*EC: A sequential run new in of the classic Crime Suspenstories title from #7 to #12 in a mixture of grades and prices ranging from PR/FA to FN and from £16 to £115. Many of EC’s finest artists were involved in this title, including Johnny Craig, Graham Ingels, Jack Davis, Jack Kamen etc., and the crime in the title often strayed into the realms of horror, as evidenced by the Haunt of Fear ‘guest shots’ in all these issues. Consult our catalogue for full grading and pricing information.

 

*Western: Our Marvel Western event this week features the Rawhide Kid, with half a dozen new issues in between #48 & #64. Mosey on down and slap some leather with the Kid!  

*Classics Illustrated: A further selection of the UK versions of Classics for your attention (all over #100). These additions are distinguished by including a low grade copy of #148 (the UK original Nights Of Terror), plus a batch of World Illustrated; many nicely graded copies present.  

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: For our First Quenchers event this week, we present the third of Fleetway/IPC’s ‘Big Cat’ papers (after Lion and Tiger). Jag launched in 1968 at an astonishing broadsheet size, reminding readers more of the Eagle than of its smaller-statured stablemates. Inside, the combination of plucky schoolboys in WWII (“The Mouse Patrol”), heroic everyman gifted with superhuman powers (“The Indestructible Man”), and mild-mannered teacher struggling with the challenges of “Snob College” was well up to the Fleetway standard. Unfortunately, the large size deterred a lot of newsagents from displaying the title at all, and the initial lack of a ‘star’ feature didn’t lead many readers to climb aboard; the later addition of ‘Football Family Robinson’ helped a bit, but after a last-minute shrink-down to standard size, Jag was consumed by Tiger after only 48 weekly issues, rendering it a scarce and sought-after short-run series. We have the first issue in FN, with the original free gift – “The Bobby Moore Book of the F.A.Cup”. However, the free gift is regrettably incomplete, having had two pictures clipped from it. Because of this, we’re not doing our usual enhancement for the presence of a Free Gift, and offer it merely as an additional interesting curiosity. This copy of #1 in FN, with incomplete Free Gift, on sale at £40. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*TV & Film Related Comics: Strange bedfellows, but there is a connection between them: Transformers, the heroic robots from outer space, and Action Force – the UK-retitled version of America’s GI Joe, as that last name was deemed incomprehensible to the British market – both launched from Marvel UK as reprints of the American series, but proved so popular that a great deal of UK-originated material was produced for the weeklies which was never gathered in American formats – making the UK edition of these titles a ‘holy grail’ for dedicated GI Joe groupies and… I dunno… Transfans? Furthermore, in the ‘hatch, match and despatch’ formula beloved of traditional British weeklies, Action Force, once it ran its course, was merged into transformers Weekly to form an ‘amalgam’ title, giving the two series yet another commonality. We are pleased to have around half the run of Transformers, 175 issues new in, from #6 to the very final number, #332, plus Winter and Holiday Specials. Action Force is represented by the entirety of it 50-issue run. Heroic Autobot or Evil Decepticon? GI Joe or COBRA? Pick a side!

*Humour Comics: A near complete run of the second series of Knockout fresh in this week to tickle your funny bones! From the first issue (12th June 1971) to the last (23rd June 1973), strips include Dead Eye Dick, Sammy Shrink, the Super Seven, The Toffs and the Toughs and many more. Full details as always in our catalogue.   

*Girls’ Comics: As the fame and popularity of Misty continues to grow, #1 issues complete with Free Gift are getting increasingly harder to come by, so we’re particularly pleased to feature in our First Quenchers British #1 event, a top of the range example of this prized collectable. The comic is in FN condition with no tears or writing and nice page quality; there are a couple of marks where the tape for the Free Gift was attached, but these are just small dark patches rather than the scuff marks more usually seen. The Free Gift itself (Lucky Charm Bracelet) is still in its original plastic bag and though no longer attached to the comic, still has the original (no longer) sticky tape attached; overall we’ve classified the never-used Gift as VF. Comic and Gift together for £120.  

*Clearance Corner: Here’s a real bargain! No less than 41 British #1 issues, ranging from the 1970s into the 21st Century. They’re all in nice condition and complete, in many cases with full/partial free gifts included. Titles include: Toxic, Frozen (Disney), Dennis & Gnasher Puzzles, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles, Judge Dredd Megazine, Striker and too many others to mention (all titles we no longer carry). All available for just £20 — less than 50p each! (These fill a medium-sized box weighing just under 5 kg, and can be posted within the UK for an additional £18). Samples shown in attached picture. 

