*DC: A couple of dozen mostly low grade issues of Batman fresh in this week between #164 (start of the New Look) and #221. Although there are plenty of defects on most of these, they are all complete and great reading value. Included are second Silver Age Penguin in #169, Joker cover and story in #186, Giant #187 (the Best Of Batman) and Giant #208 (Most Important Women in Batman’s Life), plus many others. See our catalogue for full details.

*Marvel: Smack in the middle of Todd McFarlane’s run on Amazing Spider-Man comes issue #316, featuring the first cover appearance of Venom, the character that defined this period. The cover image portrays what the character is all about. There’s little doubt that Venom is one of the Marvel characters originating later than the Bronze Age who has gone on to become a cornerstone of the Marvel Universe. This classic cover issue is a lovely VF-, fresh, vibrant and glossy, with virtually no wear. We’ve kept the grade down a little since it was printed without an upper staple (no staple holes); the lower staple is firmly attached; great white pages.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #316 VF- £110

*Marvel: As they put it, Marvel bowed to our demands and gave Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner his own series in the front of Tales To Astonish, replacing Giant-Man & the Wasp with #70 of that series. The pageantry and spectacle of Atlantis came to Marvel on a regular basis, with the start of this multi-part storyline ‘The Quest’, featuring Lady Dorma and the villainy of Warlord Krang. It also boasted Marvel’s newest artistic talent Adam Austin, who was later revealed to be none other than Gene Colan with his Silver Age debut. And as if that wasn’t enough, the Hulk continued in the same issue by Stan & Jack. We have a decent mid-grade cents copy, with some spine and edge wear and corner blunting, but unmarked cover image, tight staples and nice pages. 
PICTURED: TALES TO ASTONISH #70 VG £75

*Marvel: Three new Marvel Treasury Editions fresh into stock. These over-sized re-presentations of Marvel classics are always hugely popular. This week: #1 & #2 of the numbered series featuring Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four respectively and the Marvel Special Edition: Star Wars #1, reprinting the first three issues of the series that adapts the first half of the original film. The Spider-Man reprints the first Green Goblin story among many others and the Fantastic Four has the entire Silver Surfer/Galactus trilogy from FF #48-50 and more. Note: just average condition on all these.
PICTURED:
MARVEL TREASURY EDITION #1 VG- £10
MARVEL TREASURY EDITION #2 VG £10
MARVEL SPECIAL EDITION STAR WARS #1 VG £20 

*Magazines/Books About Vintage US Comics: A small but perfectly formed update to this popular category this week with some rare material. As well as an issue of the Marvel house fanzine FOOM (#6), we have the All Star Comics Revue from 1977, being a Complete Index and Guide to the JSA up to time of publication. Third Rail from 1981 is a fanzine of heroic adventure, with art and features by Al Williamson, Totleben, Bissette, Clark Ashton Smith, Tom Yeates, Crandall, Krenkel. Pick of the bunch is the complete 2 part Flash Gordon fanzine Heritage from 1972, professional-looking A4 squarebound, glossy cardstock covers and believed to be quite rare. Contributors to this series include: Alex Raymond, Frank Frazetta, Jeff Jones, Frank Brunner, Gray Morrow, Mike Kaluta, Reed Crandall, Berni Wrightson, Bruce Jones, Stanley Pitt, Neal Adams, George Evans, Roy Krenkel, Al Williamson, Esteban Morato, Wally Wood and more. This is available as a complete set of 2. See our catalogue for full details of all these additions.
PICTURED: HERITAGE: FLASH GORDON Complete set of 2 (#1a FN, #1b VF) £50

*Power Comics: The Power Comics line from Odhams Press, which ran from the mid-late 1960s has a special place in British comics history and in the hearts of many readers of the time. With a unique blend of classic Marvel reprints (and sometimes DC newspaper strip reprints), together with original British strips in both adventure & humour departments, they offered something for everyone and were probably many readers’ first exposure to the Marvel Silver Age. In this first instalment of an original owner collection, we have issues of Pow! between #39 and #52, featuring Spider-Man, Sgt Fury and his modern self, Nick Fury. Original British strips included ‘Experiment X’, ‘Dr. Morg, Master Of Fear’, ‘The Cloak’, ‘Dare A Day Davey’ and many others. In addition, the Odhams editorial team adopted a very Marvel Bullpen style of communication to endear themselves to the readership. News from the Floor of 64, anyone? Full details in our catalogue.
PICTURED: POW #50 GD/VG £10 Christmas issue

