I actually saw two comics of mine for the first time yesterday. PG2.3 and this baby…

If you can’t make out from Jamie’s fuzzy camshot, it’s Marvel Heroes and it’s a proper comic. That being, a comic with a free gift on the front. A gun which fires a foam rocket! People often wonder how they could improve Watchmen. My answer would be to attach a foam-rocket launcher to the front. Hell, it’s a way to improve anything. I dug Anna Karenia, but I’d have dug it more with a model train tied to the front.

Marvel Heroes is a proper UK-style kids comic, published by Panini. Rather than being in the Marvel Universe proper, it’s the characters just given to writers to play with out of context, turning out pure-pop kids comics. By which I mean, proper sub-10 year old kids comics, which in the UK means… well, it’s the first time I’ve been in the kids mag section of WH Smiths since I actually was a kid, but it’s interesting to see how these magazines have changed. They’re all enormous. They all have excellent looking things stuck to the cover.

On the other hand, they haven’t changed at all. As well as having a couple of new comics in Marvel Heroes - sitting alongside mine is a POWER MAN strip - it’s got the mass of features which make up a brit kids mag. There’s crosswords. There’s a poster of Thor. The comics are introed with a characters stat-sheets. There’s a schematic of the X-men’s Blackbird. There’s a page of art, some of which I’m scoping to replace McKelvie. There’s a HOW TO COPY WOLVERINE page. Best of all, there’s a cut-out mask which allows you to pretend to be a sentinel and scare any neighbourhood mutant. It’s quite the package, and was passed around excitedly at the phonodrinks. I took a photo there, because my brother - by his birthday rights - bagsied the gun, and I had to give it him.

My Story? It’s a Thor one. The basic idea is that the Trolls have invented a device which allows them to pry what humans are thinking. They look up Ulik, their leader, to find he’s being insulted and his power doubted. Of course, they’ve accessed a web-forum where someone is ranting about how Thor’s villains suck. The Trolls invade earth looking for vengence. It’s called War of The Trolls. Is it above a 6 year old’s head? Who can tell. If not, there’s plenty of other comedy to distract them, including a bit where an elderly lady bullies Ulik. Also, an important moral to teach the youth. That is, don’t slag people off on the Internet. You may be killed by a furious invading army of mythological creatures.

Don’t do it kids.

Was a fun thing to do. I’ve always fancied writing an actual proper kids comic, and it was fun to do it. Available from all news-agents, etc.