*DC: While we’ve been listing all the wonderful Batman and related titles in our Batmania Max event these past few months, a considerable number of Bat-items have popped up from other sources, and in this penultimate visit to Batmania Max, we’re adding them all to our listings. Included are: Batman #171 (1st Silver Age Riddler), the Anniversary issues Batman #200 & #300, Batman #227 with the classic ‘Demon Of Gothos Mansion’ cover, Batman Annuals, several issues of Batman Family, Brave & Bold #200 with the 1st Outsiders and Katana, DC Special Series #15 (Batman Spectacular), a variety of Detective Comics including #500 and much more. Next week, we pay one last visit to Batmania Max, and… we’re saving the best till last!

*Marvel: The 1970’s Marvel Comics series of Star Wars isn’t commonplace in the UK, most of the first 50+ issues having been completely non-distributed in Britain, and the rest having only low circulation here in the Old Country. After a prolonged dry spell of some years when we only had a handful of issues in stock, we recently acquired a complete run, which did brisk business for us – and now, in the best tradition of London Buses, here’s another long run of them! Not quite complete this time, but a very nice selection of issues #1-81, plus the first two Annuals, an original owner collection in mostly outstanding grades, including many VF/NM and several NM. Highlights include, of course, the debut issue, VF+ at £125, and issue #42, introducing the bounty hunter Boba Fett, VF+ at £60. #1 and #42 are depicted here; for grade and price details on the other issues, check our online catalogue. SORRY, #1 & #42 NOW SOLD

*Marvel: A one-off addition to our third party graded stock with a copy of Silver Surfer #18, assessed by PGX at 7.5 (VF-) and priced at £45. As its the final issue in the series, the only one to feature art by the Surfer’s co-creator Jack Kirby and guest stars the Inhumans, there’s a whole lot of bang for your buck with this one!

*Western: Howdy, cowpokes! Our last selection of new stock for Mighty Marvel’s Rawhide Kid proved so popular, that we’re doing it again, with more than thirty new issues to our listings! Opening with #33, a Jack Kirby back-up story framed by two Jack Davis Rawhide tales, we then skip to the range #65 to #112, with plenty of western action from that brother act of Lee & Lieber! The earliest issue aside, these are mostly nice grade issues, averaging Fine or better, with many in the FN/VF to VF range. Our Rawhide Kid stock has also been completely updated, with sold items deleted, so at this moment you can order with confidence – but given the popularity of previous Marvel western updates, y’all had better be quick on the draw!

*Alan Class Reprints: Continuing our new listings for the Alan Class archive copies of his publications, we have our second wave of Creepy Worlds, close to 50 issues between #41 and #115. Our ‘Marvellous Alan Class’ feature spotlights the issues of AC series in which early reprintings – frequently the first reprintings – of Marvel stories occurred, and this selection offers us early tales of Ant-Man/Giant-Man and the Wasp from Tales to Astonish, the Human Torch and Doctor Strange from Strange Tales, Iron Man from Tales of Suspense, and Spider-Man and Daredevil from their own series! However, even the non-Marvel AC issues offer a splendidly cornucopia of miscellany, as any given issue is likely to feature stories of Captain Atom, the Fy and Fly-Girl, THUNDER Agents, the Jaguar, Pre-Hero Marvel thrillers by Kirby and Ditko, vintage 1950’s suspense…. or none of the above! This selection of Alan’s own file copies runs the gamut, grade-wise, from Poor to Fine/VF, and each comes with a signed certificate of authenticity from Alan Class himself. Selections from the ‘Marvellous Alan Class’ range depicted are #43 FN/VF £40. #64 FN/VF £35, #68 FN/VF £45 (with the original, uncorrected cover art not used on the American printing!), #69 FN/VF £40 and #112 FN £30. For details of grade and price on the rest, please see our online catalogue listing.

*Humour Comics: Dandy comics from 1973 to 1975 form our latest Humour update. Included are all three Christmas issues, some New Year, Easter and April Fool issues and even a very unusual promo flyer for the short-lived comic Buzz (from 1973).

*Girls’ Comics: Several dozen issues of Girl, the distaff version of Eagle, added to our listings for the years 1957-59. Cover featuring during this period Wendy and Jinx and then Susan of St. Brides. These additions are mostly low grade affordable copies.