*Clearance Corner: This week we’re clearing out our stock of McMillan 1990’s editions of the irrepressible William by Richmal Crompton, all with cover art by Gerry Haylock and interior illustrations by Thomas Henry or Henry Ford (with one Armada edition from 1986 with a photo cover). The lot comprises 19 paperbacks including #1-10 in the series and several later numbers (with one duplication). All available for a cost of £15 (less than £1 per book!). These are a personal favourite of your scribe, and reading them as an adult I certainly got even more out of them than I did when I first read them as a child. Tremendous fun, wit and charm with the eternal mischievous schoolboy. UK postage if required on these will be an additional £3.50.     

*DC: A lovely vintage Superman from 1957, only one month older than your humble scribe – but in a much, much  better state of preservation! Superman #117, November 1957, is an attractive FN copy, with sound pages, tight corners, firm staples, decent interiors, and an unmarred cover image featuring a curious reversal of Superman’s heat-vision. Inside, the mystery of the switched super-powers continues, and in the other two stories, Supes’ mild-mannered alter-ego becomes “Clark Kent, Man of Mystery” and Lois Lane stumbles into some wackiness and gets turned into a glass statue – which in Lois’ life just means it’s Tuesday! This very appealing pre-distribution item is FN at £95.

*DC: Continuing our systematic restocking of the DC back numbers, this week we lead off with two Kirby Kreations: Mister Miracle, from #3 to #15, and Omac, from the very first issue (with a cover that is still one of the most disturbing published, even decades later) through to issue #8. We also have smaller top-ups for the Phantom Stranger, Rima the Jungle Girl, Rip Hunter Time Master, the Shadow (with superlative Mike Kaluta artwork), and Shazam!, rounding out with the one-off Sherlock Holmes comic from 1976. More coming soon from the classic DCU – better than modern comics, and often cheaper!

*Marvel: When the distribution embargo was lifted on Marvel in 1968, one of the company’s first actions was to launch the stars of its ‘split’ books, such as Tales to Astonish, Strange Tales and Tales of Suspense, into their own series; one such was Captain America. For a few years, since his return to the modern Marvel Age in Avengers #4, the Sentinel of Liberty had been ‘flatsharing’ with iron Man in Tales of Suspense, but with the new system, he got his own star-spangled series – beginning, owing to a peculiarity of the period, with issue #100, continuing the numbering of the now-defunct Suspense. This copy of Captain America #100, featuring the talents of Stan lee, Jack Kirby and Syd Shores, is VG+, a superior copy with only moderate wear and very light cover creasing, cover scene unimpaired, decent white flexible interiors. A pence stamped copy, it is on sale at £75. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: Another massive restock of Marvel’s 1960’s and 1970’s output, touching on titles such as the Avengers (with the debuts of the Grim Reaper, Ultron (cameo appearance) Hellcat & Taskmaster (1st full app)), Avengers Annuals and the non-distributed Giant-Size Avengers, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Contest Of Champions, Daredevil (from #6 and including #168, the first Elektra), Defenders, Doc Savage, Hulk, Iron Man Annual, Journey into Mystery (both Thor and Big-Panty-Monsters issues!), Ka-Zar, Marvel Feature, Marvel Premiere (including 1st Scott Lang Ant-Man in #47!), Marvel Presents, Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD (glorious Steranko artwork), Luke Cage, Power Man (including #17, the first issue in which Luke assumes the Power Man name), Red Sonja, Amazing Spider-Man and Giant-Size Spider-Man, Strange Tales (including an early X-Men – well, Iceman – guest-appearance with the Human Torch), Sub-Mariner (from #2 through to #70), and Thor (including #181 with Neal Adams artwork!) Close to 200 new Marvel back issues added in today, for your browsing delight, in a range of grades, so check out our catalogue for details.

