*DC: More from the swinging 60’s and sizzling 70’s! This update: Action Comics, Best Of DC Blue Ribbon Digest (Binky), Blackhawk, Challengers Of The Unknown, Creeper, 1st Issue Special (Warlord), Green Lantern, Hawk & Dove, House Of Mystery (Dial H For Hero), House Of Secrets, Karate Kid, Metal Men, Mister Miracle (#4, 1st Big Barda), Phantom Stranger & Showcase (New Doom Patrol). Full details as always in our online catalogue.

*DC: A mix of DC #1 goodies from across the decades. From 1977, Black Lightning #1; from 1968, Steve Ditko’s wonderful Creeper #1; from 1978, DC Comics Presents #1 (featuring another Superman/Flash race); from 1971, Jack Kirby’s Forever People #1, with the first full appearance of Darkseid; from 1986, Legends #1 with the first appearance of Amanda Waller; and finally, from 1987, Suicide Squad #1, with Amanda Waller again and the first modern appearance of the team that bears that name. Full grading and pricing details in our catalogue.

*War: Just three items in this update, but they’re all goodies! First up, a VF cents copy of Captain Savage & His Leatherneck Raiders #1 at £24, Marvel’s second Silver Age war title after Sgt Fury, then Sgt Fury himself with the anniversary 100th issue (VF- cents £10) with Nick and the Howlers in the present day and finally, a rare copy of Charlton’s Fighting Marines #15 from 1955, distinguished by the art of Matt Baker (king of the 1950’s good girl artists) on the Canteen Kate strip within.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: This week’s Free Gift Farrago entry dates from 1975, the premiere issue of Vulcan’s national edition (following its Scottish ‘pilot’ run), this attractive FN copy, featuring the best of IPC/Fleetway’s adventure line-up – Trigan Empire, Kelly’s Eye, Robot Archie, the Spider, Mytek the Mighty and more – has the additional enhancement of the original free gift, a potato gun – assembled, but in the original packaging! Not commonplace in any condition, and the presence of the free gift brings the price to £45.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Borag Thunng, Earthlets! From 1977, the very first issue of 2000 AD, in which Tharg introduced Thrill-Power to a breathless audience, and changed the face of British comics! This GD+ copy has light tanning on the pages, and some weakness at the staples, but is a clean, sound copy with no tearing, major creasing, staining or other drawbacks. Offered at £40. To accompany it, we have a selection of new issues in between #’s 12-17, and the special 500th issue from 1986, in which many former stars and creators of the series revisited the science-fiction weekly’s pages for the occasion.

*Undergrounds: A remarkable influx of new undergounds from the classic era of 1970-1974, when the movement was just gaining ground. ‘Godfather’ of underground comics is, of course, Robert Crumb, and he’s heavily represented, with the all-Crumb titles Artistic Comics, Best Buy, Big Ass, Black & White, Despair, Mr. Natural, Motor City, People’s Comics (pictured), Snoid, XYZ, and Your Hytone Comix. Crumb is also a prominent contributor to Zap, and issues #0-8 are newly into our inventory, plus there’s Dirty Laundry, a joint production between Mr. & Mrs. Crumb! Other, non-Crumb titles added include All-New Underground Comix (Two-Fisted Zombies!), Bakersfield Kountry Komics (with an early Cherry Poptart appearance), Eternal, Girl Fight, Legion of Charlies, Merton of the Movement, Pudge Girl Blimp, Skull, Spasm by Jeff Jones, Star*Reach, Tales of the Armorkins, and Wimmen’s Comix. As popular as Crumb, though less prolific, was the artist Vaughn Bode, represented here by the first issues of Junkwaffel (pictured) and his Schizophrenia one-shot, co-starring his character the Cheech Wizard. And, just to prove the Yanks didn’t have it all their own way, we have issue #2 (pictured) and #5 of the UK’s infamous Nasty Tales, together with the Trials of Nasty Tales one-shot partially illustrated by Dave (Watchmen) Gibbons! Many of these are first or early printings, and given the vanishingly small initial print runs, constitute genuine rarities.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Tons of nice stuff in this update across a very wide range of titles. Take a deep breath and plunge in with us: Billy’s Boots Holiday Special 1992, Buddy 1981, Champ #1 (1984), Eagle (2nd series) #1 (1982), Hornet 1973, Hotspur 1956, Lion 1971, a solitary issue of the rare African title Powerman with art by Gibbons and Bolland, Rover 1953 & 1957, Shoot Summer Special 1972, Speed #1 (1980), Spike 1984, Starlord 1978 plus Summer Special and finally Wildcat #1 (with Free Gift) & #2 (1988). Never let it be said that we don’t offer a wide range!