*Girls’ Picture Libraries: In the final distaff episode of our CSD: Putney (Cowboys, Schoolgirls and Detectives) event, we turn our attention to Princess Picture Library. This digest-sized spin-off from Princess Magazine (as the weekly comic liked to style itself) featured the two most popular comic-strip stars from that title in alternating adventures. For the first 50-something issues, the spotlight was held by either Sue Day, of the ‘Happy Days’ family, or Sally of the Ballet, but eventually, other features appeared, as Alona, Tilly Tuffin, and Julie’s eccentric inventor Uncle Lionel jumped in to the mix. We have around 60 issues new in, mostly in attractive high grades (as is characteristic of the CSD collection), ranging from #2 through to the final issue, #120, after which the series merged with June & School Friend PL from 366. Enthusiasts should note that the copies graded at VF are among the nicest we’ve ever seen of any picture libraries, and certainly as nice as anyone could want for a prestigious high-grade collection. Illustrated are #2 VF £30, #5 VF £30, #100 VF £20, and #120 VF £30; for details of other issue grades and prices, check our online catalogue.

We’ve become conscious that many of you who keep a regular eye on our website and/or get our Newsletter may not always browse through our catalogue and indeed may miss a gem or two listed there which are not new in. As our catalogue is now huge, now and again, we’ll use this ‘What’s Old’ feature to highlight some outstanding items from our existing stock that even the most eagle-eyed panelologist may have not spotted. Kicking off this week with arguably the most in-demand comic of the 21st Century, Walking Dead #1. Our copy is a sparkling NM (9.4 equivalent) and priced at £1000. This represents a rare chance to grab an unslabbed investment grade copy, so act now before the, um, zombie apocalypse… SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*DC: The “Hot New Character” of 1960, Hal Jordan, Green Lantern, made his debut in Showcase and proved so popular that he was awarded the twin accolades of membership in the prestigious Justice League of America, and his own ongoing series! This debut issue dated July-August 1960, featured the first appearance of GL’s intergalactic mentors, the Guardians of the Universe, who previously had been operating ‘behind the scenes’. This specific copy has had its cover removed at some point, but the removal has been done neatly & without undue violence. The staples are still firmly attached, and while there is inevitably some wear to the spine, and a tiny tear at the top spine edge, the ‘guts’ are sound, clean, and the general condition may be estimated as a GD- equivalent. At £50, this is a relatively cheap opportunity to acquire a key issue of one of DC’s major players.

*Marvel: Flush with success at the dawn of the Marvel Universe, Stan Lee had an epiphany: if Iron Man, Thor and company were successful on their own – how much better would they be together? Thus was born the Avengers, in which Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, Ant-Man and the Wasp were brought together by the fiendish machinations of Loki and an heroic dynasty began which continues to this day! The Avengers has lasted myriad issues, with a plethora of spin-offs, and a veritable regiment of members (not to mention an extremely lucrative movie franchise), but this is the comic in which it all began! This copy is in Fair condition, pence-printed. Generally structurally sound, it does have tape on the interior spine, and significant colour touches around the spine area, but the interior pages are unmarred. £400 for this piece of comics history.

*Marvel: Following the success of Master of Kung Fu, Marvel looked around for another martial-arts themed series, and struck paydirt with Iron Fist, who made his debut in the fifteenth issue of the tryout mag Marvel Premiere. This copy of Danny Rand’s adventure to K’Un-L’Un is in generally excellent condition, an apparent FN/VF with tight staples and edges, and clean white interiors. The Marvel Value Stamp has been neatly cut out, but does not affect story pages. With the imminent debut of Iron Fist’s Netflix TV show (and his appearance in the Defenders spin-off), interest in the character has never been higher, so here’s a chance to grab his first-ever appearance at the relatively affordable price of £60. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Modern Reprints: A scattershot of classic compilations across a variety of publishers in this popular section. From DC, the full-colour paperback sequential reprinting of the acclaimed O’Neil/Sekowsky ‘New’ Wonder Woman. From Marvel, the first softcover Marvel Masterworks volume of the Rawhide Kid, reprinting his earliest Lee/Kirby adventures. And our ‘Miscellaneous’ update includes such treats as the hardcover Phantom Lady compilations, collecting the entire Quality/Fox/Ajax series most famously illustrated by Matt Baker; Nelvana of the Northern Lights, a complete anthology of the 1940’s Canadian heroine from Triumph Comics; Dark Horse’s hardcover reprint of Richard Hughes & Ogden Whitney’s Herbie and Checker Book’s paperback collection of the first eight issues of Gold Key’s Star Trek comics.