*Collected Editions: In our new and very popular Collected Editions section, we’re proud to make three significant additions. From 1989, Hawk Book’s Tales From The Trigan Empire compilation, a large-format hardcover collecting the legendary strip by Mike Butterworth and Don Lawrence which ran in Ranger and Look & Learn for decades. With the high production standards Hawk was renowned for, Lawrence’s sumptuous art is shown to great advantage. From 2011, the first volume of Captain Britain in hardcover, subtitled Birth of a Legend, representing the entirety of Cap B’s first series, with the first appearances not only of the good Captain himself but many of his friends and foes, including his sister Betsy, who would later become the X-Men’s psychic psiren Psylocke, and Lance Hunter, who later gained prominence in TV’s Agents of SHELD show. Finally, from this very year of 2017, Night Raven: From the Marvel UK Vaults is a paperback compilation lovingly (some would say obsessively) gathering every single obscure appearance of the nourish pulp anti-hero from dozens of different sources in Marvel UK’s catalogue. Featuring work by Alan Moore, Steve Parkhouse, David Lloyd, Alan Davis and John Bolton, among others, this is a showcase of many of comic’s greatest talents in the early days of their careers. Tales From The Trigan Empire is VF at £50; Captain Britain is VF at £75; and Night Raven is Mint at £32.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Continuing our Long Hot Summer event featuring UK Summer & Holiday Specials! …Though perhaps the denizens of Scream! might prefer a cool, dank summer, all things considered… the nefarious and short-lived horror title was revived for a number of glossy holiday specials that showcased its sinister charms, if anything, even better than the original 15-issue weekly. ‘The Dracula File’, ‘Thirteenth Floor’ and all the other regulars bring you shakes and shivers in this extra-length edition, VG/FN at £25.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: …Well, it’s not long before you become a Buster, as it happens; but Jet, the 1971 adventure weekly launch from !PC/Fleetway, started strongly, with a line-up of well-crafted series along the well-trod path of war, sci-fi and sport, along with Ken Reid’s superb ‘Faceache’. For some reason, however, the series just didn’t ‘take’, despite other stellar contributors such as Solano Lopez and Eric Bradbury, and after a short run of 22 issues, it was inexplicably merged with the humour weekly, Buster, rather than another adventure series. “The Sludgemouth Sloggers”, “Von Hoffman’s Invasion”, “Faceache”, and “The Kids From Stalag 41” made the leap, for a long time Jet languished forgotten. Recent interest in short-run titles has increased, however, and her we have an opportunity for you to sample Jet in very affordable low to mid grades, from the second issue to the final number.

*TV & Film Related Comics: For more seaside summer fun (appropriately, as we type this on a torrential Thursday afternoon), we offer TV Comic Holiday Specials from the 1970’s and 1980’s, featuring Battle of the Planets, Tarzan, Pink Panther, Popeye, Mighty Moth, Tom & Jetty, Laurel & Hardy, and the TV Terrors, as well as Popeye’s own spin-off, the Popeye Holiday Special, with more two-fisted spinach-guzzlin’ action than you can shake the proverbial stick at!

*Humour Comics: Buzz, the 1970’s companion to Topper and Beezer, was in the broadsheet format espoused by its stablemates, and packed a lot into the oversized pages; highlights included “Hop, Skip, and Jock”, wherein our eponymous but impecunious  trio concocted an outlandish money-making scheme each week; ‘Olly and His Occy’, the tale of a boy and his pet octopus romping around having adventures (of course); ‘Big Fat Flo’, a low-concept which probably drove a generation of female readers into the arms of eating disorders; and ‘Jimmy Jinx and What He Thinks’, a tale of a young boy plagued by different interpretations of the same event (aided by his angelic and demonic avatars), which was generally clever and entertaining. Buzz lasted a total of 103 issues, and we have more than 70 in stock, ranging from the second to the penultimate – the latter, #102, with a rather nice festive cover, is our illustration here.

*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: For this week’s What’s Old feature, where we highlight items from existing stock, we turn to the lovely Venus. The chameleonic nature of Timely/Atlas’ Venus title has long entertained panelologists worldwide. Beginning as a ‘funny career girl’ title akin to Millie the Model, it fit squarely into Timely’s comedy/romance line for girls. Then it shifted to straight romance with a light touch of fantasy, akin to popular movies of the era such as ‘Turnabout’ or ‘Down To Earth’; and in its third phase, it started featuring science-fiction and horror themes, as our heroine became an adventuress in other realms. This very issue, #10, marks the beginning of this third phase, and has the additional attraction of being in unusually high grade for its vintage, a CGC Blue Label (no restoration) 7.5, equating to VF- in real terms. Less scrupulous dealers would also point out the appearance of a character called ‘Son of Satan’, labelling it as a ‘prototype’ issue and bumping up the costs; we simply draw your attention to it as an amusing historical sidebar. Our Goddess of Love has now been firmly engrained in the Marvel Universe thanks to Agents of Atlas and other modern series. Seldom seen in any grade, the ferociously-sought Venus almost never makes it over to this side of the Atlantic. #10, CGC Blue Label 7.5 (VF-) £375.
 

*Clearance Corner: Another great bargain in the shape of three vintage Marvel Colouring Books from 1979. Actually published by World Distributors, these FN or FN/VF examples are totally unused, with every page ready for your artistic endeavours, and only superficial exterior wear precluding higher grades. Reprinting covers and splash pages in glorious monochrome, many of Marvel’s finest artists are represented within these pages. Fantastic Four, Spider-Man and Thor. These days, colouring books are de rigeur for adults who want to improve their mindfulness — back in 1979, they were just for fun! Previously on sale at £25 each, we’re now offering all three for the price of one: £25 for the lot! These may be collected from our shop, or posted within the UK for an additional £3.50.