*Girls’ Picture Libraries: From the late 1960s, 10+ more issues of True Life Library (All In Pictures), between #674-687 (including a couple of duplicates).  Released right in the middle of ‘Swingin’ London’, the usual nurses, models and actresses are bolstered by somewhat more liberated heroines, including aviatrixes, monarchs and spies – oh my! With very accomplished art from mainly European illustrators, these are lovely items, their appeal enhanced by the fact that they are from a newsagent’s reserve stock, never sold or circulated, with white pages, bright covers and minimal or no discolouration in the staple areas, almost all are FN or better. Full details as always in our catalogue.
PICTURED: TRUE LIFE LIBRARY #681 FN/VF £5.50

*DC: It’s all too rare for a Golden Age Superman to come through our hands, so we’re particularly pleased this week to present #64, from 1950. Featuring three big stories: the cover-featured ‘Professor Lois Lane’ plus ‘The Isle Of Giant Insects’ and ‘The Free For All Crimes’, with art by Superman regulars Wayne Boring and Al Plastino. A reasonable copy with edge wear (particularly along the right front cover and the bottom right corner (about 3 cm diagonal) ‘hanging’ on with a small chip missing at the very corner. A loose centrefold, but the staples are good at the cover, and a bright and appealing cover image and good, off-white page quality.
PICTURED: SUPERMAN #64 GD/VG £150

*Marvel: We lead off this week’s selections from the Good Doctor Collection with a real gem. In the earliest days of the Fantastic Four, when Marvel Comics were still a well-kept cult secret, Stan Lee, having previously resisted his publisher’s request to combine the company’s Golden Age heroes into a Justice League clone, decided to plunder the company’s history anyway, but in a distinctive manner. Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, finds in a Bowery flophouse a homeless derelict who turns out to be the long-lost and amnesiac Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner, ruler of Atlantis (and star of his own comic book back in the 1940s). Impulsive but well-intentioned, Johnny ‘shocks’ Namor back into awareness, but when the Sub-Mariner returns to his undersea kingdom, he finds it devastated by the weapons testing of the surface world. Enraged, Sub-Mariner swears revenge on the land-dwellers – though he’s willing to make an exception for Johnny’s shapely sister Sue, the Invisible Girl – and thus began one of the most dramatic ongoing conflicts of the series, as Namor flipped from enemy to ally as the plots demanded. Eventually Sub-Mariner’s status as anti-hero earned him a series in Tales to Astonish, then the first of many ongoing solo series, and he remains a major figure in the MU to this day, with a debut in the MCU allegedly imminent.
As you’re doubtless aware, prices have soared on big Marvel keys over the last 1-2 years, and this issue is no exception, although it does have a flaw which keeps the price in the realms of reality for some. There is some minor graffiti on Namor’s head on the cover (faint facial hair and horns) and someone has drawn in him holding a trident as well as Sue. These defects should be visible on our scan. Otherwise this copy isn’t too bad: moderate spine and edge wear, a small scuff on Mr. Fantastic’s thigh, some colour-breaking creasing on right edge and bottom right corner and one long diagonal crease across top right (quite faint). There is also a small cover tear towards the bottom of the right cover edge repaired by tape on the inside front cover. The colours are bright, the page quality good and the staples firm. A little tired, perhaps, but we’ve graded (and priced) it down due to the graffiti, so if you can live with that, a great opportunity to pick up a cents copy of huge Marvel key at the right time. High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR #4 GD- £1,550 SOLD

*Marvel: One of Spidey’s major foes featured in a fondly-remembered and sprawling storyline that ran from Amazing Spider-Man #53-56, wherein Doc Ock becomes a tenant of Aunt May and Spidey loses his memory and joins up with him and a whole lot more happens too. John Romita, always a great cover designer, pulled out all the stops on these issues to produce some lasting fan favourites. The copies from the Good Doctor Collection have much quality to offer. More from the GDC next week! 
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
#53 VF- £135 A tight, flat and glossy copy with sharp corners, good staples and just very minor edge wear; off-white to white pages.
#54 VG/FN £50 Nice colour and gloss, good staples, minor edge wear, tiny colour-breaking crease across the bottom right cover corner, faint subscription crease, nice white pages
#55 FN/VF £165 Nice glossy copy with sharp corners, great cover colour, tight staples, white pages; small amounts of creasing around bottom staple do not break colour.
#56 VG/FN p £65 Pence stamped, some spine wear and corner blunting, but good cover colour and gloss, tight staples and nice pages.

