*Boy’s Adventure & War Comics: In 1975, Fleetway/IPC tried to cash in on its fondly-remembered adventure series by launching a new anthology, Vulcan, in an unusual slick-paper format with dimensions approximating those of the American comic book format, rather than the customary magazine size of UK comics. Gleaning features from across its vast inventory, they ran “The Trigan Empire” from Look and Learn, as the lead, with “Kelly’s Eye”, “Mytek the Mighty” and “The Steel Claw” from Valiant, “The Spider” and “Robot Archie” from Lion, and “Saber, King of the Jungle” from Tiger, for a cross-section of top talent, including Don Lawrence, Reg Bunn, Solano Lopez, Joe Colquhoun, and Jesus Blasco – an A-list roster for a Z-List budget, as IPC paid no reprint royalties at the time! Vulcan was tried out in a Scottish-only edition with the first issue released in March 1975, and after a successful 30-issue run, re-launched with a national edition in September that year. Sadly, the National edition ran only for a further 28 issues; despite top-notch creators and well-loved characters, it seems there just weren’t enough readers around who appreciated the series. By January 1976, Vulcan was a thing of the past, absorbed into Valiant, with only three pull-out mini-comics allocated to finish out the serials. Any issues of Vulcan are scarce these days – the relative flimsiness of the slick paper stock means that copies are rather too easily damaged, unless stored carefully – but most elusive are the Scottish editions, which had a proportionately restricted print run. We are very happy to have acquired complete runs of both the Scottish and the National editions, all 58 issues, plus multiple duplicate copies, plus the Holiday Special of 1976. Many of these are in high grade, and, in line with our Free Gift Farrago, we also have a handful which are complete with the original Free Gifts – a phenomenon almost never seen! (#1-3 of the Scottish and #2 of the National). Prices on the Scottish editions are high, but we believe they’re justified by the scarcity of the items – in our 20+ years of trading, we have only ever seen half-a-dozen Scottish Vulcans before, and believe me – we’ve been looking! We expect demand to be high, so place your orders early.
Scottish Editions: (all free gifts FN or better)
#1 with Free Gift: Super Shaking Skeleton VG £350
#2 with Free Gift: Identikit GD £150
#3 with Free Gift: Flick Book Cinema FN £200
Later issue prices start at £30 each
National Edition:
#2 with Free Gift: Magical Numbers game FN £25