June 9th 1982 - Marvel UK, 40 years ago this week.

Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon. 

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Sometimes, no matter where he goes, a cowboy can't help bumping into dinosaurs.

And this night in 1982 was one of them!

You guessed it. On that very evening, BBC One was showing Ray Harryhausen's Dynamation classic The Valley of Gwangi in which members of a Wild West circus capture a tyrannosaurus and put it on show, only for it to escape and run rampant in the streets of Mexico. Obviously, it's basically a rip-off of King Kong but it has a dinosaur in it - and dinosaurs are better than gorillas. So, how could anyone not love it?

Almost as lovable as dinosaurs is the British 20 pence piece which was first introduced in this week of that year. It has straightish edges, instead of a smooth curve, and there's something about such a feature that always feels special.

Also feeling special, that week, was Adam Ant whose Goody Two Shoes claimed the top spot on the British singles chart, at the expense of Madness' House of Fun.

However, that band was proving insurmountable at the pinnacle of the UK album chart, thanks to Complete Madness successfully holding off the attack of 3 Sides Live by Genesis.

Did it really only have three sides? Was the fourth side just blank?

Regardless, for any who may have been affected by the issues raised in today's post, that week's British singles chart may be found here.

While the corresponding album chart lurks right here.

On that singles chart, the tracks I approved of were:

House of Fun - Madness,

Torch - Soft Cell,

The Look of Love - ABC,

Only You - Yazoo,

Island of Lost Souls - Blondie,

The Telephone Always Rings - the Fun Boy Three,

After the Gold Rush {1982} - Prelude,

Pinky Blue - Altered Images

and

Ebony and Ivory - Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.

It's interesting to note that there were two versions of Iko Iko in the top 40. By what strange twist of fate did that happen?

And it's terrifying to note that the chart contained the nightmare horror that was I've Never Been to Me by Charlene.

I do believe this is the one in which Kraven comes out of retirement, in an attempt to prove his worth by defeating Spider-Man.

As always, he fails. This time, even with the help of both his girlfriend and hallucinogenic drugs.

We also get a free poster showing Spidey battling him.

We also get the chance to enter an electronic competition.

Although, frankly, I don't have a clue just what an electronic competition might be.

It's another of my Hulk faves, as the green goliath takes on the power of Umbu, with a modicum of help from Ka-Zar and Zabu.

Iron Man's in this comic too but I don't know what he's up to.

But none of that matters. What really matters is that this book too gives us a chance to enter an electronic competition -  and everybody wins a prize worth £3.

Everybody?

But this is 1982. £3 in 1982 is the equivalent of £20 billion in 2022 money!

Scooby-Doo's latest issue smashes its way into a newsagent's near you.

And it does so by showing us how to make our own letterhead, using just a spoon and a candle.

Not only that but we also get a free Scooby puppet.

And there's a Flintstones poster.

You can accuse Scooby of many things but you can't accuse him of short-changing us.