This is a Tyne Tees Television news report and interview by Anne Avery with Marvel comic book writer and publisher Stan Lee on the launch of 'Captain Britain'. This report was transmitted 19th October 1976. The report opens with Anne Avery standing in an unknown regional newsagents shop, probably in Newcastle, describing how familiar comic books such as ‘The Dandy’ and ‘The Beezer’ will soon be joined on the shelves by characters such as the ‘Super Spider-Man, Hulk, The Avengers...

This is a Tyne Tees Television news report and interview by Anne Avery with Marvel comic book writer and publisher Stan Lee on the launch of 'Captain Britain'. This report was transmitted 19th October 1976. The report opens with Anne Avery standing in an unknown regional newsagents shop, probably in Newcastle, describing how familiar comic books such as ‘The Dandy’ and ‘The Beezer’ will soon be joined on the shelves by characters such as the ‘Super Spider-Man, Hulk, The Avengers and The Titans’.  These new comic books, unsurprisingly, come from America and try to emulate television cartoons. A new publication, a copy of which she holds up for the camera, is to be launched in the UK with its first adventure taking place in the Cheviot Hills; ‘Captain Britain’. Standing nearby is Stan Lee, the creator of many famous Marvel characters, who responds to the reporters comments that these new comic books are all full of ‘horror and violence'. He disagrees and says that these new magazines play up fantasy, excitement and science fiction which are needed to influence younger readers today.   Stan talks about the traditional British comic books such as ‘The Beano’ and ‘The Dandy’ which he says were available in the States years ago, but it is the rise of the superhero adventure fifteen years previously which he thinks will be just as popular in Britain as they are in America. He doesn’t think there is a different type of readership, just that those in America are a few years ahead. Around the store boys and girls flick through various comic books. Stan comments that he sees the traditional British comic books being for younger children. His audience are a little older, his median age is between 15 and 25 as much as between 5 and 15. The report ends with Stan being asked about his storylines. He smiles and says there really is only one ‘a bad guy who wants to do something destructive, and a good guy who wants to stop him’.