*Marvel: After a well-received run in Marvel Premiere, the Sorceror Supreme, Doctor Strange, won back his own series, commencing with this #1 issue from 1974. His run in Marvel Premiere had been characterised by some of the most inventive and daring storytelling and artwork seen in comics at that time, and the quality continued in #1, written by Steve Englehart and featuring the superlative illustrations of Frank Brunner. This particular issue #1 is a serendipitous instance of the quality of the content matching the quality of the copy, as it’s a gorgeous NM- specimen cents copy at £150. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*DC: Two early appearances of DC’s sidekick super-team. In Brave & Bold #54, the ‘tryout’ title premiered a team-up of Robin, Aqualad and Kid Flash, sans their adult mentors, against the sinister menace of Mister Twister. Sales spiked, and the team, christened the Teen Titans and with the welcome addition of Wonder Girl, won further auditions in B&B and Showcase, before graduating to their own series, and never looking back, remaining (with various line-ups) an integral part of the DC Universe to the present day. Our Brave & Bold #54 is an attractive VG+ (cents copy at £65), with only mid-spine weakness and to tiny chips out of lower cover corners precluding a grade of Fine or better; the Teen Titans #1 is a solid GD+ (cents copy at £30), with a narrow strip/chip off the bottom right cover being the only significant defect.

*Gold Key/Whitman: Three oddball titles from Gold Key this update: the Owl, a 1967 revival of a Golden Age character, was one of myriad attempts to cash in on the Batman TV series’ popularity, with the shapely Owl Girl standing in for Robin. Sadly, readers couldn’t give a hoot, and the series stalled with issue #2. Another trend-jumper was Tiger Girl, 1968’s mix of the superhero and superspy crazes, as circus aerialist Lily Taylor borrows the circus tiger (as you do) and nips out to battle the ranks of I.N.F.A.M.Y. on behalf of W.A.A.V. (want to decipher the initials? Buy the comic – there was only one issue!) Finally, a direct rival of the man from U.N.C.L.E. in the form of Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp! Based on a TV show which starred live-action chimpanzees, our simian hero and his glamorous cohort Mata Hairi defy the Criminal Headquarters for Underworld Master Plan, or C.H.U.M.P.! 1971’s Issue #1 new in.

*Archie: From the early 1960’s, in the Archie Adventure series, updates to their two most famous super-heroes, the Fly and the Jaguar. With accomplished art by John Rosenberger, both series had a look and feel very much like contemporary DC and were great entertainment. Later, after the cancellation of the Jaguar, Fly became Fly-Man, Archie Adventure became Mighty Comics Group and the look was shamelessly Marvel, with vastly inferior creators, which gave it an entertainment value of a very different kind! Both ‘looks’ new in, including a Jaguar #1 in GD/VG at £18.25.

*Marvel: A title new to our Marvel listings is the series based on the movie Logan’s Run (you remember the one, where everyone got killed off when they reached the age of 30?). We have the complete short-lived series #1-7, inc #6 which rather bizarrely sports a Thanos story in the back. It’s a good job they don’t apply that over-30 rule to comic shop proprietors (or many of our customers!)

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: Eight new issues in of Thriller Picture Library from the 1950’s, between #53 & #126, featuring Robin Hood, Rob Roy and 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 files in our American/British section:
*Mad & Other Parody
*Undergrounds
and in our British section:
*Magazines/Books About Vintage UK Comics
As of the time of writing, these categories are bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*DC: A one week event as Batmania returns to our listings! More than 50 new Silver/Bronze issues of the Caped Crusader’s own series new in, ranging from #142 through to #327, including many appearances by classic villains (Joker, Penguin, Catwoman, Two-Face) and some that are, well, less classic (The Eraser, Death-Man, the Ten-Eyed Man, and Gaggy!). High points include #181, the first appearance of the lovely-but-lethal Poison Ivy, and #227’s “Demon of Gothos Mansion”, with a stunning Neal Adams cover (though stunning Adams covers were not in short supply around the early 1970’s, this tops the lot). Not content with that, we have most of the first nine issues of Batman Family, the oddball series which teamed Batgirl and Robin surprisingly effectively. Issues #6, #8 & #9 of Batman Family feature the earliest appearances of Duela Dent, the Joker’s Daughter.  Also, Brave & Bold featured Batman in tandem with other DC super-stars, and our new B & B stock offers several of the harder-to-find 100-page issues, as well as low-UK-distribution numbers #111, #129 and #130, which co-star the Joker. And finally, Detective Comics, the series which launched Batman’s career, is topped up with a dozen or so issues from the ‘Dark Knight’ early 1970’s, as well as the silver age classic “Negative Batman” from issue #284. Our copy of Batman #181 is VG-, sound with light wear, and while the centrefold poster is present, there are some light pencil lines around the Robin figure. This cents copy, with no UK price mark or overstamp, is offered at £60.

