*Marvel UK: A chunky update to this section, comprising the following titles: Captain Britain, Forces In Combat, Fury, Marvel Team-Up, Mighty World Of Marvel, Spider-Man, Strip, Super-Heroes and Titans. At £1 each (or sometimes a little more) these are extremely bargainacious!

*Alan Class Reprints: Following on from his highly successful signing appearance at our shop in the summer, we are thrilled to have a further 14 Alan Class comic and printing plate sets now available. As regulars will know, these sets comprise an original Alan Class comic, the four colour cover lead plates used in the printing process, a certificate signed by Alan Class and usually an anecdotal handwritten note from Alan as well about the comic. Often there are extras as well; most of these new sets come with 1 or 2 interior page printing plates. Each set comes in a sturdy presentation case. This update concentrates on 3 short-lived and rare titles from the dawn of Alan’s operation: Just Dennis #1-5 (complete), reprinting the infamous Fawcett/Charlton scamp, Space Mouse #1-2 (complete), reprinting Charlton’s Atomic Mouse and 7 issues of Tales Of The Underworld inc #1. We have hardly ever seen any issues of these series on the market, so this is really a unique opportunity to grab a piece of comics history. Prices range from £25 to £75 per set.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: From the 1980’s comics revolution of the UK, new stock of Crisis, which flared briefly as the mouthpiece of the political, intellectual, and counter-cultural fringe of the readership. With many creators from the popular 2000 AD, Crisis won acclaim and awards for its boundary pushing, but ultimately failed to win much of a readership, fizzling out in 1992 in a welter of money-saving European reprints. This selection from # 15 to # 43 features many of its most popular creators – Ennis, Ezquerra, Fabry, Phillips – doing a body of work that enhanced their already formidable reputations. And hey, kids – Free Stickers! (If they didn’t get you by appealing to your intellect, maybe gaudy tat’d be worth a try!)

*DC: Batman’s back in our listings with a few dozen new Silver & Bronze Age issues in between #158 and #281, including the unusual Shadow crossover in #253, plus many 80 Page and other Giants.

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 British section:
*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics (A-K only, L-Z to follow)
As of the time of writing, this category is bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*Humour Comics: More Monster Fun! Twenty new issues, ranging from #3 to #63, of the popular series which gave us such well-remembered series as “X-Ray Specs”, “Draculass”, “Gums”, “Kid Kong” and other comedy-horror hybrids. Seven of the series switched over to Buster in 1976, and ran for years more in their adopted home, but this is where they got started. Particularly amusing, in retrospect, is the debut of “Terror TV” in #50, in which a family sits transfixed at the prospect of… gasp – a *FOURTH* TV channel! Oh, how times have changed. All of our copies of Monster Fun are sold complete – incomplete copies are rife on the second-hand market, but all ours are checked for completeness by our crack quality control department (ahem), and guaranteed to come complete with “Badtime Bedtime Stories”, pull-out posters, or other centrefold gimmicks.

*Marvel: Probably the most significant comics of the 1970’s this week, insofar as they feature the first three appearances of a character who was to redefine the Marvel Universe: Wolverine! Incredible Hulk #180 had Wolverine saying hello at the finale of a battle with the winsome Wendigo – and #182 saw Wolvy wave goodbye as our Jade Giant faced the threat of Hammer & Anvil! But in between, in #181, we were treated to a full-length, knockdown battle between the Hulk and Wolverine, establishing the Canadian mutant as one of the most formidable characters in the MU! Subsequently, of course, Wolverine went on to headline in 1975’s ‘New’ X-Men, as well as starring in hundreds of solo stories – but here’s where it all began, courtesy of Len Wein, Herb Trimpe and Jack Abel. (Hey, never mind the quality, feel the history!) These three key cents issues are all in exceptional condition, with glossy covers, vivid, unmarred cover colour, and creamy white interior pages. Possibly the most sought-after comics of the modern era, in prime condition, now in stock – but not for long! Hulk #180 VF £125, #181 VF £1000, #182 VF/NM £120 SORRY, THESE HAVE ALL NOW SOLD

*TV & Film Related Comics: A dozen or so issues of TV Century 21 1st series between #35 and #84, all in PR, FA or GD: affordable reading copies for Fandersons on a budget.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: A titanic trio of Valiant Summer Specials from consecutive years adorns our What’s New page. 1971 (GD/VG £17.50) is Valiant & Smash, whereas 1972 (VG/FN £22.50) & 1973 (GD £15) are Valiant & TV21. Condition is best described as average on these, with spine and cover tears on 1971 & 1973 in particular, but these are always fiercely sought-after whenever we get them, so don’t dally long. Roll up to meet all your weekly pals inside!

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: From 1979, 21 out of the 22 issues of 2000 AD ‘spin-off’ Tornado fresh in, the fondly-remembered comic that featured Drago, the Mind Of Wolfie Smith, Captain Klep and Blackhawk among others before being subsumed into 2000 AD itself later that same year. Also featured Dave Gibbons in a super-hero suit as the Big E!

*Horror/Mystery 1960-1980’s: A small update to this immensely popular category for the following 1970’s Charlton titles: Ghostly Tales, Ghost Manor, Haunted Love, Many Ghosts Of Dr. Graves, Midnight Tales, Monster Hunters & Scary Tales.

