It’s time to pre-order your copy of the Monster Fun Halloween Spooktacular, from your local comic shop, ahead of its release in early October by Rebellion!

With a stand out cover by Tom Paterson, Monster Fun will be delivering howls of laughter this Halloween.
One of hundreds of comic properties now owned by Rebellion, Monster Fun was a weekly British comic strip magazine for children aged seven to twelve. Published by IPC Media, it ran for 73 issues in 1975–1976, then merging with Buster.
Focused on humorous monster strips and stories, the magazine is perhaps best known for “The Bad Time Bedtime Books” minicomic inserts, created by Leo Baxendale, but also drawn by artists that include Terry Bave, Mike Brown. and Jack Clayton.
Britain’s kookiest, legendary anthology returns from the great beyond with plenty of brand new, HELL-arious comic strips, most of them originally appearing in Monster Fun, but some from other titles.
These include “Draculass”,“Frankie Stein” (who was also the fictional editor of Monster Fun), “Gah!” (a new strip, drawn by Tom Paterson, which looks a veritable treat!),“Gums”, “Hell’s Angel” (by Chris Garbutt), “Hire A Horror” (by Matt Baxter), “Kid Kong”, “Sweeny Toddler” (by Tom Paterson), “Tokoloshe” (art by Juni Ba, “Teddy Scare” “Wiz War” from Pow! (by Kek-W and Lew Stringer) – a diabolical host of new frights!





We’re also being treated to some action adventure, in the form of one of Britain’s best loved superheroes, “The Leopard from Lime Street”, last seen in The Vigilant.
There was once a time when British comics happily mixed action adventure and humour comics, so I’m glad to see this happening in this new Special, too. Keith Richardson, the senior Graphic Novels Editor at Rebellion, and the creator in charge of this project, makes no secret of his love of the character, and of course Rebellion have already put out two excellent collections of the original strip.
“I think that ‘The Leopard from Lime’ street cemented my love of the superhero genre and had much more of an impact on me than any of the American heroes,” Keith told Broken Frontier earlier this year.
“It was far more relatable, seeing this guy running across semi-detached rooftops instead of swinging around New York skyscrapers.”
The impact of the COVID Pandemic on distribution of comics and magazines last year had a knock on into 2021, resulting in far fewer Specials from Rebellion, but the line up revealed so far for this Monster Fun Halloween Spectacular looks great, ushering in the witching season in spooktacular fashion!
• The Monster Fun Halloween Spectacular will be available from newsagents and comic shops on 6th October 2021, Diamond Preview code JUL211880 – and the Treasury of British Comics web store
An earlier version of this story indicated this Special would be released on 22nd September – that date has now changed to 6th October
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The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies” for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, Classic British Comics, Comic Previews, Comics, downthetubes News