Toxic

[JayzusB.Christ]

Only managed to read one back when it came out (which, I'm afraid to say,  I shoplifted).  Reading them now,  though,  I realise I'd been missing some really good stuff.  Loved the editorial style too, somewhere between Tharg and Uncle Pigg.

Pure punk rock comics at its finest.  No wonder Tharg was getting worried. Shame so many of its creators were stiffed.

[Professor Bear]

(which, I'm afraid to say,  I shoplifted).

It's what they would have wanted.

[GordonR]

Yeah.  “Pure punk rock comics”....in 1991.

tbh, in long-distance retrospect, it’s just kinda embarrassing dad comix put together by ageing enfants terrible; a comedy editor called Doc Toxx and a letters column called Dump Your Load, because that’s what they thought the kidz were into.

The background financial shennigans, friendships trashed and some induvuals’ very flexible definition of  creator rights is Toxic’s best story.

[maryanddavid]

Interesting series of articles here https://g1rm.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/the-rise-and-fall-of-neptune-comic-distributors-part-seven/

It's a funny one Toxic, some bits were great, but it never lived up to the potential of the creators involved. The best thing about Toxic was the Button Man

[Funt Solo]

I had to go rummaging around in ... The Cavern ... because I knew I had something in there with Toxic! written on it, and I found my copy of Toxic! presents: Marshal Law - Kingdom of the Blind.

I don't remember much about Toxic!, but this is absurdly wonderful comic stuff from Mills and O'Neill (and the letterers of course - don't forget the letterers - Felix and O'Grady).

I don't recall if it was shoplifted.  There was a time in the late 80s / early 90s comic's boom that my poor unemployed wallet could not possibly manage the burden of titles that were weighing down the shelves at the local news mart without a little bit of ... non-financial consumption.

[JayzusB.Christ]

Yeah.  “Pure punk rock comics”....in 1991.

Ah well, it's more punk than Grant Morrison says he was back then.

I don't recall if it was shoplifted.  There was a time in the late 80s / early 90s comic's boom that my poor unemployed wallet could not possibly manage the burden of titles that were weighing down the shelves at the local news mart without a little bit of ... non-financial consumption.

This was my problem too, and why I missed the first few years of the Megazine. I always paid the green lad though.

[Bad City Blue]

I remember enjoying Toxic to a point. It did seem very juvenile which was at odds with the adult strip content.

Bit of a clusterfuck all round, but we did at least get some good stuff out of it

[CalHab]

I enjoyed it, or rather I enjoyed Marshall Law and Accident Man. It might have been juvenile, but so was I.

[sheridan]

Maturity-wise I found most of it to be around the level of early 2000AD (before it was growing up with its readership) and 1980s Eagle, but with added swear words and nudity, so children wouldn't actually be able to buy it (not if the newsagent was paying attention, anyway).  No idea how true this is, but I got the impression at the time that (alleged) increased creative freedoms meant creators were free to wander off before completing work...

[Fungus]

Maturity-wise I found most of it to be around the level of early 2000AD (before it was growing up with its readership) and 1980s Eagle, but with added swear words and nudity, so children wouldn't actually be able to buy it (not if the newsagent was paying attention, anyway).  No idea how true this is, but I got the impression at the time that (alleged) increased creative freedoms meant creators were free to wander off before completing work...

It did that thing of being an immature-for-mature-readers comic, so I never really warmed to it. Have the first couple of issues (and Marshal Law and Bogie Man 'Apocalyse Presents' editions. Collected reprints?). I was drifting from the prog too, so maybe just me. BTW always loved The Bogie Man, a great strip....

Don't know about 'wander off before completing work...'. Wasn't the enterprise poorly managed, with creators not getting paid? I might be wrong there. If so, kind of sadly ironic that some big names left the prog and found the grass wasn't in fact any greener...

[GordonR]

Yeah, there’s no great mystery about it. People ‘wandered off’ without completing work because they weren’t getting paid, or because promises to them had been broken.

Compounding Toxic’s problems, it basically didn’t have an editor for much of its short history. Marvel US editor Margaret Clark signed up for the job - and that’s a weird fit right there for a UK weekly newssstand anthology title - but backed out late in the day,  strangely preferring Manhattan to a move to Leicester.

Alan Grant and Pat Mills kind of unhappily oversaw things for a while, and a young Dan Abnett became official editor just in time for the whole thing to fold.

[sheridan]

Maturity-wise I found most of it to be around the level of early 2000AD (before it was growing up with its readership) and 1980s Eagle, but with added swear words and nudity, so children wouldn't actually be able to buy it (not if the newsagent was paying attention, anyway).  No idea how true this is, but I got the impression at the time that (alleged) increased creative freedoms meant creators were free to wander off before completing work...

Don't know about 'wander off before completing work...'. Wasn't the enterprise poorly managed, with creators not getting paid? I might be wrong there. If so, kind of sadly ironic that some big names left the prog and found the grass wasn't in fact any greener...

Well, I did say my impression at the time - being a child in a provincial town before the internet age meant information was very limited - I don't even know how I knew to look out for Toxic!

[JayzusB.Christ]

 Pat Mills' workload must have been huge at the time.  And yet he was still producing quality stuff at that stage of his career. 

(It was before his preachy phase, I think. Glad that didn't last.)

[JamesC]

I thought Toxic was really cool at the time. I remember seeing the cinema ad and thinking it looked amazing and then seeing issue 1 in WHSmith (and being a bit confused that a super-heroic dinosaur wasn’t a main character).
I still think the design is really cool - all those waste-spill title bars etc.
It went down hill pretty fast. It’s a shame Muto Maniac didn’t go anywhere and Bogie Man didn’t conclude. I really hated The Driver too - something about that strip really rubbed me up the wrong way.
Those Apocalypse specials were fucking great though. Kingdom of the Blind is one of Marshall Law’s high points and I remember poring over the Accident Man one on the coach ride home from a school camping trip.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I loved Kingdom of the Blind, the first Marshal Law story I ever read. I seem to remember it coming out before Toxic, would that be right?