*Girls’ Comics: It’s a rare event indeed when we can feature a new publication in any of our British categories, but particularly so in Girls’ Comics. Here we have, hot off the presses, a Misty Graphic Novel, reprinting two classic stories from early Misty issues: Moonchild and The Four Faces Of Eve, beautifully reproduced under a stunning Shirley Bellwood cover. Pat Mills, whose brainchild Misty mostly was, writes both a new intro and the first story, and there are also a few Misty spooky feature reprints as well, plus biographies of the creators. We salute this bold new venture into reprinting an absolute classic series, and hope it sells well enough to be the first of many! Priced at £15.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: Although they’re not in our basement any more, it’s bargain time with Commando Picture Library as we add a new wide selection of relatively recent issues between #2702 and #4477, all at the very affordable price of £1.25 each!

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: From the 1950’s to the 1970’s, a big new selection of original British titles in an American-Sized format. Lots of titles in this considerable update: Biggles, Broncho Bill, Buffalo Bill, Colorado Kid, El Lobo, Jim Bowie, Kalgan The Golden (Ron Turner art), Kid Dynamite, Little Sheriff, Lone Star (with Space Ace by Turner), Mark Tyme, Marvelman, Nick Hazard (Turner), Pecos Bill, Phantom Ranger, Purple Hood, Rocky Mountain King, Steve Samson, Western Super Thriller (with Ace Hart) & Young Marvelman.

*Marvel: One of the most sought after Spidey key issues adorns our new listings this week. #129 features the first appearance of everyone’s favourite urban vigilante the Punisher. This nice FN cents copy (there are no pence copies, of course) has good cover colour and gloss and page quality. Flat with tight staples; minor spine and corner wear. It weighs in at £375; we need to say no more!

*Horror/Mystery 1960-1980’s: Another visit to Marvel’s strong horror output from the 1970’s. This update features Chamber of Darkness (early issues from #1 onwards), Creatures On The Loose (with Gulliver Jones, Thongor complete and Man-Wolf), Monsters On The Prowl and Tower Of Shadows #1 & #2 (#1 with classic Steranko story VF- cents £30).

*Marvel: Yes, it’s another one of our hugely popular Bronze Age Marvel #1 updates. This time we feature the following #1 issues: Champions, Devil Dinosaur, Doc Savage, Howard The Duck, Ka-Zar, Marvel Presents (Bloodstone), Ms Marvel, Skull The Slayer, Spider-Woman, 2001 A Space Odyssey & What If. Check out our catalogue for grades and prices on these, but better move fast, as these don’t hang around for long!

*Humour Comics: A small update to our Buster stocks, with comics from 1965 and 1966, plus the Holiday Fun special from 1970 and the Buster & Monster Fun Holiday Special from 1977.

*Girls’ Comics: More than a touch of the Poptastic about this week’s Girls’ Comics update as we feature a small amount of Romeo from 1958, 1968, 1971 & 1974 and just one issue of Mirabelle from 1972, but it is the New Year issue! Faberoonie!

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 files in our Books Section:
*Crime, Spies & Sleaze
*Pulp Fiction
*Childrens’ Books
*Comic Strip Books
As of the time of writing, these categories are bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*Marvel: We conclude our Slab Happy summer event with the first appearance of the Master of the Mystic Arts, Dr. Strange, soon to be portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch on the big screen. The good doctor first appeared as a back-up feature by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko in Strange Tales #110, the first in a regular series of clever little mystic mystery adventures before graduating to the bigger stage of several of his own series from the late 1960’s to date. This copy is graded by CBCS as 5.5 (FN-) and priced at £1500, which represents a good investment potential for a major Marvel character and impending movie franchise! (It’s a shame they didn’t think to feature Dr Strange on the cover — I doubt Paste-Pot Pete will ever get his own movie!). Thus ends our Slab Happy event, but we’re sure to come across more third party graded books in the future for those that have to have ’em!

*TV & Film Related Comics: One of the rarest and quirkiest of all British comic titles was Solo, which ran for 31 issues only in 1967 before being subsumed into TV Tornado. Later issues featured Gerry Anderson material (notably the Mysterons and the unfilmed Project SWORD) alongside the other TV and film related fare such as Disney Gold Key reprints and the Man From Uncle which had been there from the beginning. All issues are vanishingly scarce and we seldom see them, so we count ourselves particularly fortunate to have the very first issue in a nice VG grade fresh in (£75), alongside an even nicer VG/FN copy of #3 (£37.50) which has an incomplete free copy of #4 bundled in with it as a bonus.

