*DC: John Constantine, Hellblazer, has been a popular character in the DCU and pretty much ever-present since his inception in the pages of Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, gathering much media attention along the way. So, we’re glad to restock many issues of his 1988 series between #13 and #30 this week. Listed, of course, under Hellblazer.

*Marvel: Back in the Silver Age, Spidey guest appearances in other characters’ series weren’t all that common, and thus were rather special when they did occur. Two such cases for your consideration this week: Spidey clashed with the Silver Surfer in issue #14 of the surfing dude’s own title, and with the X-Men in #35 of the merry mutants’ book (I guess he was just misunderstood). Silver Surfer #14 is a nice pence printed copy with minor spine wear and minor non-colour breaking creasing, while X-Men #35 (pence printed) is a solid mid-grade with some edge wear and corner blunting, firm staples and a small crease at bottom right edge which does not break colour. 
PICTURED:
SILVER SURFER #14 FN+ p £75
X-MEN #35 VG p £60 

*Marvel: In the Frank Miller era of Daredevil, Bullseye, the unfailing assassin, became firmly established as DD’s bête noire, causing the Man Without Fear endless grief and misery. And can we ever forget Colin Farrell’s epic scenery-chewing as Bullseye in the Daredevil movie? Well, maybe if we’re lucky and get hit in the head with a blunt object. But a lot of people, even today, aren’t aware that Bullseye wasn’t a Miller creation; step forward Marv Wolfman and Bob Brown, who presented The Assassin Who Never Misses for the first time in Daredevil #131, two years before the Miller regime kicked in! This new copy in is a lower grade, superficially nice with cover gloss, good staples and decent pages and just a bit of handling wear and minor creasing to the bottom right corner; however, something has been spilt at the right edge of the mast-head, resulting in a tiny hole and a small 1p coin size rough patch that you can’t see but can feel. 
PICTURED: DAREDEVIL #131 GD/VG p £45

*Marvel: Our Six Of The Best feature this week spans the Silver Age of Marvel, through the Bronze Age and up to the Modern Age. #1 issues include: Alpha Flight, Doc Savage, Inhumans, New Mutants, Not Brand Echh and Wolverine: Origin. Full details as always in our catalogue.
PICTURED:
INHUMANS #1 VF £30
NOT BRAND ECHH #1 FN+ £20

*Marvel: A small batch of Marvel’s flagship title, the Fantastic Four, added to our catalogue this week between #37 and #82, plus the landmark Annual #3, featuring the wedding of Sue & Reed. Among others, issues included are #51 (the classic Thing cover and story), #55 (Thing vs Surfer) and #60 (vs the cosmic-powered Dr Doom). 

*Horror/Mystery 1960-1980s: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. By its tenth issue, Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan’s highly acclaimed run on Tomb of Dracula was in full swing, racking up plaudits from critics and fans alike, when suddenly there came a character who was to outstrip even the success of his comic book ‘parent’. Blade the Vampire Slayer debuted in issue #10, and, numerous comic-book appearances and a highly successful movie trilogy (Marvel’s first such, in fact) behind him, remains one of the more enduring breakthrough characters of the 1970s. With the Blade franchise shortly about to be ‘rebooted’, in the media’s voracious frenzy for new properties, Blade’s early appearances are once more spiralling upward. This is a cents copy, no UK price or overstamp, in superior VF+ condition, excellent cover colour and gloss, fresh and supple, firm staples at spine and centrefold, tiny crease in upper right cover corner and small faint arrival date at side of the logo. Front, back and splash shown below; high resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: TOMB OF DRACULA #10 VF+ £1,000

TOMB OF DRACULA #10 VF+

TOMB OF DRACULA #10 BACK

TOMB OF DRACULA #10 SPLASH

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: About 30 additions to Commando, the most popular and longest-lived of all Picture Library titles in the range #1001-1050, published in the mid-70s. These are in the best condition you’re likely to come across, all VF with just a couple of FN grades. They are from a newsagent’s unsold stock, never circulated or read. Glossy covers with vibrant colour, tight spines and sharp corners; truly exceptional copies.

