*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: A further update to our stocks of the premier war-themed Picture Library, D C Thomson’s Commando, all in the 800’s, mostly in VF grade with a few FN issues; a lot of numbers previously missing from our listing. Consult our catalogue for full details.

*Girls’ Comics: From 1960 to 1967, Princess weekly delighted a generation of proper young ladies, with its pretention to being a ‘magazine’ – photo-covers and lots of educational, historical and how-to features. But the comic strips kept the readers coming back for more, including ‘Alona the Wild One’, ‘The Happy Days’ and (in glorious painted colour) ‘Amber Ridd, Daughter of Lorna Doone’. New in this week we have a selection from 1960 and 1963-67, including Christmas and April Fool issues and 14th August 1965, with the first part of the adaptation of John Wyndham’s ‘Chocky’. 
PICTURED: PRINCESS 14/8/65 VG £4 SOLD

Since we’re now trading by mail order only, it gives us the chance to maintain our catalogue even more accurately. All items sold since lockdown are now being deleted within a few days of sale. We are also working through our entire catalogue to delete those items that sold pre-lockdown since files were last updated. This means that as we finish updating a file, you can rely on the catalogue for that category being (and staying) as close to 100% accurate as it is possible to get, with virtually everything available, apart from items sold in the last few days (and just a tiny amount of human error). We have now completed this exercise for the following category from our American section:
*Magazines/Books About Vintage US Comics
and from our American/British section:
*Tarzan/E R Burroughs
*Phantom
*Flash Gordon
*Spirit
*Classics Illustrated
*Mad & Other Parody
*Undergrounds
*Memorabilia & Esoterica
All categories down to this point in our Catalogue Index have now been Super-Housekept! Thus we have completed all American and all American/British stock; British categories commence next week. We will continue to post here as we make progress.

*Marvel: With the fifth issue of the flagship title of the Marvel Universe, the FF met the Big Bad: Victor Von Doom, Monarch of Latveria, a scientific genius who had to hide his disfigured features behind a metal mask (and went in for a whole suit of armour to boot). Doom started out here, and went on to become not only the FF’s arch-nemesis, but arguably the major villain of the entire MU. This Square Mile Collection copy is typical of this pedigree, with lovely white pages and just a minimum of wear at spine and edges, very fine creases just breaking colour. A beautiful clean cover image with great gloss and colour. High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR #5 FN- p £4,500 SOLD

*DC: A good, solid, pre UK distribution Batman comic from 1958 this week. Batman #120 features three crime mysteries pencilled by Sheldon Moldoff and cover features ‘The Airborne Batman’ with art by Curt Swan. A decent Good graded copy with edge wear and a small lower spine split, but unmarred cover image and good staples. Also available in VG as listed in our catalogue.
PICTURED: BATMAN #120 GD £50 SOLD

*Marvel: We’re always happy to welcome an early Spider-Man issue illustrated by Steve Ditko (the only ‘proper’ Spider-Man artist, excellent later contributors notwithstanding), and this one’s a bit special, featuring as it does the first guest appearance of the then-fledgling Man Without Fear, Daredevil, and, we believe, his only guest-appearance in his original black & gold costume! Teamed with Spider-Man against the menace of the Ringmaster (against whose hypnosis DD’s blindness gives him an unexpected immunity) and his Circus of Crime, this action-packed issue is a nice companion to Daredevil #16 (which we featured last week), in that it features Ditko’s art on Daredevil, rather than Romita’s on Spider-Man. A nice copy with square corners, an unspoilt cover image and only very minimal spine wear; the only notable defect is that the staples are slightly to the back of the spine and have become slightly loose as a result of that on the back cover only. A very handsome addition to a Ditko Spidey collection.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #16 VG/FN p £200 SOLD

*Marvel: By 1963, I guess Smilin’ Stan the Man had had enough of ants and ‘tiny’ menaces, so he came up with the idea to re-invent Hank (Ant-Man) Pym as Giant-Man, although the Wasp stayed small — perhaps the world wasn’t ready for a 12 foot high Janet Van Dyne. And to celebrate this event, Stan had the new Giant-Man go up against possibly one of the silliest villains of the Marvel Age, the Living Eraser (I mean, if he wasn’t living what good would he have been?). How did that work out? Well, you can’t tell from this slabbed copy, because you can’t get past the cover without breaking open the slab. But it’s a striking cover all the same! CGC 4.5 VG+ UK pence variant unrestored blue label on this landmark issue.
PICTURED: TALES TO ASTONISH #49 CGC 4.5 VG+ p £120 SOLD

