*Horror/Mystery 1960-1980’s: Substantial restocks to all five major publishers in this category, with around 250 items newly listed! ACG replenished with its three long-running titles, Adventures into The Unknown, Unknown Worlds, and Forbidden Worlds, along with the short-run Midnight Mystery. ACG featured much fine art from the likes of Ogden Whitney and Kurt Schaffenberger, as well as what can only be called ‘cuddly’ horror; eerie sentimentality often with a strong romantic component. Included in this update are also their super-hero characters Nemesis and Magicman (the latter’s first appearance), and the indescribable Herbie Popnecker. Charlton hits with its old reliables Ghost Manor, Ghostly Haunts, Ghostly Tales, Haunted and Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves. Launching in the mid-late 1960’s, these gave talents such as Aparo, Ditko, Boyette, Sutton, and later Newton and Staton, free rein to produce vivid and imaginative work. One of their later titles, Monster Hunters, is also restocked. Gold Key steps forward with Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery, Grimm’s Ghost Stories, Occult Files of Dr. Spektor, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, and Mystery Comics Digest; these feature work by Celardo, Bolle, and Mortimer, among others, and have beautifully eerie painted covers. DC brings us Black Magic, Ghosts, Unexpected, Weird Mystery Tales and Witching Hour as ‘opening acts’ to its two pillars, House of Mystery and House of Secrets. Several high-grade issues of HoM and HoS are new in from the start of those series’ horror revival, with art by Wrightson, Wood, Orlando, Toth, Kane, Adams, and some of the most evocative covers produced. Finally, Marvel offers us Beware, Chamber of Darkness, Creatures on the Loose, Fear, Frankenstein, Journey Into Mystery, Man-Thing, Monsters on the Prowl, Tomb of Darkness, Vault of Evil, Werewolf By Night, and the first (and only) issue of Giant-Size Creatures, with the first appearance of Tigra the Were-Woman. Phew!

*Girls’ Comics: Approximately 100 issues of Debbie new in to our stock this week, from 1974 to 1982, including many from the “Debbie & Spellbound” amalgam period, with extra spookiness injected into the usual tales of plucky schoolgirls and orphan equestriennes. Featuring “Maid of the Temple Dogs”, “Big Blue”, “Springheeled Jill”, “Lisa, Lonely Ballerina” and the photo-soap “Randall Road Girls” among scores more , join us for almost a decade’s worth of this popular DC Thomson weekly!

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:
*Romance
and from the following in our American/British section:
*Classics Illustrated
*Undergrounds
and from the following in our British section:
*Annuals
*Magazines/Books About Vintage UK Comics
and from the following in our Books section:
*Mad Books
As of the time of writing, these categories are bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*Mad Books: We’ve added a sextet of titles to the Mad Books section. These include the two shown and Inside Mad, Madvertising, The Endangered Mad and Three Ring Mad.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: This short-lived horror anthology, with stories and art by top British talent, (including Alan Moore in the first issue) showed great promise, but was sadly stifled by a combination of a barrage of parental complaints about the violence, and a printer’s strike which threatened to stop the presses for several weeks. After issue # 15, and without so much as even the traditional “Great News, Chums!”, Scream vanished, and two of its most popular strips, ‘Monster’ and ‘ The 13th Floor’ (about a homicidal computerised elevator dispensing harsh justice in a tower block – no, really) continued into the second iteration of Eagle. We have an almost complete run new in, lacking only the final issue, averaging Fine, as well as the 1985 Holiday Special in VG/FN.

*Alan Class Reprints: As the official representatives for the private collection of publisher Alan Class, we are pleased to offer in excess of 100 new items from Alan’s own publishing archive, high grade copies, each of which is accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity signed by Alan Class himself, and is therefore a unique purchase! FN/VF is the average grade on these additions, and there are many NM copies which were never distributed or sold, and have been  unread since printing. The classic ‘Big 6’ – Astounding Stories, Creepy Worlds, Secrets of the Unknown, Sinister Tales, Suspense, and Uncanny Tales – are all well-represented, as well as some of the more oddball, short-run series such as Blazing Trails, Just Dennis, Outer Space, and Tales of the Underworld.

*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: Two paperback editions of Sax Rohmer’s classics join our existing Hardcover (The Return of Dr Fu-Manchu). The dastardly and sinister mastermind crosses swords once again with Nayland Smith, in Tibet (Emperor Fu Manchu) and in war-torn London, New York and Haiti (all in The Island Of Fu Manchu).

*DC: A nice update to our stocks of the Caped Crusader, from the wacky ‘alien monster/Batman family’ years of the early 1960’s, through to the subsequent ‘new look’ of the second half of the 1960’s and beyond into the grimmer and grittier Bronze Age. All cents, nice clean copies in well above average grade. Four examples of what we mean from the earlier part of this Batman batch are shown below: #134 VG+ £64, #135 VG/FN £70, #137 FN+ £110, #143 FN £85.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: A chunky update to a classic title, with dozens of issues of Lion new in, filling many gaps in our existing stock between the years 1964 and 1972. Included in this batch are the Christmas issues for 1965 and 1967, plus the first Spider appearance in 26/6/65 (VG £20).