*Marvel: For my money, the run of the first 24 issues of Conan, written by Roy Thomas and drawn (mostly) by Barry Smith represent the finest examples of the sword and sorcery genre in comics. This week, we’re pleased to present issues #2-5. All four issues are wonderful, but #3, the highest graded, also happens to be the rarest, with lower distribution than the others; a nice copy with great cover colour and gloss, tight staples, nice pages. Just a little discolour along a few cms of the top edge. Please consult our catalogue for full information on the other issues. 
PICTURED: CONAN #3 VF £90

*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: Well, more of a Canadian Update really. Captain Rocket #1 (and only) was a Canadian venture into Atomic Sci-Fi. All the trademarks are here: square-jawed heroes, slinky space gals in bikinis, space ships with rivets, ray-guns, devious and ugly aliens and the odd monster. A decent example of this much-loved genre. A low grade copy which would grade higher if the front cover wasn’t sheared off — a clean break at least. Lovely pages and clean cover image.
PICTURED: CAPTAIN ROCKET #1 FA £25 SOLD

*Alan Class Reprints: For many years now, we’ve been scouring the personal archives of legendary publisher Alan Class (who is still very much with us) and with his full co-operation, releasing for sale sets of the original printing plates that were used to print the covers of his comics from 1959-1989. We have now reached the final phase of these plate set releases, which will last us into 2022. These sets are time-consuming to prepare, so our release schedule will be staggered. But the good news is that all the sets we have left are among the best, either featuring a classic Marvel comic reprint, or else a very early fantasy/mystery issue. So, this final phase represents your last opportunity to add one or more of these unique pieces to your collection. Each set comprises the lead printing plates used in the original comic’s colour printing, a copy of the comic printed with these plates and a signed certificate of authenticity signed by Alan Class himself. These are packaged in a special protective presentation case. Several sets (as noted) have additional historical artefacts such as colour proofs, interior page plates, printers’ photostats etc. (Please be aware that these weigh a lot and postage will be expensive. Also note that due to the onerous paperwork required for customs declarations following Brexit, we can no longer post these Plate Sets outside the UK.) Just two sets this week, but both full of delights and exciting extras:
CREEPY WORLDS #65 £75 Comic: FN-  Reprints Human Torch story by Kirby from Strange Tales #105 inc cover, pre-hero Marvel: 2 Kirby, 1 Ditko, Atlas, ACG. Extra: 2 interior plates (inc Human Torch splash) SOLD
CREEPY WORLDS #68 £150 Comic: FN-  Reprints Iron Man story from Tales Of Suspense #44 inc cover by Kirby, Giant-Man & Wasp story from  Tales To Astonish #44 (1^st Wasp),  pre-Hero Marvel (2 Ditko). Extra: 2 interior plates (inc Iron Man splash & Ditko page) SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: This week, all 13 issues of Lion, the ‘King Of Picture Story Papers’ from the first quarter of 1953. From an original owner collection, these are in a nice uniform VG at £5 each. The inevitable rusty staples are not too much in evidence with only minimal bleed. As Lion succinctly put it in one of their straplines: ‘School, War, Detective & Adventure Picture Stories.’ See our catalogue for full details.