*Girls’ Comics: Lindy was a bit of an anomaly for Fleetway/IPC, published on better quality paper and with more colour pages than the average weekly, seemingly attempting to straddle the gap between the usual girls’ comic and the teen magazines, with a heavy emphasis on TV and pop. The experiment doesn’t appear to have been successful, as, after a scant twenty issues, it was merged into Jinty. While Lindy didn’t offer any ‘star’ features – the comedy filler ‘Penny Crayon’ was the longest-lived of its strips – its short achievable run, and the fact that the plethora of pin-ups mean that undamaged copies are rare, means that today it’s highly collectable. We welcome an almost complete run to our catalogue, including the first three and final issues.
PICTURED: LINDY #1 VG £25

Please note that all orders received by Saturday 12th December and paid for by 4 pm on Tuesday 15th December should be posted on Wednesday 16th, which is the last date we are posting before Christmas. Due to the restrictions placed on us by the pandemic, there will be no last minute exceptions, so please ensure if you’re buying Christmas presents (and you’re in the UK) that you get your order in by Saturday 12th December to be sure of getting it before Christmas. Outside the UK, delivery times vary widely.  

*DC: Now we’re straying dangerously close here to my all-time favourite comics! Absolutely delighted to bring you all 6 parts of the Zatanna’s Search storyline – a crossover story arc before there were such things — commonplace now but unheard of in 1964! A particularly timely update bearing in mind strong movie rumours! Zatanna is the daughter of DC’s Golden Age magician Zatara, first appearing in Hawkman #4 and taking her search for her missing father through the pages of Green Lantern, Atom, Detective Comics and the Justice League of America. Our latest copy of Hawkman #4 is an apparent VG-, pence stamped, with a good colour cover image, tight staples and decent pages. There is some edge wear, particularly to the spine, and some colour-breaking creases to the bottom right corner. We use the term ‘apparent’ because the right edge looks a little narrower than it should, suggesting a trim, although the wear at that edge would seem to contradict that. Nevertheless, we have priced it as if it was trimmed. The remaining five parts are shown below in order (completists should note that Zatanna only appears in disguise in Detective Comics #336, retconned into the Batman story, as we found out in JLA #51, in order to get Batman into that issue).
PICTURED:
HAWKMAN #4 App VG- p £140 1 of 6
DETECTIVE COMICS #336 GD/VG £18.50 2 of 6
ATOM #19 FN- p £95 3 of 6
GREEN LANTERN #42 VG+ p £30 4 of 6
DETECTIVE COMICS #355 FA p £8.25 5 of 6
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #51 FN/VF p £60 6 of 6

*DC: In 1964, with issue #164, newly transferred editor Julius Schwartz ushered in the ‘New Look’ for Batman; the Caped Crusader gained a yellow circle around the bat emblem on his chest and the tone of the stories changed to emphasize mystery and crime, away from the science-fiction tales so often employed in the ‘Old Look’, with monsters, aliens, super-powered villains and the Batman Family, including Alfred, Batwoman, Bat-Girl and Ace the Bat-Hound. This update we focus on the ‘New Look’, from the first issue (#164) up to #192 — more mystery, more detection, more action; lots of really nice grades among these and lots of lovely Carmine Infantino covers to boot. But there’s still plenty of ‘Old Look’ charm to be found in those wonderful 80 page reprint annuals, several of which are included in this update under the Annual sequential numbering at the end of our Batman listing.
PICTURED: BATMAN #173 VF- p £46

*Marvel: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. One of the later breakout characters of Marvel, Frank Castle, aka bereaved urban vigilante the Punisher, became one of the company’s super-stars in the 1990s, but had spent most of the previous two decades ‘bubbling under’ as a guest-starring anti-hero. His media presence – and commercial appeal – has been heightened by numerous film and TV appearances. The Punisher’s first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #129, February 1974, is particularly rare in the UK, where, owing to the presence of Spider-Man Comics Weekly, the US title was embargoed for distribution for several years. This is a cents copy (there are no pence copies, of course), CGC certified Blue Label (no restoration) graded 9.4 (NM equivalent).
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #129 CGC 9.4 NM £2500

*Marvel: From 1981, and the days when alternate future storylines were not nearly as cliched as they’ve since become, one of the most compelling of them all: the classic ‘Days Of Future Past’ two-parter from X-Men #141/142 by Claremont & Byrne. This was virtually Byrne’s swan song on the title. Featuring an aged X-Men line-up against the Sentinels (and the first appearance of Rachel Summers, who became Excalibur’s Phoenix, (later Marvel Girl II)), this really is the story where, as the cover gleefully proclaims, “Everybody Dies!” Already a sought-after two-parter, but its popularity (and value!) skyrocketed after the release of the X-Men film, ‘Days of Future Past’, which adapted the narrative to the big screen (though, it must be said, Wolverine was very unconvincing in the role of Kitty Pryde…).
PICTURED: X-MEN
#141 VF- p £55
#142 VF- £40

