*IW/Super: We continue with our series of updates from that most esoteric publisher IW/Super. IW Publications was a short-lived comic book publisher in the late 1950s and early 1960s, named for the company’s owner Israel Waldman. Comics were published under both the IW and Super imprints and were notable for publishing unauthorised Golden Age reprints of other company’s properties. Usually these companies were out of business, but not always. Basically, it seemed to be whatever they could get their hands on that determined the esoteric nature of their output. Thus you get super-heroes, war, romance, western, funny animals, crime, horror, science fiction and just about every genre within their pages. Full details of what was reprinted in what are listed in our website catalogue. NB usually with newly-drawn covers. Over the next few months, we’ll be presenting a series of issues from this publisher; this week, both issues of Space Detective, #1 and #8 (as we always say, IW’s numbering system was esoteric, to put it mildly). Unusually, both issues feature reprints of original Space Detective covers from 1951 by Wally Wood and Joe Orlando. #1 actually has content (mostly by those same artistic luminaries) from the original series (and the cover to #2); #8 has the cover from #1, but peculiarly, the content from Famous Funnies #191, featuring a different Space Detective. Got that?
PICTURED: SPACE DETECTIVE
#1 GD £25 Reprints cover and content from Space Detective #2 (Avon 1951). Okay copy with short upper spine split, small label mark by logo and book shop stamp with handwritten price. SOLD
#8 VG £60 Reprints cover: Space Detective #1 (Avon 1951); content: Famous Funnies #191 (Eastern Color 1950). Nice enough copy with mild wear, the worst being a short crease across bottom right corner which just breaks colour.