*Marvel: Love him or hate him, there’s no denying that Todd McFarlane’s art brings out strong reactions in Spider-Man fans, so we’re pleased as Punch to bring another selection of the cream of his couple of years on Amazing Spider-Man, here from #301-325 complete, with, as you might expect, lots of Venom. #301, with its ‘negative’ version of #300 and white background, has greatly increased in value and collectability in recent years.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #301 VF/NM £70

*Marvel: From 2008, another complete Venom mini-series told with the usual finesse and restraint that this character is known to bring out from creators. This time it’s Venom: Dark Origin, all 5 issues now available in VF/NM grade. See our catalogue for the full listing.

*Horror 1940-1959: Superior was a Canadian publisher active from 1945-1956 who mostly reprinted American comics from the same time period. They also published a number of original series that were distributed in the United States. Among these were three horror titles famous for their hallucinogenic covers and accomplished Fiction House style interior art. When you see a lot of these together, they have an almost hypnotic and uncomfortable effect. Our focus this week is on the first four issues of one of those titles: Mysteries Weird & Strange; lowish grade but presentable copies, so we have set out the defects issue by issue.
PICTURED: MYSTERIES WEIRD & STRANGE
#1 GD- £115 Back cover tear, thumbnail size lower spine; off staples at front cover only.
#2 GD+ £110 Off lower staple front cover only SOLD
#3 GD+ £100 Thumbnail size piece out back cover; 4 cm cover tear SOLD
#4 FA/GD £60 Spine splits with small pieces of spine missing

*Vintage UK/Australian Reprints of US Material: Len Miller was the premier UK publisher of ‘faux’ American-sized British comics in the 1950s and early 1960s. He published a wide range of material, both original and US reprint, perhaps most famously Marvelman and Young Marvelman. Although succeeded by Alan Class, there was a period in the early 1960s where both publishers overlapped and some of Miller’s titles (Mystic, Spellbound, Voodoo and Zombie) closely resembled the type of content also being used by Alan Class, reprinting Atlas, pre-hero Marvel and other early horror, with occasional forays into the Marvel Super-Hero Universe. Such examples are Spellbound #54 & #55, where, among such horror/mystery reprints, early Avengers issues were reprinted (in black and white, as were all these titles) complete with covers. Both are crisp, clean copies with sharp corners and a minimum of wear. #54 reprints Avengers #3 and has a small 1.5 cm piece of the bottom spine missing; #55 reprints Avengers #2.
PICTURED: SPELLBOUND
#54 VG/FN £50 SOLD
#55 FN+ £60 SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: A nice influx of early issues of Air Ace (from #3) and War Picture Library (from #2) fresh in this week, two of the most popular series in this category. The War in particular features most of the first 20 issues (and many later). Most issues of war between #3 & #20 have a vintage price sticker on the cover, thoughtfully positioned; bearing in mind that these themselves show pre-decimal prices, they must have been in place over 50 years, so we’re not going to try to remove them. Actually, I think they add a nice sense of retro charm to the items without spoiling the excellent painted covers.
PICTURED:
AIR ACE #3 VG £25
WAR #4 GD/VG £17.50  SOLD

*Girls’ Picture Libraries: The gimmick of Fleetway’s Famous Romance Library was that it adapted romance novels by famous authors of the time, such as Ruby M Ayers, Sara Seale, Patricia Robins, Faith Baldwin and many more (hey, even I’ve heard of some of these!). With beautiful painted covers and gorgeous interior art, these really are a treat! No one’s quite sure how many issues this series ran to from the late 1950s to the late 1960s, but we have several dozen them in this week, from #1 through to #171. They’re really nice copies with virtually no wear, sharp corners and white pages; the only problem is that they suffer from rusty staple syndrome, which in many cases has edged into the interiors. We have therefore graded them relatively low, and the grade reflects the degree of rust rather than any other wear. You can get an idea of the rust from the images of #1-3 shown here, which are examples of how bad it gets; many are nicer.
PICTURED: FAMOUS ROMANCE LIBRARY
#1 GD £15 SOLD
#2 GD £10
#3 GD £10

Since we’re now trading by mail order only, it gives us the chance to maintain our catalogue even more accurately. All items sold since lockdown are now being deleted within a few days of sale. We are also working through our entire catalogue to delete those items that sold pre-lockdown since files were last updated. This means that as we finish updating a file, you can rely on the catalogue for that category being (and staying) as close to 100% accurate as it is possible to get, with virtually everything available, apart from items sold in the last few days (and just a tiny amount of human error). We have now completed this exercise for the following categories from our American section:
*Horror 1940-1959
*Horror/Mystery 1960-1980s
*Romance
*Teen Humour/Funny Girls
*War
*Western
*Modern Reprints
*Vintage Magazine-Sized Comics
All categories down to this point in our Catalogue Index have now been Super-Housekept! We will continue to post here as we make progress.

