There were a plethora of strips based on pop groups over the years, and they ranged from biographical (Abba) to adventure type stories (Bucks Fizz) to just plain banal (5 Star).

'Slik' were not the first musical artist to appear in a Look-in strip, that honour belongs to David Cassidy, but they were the first to have a biographical type strip.

Called 'Slik Stories' it told of the life and rise to fame of all the members of, and the band, Slik.

Slik were a four piece from Scotland, comprising, Midge Ure (lead vocals and guitar), Jim McGinlay (lead guitar), Billy McIssac (Keyboards) and Kenny Hyslop (Drums).  Although they rode on the back of the success of the glam rock phenomenon, they never took the formulaic route of most of the other glam artists, with the long hair, glitter and platforms, instead they chose to try an American style approach, sporting baseball shirts and 50's inspired haircuts.

After an initial flop with the single, 'The Kid's A Punk', they followed up with the hugely successful 'Forever & Ever', which went to No.1.

However success was short lived when 'Requiem' the next single only reached No.24.  It was clear that Slik weren't going to be able to sustain the initial success they had.

When their debut album flopped, Slik split soon after, with only Midge going on to greater success, initially having short spells with Thin Lizzy and Rich Kids, before joining Ultravox as lead singer and having a string of hit singles.  These days he is a successful solo artist, but has recently reunited with Ultravox for a tour of the UK.

'Slik Stories' was very enjoyable, it was also unique in that it mixed photos within the strip, with speech bubbles on them as if they really were part of the strip.  I think this technique was used in other publications, and photo stories were a staple of course in teen mags.

Although I wasn't keen on the pop star strips generally, I preferred this approach, and found the stories about their early beginnings interesting, good artwork, and the quirky use of the photo/strip mix (below left) was good too, but I would much rather have had another TV series strip.  It was a good plan to pick up on the female readership though.

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