*Marvel UK: Evoking every American’s favourite clichés about the UK, it’s Captain Britain! The entire 39-issue run of the Defender of Albion’s weekly series is back in stock, with linguistic patterns and cultural misfires that anticipated the “Austin Powers”  movies by decades! By Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe (later augmented by Fred Kida and Pablo Marcos – it just keeps getting better and better, doesn’t it?), this series received reviews that could charitably have been described as ‘mixed’, but is significant for the character’s later prominence in the Marvel Universe under more gifted hands – Jamie Delano, Alan Davis, and Alan Moore, to name just three pivotal contributors. But here, for better or worse, is where it all started – so it’s ‘istorically significant, innit? Most unusually, issue #8 of the series has spiralled in price over the last few years, as it featured the first appearance of our hero’s sister Betsy Braddock, who would later turn Japanese and join the X-Men. As you do. Our VF copy is £40.

*Girls’ Comics: New in, the first issue of this short-lived weekly which got absorbed into Jinty in only a few months. Lindy is one of the less-commonly seen Fleetway girls’ weeklies, with not only a lower print run, but a high incidence of mutilated and incomplete second-hand copies, as it featured a number of pop photos which are frequently clipped or pulled out. Featuring ‘Pavement Patsy’, ‘The House of Fear’, ‘Sophie’s Secret Squeezy’ (our heroine has adventures when she inhales from a washing-up liquid bottle – nowadays, there’s rehab for that…), ‘Hard Days For Hilda’ and more, this debut issue is complete with centrefold of the Bay City Rollers – you have been warned – and has the original free gift, a heart-charm bracelet! In Fine, with a VF Free Gift, at £50.

*Marvel: A quartet of classics from Marvel’s First Family: first, #16, guest-starring the Astonishing Ant-Man versus the menacing “Micro-World of Doctor Doom!”; issue #26, the conclusion of the classic Thing/Hulk battle, in which “The Avengers Take Over!”; a remarkable NM-p #54, guest-starring the Inhumans; and Annual #3, the wedding of Reed and Sue, guest-starring Sgt. Fury, Patsy & Hedy, Kid Colt (no, really; he’s on the cover there, see…), Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and just about everybody else who was in the Marvel Universe at the time!

*Marvel: Red Sonja puts in an appearance with us this week, from both Marvel Feature (2nd series 1975) and her own series from 1977. Several issues from both fresh into stock of your favourite chain-metal bikini-clad barbarienne!

*Rupert: A welcome update for Nutwood’s resident little bear in the form of four issues of the Rupert Adventure series, comics that were published quarterly from 1948 to 1963. They contained full colour stories in the same format as the more famous annuals. This update comprises #24, #30, #32 & #41. They all veer towards the later end of the 50 issue series, which are harder to find due to smaller print runs. Grades and prices vary from FA at £9 to VF at £25.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Some large format rarities in this section, comprising Boys’ Broadcast from 1935, illustrated text stories based on radio adventures, Boys’ World from 1964, the short-lived Eagle imitator Rocket from 1956, a Christmas Swift from 1958, Wild West Weekly from 1938, also illustrated text, and several issues of Zip from 1958, featuring Strongbow The Mighty by Ron Embleton and Wells Fargo by Don Lawrence.

*Horror 1940-1959: We reach the penultimate chapter in our Mother Of All Pre-Code Horror Fests event, with a devil’s half-dozen plus one from various publishers out to outrage you in the 1950’s: two Hand Of Fate from Ace, two Tales Of Horror from Toby, two Witches Tales from Harvey and a solitary but early Journey Into Unknown Worlds (#4) from Atlas. Look out next week for our frantic finale — and we’ve saved something very special for last!

*Marvel: We continue our programme of expanding our catalogue into later years by adding this time Marvel’s Battlestar Galactica series from 1979. Whilst lacking the sophistication of the show’s most recent reincarnation, the original series of BG is fondly remembered, and executed here in comic form by talented creators from the contemporary Marvel Bullpen, including Walt Simonson. The series lasted 23 issues, and we have several of them including the first and last.

We’re re-jigging some of the space allocated on our ground floor for Silver & Bronze Age comics in order to expand our Silver/Bronze DC & Marvel sections, so that we can include an extra 500 issues from each publisher for your browsing pleasure, without removing any of the vintage selections from other publishers either. And of course our website catalogue will also expand to incorporate these as they’re prepared and go out into the boxes. So you can look forward to an even better selection of DC & Marvel vintage comics in the weeks ahead and into 2016.