*DC: From 1976, we’re very pleased to present an original printing of the first ever DC/Marvel crossover story Superman Vs The Amazing Spider-Man Treasury-sized edition. This milestone has been reprinted many times in many different formats, but this is the original, a very nice FN/VF pence copy at £35. Also in Treasury size, Limited Collectors’ Edition C35 complete with cheesy Shazam photo cover.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: One of the most bizarre experiments in the annals of British Comics publishing was Amalgamated Press’s Top Spot, which ran for 58 issues from the end of 1958 to the beginning of 1960, after which it merged into Film Fun. An unusual mix of pin-ups, features, text stories, cartoon gags and top quality comic strips, it was in theory aimed at a 16-17 year old school leavers’ audience. Early issues featured glamour pin-ups on the cover; in later issues comic strips took over the cover, although the pin-ups remained inside. Examples of both types of cover are shown here. We now have a great selection of most issues in stock, ranging from £4-£10 each, depending on grade. Rarely seen and quite unique, assured of their place in UK comics history, if only as a fascinating backwater.

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 files in our Books Section:
*TV/Film Tie-Ins
*Mad Books
As of the time of writing, these categories are bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*Humour Comics: Most issues new in of Krazy, the irreverent humour title that ran from 1976-1978. Previously only a handful of these were in stock, but we’ve now added the majority of the run, including the first three issues and the Special from 1977.

*Girls’ Comics: Small numbers of lots of titles fresh in in this hugely popular category: Bunty from 1975, 1986 and the 1985 Summer Special; Girl; Jinty from 1975 (Valentine issue) and 1977; Judy from 1965; June from 1972 & 1974, Mandy from 1977, Mates from 1978, Nikki from 1985 & 1987, Princess (2nd series) 1983 (#3) and Tammy 1972 & 1976. In many cases, these help to fill yawning gaps in our inventory.

*DC: A quick run through the DC Silver/Bronze Age, introducing three titles new to our listings: Crisis On Infinite Earths, Firestorm (from #1) and Steve Ditko’s Shade The Changing Man. Also: top-ups to DC Special, Flash, Inferior Five, Justice League of America, Lois Lane, Phantom Stranger & Teen Titans.

*Marvel: Fresh in, a big wodge of Marvel’s very own Jolly Green Giant, running between Hulk #103 & #200; several dozen new issues, including several previously missing from our listings. A mixture of grades, some very nice, some not so and thus dirt cheap! Consistency was the word for this run of Hulk, with (mostly) Len Wein and Herb Trimpe at the creative helm, for the sort of long stint that you don’t see on comics these days! Several villain debuts included. Check our catalogue for grades and prices.

*Marvel: A real gem in our Slab Happy event this week, in the form of Giant-Size X-Men #1, the comic that started the mutant mania in the 1970’s that still exists to this day. It features the debut of the New X-Men in their first adventure, years after the cancellation of the original X-Men title. New characters Storm, Colossus and Nightcrawler all debut, plus Wolverine makes his second full appearance following his debut in Hulk #181. This copy is graded by CBCS as 9.0 (VF/NM) and has the added bonus of a verified Stan Lee signature on the cover; priced at £1000. For many collectors, the Holy Grail, and this is an example that would be the star item in any mutants fan’s collection.

*DC: For our second visit to our Batmania Max event this week, we return to Detective Comics for the earliest issues in our current incoming batch. Firstly, a low grade copy of #126 from 1947 with a Penguin cover and story, also featuring Slam Bradley, Air Wave & the  Boy Commandos; we then skip to 1953/54 for issues #201, #202, #204, #205 & #206 when Roy Raymond TV Detective was the main back-up feature. A variety of grades (mostly decent) and all pictured below except the low grade #205, which incidentally features the origin of the Batcave. Full grading and pricing details in our catalogue. All of these issues are scarce in the UK, being long before distribution here; we are seldom offered them, so are particularly pleased to begin a run of such prestige.

*Marvel: After T’Challa’s debut in the previous issue, Fantastic Four #53 went on to go into detail on the Black Panther’s origin, to introduce both the metal Vibarnium and the Panther’s nemesis, Klaw, thus the second part of a landmark two parter. We have a nice VG+ cents copy new in at £35.

*DC: New stock of Action Comics (between #311 & #367), Adventure Comics (between #164 & #350) and Superman himself (between #190 & #274). The Man (and Boy) of Steel are ever-popular choices here at 30th Century, so nice to top up our boxes with many issues of their adventures previously missing from our listings.

*Marvel UK: A chunky update for Marvel’s UK division, featuring the following five #1 issues (all sadly without their free gifts): Dracula Lives, Complete Fantastic Four, Fury, Rampage & the Savage Sword of Conan. We also have substantial new stocks for subsequent issues of Complete Fantastic Four, Fury & Rampage.

*Humour Comics: A long overdue update to our stocks of Topper, that over-sized classic of humour and (some) adventure, with new stocks for 1965, 1966 and 1967 plus 1972 and 1974 (many years previously poorly represented in our listings).