Abba were possibly the biggest band of the 70's, save maybe Bay City Rollers.  by 1977 they were just about the hugest thing on the planet, and a plethora of merchandise was available, Look-in got in on the act, having a colour centrespread it seemed, very nearly on a weekly basis!  Certainly by 1980, they were the most appeared music artist in Look-in's pages.

Abba were Annifrid (Lyngstad), Benny (Andersson), Bjorn (Ulvaeus) and Agnetha (Faltskog), Their Christian names providing an acronym by which they would derive their name.

Abba won the Eurovision song contest (at their second attempt) for Sweden in 1974 with 'Waterloo', which shot to number one and began a huge run of hits, such as 'Knowing Me, Knowing You', 'Take a Chance on Me' and the evergreen 'Dancing Queen'.  By 77' they were household names and even had a movie released called 'ABBA-The Movie', which spawned almost as much merchandise as Star Wars!

In 1980 the band had their last number one, 'Super Trouper' and after this there was a downward decline in their sales, with punk and new wave becoming more popular.  Although they have never officially split, they disappeared of the scene, and have never come close to returning and doing something new, despite their popularity increasing rapidly again in recent years, and a hugely successful musical 'Mamma Mia!', based on their songs.

Also in 1977, They also became the third music artist to become a Look-in strip as Abba Exclusive Official began running on 22nd October.  The strip, ran in a similar vein to Slik Stories, being a biographical look at Abba's early days, and their rise to superstardom.

The strip was adapted by Angus, and was intended to be the group telling their story.  It was arranged for Angus and then editor Colin Shelborn to meet with the group, to discuss the strip and draft out some rough scripting, but due to unforeseen circumstances, they only met manager Stig Andersson.  However, Stig was able to give them most of the information they needed, and this led to the strip being seemingly 'narrated' in the most part by Stig.

The artwork was done by Arthur Ranson, and was interspersed in a similar manner to the Slik strip, with photos.  Despite really good artistry by Arthur I didn't find this one as enjoyable as Slik.

 6.5