Battle of the Planets

Battle of the Planets is a comic book series, based on the television series of the same name. two series have been produced - the first was published by Gold Key Comics between 1979 and 1981; the second was published by Top Cow Productions between 2002 and 2003. Gold Key Comics Creation Sandy Frank had imported the anime series Science Ninja Team Gatchaman to America in 1978, retooling it as the syndicated Battle of the Planets with instant success. Wanting to exploit the licence, he linked up with Western Publishing, who put out a bi-monthly title via their Gold Key comics subsidiary. At the time former DC Comics artist Winslow Mortimer was on the Gold Key staff and was assigned to draw the book. Initially each issue contained of two stories of between 10-12 pages and were generally self-contained, formulaic affairs. The final two issues contained book-length 22-page stories. Publishing history The comic was hampered by distribution problems, as Western Publishing had recently been taken over by Mattel. The new owners wanted Gold Key to move away from single issue newstand sales and towards their successful bagged comics series, whereby three issues were packed in a single bag and sold on a non-returnable basis to chains that didn't deal with returnable monthly comics; these were issued under Western's Whitman brand. As a result the series suffered poor distribution, and was cancelled after 10 issues. Gold Key had planned storylines for at least another three issues, and art from the unpublished Battle of the Planets #11 has surfaced at auction.