This is an early Silver Age Collection from an original owner notable for the freshness and vibrancy of the cover colours and page quality; even those with minor reading and handling wear are vastly superior to the majority of comics that have been in circulation since the 1960s. The average grade is well above Fine, with many much nicer.

We’ve been releasing comics from this amazing collection since last November and we’re down to the last few comics now, but stick around for the grand finale — it’s a doozy! Each comic will come branded with a special label and certificate of authenticity verifying it as part of the Square Mile Collection. Here’s this week’s:

*DC: While it’s not strictly accurate to say that this game-changing issue was solely responsible for the transition to the ‘Dark Knight’ iteration of Batman – he had been becoming more serious in the preceding few years – this definitely distilled all the elements which would become the template for the Batman as we know him. By Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams, this tense murder mystery draws the reader in from the stunning cover, and keeps the tension mounted high as the Joker, stripped of the lingering miasma of the TV series, transformed from a buffoon into once again a top-ranking menace. One of the best comics of the 1970s, by almost everyone’s assessment – even folks who think both the Joker and the Batman are horrendously overrated (writer raises hand) think this one’s a cracker! This FN+ copy is very nice, tight and flat, with only the tiniest corner blunting, great cover colour and gloss, and an unspoilt cover image (apart from the pence stamp placed, as it always inevitably is, over the playing card). Firm, attached staples, off white pages; faint stamped small arrival date above DC in masthead, very slight edge wear top edge, minute crease across top right cover (1 cm) and a tiny (we do mean tiny) chip off from the top right back cover. But a copy that would sit well in a nice collection.
PICTURED: BATMAN #251 FN+ p £250

*DC: From the late 1950s/early 1960s comes this selection of Detective Comics, with Batman backed up by J’Onn J’Onzz, the Martian Manhunter. Back in these days, Batman was far more likely to run into bizarre aliens than the Joker or the Penguin. A mixture of pre-distribution and distributed pence copies in a variety of grades. Includes appearances by Batwoman and Bat-Mite as well as a double debut in #311 with the 1st Cat-Man (menacing Batman) and the first Zook (aiding and abetting the Martian Manhunter). Issues between #254 and #315 fresh into stock.

*Marvel: The debut of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, thus 1st appearances of Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch, Mastermind and the Toad in the fourth issue of the X-Men from 1964. It’s a great pity that no one told Wanda that the clue to her costume colour was in her name, and thus she posed in a fetching shade of Emerald for the cover. This is a low grade pence-printed copy, with a decent cover image, heavy spine wear, some edge wear, blunt corners and a looseness at both staples, leading to back cover tears in those areas. Page quality is okay. Another Lee/Kirby classic and the first appearances of Wanda and Pietro, who were destined to become cornerstones of the Marvel universe.
PICTURED: X-MEN #4 FA+ p £200

*Marvel: In the historic 39th issue of Amazing Spider-Man, Spider-Man and the Green Goblin learned each other’s true identities as the Goblin was revealed to be Norman Osborn, in the debut of John Romita on art duties on the title. Romita brought a snazzy sense of style and design to the series and quickly proved himself a worthy successor to Steve Ditko. This is a lowish graded copy with some edge wear and corner blunting, a small chip off bottom spine and a couple of small holes and pressure marks on the cover; pages are off-white to light tan; staples are firm at spine and centrefold. The rich colour cover from deep purple sky graduated to pale blue sky is very attractive.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #39 GD/VG p £90   

*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: One of Avon’s wonderful science fiction one-shots, from 1951, Rocket To the Moon adapts Otis Adelbert Kline’s ‘Maza Of The Moon’, in a good old-fashioned retro sci-fi adventure yarn, complete with intrepid hero, glamorous heroine and alien monsters. Although the evocative cover and excellent interior art are generally attributed to Joe Orlando, it looks to me as if there’s more than a touch of Wally Wood involved; it’s known the two were collaborators. This copy is ostensibly nicer than the stated grade with good page quality, firm staples and good cover colour, plus spine wear. Unfortunately the top right corner of the cover is missing (most of the ‘T’ in ‘Rocket’), but has been rebuilt by an amateur in a not-too-bad job. If you can live with that, it’s a good opportunity to get a classic of the genre at a reasonable price.
PICTURED: ROCKET TO THE MOON GD £135 SOLD