*Childrens’ Books: A final update to our haul from this quirky sidebar in publishing history this week. ‘Blitz Books’ is a generic name for various publishers’ series of miniature books (approx 8.5 x 12 cm, usually around 16-32 pages, and published 1940-1944), these booklets helped distract children in air-raid shelters and Underground stations during bombing raids over London. They became known as ‘Blitz Books’, and, like many publications from the years of World War II, are quite scarce, particularly in as nice condition as the examples we have here. Four from the Pocket Series, including my personal favourite of all the ones we’ve been featuring: not just a ‘Walking Skeleton’, but a walking skeleton carrying a suitcase – great stuff! Illustrated text stories with colourful, evocative covers. None of these have ever passed through our hands before, and probably never will again. It’s been great fun. 
PICTURED: POCKET SERIES ALL SOLD
#41 RAILROAD BOSS FN £8
#42 THE WALKING SKELETON FN £8
#44 SECRET OF FOX RANGE FN £8
#48 HOPALONG AVENGES THE SHERIFF FN £8

*DC: Six issues of the old look Batman from the early 1960s new in this week, when you were more likely to find a monster or alien in Gotham City than you were the Joker or the Penguin. Included are: #126 (with Batwoman and the Firefly), #133, #149, #158 (Ace the Super Bat-Hound), #161 (with Bat-Mite) and Annual #5 (Strange Lives of Batman & Robin). Mostly in cheap and cheerful grades – see our catalogue for full details. 
PICTURED: BATMAN BOTH SOLD
#126 FA/GD £35 Colour touches and water damage
#133 GD+ p £43 Stapled 1 cm in from spine (original staples)

*Marvel: We kick off this week’s Good Doctor Collection listings with the first release from the second title we’ve tackled: Fantastic Four. 1965’s Fantastic Four #45 saw the culmination of a long-running subplot – and the introduction of a whole new family of supporting super-stars. Since #36, the mysterious Madame Medusa had been a thorn in the side of the FF, and latterly, from #44, she had been pursued by the equally mysterious Gorgon. Now, the pair’s true origin, and their royal heritage, was revealed, as the monarchs of the Inhumans made their debut in these two issues. Black Bolt, Crystal, Triton, Karnak and Lockjaw rounded out the Royal Family tree, and became long-running allies of the Fantastic Four. #46 featured the first full appearance of Black Bolt, having teased us with a cameo in the preceding issue. Great covers on these issues.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR
#45 VG+ p £215 Pence printed, minor spine, edge and corner wear, great central image with small faint stamp on the moon. Tight staples and vivid colour, very nice white to off-white pages. SOLD
#46 FN+ £265 Flat with great colour, tight staples and an unmarred cover image. A faint suggestion of a short crease at the logo with a tiny colour break, a little bit of corner blunting and very minimal wear at top edge; presents very well.

*Marvel: This week’s final visit to the Good Doctor Collection presents every issue of Amazing Spider-Man from #211 to #237. Characteristically these are in most cases very high grades and close to pristine copies. A packed time for Spidey (aren’t they all?) as he mixes it up with the Sub-Mariner, Hydro-Man (1st appearance), The Frightful Four, Madame Web, the Sandman, Moon Knight, Ramrod, Speed Demon, the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes, the Vulture, Fool-Killer, Black Cat, Juggernaut, the Cobra and Mr Hyde, the Tarantula, Will-O’-The-Wisp and the Stilt-Man. Gosh, didn’t he come up against a lot of villains ‘belonging’ to other heroes? More from the Good Doctor next week!
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #212 NM £75

*Marvel: When the Ant-Man name was unclaimed in the late 1970s, a brainier-than-average sneak-thief, Scott Lang, stole Hank Pym’s old apparatus and became the second bearer of that title! But it’s okay – he did bad things for good reasons, specifically to find a cure for his dying daughter, as was revealed in Marvel Premiere #47, the tale which (after a non-costumed cameo in Avengers #181) was Scott’s first full appearance. John Byrne and David Michelinie created this different take on the hero, and since then, Scott has had his ups and downs – been in jail a few times, been dead a few more, been a love-slave of the Purple Man – but he’s fought his way back to respectability, and has achieved cinematic stardom in two eponymous movie hits, plus pivotal roles in ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and ‘Avengers: Endgame’; a third Ant-man film is in the works. Our latest copy is pence printed, high grade with just very minor handling wear.
PICTURED: MARVEL PREMIERE #47 VF+ p £110 SOLD