*Magazines/Books About Vintage US Comics: Among the least common mags about US comics are the booklets produced in association with comics conventions. Usually limited to print runs of between a few hundred and at most a couple of thousand, they contain a plethora of features, articles, and most of all artwork from a multitude of comics creators, the vast majority of which has never been seen since the original publication. We’ve been lucky enough to obtain a selection from Britain’s leading event, the United Kingdom Comic Art Convention (and its spin-off, the Glasgow Comic Art Convention), handsome A4 booklets featuring Ian Gibson, Jamie Hewlett, John Bolton, Simon Bisley, Dave Gibbons, Frank Quitely…and that’s just a selection of the cover artists! Plus, the Tenth Anniversary Edition (1977) of Phil Sueling’s Phillycon (located in our listings under Comic Art Convention), a 100+ squarebound extravaganza featuring guest of honour Berni Wrightson, and a plethora of illustrations from a few other people – Jack Kirby, John Buscema, Trina, Dave Cockrum, John Severin, Gray Morrow, Neal Adams, Stan Goldberg, John Romita (Sr. & Jr.), Gil Kane, Nick Cardy, John Buscema, Frank Brunner, and many other legendary talents.

*Alan Class Reprints: Another split-screen effort for our ongoing Alan Class ‘events’: in our ‘Redux’ programme, we revisit one of Alan’s ‘Big Six’ titles, Creepy Worlds, for a selection of issues from #1 through to #39, around 30 issues new to our listings. These are Alan’s own file copies from his reference collection, each released with a signed certificate of authenticity from Alan Class, the publisher, himself. And in our ‘Marvellous Alan Class Reprints’ feature, we highlight those hotly-pursued issues which feature early cover-featured reprints – in many cases, the first reprint – of stories from the Marvel Universe. In this selection the keys are issues #32-38, which reprint the earliest issues of the Fantastic Four from #1 – though not quite in sequential order: issues #32-38 reprint, respectively, FF #1, #2, #4, #3, #5, #6, and #8. Grades on these range from Poor on the earliest numbers including #1, through to Fine or better on many of the later issues. In addition to the FF reprint sequence, highlights include many seldom-seen Ditko and Kirby mystery tales from the Pre-Hero Marvel years. Scans of issues #32 (PR £15), #33 (FN £50), #34 (VG/FN £40), #36 (VG £38), #37 (FN £40) and #38 (FN/VF £40) are reproduced here (some are also available in lower graded, cheaper copies) – for all grade and price details, see our website catalogue!

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: A further update to our stocks of classic 1950’s Eagles, mostly FA/GD affordable copies, running from Volume 8 through to Volume 11.

*Humour Comics: A sorely-needed update to our Dandy section, adding nearly all issues from 1971 and 1972, years which were previously missing. New Year, April Fool and Christmas issues all make an appearance together with a selection of promotional flyers, while Korky the cat continues his run-ins with mice, bullies and a zoo-ful of animals. Most in GD or VG grade.

On a regular cycle, we sweep through our entire stock to delete sold items and keep our listing as up to date as possible. We’ve just finished deleting sold items from the following files in our American section:
*EC
*Modern Reprints
*Vintage Magazine-Sized Comics
As of the time of writing, these categories are bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*DC: As regular readers will know, from time to time, vintage aficionados though we are, we do include some relatively more modern comics in our catalogue – if we deem them worthy! One such series is 1980’s New Teen Titans, in which Marv Wolfman and George Perez took a faded Sixties franchise and revitalised it into DC’s sales powerhouse of the decade. Introducing three brand-new characters – Cyborg, Raven and Starfire – Wolfman & Perez hewed very closely to the X-Men model of angst-ridden young heroes, and scored big points not only with DC’s readers; NTT became the DC Comic even Marvel fans bought! While we have had key issues listed before, the sheer quality of the title has caused us to expand our net to include the first 20 issues, including the series’ pilot in DC Comics Presents #26, the premiere issue of the new series and issue #2, which introduced Deathstroke the Terminator, who himself later became a breakout star villain. This high-grade consecutive run of the first twenty issues, around half of them (including the early keys) cents copies, may be found under ‘Teen Titans, New’ in our catalogue listing. Pictured below: DC Comics Presents #26 VF+ £50, New Teen Titans #1 FN/VF £30, #2 VF/NM £100. SORRY, ALL THREE PICTURED ITEMS NOW SOLD

*DC: The venerable World’s Finest Comics title originally featured Superman and Batman in separate stories, but page shrinkage in the 1950’s meant that the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader were teamed-up, issue after issue, in stories that required quite a bit of ingenuity to challenge the heroes’ very different skill sets. This selection ranges from the late 1960’s through to the mid-1970’s (#174 to #242), and offers, among others, the rather lovely #176 (an unusual four-way team-up involving Batgirl and Supergirl, illustrated by Neal Adams), the experimental period where Superman dumped Batman and started teaming up with other heroes, from #198 on – guests at this time included Flash, Wonder Woman, Teen Titans, Dr. Fate and more – and the 100-Page era of the early ’70s, plus, from #215 on, the horror and disappointment that was… The Super-Sons! As is common with many of our larger recent DC updates, these are almost exclusively cents copies, with no UK pence price or overprint, and the grade skews high – a few VG’s, but many in FN/VF or better.