*DC: No, not a reference to the current lamentable political situation, but a harking back to when the situation seemed simpler. Superman #18, from 1942, has what has been described as a classic ‘bomb rodeo’ cover, in which the Man of Steel leads the assault on the ‘Japanazis’. Four Superman stories by Siegel & Shuster (though with some suspected ghost work by artist Jack Burnley, of Starman fame), including an early Lex Luthor appearance and another costumed criminal, “The Snake”. This vivid cover scene is unmarred, and the interior page quality excellent given its vintage. A half-inch upper spine split and a tiny chip out of a back cover corner are the only significant flaws in this highly appealing Golden Age treat, GD at £250.

*Horror 1940-1959: The Mother Of All Pre-Code Horror Fests lurches on! With two tangled webs, in fact, as we bring you two excellent pre-code horror series with a strand in common: Web of Evil, from Quality Comics, and Web of Mystery, from Ace Publications. “The Moulder of Doom”, “The Ghoul of Ghost Swamp”, and “The Strangling Witch” are among the thrills awaiting you with this stylish and evocative selection, many of which are in affordable mid-grades. Just a few more updates to go now in our latest Pre-Code Horror Fest!

Our very own Dr. Evilla has been busy again, festooning our window for the holiday season. Our theme this year is Christmas baubles, adorned with images of favourite comics characters dressed as Santa (as they do). Among the many iconic Father Christmasses on display are Spider-Man, Desperate Dan, Archie, Bat-Santa, Mandy, the Hulk, Dennis the Menace, the Punisher and the Joker (naturally!) A very merry Christmas to one and all from all of us here at 30th Century!

*Magazines & Books About Vintage US Comics: A more esoteric selection of additions to this popular category, with items from the 1970’s up to the present century: the original Charlton Bullseye, the UK’s Comic Media News, the Golden Age of Comics, the Illustrated Comic Art Workshop (by Giordano, McLaughlin and Romita), the 2002 series of Rocket’s Blast/ComicCollector, and a trinity of creator spotlights: the Frazetta Folio, a magazine-sized collection of vintage reprints and text; the Michael W. Kaluta Treasury, a handsome softcover gathering of his less-known works, plus checklist; and the Neal Adams Checklist, a 1970’s offering with some lesser-seen artwork.

*Humour Comics: No not just exclamations, but two of the myriad humour weeklies produced by Fleetway/IPC. Whoopee, home of ‘Ivor Lott and Tony Broke’, ‘Bumpkin Billionaires’ and the unfortunately named ‘Toy Boy’, is mammothly recharged with more than 200 issues, ranging from 1974 through to 1980, including the merger issues where Shiver & Shake and Cheeky got drawn into its devouring maw. The shorter-lived and oddball Wow produced ‘Adam and his Ants’, ‘Shipwreck School’, and ‘Gulliver’s Troubles’, and this update brings us issues from #2 in its launch year of 1982 until its last year of, um, 1983, after which it, too, was absorbed by Whoopee!

*Undergrounds: A massive and overdue addition to our underground section, including both ‘classic’ undergrounds from the USA, ‘nu-wave’ American series, and a whole lot of alt. ‘zines from the UK. Titles refreshed include Alien Encounters, the Alternative Headmaster’s Bulletin, Bop, Brainstorm Comix (early work by Bryan Talbot), Cozmic Comics, Flash Fearless, Gates of Eden, Images (early Phil Elliott ‘Doc Chaos’ & other works), It’s Only Rock & Roll Comics, Vaughn Bode’s Junkwaffel, the Man Who learned To Fly (early Frazer Irving), Necron, Pssst!, Rip Off, Smile, Spasm! (all-Jeff Jones), Velocity, and – top of the shop – a VF hardcover collection  of John Kent’s 1970’s comic strip from the Guardian newspaper, Varoomshka, in which our buxom heroine lampooned prominent political figures of the day such as Harold Wilson, Ted Heath, and Margaret Thatcher, while unencumbered by much in the way of clothing. (Her, not them, we hasten to add; that would have been a much less appealing prospect!)

*Annuals: In our TV & Film Related sub-section, we have a variety of cult shows from the 1970’s & 1980’s: New Avengers 1977, with Steed, Gambit and Purdey’s adventures illustrated by John Bolton; Man from Atlantis 1979 (early days of the man who would be Bobby Ewing!); Persuaders from 1972, with rather nice Enrique Romero artwork livening up Tony Curtis & Roger Moore’s hi-jinx; Starsky & Hutch from both 1978 and 1979 – with probably the worst art ever on a UK Annual – not only do the heroes not look like Paul Michal Glaser and David Soul, they barely even look human! – and finally, Vegas, starring the late Robert Urich.