*Alan Class Reprints: A new small selection in of Alan Class Reprints, all pre-decimal early issues, including Astounding Stories (#15), Blazing Trails #3 (Alan Class Private Collection Certificated copy), Creepy Worlds (#27), Secrets Of The Unknown (#43), Sinister Tales (#29), Suspense (#7 FN £20 & #80 Phantom cover). All in pretty nice shape, VG or better.

*Annuals: Lots of annuals new in this week. In TV/Film we have Bewitched, The Girl & Man From UNCLE, Lady Penelope (1968 & 1969) & Television Stars (1967?), in Boys’, Action from 1977 through to 1981 and in Girls’, Boyfriend, Bunty (1967, 1971 & 1972), Diana (1970 & 1971), Girl! Girl! Girl! (1970), Girls’ World (1968), June (1970), Look-In Fashion Model, Princess Tina (1969), Sally (1971), Tina (1968) & Top Pop Stars (1968). Bumper reading fun!

*Girls’ Comics: A handful of Judy issues new in, from the years 1963, 1964, 1968, 1969, 1970 & 1971. Cover stars begin with Judy herself before handing over to Bobby Dazzler, the only girl at a boys’ boarding school.

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:
*Charlton
*Dell
*Gold Key/Whitman
*Harvey
*IW/Super
and in our British section:
*Alan Class Reprints
*Rupert
As of the time of writing, these categories are bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*DC: Another modern title we’re making an exception for this week as we continue our catalogue expansion programme. From the Batman Adventures TV show to the pages of the DC Comics Universe, Harley Quinn, the Joker’s former inamorata, broke loose of “Mr. J.” and set off on her own solo series in 2000, under the skilled hands of writer Karl Kesel and artists Terry and Rachel Dodson. The gleeful combination of comedy, cheesecake and wanton mayhem enchanted readers, and we have most of the first 19 issues – all Dodson-illustrated – now in stock, nearly all high grade, with many achieving the unusual NM/M condition. Issue #1 is NM at £45. Harley’s chums Catwoman and Poison Ivy were frequent guest-stars, and even Batgirl makes a special surprise appearance – or does she? So join Harley and the Gotham Girls as they seek out romance, adventure, and exploding rubber chickens, in one of the most fondly-remembered series of this millennium so far!

*Marvel: In the 1980’s, the original X-Men – Angel, Beast, Cyclops, Iceman and Marvel Girl – had a surprising reunion as X-Factor (no relation to the later talent show!) in one of Marvel’s earliest attempts to cannibalise the success of their hot title, the ‘New’ X-Men. But among the rank & file bad guys they fought, one emerged with true ‘star potential’ – so much so, in fact, that he’s the antagonist of the upcoming X-Men film! We are talking, of course, of Apocalypse, the immortal blue-skinned demigod deemed the First Mutant, who made his first brief appearance in X-Factor’s 5th issue, and showed his first full-on fury in issue #6! Both of these debut issues are new in, issue #5 in NM at £25, and #6 in either VF at £30, or VF+ at £35; high demand is anticipated.

*Girls’ Comics: A Poptastic Update! The long-lived Valentine is new here this week, with many issues from its early years (1959-1963) and its delightful mix of comic and pop music content, typified nowhere better than the cover stories which portrayed a comic strip based on a hit song from the pop charts of the time. Highlights here include the Valentine issue (!) from February 1963 and the Holiday extra from 1963 with its Elvis cover, which seems little more than an excuse for gratuitous photo-shoots of pop and movie star hunks in swimwear, GD at £25.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: In the 1950’s Amalgamated Press provided two ‘companion’ Adventure Weekly titles, Comet & Sun, which offered a wide range of adventure & humour strips in a mix of full colour and black and white, at the unusual size of contemporary American comics rather than the larger traditional British size. Comet headlined Buffalo Bill and Sun Billy The Kid, although many other famous characters appeared: in Comet, Billy Bunter, Jet Ace Logan & the Lone Ranger, in Sun, Roy Rogers, Battler Britton and Tom Merry’s Terrible Three, to name but a few. Several dozen issues new to our listings: Comet from 1954, 1956, 1957 & 1958, Sun from 1957 & 1958.