*Horror 1940-1959: A manky quartet for your consideration this week — 3 low-grade pre-codes: Out Of The Night #2 FA+, Uncanny Tales #1 PR & Weird Tales Of The Future #6 PR; see our catalogue for defect descriptions and prices. Plus one post code, a bit better Tense Suspense #2 from Fago in GD/VG.
PICTURED: OUT OF THE NIGHT #2 FA+ £30

*Alan Class Reprints: A smattering of Alan Class issues reprinting classic Marvel stories in Astounding and Creepy Worlds, both certificated by Alan Class himself and regular editions. Characters include: Giant-Man, Thor, Torch & Thing, Dr. Strange, Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD, Spider-Man and Daredevil. See our catalogue for more details.
PICTURED: CREEPY WORLDS #64 VG £22.50

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: 2 nice consecutive copies of Hotspur from 1970 this week with splendid Free Gifts: Cardboard sheets of 12 full-colour footballers plus stands in each that can all be pressed out to make them stand up. Of course, the sheets have not been pressed out and the gifts are just as they were issued. #568 has ‘strikers’, including such famous names as Geoff Hurst and George Best (slight crease on sheet); #569 has ‘stoppers’, including Emlyn Hughes and Pat Jennings. Gosh, you could enact your very own historical football match!
PICTURED: HOTSPUR
#568 VG/FN WITH FREE GIFT FN £30 SOLD
#569 FN WITH FREE GIFT VF £30 SOLD

*Girls’ Comics: Sally, the ‘comic for the adventurous girl’, has developed a bit of a cult following over the last decade or so; the line-up of strong adventure strips with touches of sci-fi and the supernatural made it stand out from the crowd, and whenever we get a batch of Sally here at 30th Century, it’s always hotly contested. Rarer still, however, is the single Sally Summer Special from 1970, which we’ve only had in stock once before in our quarter century plus in business; pre-dating the Sally Annuals, the line-up includes Cat Girl, the Ghost Hunters, Twangy Pearl the Elastic Girl, the Silent Shadows, and Maisie’s Magic Eye. This is a sound copy with soft creasing at bottom right edge and some spine roll, a couple of tiny nicks, but no marks.
PICTURED: SALLY SUMMER SPECIAL 1970 GD/VG £60

We’re very pleased, as promised, to be able to continue our series of articles and features that we filled the lockdown months with, since so many of you seemed to enjoy them so much. Those written by Will can be found in the ‘Where There’s A Will’ section on our ‘Extras’ page. Here’s his new article on Marney the Fox from Buster:

“Marney the Fox” – Cute fluffy tale of a cuddly animal roaming the countryside? Or Kafaesque reflection on the inhumanity of humans, spiralling into nihilism? Bit of both, really.

…But definitely leaning towards the latter.

“Marney the Fox” launched in Buster weekly in the issue dated 22nd June 1974, and ran weekly until 11th September 1976. The saga of a wandering orphaned fox cub, who grows to maturity while being constantly hunted and taunted by ‘hated man’, was, let’s get it right in the shop window, an emotional roller-coaster, yanking relentlessly at the heartstrings of its young readership.

Unlike most series in boys’ weeklies, which tended to be strictly oriented for either action or laughs, Marney turned up the anguish to a degree more often seen in the girls’ weeklies such as Mandy or Tammy. One poll of Tammy readers famously indicated that one of their favourite things about the comic was ‘stories that make me cry’, and, in an early blow for gender equality, Marney the Fox had readers sobbing in the proverbial aisles.

Marney was created by the team of writer Scott Goodall and artist John Stokes, the same folks who created Fishboy, of which I have spoken previously – in fact, for several months, Marney and Fishboy overlapped in Buster weekly.

I’ve given high praise to Stokes’ art on Fishboy, justifiably, but his work on Marney is even more beautiful. Often set in nighttime, or reflecting the changing seasons in the countryside, the images are detailed, haunting and evocative, with Stokes’ characteristic painstaking research bringing our vulpine hero and the other wildlife he encounters to vivid life. Many critics, including Stokes himself, have said that Marney is the best work of his long career, and it is often breathtaking.