*Marvel: For this week’s selection in our Spider-Mania event, we turn to Amazing Spider-Man #151-200, with selections from the long, arid period of non-distribution. This update features issues previously unrepresented in our inventory, and includes clashes with classic villains Kingpin, Shocker and Green Goblin, as well as guest-appearances by Nova, Nightcrawler, and some of the Punisher’s earliest recorded gigs! The most significant item in this run, however – even eclipsing the double-thick special Anniversary #200 – is #194, with the first appearance of the larcenous lady who would become Spidey’s most beloved enemy – the Black Cat! Issue #194 is FN+ at £40; for grade and price details of the others, see our online catalogue. SORRY, SPIDEY #194 HAS NOW SOLD 

*Marvel: Strange Tales made for strange bedfellows from the August 1965 dated #135, as the supernatural adventures of Doctor Strange were joined by the high-tech, James-Bond inspired action thriller, Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD! Fury, the star of the WW II-era ‘Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos’, had been introduced to the modern Marvel Age as a CIA agent in Fantastic Four, and with this series, he was promoted to director of a new international agency, SHIELD (Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage Law-enforcement Division). By Lee and Kirby, this new series shamelessly exploited the super-spy craze, but retained its roots firmly in the Marvel Universe, as Nick and his team dealt with extra-terrestrial threats and rival agencies such as AIM and HYDRA, who were vying for domination of Earth! SHIELD’s premiere issue, #135, is a VG/FN pence copy at £60; we also have several of the follow-up issues, ranging from #137-147, averaging VG to FN, featuring additional high-octane excitement – and let us not forget the Lee/Ditko (Lee/Everett in that last issue) Doctor Strange suspense stories!

*Modern Reprints: A pot pourri of classic DC reprints in this popular category. Starting with Millenium Editions, we have Detective Comics #1, #27 (1st Batman, duh!), #38 (1st Robin) & Showcase #22 (1st Silver Age Green Lantern); Annuals that never quite were: Justice League of America 100 Page Super Spectacular and Wonder Woman; and promotional reprints from Toys R Us: Batman #121 (1st Mr Freeze), Detective Comics #38 & #359 (1st Batgirl) and from Pizza Hut Batman #122. Your chance to grab some classic material for usually just a few pounds each!  

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: Well, a bit of colour; the publishers of this series of digest-sized European reprints cheaped out by only having the odd page in full-colour rather than black & white, but that alone made them stand out in those days! Top Three, so called because of its habit of running three separate and distinct stories in each issue, covered an astonishing variety of subject matter in its 100+ run: adventure, jungle, historical, detective thriller, and many more, with attractive painted covers luring in the readers. This selection of new issues (around 30 in all) fills in much of the early run, ranging from 1961’s #2 to 1964’s #40, averaging Fine or better, with many VFs. We’re finally coming towards the end of our massive CSD: Putney collection of picture libraries, with just a few weeks more to go!

*Girls’ Comics: The distaff counterpart to Eagle went through many changes in its run, but few as drastic as the last couple of years of its existence, 1963 and 1964. Girl shrank down to a smaller magazine size from its traditional half-broadsheet, and started running photo-covers, at first mild ‘battle of the sexes’ jokes, then later on, full-page pin-up covers as the magazine pandered shamelessly to the new pop scene of the time. In terms of comic strips, Belle and Mamie – formerly, famously, of the Ballet School – got a job as half of the ‘Telegang’, bright young things who toured the world making documentaries and having adventures. Schoolgirls ‘Wendy and Jinx’ were still active, as was ‘Lettice’, and there was also the odd (very odd) dash of genteel sci-fi, the strangest example of which ran from V12 #51 to V13 #13, ‘The Day of the Triffids’, adapting the famous novel, but replacing the adult heroine with two school-age girls. Needless to say, things didn’t pan out quite the way John Wyndham originally wrote them! Famous pop-persons frequently featured include the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Cilla Black, while many others – Eden Kane? Johnny Justice? Heinz? – have been lost in the mists of time. (Tell you what, though: that Shane Fenton’s a dead ringer for Alvin Stardust. Eerie resemblance…) The end seemed nigh when, in the latter days of ’64, Princess-alumni like Sue Day and Uncle Lionel started poking their faces in, and sure enough, with V13 #40, 3rd October 1964, (pictured below right) it was the final issue, as Girl slunk off ingloriously to be incorporated into Princess. This selection of around 100 issues new in (occasional duplicates) varies from Fair to Fine, but predominantly hits a solid VG grade throughout.