*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: A further large update to our stocks of the long-lived Tiger weekly. This time we add a few issues from 1966, then all issues from 1972 & 1973 previously missing from our listings, followed by the first half of 1974 and just a few from 1975.

On a regular cycle, we sweep through our entire stock to delete sold items and keep our listing as up to date as possible. We’ve just finished deleting sold items from the following file in our American section:
*Religious
and in our American/British section:
*Tarzan/E R Burroughs
*Phantom
*Flash Gordon
*Spirit
*Modesty Blaise
As of the time of writing, these categories are bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*Marvel: Another round-up of waifs and strays that have recently come in from Marvel’s Silver/Bronze Age, including Captain America, Champions (scarce last issue #17 NM £20), early Daredevils (#6, #8 & #16, low grade with book centre stamps), Power Man & Iron Fist (#57 with the X-Men), Super-Villain Team-Up, What If, X-Factor & X-Men (#142 Days Of Future Past).

*Marvel: In the early 1960’s, DC’s Annuals were reprint compilations of stories that had appeared only ten years or so before, but when the new and dynamic Marvel Comics Company hit the stands, they decided to go one better! Their early Annuals featured all-new, extra-length adventures created by the monarchs of the Marvel Bullpen, in which major events occurred in stories still fondly remembered today. We have half-a dozen such events new to our listings: Avengers Annual #1 (a mammoth battle teaming the Old and New Avengers against six of their deadliest foes) and #2 (a powerful ‘parallel world’ adventure, in which our heroes face their own dictatorial counterparts); the much-underrated Daredevil Annual #1, with the sightless swashbuckler tackles Electro and his Emissaries of Evil, with superbly dynamic Gene Colan art; Hulk Annual #1, with the Green Goliath discovering the land of the Inhumans, behind a classic Jim Steranko cover; Fantastic Four Annual #3, with the wedding of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Girl guest-starring every Marvel hero and villain of the day; and – the Big One – Fantastic Four Annual #1 from 1963, by Lee & Kirby, featuring an epic struggle with the Sub-Mariner and his Atlantean armies! This VG- pence-stamped copy is in excellent condition with only moderate spine & corner wear, good page quality, offered at £75.

*Classics Illustrated: We’ve always stocked a wide range of both US and UK versions of Classics Illustrated, but have not always listed all the information necessary to identify editions. Having delved into the arcane arts of Classics identification, and mindful of serious Classics collectors’ need for this information, we have now commenced to rectify this, starting with the UK versions, which are notoriously the most difficult to pin down. In addition to issue number and title, we are now listing HRN (Highest Reorder Number) together with Filled In Number, country of printing, which printing each issue is and other identification notes such as ‘line drawn cover’, ‘Australian edition’ ‘stiff cover’ etc. It’s a weird and wacky journey, but we hope you’ll bear with us as we progress this in instalments. Along the way, we’ll be adding some newly received issues to our stock. This time we’ve added all the information for issues #1-16 and added titles like #4 (Macbeth), #6 (A Tale Of Two Cities – line drawn stiff cover 1st printing), #10 (Robinson Crusoe), #13 (Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde – line drawn stiff cover 1st printing), and #15 (Uncle Tom’s Cabin – line drawn cover 1st printing). Many more instalments to come!

*Harvey: Our stocks of the World’s Most Affluent Brat are enriched (ahem) this week by new additions to no fewer than ten Richie Rich titles – RR & Casper; RR & Dollar the Dog; RR & Gloria; RR Billions; RR Dollars & Cents; RR Inventions; RR Millions; RR Riches; RR Success Stories; and RR Vaults of Mystery. Phew! Descending from these lofty fiscal heights, we also add Chamber of Clues – the short-lived Post-Code successor to Chamber of Chills – Harvey Pop Comics #2, starring Bunny and a cast of thousands (but not, alas, Fruitman) in a “Rock Happening” – and a rather lovely copy of 1958’s Race For The Moon #2, with beautiful Kirby/Williamson artwork, in a highly attractive VG+ for £40.

*TV & Film Related Comics: We’re spoiling you this week with a second Free Gift Farrago. This time it’s the turn for Countdown; #1 (FN+) comes with its Free Gift (Giant Space Fact Wall Chart FN) with the four stamps from issue #1 stuck in (comic and gift both illustrated here); offered at £110. We also have issues #2, #4 & #5 in VF and #6-7 in lower grades. For the uninitiated, Countdown was very much the successor to the classic TV Century 21 and featured classic strips such as Lady Penelope, Dr Who, Joe 90, Captain Scarlet, UFO, Thunderbirds and more, many in full colour.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: From 1983/84, we present one of D C Thomson’s later Boys’ Adventure weeklies, Spike, all 67 issues, fearturing the strips Iron Barr, Starhawk and many more. Our fine copy of #1 (£25) comes with its Free Gift, still sealed in its original bag, the Lockheed P38J WW2 Glider, #7 in a series of 12, and one of the less common numbers. This series was previously poorly represented in our stock, so here’s your chance to get the whole lot in one go!