*Western: Between 1950 and 1952, Avon published a bewildering range of Western one-shot titles, and we have all of them (bar one) now available. Titles such as Bad Men Of the West (Giant), Blazing Six-Guns, Butch Cassidy & The Wild Bunch, Chief Victorio’s Apache Massacre (Frazetta art), Custer’s Last Fight, King Of The Bad Men Of Deadwood, The Masked Bandit, Outlaws Of The Wild West (Giant), Pancho Villa, Teddy Roosevelt & His Rough Riders and many more feature many covers and much interior art by Everett Kintsler. Scarce in the US, these seldom turn up in the UK and represent a chance to grab a piece of Western comics’ history at affordable prices. Full details in our catalogue listing. Yee-Ha!

*DC: Two of DC’s longest running titles recharged this week, Action Comics & Adventure Comics from the early Silver Age. Action runs between #253 and #313, Adventure between #272 & #340. The most significant issue is Action #253, featuring the second appearance of Supergirl following her debut in the previous issue. This copy is GD at £50, with a worn spine and top edge and some ink markings on the logo and Comics Code Authority stamp (see scan); nevertheless, a reasonable copy of a less common issue.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: Fifteen new entries in this section for Super-Detective Picture Library, the highly collectible detective/mystery series from the 1950’s, numbers between #21 & #152. Recurring characters featured this update include The Saint, Lesley Shane, Rick Random, Blackshirt, Vic Terry & Rip Kirby, among others.

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 file in our British section:
*TV & Film Related Comics
As of the time of writing, this category is bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*Marvel: In 2006, Marvel launched what has become a recurringly popular franchise written by the creator of the Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman. We all laughed at the name, sniggering that ‘Marvel Zombies’ was a term applied to fanboys of a particularly obsessive nature, but Marvel had the last laugh with this unexpected hit! We’re expanding our catalogue once again to more modern times to bring you the complete 5 issue first series, all in 1st printings (and many subsequent printings with variant covers). See the zombie versions of your favourite Marvel characters in all their gruesome unwholesomeness!  All pricing, grading and edition details in our catalogue.

*DC: From the 1960’s, classic issues of Superboy (from #79 up) and Superman (from #150 up). A great period for Kal-El this, with the writers expanding and developing the rich Super-Mythos. Many early Legion of Super-Heroes appearances feature in the pages of these issues. Mostly solid mid-grade copies that present well, and nearly all cents copies. Full details as always in our catalogue.

*EC: A trinity of classic sci-fi issues from the fifties’ premier publisher. EC were themselves most proud of their science-fiction titles, and with justification – not only did they benefit from the A-List roster of artists common to the EC Bullpen – Williamson, Crandall, Wood, Kamen – but they also featured some of the most daring and innovative stories, genuinely challenging people’s perception of the medium. This update, we have two issues of Weird Science – #19, VG- at £77, with a stunningly grotesque cover image, and a #21 in Poor at £13. A spine split brings this latter copy down to a very affordable price. Continuing Weird Science’s numbering, the ‘merged’ title Weird Science-Fantasy #26 presents a special investigation of the Flying Saucer phenomenon, in Good at £35.

*Archie: From 1959, the first foray in Archie’s return to the superhero genre, after their earlier costumed characters had been seen off by a certain red-headed teen funster by the mid-1940’s. The Double Life of Private Strong was dated June 1959, and created by the respected team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. It detailed the adventures of a regular army private who became imbued with superhuman abilities, and took to a life of crimefighting as the Shield! (Why they didn’t actually *call* the comic “The Shield” is lost in the mists of time…) In addition to Private Strong’s debut and origin, this #1 issue also features the first appearance of Archie’s other super-hero, the Fly, predating the Adventures of the Fly #1 by a few months. Sadly, despite Simon & Kirby bringing their A-game to the series, Double Life of Private Strong only lasted two issues – rumour has it that Marvel objected to the patriotic hero’s resemblance to their Captain America, and threatened litigation against Archie unless they ceased and desisted – even though Marvel wasn’t publishing Cap (or any super-heroes) at the time! This copy is an attractive Fine+ pence stamped copy, with unmarred cover scene and off-white, flexible interior pages, offered for £75.