The current issue of Constant Scale, the Airfix Collectors’ Club journal, Number 82, includes Jeremy Briggs’ interview with ex-IPC staffer Kelvin Gosnell on the Airfix Modellers’ Club page that ran between 1973 and 1981 in a mixture of Lion, Valiant, Battle and Buster comics.
Kelvin has never been interviewed before on the subject, as comics fans tend to ignore this long running weekly feature, and he gives the lowdown on just how much input Club President, legendary comedian Dick Emery, had to the page.
Jeremy previously covered the history of the Airfix Modellers’ Club page in Number 74 and its little remembered replacement, the Humbrol Modeller’s Club page, in Number 75.
Constant Scale Volume 21, Issue 82 from the Airfix Collectors’ Club, published in May 2022, runs to 32 A4 pages, with 12 in colour, and, rather than an image of Airfix box art on its cover as normal, instead it features Airfix box art maestro, and club president, Roy Cross with his grandchildren taken on his recent 98th birthday.
As well as a brief letter from Roy and Jeremy’s interview, issue 82 includes:
James’ Jottings: James Bridges muses on the historical accuracy of the original Dogfight Doubles, riveting detail, kit collections, Airfix’s old advertising character Chippy, and others
Hotspur Hiccups: David Welsh describes the trials and tribulations of building Airfix’s HMS Hotspur destroyer
Palitoy Era Catalogues: Jeremy Brook looks at the 1982 to 1985 Airfix catalogues
Airfix Model World Sales Figures: Jeremy Briggs reveals just how the pandemic has affected sales of the magazine using its official ABC circulation figures
Airfix Sales Then and Now: Jeremy Brook considers how Airfix sold, and continues to sell, its products to distributors and retailers
Telesales Leaflets: Andy Kirby shows off Airfix’s colour illustrated telephone sales brochures from 1979/1980
Gloster Meteor in Israeli Service: Keith Melville builds Airfix’s 1/48 Meteor F8 as an Israeli Air Force example
Opinion – Social Media Vs Pen & Paper: Jeremy Brook opines on the difference between well researched and written articles published in books and magazines in comparison to the vagaries of the memory of someone on YouTube you have never heard of before!
Plus, Jeremy Brook provides his ongoing selection of new kit reviews
• Constant Scale Issue 82 is only available from the Airfix Collectors’ Club. Back issues, both print and e-copies, are also available. More details about the club and how to join are available on its website: airfixcollectorsclub.co.uk
News, reviews, interviews and features for print and on-line: Spaceship Away (since October 2005), Bear Alley (since February 2007), downthetubes (since June 2007), and Eagle Times (since October 2008). Plus DC Thomson’s The Art Of Ian Kennedy, Titan’s Dan Dare and Johnny Red reprints, Ilex’s War Comics: A Graphic History and 500 Essential Graphic Novels, and Print Media’s The Iron Moon and Strip magazine.
Categories: British Comics, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Merchandise, Other Worlds
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