*Girls’ Comics: A healthy update to our stocks of the girls’ tabloid Diana, adding many issues from years previously poorly represented in our listings. We have a few from 1967, most of 1968 and 1969 and just a handful from 1970 and 1972.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: D C Thomson’s Starblazer, the done-in-one science-fiction picture library adventure series, ran for a very respectable 281 issues between 1979 and 1991 and we have several dozen issues new in between #10 & #187. We’ve seen a huge increase in popularity of this series in recent years, and in addition to our new stock, we’ve taken the opportunity to bring our Starblazer listing bang up to date, but it won’t stay that way for long!

*Marvel: Two new runs of Amazing Spider-Man fresh into stock this week. The first features issues between #153 & #170, the second issues between #223 & #246. In both cases, many issues have been added previously missing from our listings. Mostly nice grade copies, the first run all cents, the second all pence. Some classic adventures of the ol’ web-spinner!

*Girls’ Comics: The TV show the Avengers was a huge phenomenon in the 1960’s, reaching its peak when the debonair John Steed was partnered by Mrs. Emma Peel, a dynamic figure who grabbed the consciousness not only of men and boys – for obvious reasons – but of women and girls, who saw in her a more adventurous role model than the usual TV fare. The Avengers, like many popular TV series, were adapted into comics, but unusually, they appeared not only in general-interest adventure series, such as TV Comic, but also in girls’ weeklies. “The Growing Up Of Emma Peel” (or Emma Knight as she then was) ran briefly in June & School Friend, but more significantly in 1967, Diana ran the Avengers in glorious full-colour from issues 199-224, eight separate adventures of Steed and Mrs. Peel which, unlike their rather anodyne TV Comic counterparts, captured the feel of the TV series with a darker tone, including violence and occasional fatalities, unusual for the traditionally sedate Diana. Incredibly sought-after, the Avengers issues never stay with us for long, so we are pleased to announce a run of issues #211 to #224 – the latter the final Avengers appearance. We open with the close of their battle with the Vikings, then have in the entirety of their clashes with Black Heart and her Seven Dwarfs, the Mad Hatter, and the Secret Six. Sumptuous artwork by Emilio Frejo, assisted on many issues by studio-mate Juan Gonzales Alacrejo, makes these a delightful set of ‘bonus episodes’ for fans of the series!

*Miscellaneous 1960 Onwards: New in, a range of the ever-popular Walking Dead ongoing, Kirkman and Adlard’s saga of a bleak and post-apocalyptic world, which has been delighting both comics readers and TV viewers for years now. This selection commences with #91 and runs through to the 120’s, including the debuts of characters such as Jesus (no, not that Jesus – in #92), Ezekiel (in #108), and of course the first Nagan in #100. All in high grades, and increasingly sought after, grab ’em before they shamble away!

*Marvel: When the Ant-Man name was unclaimed in the late 1970’s a scientific opportunist and 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, to find a cure for his dying daughter, as was revealed in Marvel Premiere #47 and #48, the two-part tale which (after a cameo in Avengers #181) was Scott’s first full-length adventure. John Byrne and David Michelinie created this different take on the hero, and since then, Scott has had a few setbacks – 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 is currently the star of one of Marvel’s more entertaining series – as well as the recent Marvel cinematic hit. This double-portion debut consists of a FN+ p #47 at £35, and a VF+ p #48 at £25.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: From 1979 to 1984, D.C. Thomson capitalised on their inventory by issuing Red Dagger, a reprint title in which, each issue, a serial that had previously graced Victor, Hornet, Wizard, Hotspur, Wizard or Bullet was gathered up, judiciously edited down, and re-presented as a done-in-one story.  We have a virtually complete run of this highly collectable series (28 issues new in out of a possible 30), from the very first (“Twisty”) to the last (“Eleven Little Soccer Boys”), along the way visiting friends old and new such as Morgyn the Mighty, the Black Sapper, Braddock of the R.A.F., Bernard Briggs the Bouncing Goalie, and the Tough of the Track, among others. Averaging VG-FN, these are a very affordable way to obtain a flavour of the classic adventure series.