*DC: – Wonder Womans? Wonder Women? Be that as it may, three 1940’s issues of the Amazing Amazon’s adventures, all in grades far superior to those generally found in comics of this period. Issue #20, November/December 1946, is a book-length adventure in which the Princess of Paradise Island takes on aviatrix ‘Nifty, her Air Pirates, and the Time Monster, flipping Di, Steve and the Holliday Girls through different periods of history. This is an extraordinarily well-preserved copy, with off-white, flexible interior pages, vibrant unfaded cover colour, and some residual cover gloss. Only a slight weakness around the bottom staple impinges on its high grade, but nevertheless, we have determined this as FN/VF, a condition unprecedented in our experience for a comic of this vintage. Issue #23, May-June 1947, features stories about two baddies and a baby – the belligerent Valkyries and the Vanishing Mummy are the antagonists in question, but the third tale is of Wonder Woman’s childhood (and the origin of the Kangas!) and is generally regarded as a Wonder Tot prototype. This copy is VG+. Finally, we have #29, dated May-June 1948, in which our heroine defeats a twisted treasure hunt, gypsy tigers (no really), and in the cover-featured tale encounters the Sinister Minister Blizzard! Prime Minister Blizzard, to give him his full title, head of a hidden Arctic civilization, finds things uncomfortably heated when he conspires to seize the monarchy. Minister B. had quite a long rest before his next appearances in 1966 and 1977, but since then, he’s become a recurring if infrequent Rogue’s Gallery member. This copy of #29 is an apparent VG/FN; nice covers, aside from small writing in the upper cover’s blank area, but the ‘guts’ of the book appear at one point to have lived in a bound volume, as they have small but multiple thread holes in the margin (not encroaching upon the story area.) Any Golden Age issues of Wonder Woman are vanishingly rare these days, and to get three at once is quite a coup. The covers of all three are reproduced below: #20 is FN/VF £400, #23 VG+ £175, and #29 App. VG/FN £125.

We are greatly saddened to report that Alan Austin, pioneer of UK comics fandom and a long-time friend of 30th Century Comics, passed away yesterday morning after a long struggle with cancer.
      Beginning in the 1970’s, Alan published the long-running fanzine Fantasy Unlimited (later Comics Unlimited), which drew together comics enthusiasts from all over the UK, and indeed, all over the world. He also published Whiz Kids, Golden Age Fanzine, and the Marvel Super-Hero Index, as well as being a co-publisher of the very first Comics Price Guide for Great Britain. For many years, he ran the shop Heroes, in Islington, London, and in later years was a regular feature at UK comic marts.
      30th Century’s Will Morgan remembers:
      “In 1972, when I was a lonely delinquent, stuck in reform school in Yorkshire, writing to comics fanzines was one of the few forms of socialising I had. Alan’s letters in reply to my comments on Fantasy Unlimited were always friendly and welcoming, and he was the first person to publish my reviews and articles, and to encourage me to continue writing. To a large extent, everything I’ve ever written since then is partly his fault!
      “I didn’t meet him in person until moving to London in the 1980’s, but found when I did that his superficially irascible surface demeanour concealed a well-guarded compassionate heart. He became a frequent and welcome visitor to our shop, as well as being a fixture at the Comic Marts, despite his failing health in later years.
      “His influence reached further than he possibly ever realised, and he was thought of with more warmth than he would ever have believed.”

*Marvel: The first, short-run series of Marvel’s Incredible Hulk, hard though it is to believe now, was a flop, lasting a scant six issues, and it took Bruce Banner’s emerald alter-ego some time to claw his way back to fame through intermittent guest-star status. Comparatively few of the Hulk’s first run survive, and by #6, the final, the print run was fairly low – which makes our acquisition of a copy all the more of a treat. Unlike the rest of the run, which were Kirby & Ayers illustrated, issue #6 was illustrated by Steve Ditko, and he gave both the Hulk and that issue’s nemesis, the Metal Master, a truly other-worldly, more supernatural feel, with a genuinely strange and disturbing ambience. This particular #6 is a VG cents copy, in rather beautiful condition, with vivid, unfaded colours, unmarred cover image, and only light spine and corner wear, on sale for £240. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: Gambit, the charismatic anti-hero who rescued Storm at a time when she was a powerless teenager (it happens to the X-Men more often than you think), made his very first appearance, an unheralded cameo, in 1990’s X-Men Annual #14, before progressing to a cover-starring role in X-Men #266. An instant hit with the audience – despite the Pepe LePew accent and the unfortunate early costume of boots, panties, stripey tights and flasher-mac – he rapidly became a key member of the X-Men, primarily because of his doomed romance with the untouchable Rogue. His solo movie project has been in, then off, and is now currently on again, so interest in his early appearances is about to spike – get in quick! Our X-Men Annual #14 is NM at £35, and X-Men #266 is VF+ p £75. SORRY, THESE HAVE NOW SOLD