Picking up the pieces

The first option provided its share of one-off successes, though sales peaks only lasted as long as the particular fad itself. Links with other media had always existed (even Ally Sloper's Half Holiday had influenced, and been influenced by, music hall and early movies) and we have seen in chapters 1-5 how important this cultural overspill had been in comics' development. But in the post-1970 period, with the decline in sales generally, this idea of cross-fertilisation became perceived as something of a life-raft - a case of 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'. The comics companies could no longer take risks, and they argued that only by cashing in on already recognizable characters could profits be made.
The movie industry was the most obvious source for exploitation, and virtually every new movie released for a children's or teen audience had its comic counterpart. British companies were slow to move at first: perhaps the most interesting example of a film tie-in was House of Hammer (1976, Top Sellers/Quality), which adapted old Hammer horror movies (Dracula, The Mummy, etc) into strip form. However, the pace speeded up with the founding of Marvel UK, a subsidiary of the American giant, in 1982. The company had a brief to reprint . American material (thus avoiding freight costs), and to generate titles of its own, and from the start movie adaptations were high on the agenda. The hits were most notably Star Wars (1982), which expanded the plotlines of the original films, and Indiana Jones (1984). These were joined in the 1990s by a series of titles published by Dark Horse UK, another British subsidiary of an American company, which included Aliens (1991), Terminator (1991) and Jurassic Park (1993).