*Horror 1940-59: A couple of issues of Story’s Pre-Code Mysterious Adventures (1951) new in this week. #5 has a severed heads and bondage cover, but is in a poor state with detached and separated covers with multiple tears and chips out. The pages are quite nice (and gruesome); PR at £20. #23, with a great mummy cover, is structurally much more sound, and similarly gruesome with a quality Jay Disbrow story; very minor spine wear and a couple of colour-breaking creases across top and bottom of right cover, but glossy with nice staples and pages; its most noticeable defect is that the front cover is somewhat faded, muting the greens and reds, although this does give it a more atmospheric impact relating to the cover scene.
PICTURED: MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURES #23 VG+£175

*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. For some reason (possibly page count?), in reprinting Avengers #8 (debut of Kang), Miller chose not to use the original, more dynamic cover and instead substituted the splash page on the cover, giving this version a unique look. It appears that Kang is about to explode into the MCU, so a great opportunity to get this version of his first appearance. This is a nice copy, with minor edge wear, intact spine with tiny nick at bottom, unmarked cover and white pages.
PICTURED: MYSTIC #56 VG/FN £75 SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: Another batch of War Picture Library added to our catalogue this week, dozens of issues between #100 and #200. War PL was the first of the long-running war-themed Picture Libraries, starting in 1958 and lasting over 2000 issues until 1984. This week many of the numbers we’ve added are new to our listings. 

*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: I’m well read in classic fantasy: Tolkein, Peake, Lewis etc, so when I say that Lord Dunsany is just about my favourite fantasy author, you can see he’s got some pretty stiff competition. The Irish nobleman in fact covered a wide range of subject matter in a huge body of work: novels, short stories, plays and poetry, but it is a couple of his fantasy works that concern us here. The King Of Elfland’s Daughter (1924) is his finest novel, a romance of love story, adventure, magic and a big ‘be careful what you wish for’ message. Its first paperback publication was in 1969 in Lin Carter’s Pan Ballantine Adult Fantasy series; here we have a Ballantine edition from a few years later with a gorgeous cover by Darrell Sweet. At The Edge Of The World is an anthology from the Adult Fantasy series, published in 1970, full to the brim with thirty of Dunsany’s short stories, polished gems of fantasy and imagination taken from his various original books; with an introduction by Carter and cover art by Ray Cruz. Dunsany wrote the finest prose in the medium, with beautifully constructed sentences and evocative, poetic imagery. His praises are sung here by L. Sprague de Camp, H P Lovecraft, W B Yeats and James Branch Cabell. 
PICTURED: by Lord Dunsany BOTH SOLD
THE KING OF ELFLAND’S DAUGHTER FN £12 3rd US PB 1977. Lovely condition.
AT THE EDGE OF THE WORLD VG £12 1st UK PB 1970. Nice copy with slight spine crease and short crease across bottom right cover.

*DC: A chunky update to the Atom this week, a favourite Silver Age series in these parts, with highly imaginative stories by Gardner Fox combining super-heroics, time travel and magical or fantasy settings. Artwork is from the flowing pencil of the wonderful Gil Kane, masterfully inked here by Murphy Anderson and Sid Greene for a visual feast. Mostly low grades copies on offer this update, but including Zatanna’s second appearance in #19, the Golden Age Atom in #29, Hawkman in #31 plus a couple of issues after the series became Atom & Hawkman and a whole lot more. Full details as always in our catalogue. 

*Marvel: We kick off this week’s visits to the Good Doctor Collection with Amazing Spider-Man #10, another Lee & Ditko gem. In Spider-Man’s tenth issue, the mysterious ‘Big Man’ sought aid in his goal to become the king of the underworld, and enlisted the assistance of a trio of career criminals known as the Enforcers. One of them, the Ox, went on to become a nemesis of Daredevil, and enjoy a villainous career in his own right, but still ‘got the band together’ from time to time with his cohorts, Dapper Dan and Montana to battle the Human Torch, Dazzler and multiple clashes with Spider-Man and Daredevil. This is a nice pence printed copy with a clean cover, good tight staples and off-white to white pages. The spine is a little worn, with minor nicks only at top and bottom. Some very faint creases around the right edge which barely break colour; there is one vertical colour-breaking crease from the top edge down to the ‘P’ in the logo and more apparent back cover creasing. The date ‘MAR’ has been handwritten in the number box. Overall this copy presents very well. 
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #10 VG/FN p £350 SOLD