But despite the beautiful illustrations, this is not a cosy story.  From Marney’s first appearance, where his mother is shot and his siblings face an even worse fate at the hands of hunters, his existence is one of suffering, mental and physical, of loneliness, a struggle for survival, and a relentless parade of cruelty. The few friends and allies he finds either die or are left behind as he is driven from one lair to another, endlessly seeking respite.

The reader is made privy to Marney’s inner thoughts, narrated with a surprisingly developed vocabulary (better developed than the aforementioned Fishboy, who never quite got the hang of proper nouns during his eight year run!). Goodall’s narrative gives the young orphaned fox a surprisingly rich and detailed internal life, communicated to the reader in a declamatory nihilistic style. Although not a passive fatalist, Marney frequently resigns himself to his fate when the odds seem overwhelming, his melancholy ponderings providing a mordant underscoring of events. A typical Marney soliloquy in a desperate situation:

“The rope bites deep and my limbs grow numb! Here in the chilly darkness, it will be a slow and painful end!”

Or

“This indeed, is the end! First, there will be pain… followed swiftly by eternal darkness!”

Fortunately for the readers’ overwrought sensibilities, Marney was a better narrator than prophet, escaping from multiple life-threatening situations by the merest chance, or by a last-minute act of desperation.

Goodall admitted to taking his inspiration from Tarka the Otter, a 1920s novel by Henry Williamson with an animal protagonist, which had been made into a hugely popular film in 1974.  Watership Down, the famous Richard Adams novel of 1972, was also an influence, and the  synthesis of these two narratives, combined with the cliffhanger nature of British comic traditions – each two-page installment, apart from a couple of ‘breather’ episodes, concluded with Marney in fresh torment or peril – made for a heady ride of anxiety and sorrow. And that was just for the readers!

Over the course of the strip’s nine month run, Marney was variously shot, hunted, burned, drowned, frozen, blinded, poisoned and endlessly attacked by humans and by other animals. I was reading this series in my teens, already ‘too old for comics’ at the time of its release, and while I was fascinated, I was also appalled. Goodness knows what effect it had on the feelings of the 8 to 13 age group it was actually intended for!

But the series didn’t shy away from the harsh realities of life for wild creatures. In one particularly horrifying sequence, Marney has become temporary mentor to a litter of orphaned fox cubs. The boldest of the litter has gotten himself into trouble, and been caught by a farmer;

But it’s a children’s comic, and it’s a cuddly fluffy baby fox, so everything’s got to turn out all right, right? Right?

… Bloody hell.

Although most of Marney’s adventures were reality-based, Goodall’s imagination did add a couple of baroque flourishes, just to mix it up a bit, as some of Marney’s encounters with humans were a bit bizarre. At one point, he’s captured by a band of travellers and forced by the tribe’s matriarch to perform in a circus; in another, what appears to be a kindly benefactor to injured animals reveals a very dark side indeed. ‘Hated man’ is seldom seen in a good light in Marney’s world, but these particular examples are very twisted individuals indeed.

Eventually, Marney ran its course; presumably, after nine months of unrelenting suffering, the readership collectively decided it needed a rest – or therapy! Marney was allowed to find some surcease from his wanderings, in an ending, well, as happy as one could hope for, given the general tone of the story.

It’s a peculiar sidebar in Buster’s history, not a traditional action strip, and certainly nowhere near the comedy for which the title is generally known, but it is of superb quality, and for many years languished in back issue bins, barely remembered and sought after by only the most dedicated readers.

A revised version appeared in the short-lived Sunny, which ran for just nine issues from 1986 to 1987. Sunny being a pre-school/younger readers’ title, the new version, illustrated by Bernard Long, had Marney merely become separated from his family, rather than their being brutally killed, and the savage elements which characterized the Buster run were necessarily curtailed. Sunny was swiftly absorbed by the more established Funtime, but it is not known at this point whether the ‘junior Marney’ continued.

But in 2017, those lovely people at Rebellion Publishing did the right thing. Since, tragically, almost none of the original artwork survives, they computer-enhanced scans from the weekly comics to obtain the best possible images, and collected the Whole. Damn. Series. in one hardcover volume, with a new and sumptuous cover illustration by John Stokes.

It’s a thing of beauty, one of the finest Rebellion re-issues to date, and an engrossing read – though, a word of caution; make sure you’re not out in public when reading it. I  settled down to read my new copy on a long bus-ride home – trust me, you haven’t seen humiliation until you’ve seen a grown man weeping  like a baby on public transport!

Wait till you’ve got it home, settle down with a cup of tea, and have a hanky or two to hand. Accept the word of one who knows.

Will Morgan, July 2020