*Marvel: The Captain America half of Tales of Suspense #75 introduced not one, but two, characters who were to factor largely in the life of the Star-Spangled Avenger. One was Batroc the Leaper, the savate-stomping stereotype who has unexpectedly kick-boxed his way into the hearts of fandom, who know him with affectionate derision as ‘Batroc Zee Leapair’; the other was Sharon Carter, a.k.a. Agent 13 of SHIELD, in this story a nameless young woman whose innocent appearance conceals a deadly skill set – and who became the second love of Cap’s life. This is a lower graded cents copy with heavy spine roll, tanned interior covers and edge wear, particularly at spine, but is otherwise okay, with good staples and decent pages.
PICTURED: TALES OF SUSPENSE #75 GD/VG £30 SOLD

*Marvel: The ‘What If’ franchise has been an enduringly popular one for Marvel over the years (although it was DC who pioneered the concept with their ‘Imaginary Stories’ back in the 1960s), so we’ve expanded our catalogue to add a couple of dozen issues from the second series from 1989 onwards. Each issue done-in-one, the many stars of the Marvel Universe are featured.

*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: It’s a thing, isn’t it? Girls menaced by robots in the Golden Age. One only has to think of the classic advertising posters for the Forbidden Planet movie to see the iconography of this type of image. Planet Comics #70, Robotmen of the Lost Planet, countless others. Perhaps the most famous of these is Nedor’s Startling Comics #49 by Alex Schomburg. Whilst the prices on this have risen stratospherically out of reach for the average collector, the lesser known Brick Bradford #6 from King Features in 1948 provides a relatively more affordable alternative. Brick Bradford is a space adventurer in the mould of Flash Gordon, with his adventures more than competently illustrated by Clarence Gray. But it’s the cover of #6 that’s the big selling point. Drawn by Alex Schomburg, a typical Schomburg robot menaces our heroine, with Brick there to save the day. This is a superb copy for a comic published in 1948, with vivid colour, flat with tight staples, great page quality and only very minimal wear. What looks like an arrival date is pencilled near the robot’s head and a faint trace of a non-colour breaking crease can just be made out close to the right bottom edge. There is a very small scuff at the top of the spine, but this hardly shows against the yellow background. I doubt there’s many better copies in existence. High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: BRICK BRADFORD #6 FN- £750 SOLD

*Alan Class Reprints: A couple of really unusual items from the Alan Class vaults this week. First up, Astounding Stories #150. This copy (and we’re not sure if this applies to all copies) has several pages printed more than once (including part of the Marvel BPM Spragg story). What makes it unique is a sheet of Alan’s handwritten instructions to the printers advising them that the flongs (the plastic or papier mache plates that the pages are printed from) were uncut on presentation and therefore not in the right order, so to make sure they double-checked the correct running order for the pages, an instruction they seem to have ignored! Secondly, Creepy Worlds #73, which reprints the Dr Strange story from Strange Tales #123 by Lee & Ditko, where the Master of the Mystic Arts comes up against Loki, with Thor guest-starring. This copy comes with the full Dr. Strange story in printer’s proof form i.e. black and white copies. Both issues of course are accompanied by a hand-signed certificate from Alan Class himself. Your chance to own a unique piece of Alan Class history!
PICTURED:
ASTOUNDING STORIES #150 VG £20 With Alan Class instruction sheet SOLD
CREEPY WORLDS #73 VG £40 With Dr. Strange story printer’s proofs SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Created as a companion to Hotspur, Hornet’s star was ‘Bouncing’ Bernard Briggs, soccer goalie (and later jack-of-all-sports – British comics presented sportsmen the way American ones did scientists, with all the disciplines being interchangeable), who was the only survivor from the original line-up to make it all the way to the end. After a very respectable run, Bernard, along with everlasting wonder-man ‘Wilson’, crossed over to Hotspur. But this week we have Hornet from the beginning, with the vast majority of its first two years, 1963 and 1964, in a mixture of grades, including the first three issues. The first issue is a nice copy, but with a small tear at the lower left cover margin.
PICTURED: HORNET #1 GD/VG £45 SOLD

*Girls’ Comics: Two Free Gift issues from the long-running Judy this week: #419 (1968) features a pristine sheet of stick-on ‘Funflowers’; #475 (1969) features a ‘Two-In-One Bracelet’, still sealed in its original envelope.
PICTURED: JUDY BOTH SOLD
#419 VG/FN WITH FREE GIFT VF £30
#475 VG/FN WITH FREE GIFT VF £40

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 Books section:
*Crime, Spies & Sleaze
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.

