In spite of a shared language, many differences still exist between the United States and the United Kingdom. For one thing, in the States, "a P" is something you take whenever nature calls - but in Britain, you can take seven "P" and buy this week's issue of the Super Picture-Story Paper For Boys, Wizard!
It's danger for Mick Fury, Agent Of F.I.S.H.I.N.G., as he's menaced by a diver with a spear gun. Which to be honest is pretty menacing, those things pack a wallop.
But before our adventures with Mick, let's check in on some other intrepid English adventurers as they face the horrors of... the Egg.
Yes, The Egg, threatening us all with high cholesterol and killer robots and kidnapping our top scientists. Will Bruce Tench and Professor Joshua Tench and Sir William Trenchard dig a trench... I mean, learn the secret of the mysterious Egg?
Well, the Professor will. He gets zapped by a mysterious ray, is shrunken down, taken aboard their space craft, lectured to by "Sigon", and as the caption above, is scheduled to be "punished by the floating overseer".
There he is, getting punished by the floating overseer, who can tell when Professor Trenchington is lying, but cannot tell when Professor Tenchi is talking to a little radio pasted onto his palm like a hit of blotter acid. You know, if these space aliens in their egg-shaped space ships would just watch "Mork & Mindy" Sundays on ABC they might find out where their other egg-shaped spaceship flying pals got off to. But enough of The Egg, let's check in with Mick Fury! Is he black yet?
Speaking of eggs, check out this guy's skull! He's the guy that was captain of the ship that got scuttled during WWII and Mick Fury's dad was also on that ship and got blamed but it turned out there were jewels on the ship and Captain Conehead here did it on purpose so he could come back later and get the jewels and then maybe a hairpiece or something! And that makes Mick Fury mad with fury!
Mick has the jewels and Baldy whips out a gun and Mick throws the jewels in the sea and then there's a fight! or, as the caption puts it, "the trap is sprung."
But Egghead here had his frogmen lurking under the boat, and they menace Fury with their spear guns, and then they find out that Mick Fury has been keeping a short wave radio concealed inside his little rowboat! That's a great place to keep your sensitive electronic gear, by the way.
Turns out if you sit in the harbor on a boat pointing handguns and spearguns at fishermen, who have previously alerted the police, then you might get busted.
And Mick Fury, having cleared his father's name of wrongdoing, returns to the sea from whence he came! Look out for Chopper Ace next week (he's really annoying).
Occasionally, your 7P comic would be interrupted by advertisements for things of interest to boys who enjoy super picture-story papers.
Remember that time your sister set up all your Star Wars figures and then there was an earthquake? Palitoy does!
Picture-story papers were also filled with adventure picture-stories of young British lads thrust into amazing situations of survival, like orphan Jimmy Hopkins who found himself leading a group of Australian Army recruits through enemy-held New Guinea in 1942. Sure, it's harrowing and primitive, but it beats British public schools, right Jimmy?
Can Jimmy use this salvaged wire from the downed Spitfire to arrange some sort of contrived plan to foil "the Japs"? Or is there "no hope at the burned-out wreck", thanks for spoiling the page, caption!
AIE-E-E! MONKEY-PEOPLE! Radio has gone! Speak in stilted dialogue! NEXT WEEK - Malaria! Don't miss it.
Oh, those British schoolboys, constantly getting into dangerous situations in far-away places. What's next, will a planeload of 'em crash land on a deserted island, leaving them no choice but to descend into bloodthirsty savagery? Didn't somebody write a book about that?
Well, somebody DID write a book about that, and somebody else read it and used it as the springboard for this story about being trapped on an island where all of man's inadequacies and fears of irrelevance come to life, "The Island Of Lesbos". No, wait, I mean "The Island Of Terros". Which is a terrible terrible place as we can see from this very first page in which a hapless, pudgy schoolboy is trampled to death by horses. TO DEATH. Look at that one horse biting him. Pleasant dreams kids!
Surely the other kids will realize this island is full of fatal dangers and will behave with caution, right? Right? Wrong, they're going to wander past that dark cave and throw rocks into it. And then you're going to feel like they deserve whatever they get.
HOLY GOD this is some Jack Chick-level comic book horror here! AAH! I'm being eaten by a dog-headed hydra! AAH! Me too! AAH! The ground's like glue and I'm stuck and here comes the big dog hydra to eat me!
DAMN, picture-story paper for boys! You're not kidding around!
Well, finally our castaways have come across "civilisation" and there's a mysterious lady and a big table full of food and a caption up above that pretty much tells us exactly what's going to happen, even if we couldn't already guess that something terrible was going to happen to them here on the Island Of Terros.
Neglect your table manners JUST ONCE and you'll turn into the cast of "Animal Farm"! Can Mark and Alan help their friends? Or is it time to open Island Of Terros BBQ And Ribs Emporium? Find out NEXT WEEK!
What makes super picture-story papers for boys so exceptionally super is that they'll also feature stories that AREN'T about British schoolboys and in fact are about people that aren't British at all!
For instance, here's an exciting story about a Japanese samurai walking the road of vengeance, leaving a trail of bloody corpses in his wake as he... well, no. Just a guy named "Kataki", which this story tells us means "vengeance" in Japanese, which it does not ("kataki" means "enemy" or "rival"). Who also doesn't appear to be Japanese or to wear Japanese clothes or to exist in any sort of Japan. But, who is convinced he can break out of the jail cell this monk has imprisoned him inside. Because Buddhist monasteries have jail cells, obviously!
And so the legend was born... the legend of the guy who hid under his bunk until the guard thought he'd escaped! Such an amazing legend could only be told about the mystical Samurai warriors of the fabled land of Japan!
But, since this is a story about samurai, we're going to have to have some samurai type sword fighting going on, so let's get to it!
Yes kids, it's a blood-drenched samurai death duel as depicted by someone who was not provided with any reference materials whatsoever, and was just told to "fake it." Which he then did.
Man, wherever this "samurai" goes, people are trying to kill him! Is it the turban? It's the turban, isn't it. Can Kataki rescue the hostages? Find out NEXT WEEK! Or just watch the film "Shogun Assassin", which stars actual Japanese people and actual Japanese samurai swords and actual (fake) blood. There, you have now surpassed "His Name Was Vengeance" in terms of authenticity and entertainment.
So what have we learned? We've learned that 7p gets you a super story-paper for boys, to watch out for eggs, to not throw rocks in caves, and to ditch the turbans! See you NEXT WEEK!
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