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 American section:
*Archie
*Charlton
*Dell
*Gold Key/Whitman
*Harvey
*IW/Super
*Miscellaneous 1940-1959
*Horror 1940-1959
*Teen Humour/Funny Girls
and from our British section:
*Alan Class Reprints
*TV & Film Related Comics
As of the time of writing, these categories are bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*DC: We make no apologies for re-using the same text as last time we had this gem through our hands: You’ve heard of the Rumble in the Jungle? You’ve heard of the Thriller in Manila? Now, get ready for the Uproarium in the Emporium as we bring you Superman Vs Muhammad Ali in the Treasury-sized All New Collectors’ Edition C56. Highly sought after by both comic and boxing enthusiasts, this one-off issue is gorgeously illustrated by the incomparable Neal Adams, whose art looks amazing at this size. In FN+ grade, marred only by minor spine wear and a soft-creased corner, this is an item set only to rise in price as the years go by. Yours currently for £40. And it won’t be here long, so float like a butterfly and get your order in, or you’ll be stung by a bee.

*Power Comics: When is a Power comic not a Power comic? After Odhams folded, the Smash title was taken over in 1969 by Fleetway IPC, and ran, with content more traditional to that publisher, until 1971. We have the first relaunch issue from 15/3/69 (which includes the first Cursitor Doom) and then a good selection new in right up until the last issue in 1971. Highlights along the way include the 1st Tri-Man strip and numerous issues with promotional flyers for Whizzer & Chips (I guess they were really pushing that!)

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: We present the large format Hawk Books hardcover of Tales From the Trigan Empire, published in 1989, featuring the sumptuous art of Don Lawrence. This edition is graded at VG and is clean and sharp. There are small splits either side of the base of the spine, and very slight water damage to the tops of the pages, but nothing horrible in this uncommon gem.

*DC: A small range of DC 100 pagers and other giants fresh in, comprising DC 100 Page Super Spectacular #4 (Weird Mystery Tales), #16 (Sgt Rock), #21 (Superboy) & #22 (The Flash), DC Special #5 (Joe Kubert), Shazam #8, Superboy #185 & #208 and Super DC Giant S23 (The Unexpected).

*Marvel: Continuing our grudging acknowledgment of the passing years, we admit to our catalogue listings another ‘modern’ series, but one whose popularity and appeal we can’t deny. Deadpool! Marvel’s Merc-with-A-Mouth, after the four-issue Circle Chase mini-series in 1993, became the Merc-With-A-Monthly when his own ongoing title debuted in 1997, establishing the irreverent, lecherous and bloodthirsty anti-hero that an entire generation has come to love. We have the entire Deadpool: Circle Chase mini-series, plus the first ten issues of the 1997 monthly, backed up by a selection of others from that run,  and the 2008 Deadpool ongoing from #1 upwards. As you would expect from comparatively recent comics, these are in high grade, with none dipping below VF-, and the majority NM or better, with many achieving the comparatively-rare grade of Mint – and you know how stingy we are with that grade! The ‘Pool’s prices have spiralled up over the last half-decade because of his popularity – but we predict they will escalate still further once his forthcoming movie starring Rhino Reynolds is released, so get ’em while they’re kind-of affordable! Because You Demanded It, Pilgrim!

*Modern Reprints: Our listings have been languishing for a while without the Silver Age Marvel Masterworks, the handsome full-colour volumes reprinting the early years of the Marvel Universe – but no longer! We’ve restocked with the paperback editions of popular series such as Avengers, Captain America, Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Sgt. Fury, Spider-Man, Thor, and the classic X-Men. While our inventory is far from complete, it does include several volumes now out of print, all brand new at £19 each!

*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: “Spine-Tingling Tales of Perils, Passions and Plunder!” we are promised by the strapline of the first (and, alas, only) issue of Son of Sinbad, and by Cracky, they did what it said on the tin. In the Post-War years, superhero comics were in a slump, and publishers were looking around for new genres to try. One field explored was the quasi-historical fantasy movies which were big box-office, and Joe Kubert’s illustration in this all-Kubert issue is an evocative translation from the silver screen to the four-colour page. Kubert’s style was beginning to mature here, and his portrayal of our swashbuckling hero and his lovely companion, as they are pitted against a succession of rogues and villains, is among some of his finest early work. GD- at £38.

*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: In the 1970’s adventuring crime fiction moved away from dashing and debonair characters such as The Saint and The Baron, becoming more hard-edged and action-packed. This change was marked by almost all protagonists being given a name ending in ~er or ~or. We have two fine examples of this: The Penetrator and Expeditor. Lionel Derrick’s Penetrator (Mark Hardin) was part Welsh and part Cheyenne, allowing him to combine the fighting skills of two heritages to become the ultimate action hero. Luckily he never encountered Paul Edwards’ Expeditor (John Eagle), who was part Scottish border fighter and part Apache, allowing him to combine the fighting skills of two heritages to become the ultimate action hero. Both characters have magnificent physiques, incredible stamina and an amazing capacity to meet villains and beautiful women in equal measure (but only one has a camel!). We have all 14 Expeditor books and 6 Penetrator books, including #1-5. We recommend that you read these books lying down, in case the pace proves to be too much for you.