*DC: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. In the wake of the successful Silver Age revivals of Flash and Green Lantern, DC decided to try one of their most popular Golden Age characters, Hawkman, recast in a ‘Space-Age’ mode. This version was Katar Hol, police officer sent from Thanagar to study Earth law-enforcement customs, and his helpmate Hawkgirl was no silly debutante as in the original, but rather his colleague in policing, and his wife. A husband-and-wife superhero team was virtually unheard-of at that time, and Gardner Fox’s scripting, gave equal time to both Hawks. Superbly illustrated, first by Joe Kubert, then by Murphy Anderson, the Hawk’s adventures combined a true partnership of equals with derring-do all over Earth and on other worlds. We’re proud to have the first Hawkman revival issue, Brave & Bold #34, available in a choice of two grades and prices. There’s a Fine copy, pence stamped, with good cover colour and gloss, tight and flat except for some very minor non-colour breaking creasing near the top edge and a faint small crease across the top right corner; great page quality and a fresh, supple copy, with minimal spine and edge wear. Our second copy is GD (cents), with moderate spine and edge wear and corner blunting, but unspoilt cover image; specific defects are a fingernail-size chip out of the bottom edge near the spine and interior tape to front and back cover interiors along the spine. I bang on a bit about the quality of DC’s colour palette at this time; here the deep blue background gives this awesome cover an almost 3D effect. One of my favourite comics.
PICTURED: BRAVE & BOLD #34
FN p £370
GD £125 

*DC/Marvel: In the midst of a great many company crossover events between the Big Two came Spider-Man & Batman, starring the most popular character from each company. It’s a nice package, squarebound with an embossed shiny cover and featuring the Joker and Carnage as the baddies. Written by J. M. DeMatteis and drawn by Mark Bagley, you know what? It’s actually pretty good, and in a sparkling NM condition to boot!
PICTURED: SPIDER-MAN & BATMAN NM £35

*Marvel: Another fabulous issue of Amazing Spider-Man drawn by Steve Ditko this week. #34 features Spidey’s re-match with Kraven the Hunter and is a sound pence printed copy with a cover unmarked but for a narrow dust shadow along the right edge, good firm staples and minor edge wear and corner blunting; nice page quality and minor tanning to the edges of inside covers.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #34 VG p £50

*Marvel: In August 1967’s Avengers #43, we found out that the Black Widow’s nom-du-guerre was a teeny bit inaccurate, as her previously ‘deceased’ husband was discovered, not only alive, but the first subject of the Soviet Union’s own super-soldier project, the Red Guardian! Now announced as one of the major figures of the BW film (though whether as antagonist or ally is not yet known), the Red Guardian’s debut is a low grade good pence printed copy with heavy spine roll and misaligned staples, but otherwise okay. Avengers #83 saw several of Marvel’s fabulous femmes – Black Widow, Medusa, the Scarlet Witch and the Wasp – join forces as the Lady Liberators, under the leadership of the vivacious Valkyrie! Val’s origins and history are too complex to go into here, but this was the first appearance of the Valkyrie character and persona, as later portrayed by Tessa Thompson in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ and ‘Avengers: Endgame’. This is a respectable mid-grade pence printed copy with the only specific defect being a small tear on the back cover at the base of the spine.
PICTURED: AVENGERS
#43 GD p £25 SOLD
#83 VG+p £45

*Marvel: After a one-off black & white magazine in 1975, Legion of Monsters, used up a rag-bag of separate inventory stories starring Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, Manphibian and other horror heroes, someone at Marvel decided that the title was nifty enough to merit a further outing, and therefore the bizarre and otherwise inexplicable Marvel Premiere #28 came about. Unlike the Legion of Monsters one-shot, which featured unrelated stories, Marvel Premiere #28 brought Ghost Rider, Man-Thing, Werewolf By Night and Morbius the Living Vampire together as an actual team, albeit one even more mis-matched than the Champions! From the team of Bill Mantlo and Frank Robbins, it’s… everything you might expect! For decades discarded in bargain boxes everywhere, this issue has acquired white-hot collector’s status in the last decade. Our latest copy is a glossy, flat pence printed comic with just minor edge and spine wear; the grade is brought down by a small tear and loose but attached chip mid right edge of the cover.
PICTURED: MARVEL PREMIERE #28 VG p £35 SOLD