*DC: A short run of Detective Comics in the early #200’s graces our shelves this week, from #207 to 215 – sans #211, which was in our earlier Catwoman update a couple of weeks ago. Characterised by some new foes – the Puppet Master, the Mirror-Man, and the Brain That Ruled Gotham City – and some old friends – the Knight and the Squire, Britain’s Batman and Robin, who team up with other heroes to form “The Batmen of All Nations!”, a noble association trashed, er, updated by Grant Morrison in recent decades. Rotating back-ups involve Captain Compass, Roy Raymond, and Mysto, Magician Detective, but the enduring appeal of the Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder conquers all! A range of grades, from an unattractive (but cheap!) Poor right through to a sparkling FN/VF. Sample issues pictured below.

*Marvel: Another run through sundry Marvel titles from the 1960’s and 1970’s, with issues of the following added to our listings: Astonishing Tales, Avengers (inc Annual #7 Starlin Thanos), Black Goliath, Daredevil (#10), Howard The Duck, Ka-Zar (#3 1st series 1970 with new Angel story), Marvel Chillers with Tigra, Marvel Premiere (1st series with Dr. Strange & Iron Fist), Marvel Two-In-One (Annual #2 with Starlin Thanos), Nova, Star Wars (#2 & #3), Sub-Mariner & 2001.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: A substantial update to our stocks for Tiger from 1971, all issues previously missing from our listings, which builds up our inventory to virtually complete for that year. Quality features abound with sport dominated themes, including Roy Of the Rovers (of course), Johnny Cougar, Skid Solo and many others. We’ve seen a great upswing in popularity of this title from the 1970’s of late.

*TV & Film Related Comics: Yes, it’s the return of our Free Gift Farrago feature! With the ever-increasing popularity of the Star Wars franchise, folks are looking back with nostalgia even to the UK Star Wars Weekly, the format in which a lot of fans had their first exposure to Luke, Leia, Han, and all the other characters. We’ve been short of early issues of Star Wars Weekly for far too long, but that void is filled – temporarily – by this week’s addition of the first 9 issues (plus an errant #13), mostly in mid to high grades, and with the first two issues still possessed of their original Free Gifts – a cut-out Star Wars X-Fighter and a T.I.E. Fighter, to be specific! Almost universally punched out of the flimsy cardboard and assembled for, ooh, seconds of fun before disintegration, it’s rare to find any surviving copies of these gifts, but we’ve managed it! Issue 1 is FN/VF (Gift NM) at £35, issue 2 is FN with NM gift at £25; the others will set you back from £1.50 to £4, depending. Let the Wookie win, Luke!

*Marvel: Again, an exception in our listings for its period, the 87th issue of New Mutants featured the first full appearance (he had made a fleeting walk-on in the previous) of the man named Cable, the man from an apocalyptic near-future, son of Scott Summers and a cloned replica of Jean Grey, who came back in time to prevent his own future from coming to pass. Or something like that. His powers include metal bits, a strappy costume, really big guns, and glaring a lot. With a shiny eye, for no very good reason. Anyway, he took over the stewardship of the New Mutants from Magneto, and eventually honed the survivors into X-Force, a dubious achievement for which no-one should thank him. He’s since bobbed back between ‘now’ and the future, interfering with his own and the world’s time stream, and accosting various mutant children to become the Hope of the World. Kind of like Mary Poppins, he’s a super-powered nanny with metal limbs. Confusing back history and ambiguous abilities or not, he’s scheduled to be appearing in the next Deadpool movie, incarnated by one of an interesting range of possibilities (our money’s on Kiera Knightley…), so interest in the character’s early appearances has skyrocketed. This NM/M Pence copy is in excellent condition, and believe me, the time will come when you’ll look back upon this as a snip at £85.

*Marvel: A beautiful item for this spotlight, the seventh issue of Daredevil, the Man Without Fear! After a little artistic floundering in his early issues, the Sightless Swashbuckler lucked out when the superlative Wally Wood took over illustrating his adventures, and this is probably the finest Wood issue, marked not only by the premiere of the red Daredevil costume which became his definitive uniform, but also by a genuinely gripping and harrowing battle in which Daredevil, hopelessly outgunned by the vastly superior might of the Sub-Mariner, nevertheless shows such courage and determination that even Namor’s scaly heart is moved to compassion. A beautiful piece of work – and, in this instance, a beautiful copy, cents, graded FN/VF, with flat, white interior pages, tight staples, vibrant cover colour and gloss, and only two very minor flaws- a tiny diagonal crease in the upper right cover, and the faintest of ‘stacking’ smudges at the logo – precluding a still higher grade for this outstanding item. Offered at £275.

*Humour Comics: We don’t often see early issues of D C Thomson’s Sparky, so we’re particularly pleased to have several dozen in from Sparky’s early years 1965-1969, including 6 from the first year of publication as early as #32. There are about 20 new issues listed from 1966, 10 from 1967 and most of 1968, where previously we only had 3 issues listed for all four years! We imagine collector interest will be high on these, which come in a mixture of grades from FA to FN.