says creator Pete Nash. "The magazine’s readership of young adult males matches Striker’s core following and the cheeky, entertaining style of Nuts is exactly on a par with Striker. “What’s more is that a weekly format, rather than daily, will give me time to work on developing Striker into a movie and possible TV series. Talks are at an advanced stage with two producers and I can’t wait to see the Striker characters come to life in Nuts and on the screen.” Launched in 2004, Nuts has established itself as the biggest brand in men's media and is the PPA Consumer Media Brand of the Year 2009, accounting for one out of every two men's lifestyle mags purchased at newsstand. Online, Nuts.co.uk is Britain's number one men's lifestyle website, according to the Hitwise UK Online Performance Awards 2008, and gives IPC an unparalleled total reach into what;s often regarded as the most elusive and hardest to please audience there is – young men. “Pete Nash's Striker strips are legendary," added Nuts editor Dominic Smith. "To sign him up and bring the Warbury Warriors to Nuts readers exclusively every week is a dream come true. "Without a doubt Striker is a perfect fit for Nuts, with our mix of sport, girls and humour. "Striker will be must-read material for our football-mad fans - and we've got much more planned for the magazine this year that will underline Nuts' premier league position." • Nuts is on sale every Tuesday, priced £1.70, and online at www.nuts.co.uk

It's Fantastic: Johnny Future Flies in from the Sixties

Never before reprinted, Bear Alley Books have just announced they are to reprint the complete adventures of Johnny Future, a stunning British superhero strip which first appeared in 1960s comic Fantastic. The stories, featuring art by Luis Bermejo, will be published in two volumes this October.

Published in 1967 and 1968, Johnny Future's origin springs from Bull Belson's hunt in deep African jungle for a creature known to natives as the Link -- the missing step between ape and man in human evolution. Captured, the creature is brought to England, where he breaks loose. Striking out across country, the Link hides for the night at a top secret research station, little knowing that an experiment to produce a new form of nuclear energy is underway... and out of control!

Professor Richard Allen's assistant has his own ideas about this energy source. An agent of a foreign power, he knocks out the professor and leaves, fast, before the rising radiation levels cause the nuclear-testing machine to reach critical mass.

Bathed in radiation, the Link begins to evolve at unbelievable speed until, lying unconscious before the machine, is a man of superhuman intelligence and animal strength... a man who will become known to the world as Johnny Future.

Johnny Future is described as one of the most memorable strips of the 1960s. Debuting in the very first issue of Fantastic, rubbing shoulders with reprints of US superhero comics, The Missing Link became Johnny Future after 15 issues and ran for a total of 51 episodes, the only originated strip in the 40-page comic. The Bear Alley Books collection reprints all 51 episodes and a scarce one-off 14-page story from the pages of Fantastic Annual.

"The Missing Link/Johnny Future is a fondly remembered strip by many readers who grew up with comics in the Sixties," says cartoonist Lew Stringer in a blog post about the project, "including Alan Moore, who was inspired enough to name one of his characters Jonni Future when he created the anthology Tomorrow Stories for Wildstorm Comics."

"In many ways, the story that began as The Missing Link was just that: a now-forgotten bridge between old-style British comics and the American superhero formula (and it has to be said that there are some of us who still prefer the former)," says ace British comics writer Steve Moore in his foreword to the collections and was one of the team who put together Fantastic every week. "It was written by Alf Wallace, then the managing editor of the Odhams group, and drawn by Spanish artist Luis Bermejo (who I never met, the artwork always being delivered by his London agent).

"The most obvious thing that strikes one about the story is the beauty of Bermejo’s black-and-white artwork," he continues. "In many ways, this was the stand-out artwork in the magazine, as the Marvel superhero strips, despite being drawn by the likes of Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, were always intended for overlaid colour reproduction and suffered considerably from being printed in black line alone.

"The story itself is very much a child of its time and circumstances," Steve feels. "Wallace’s influences are obvious... a little King Kong, a little Hulk, a fair amount of general Marvel Comics "superhero angst". The villains, however, and the way Johnny Future deals with them, are much more in the British style: not so much page after page of costumed punch-ups, but a more science-fiction approach where the conflicts are between heroes and villains of considerable or frankly impossible intelligence that I, for one, find far more satisfying."

Both volumes will feature covers by Garry Leach and Una Fricker, the team behind the cover for Titan Books' The Spider: King of Crooks volume. Individually their credits range from Marvelman and 2000AD to the Magic the Gathering RPG game and countless comics and book covers.

"Johnny Future is a classic," Steve Holland enthuses. "A mere 51 episodes appeared in [Fantastic] but the storylines spanned everything you could ever want: supervillains and Sex, Killer Robots and Renusians... and heroes punching leopards!

"I still need to work out the final price of the books and we won't be taking pre-orders for at least a month," Steve adds. "So you've still got plenty of time to buy the first two Bear Alley books before you need to start saving your pennies!"

• Cursitor Doom and The Phantom Patrol are on sale now from Bear Alley Books: bearalleybooks.blogspot.com


Johnny Future: The Missing Link


Featuring art by Luis Bermejo from scripts by Alf Wallace; cover by Garry Leach/Una Fricker, foreword by Steve Moore. ISBN 978-1-907081-53-8: to be published in October 2009

Johnny Future vs. The Secret Society of Science


Featuring art by Luis Bermejo from scripts by Alf Wallace; cover by Garry Leach/Una Fricker, introduction by Steve Holland. ISBN 978-1-907081-54-5: to be published in October 2009



All images © IPC Media