*Archie: Definitely a title for our Quirky Corner is Jerry Siegel’s & Paul Reinman’s re-imagining of the pulp hero the Shadow for Archie Comics in 1964. Here, not only does the Shadow know what evil lurks in the hearts of men, he dons a super-hero costume and cape to set about putting everything to right. His rogues gallery, apart from the ubiquitous Shiwan Khan, includes Dr Demon, the Radiation Rogue, Attila the Hunter, the Brute, Elasto and the Diabolical Dimensionoid. Wackiness ensues for all eight issues, now in stock in nice grade.

*Marvel UK: Several landmark issues in the career of Brian Braddock’s alter-ego, new in this week: the premier issue of his first series, excruciatingly rendered by Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe; Marvel Super-Heroes #377, in which the Alan Davis-designed new version appears for the first time; and choice issues of The Daredevils and the second series of Mighty World of Marvel, in which Moore, Davis, and later Delano created the groundbreaking adventures for which the series is so fondly remembered.

*Modern Reprints: With the classic hero, the Flash, being very much in the public eye at the moment, we’re pleased to have in stock three out-of-print volumes of DC’s handsome Archive series. Flash Archives Volumes 1, 2, and 5 reprint the first adventures of Barry Allen, the Fastest Man Alive, by John Broome, Gardner Fox, Carmine Infantino, Joe Giella and Murphy Anderson, with Infantino’s haunting retro-futuristic design of Central City and of other worlds adding a strong kinetic influence on the stories, a vital ingredient in ‘selling’ the super-speed adventures. Yes, we’re biased witnesses, but they’re still great! All these volumes are Near Mint, having been read and stored carefully.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: It’s been far too long since we’ve added an update to Super Detective Library, one of the most popular titles in this category, but here we have a (mostly) nicely graded selection of about 20 issues new in between #48 and #188, featuring all the usual suspects: Blackshirt, Rip Kirby, Rick Random, Vic Terry, John Steel, Buck Ryan and others.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: A mixed selection of comics are added here, highlights of which are a Lion Christmas issue in FN (1968) and an Easter issue of Valiant in FN (1970). The selection also includes Eagle (1963-69), Hornet (1967/68), Hotspur (1968/69), Lion (1969/70), Rover (1964/65), Scorcher (1970-73), Swift (1961), Tiger (1962-69, plus one issue from 1975), Valiant (1963-67) and Victor (1969).

*Vintage Magazine-Sized Comics: Continuing our sojourn through Marvel’s black & white magazine line of the 1970’s, we come to Vampire Tales, with Morbius the Living Vampire as the lead series, backstopped by the seductive succubus Satana, and, later, Lilith, Daughter of Dracula and the Vampire Hunter – Blade. Only missing #2 from the complete 11-issue run, and averaging high grades, these include several non-distributed issues which are more scarce in the UK – not that any of them are commonplace!

*Marvel: Cue the incense! Strike up the wind chimes! Yes, it’s time for Master of Kung Fu, in which the Son Of Fu Manchu (except we’re not supposed to call him that since Marvel lost rights to the Sax Rohmer estate) epitomizes “The Rising And Advancing Of Spirit” – while kicking people’s brains out through the back of their heads! This is a substantial, not quite complete, run from Special Marvel Edition #15, Shang-Chi’s first appearance, through to Master of Kung Fu #50, with a variety of grades to suit the collector and the casual reader alike. Written by Steve Englehart and Doug Moench, illustrated by Jim Starlin in his earliest adventures, then mostly by Paul Gulacy, MoKF has a more cerebral and artistic appeal than most martial-arts mags – though there’s also plenty of violence, for those who like it!

*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: A suite of Golden Amazon classics are added to our shelves today. These John Russell Fearn adventures are nearly all in NM grade, and, unusually for paperbacks, the Gryphon copies have dustjackets. All the copies feature sumptuous Ron Turner cover art.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: In our 20 years + of trading, we’ve never had through our hands such a wealth of early Commando Picture Libraries as graces our catalogue today. This most famous of all UK Picture Libraries is eagerly sought after and early issues seldom seem to turn up in quantity, if at all. Most of the first 200 issues are now in stock, including #1, #2, #4, #10, #12, #17 & #20. There are also multiple copies of many issues (up to 3 in some cases) in a choice of grades and prices.

The #1 is, sadly, incomplete, with the final 8 pages missing (but otherwise in GD/VG condition); we have included a copy of #4453 with it, which reprints the story in full; the #1 is priced at £100, but would be many times that if complete. #2 is PR/FA at £100 with a taped spine but complete; #4 is a sparkling FN grade at £200; #10 is even nicer FN/VF £200; #12 is a very nice FN+ £125; #17 VG/FN £60, #20 FN/VF £80. the rest of the run grades very differently, with some poors and fairs, but many more VGs, FNs, and a great number of VF copies. Not too many chances to get your hands on a nice batch of Commando PLs, and we expect interest to be very keen indeed.

We’ve been out of stock of these archival quality backing boards for several months and have been swamped with requests for them, so we just wanted to let everyone know that we now have a plentiful supply available at £17.50 per pack of 50.

*Girls’ Comics: New stock in from 1969 and 1970 of IPC/Fleetway’s shortlived “comic for the adventurous girl”, which featured not only the usual plucky orphans and wandering waifs (“Four On The Road” and “Daddy Come Home”) and fish-out-of-water stories (“Farm Boss Fanny”), but also two bona fide super-heroines (“Cat Girl” and “The Justice of Justine”), science-fiction stories (“The Girl From Tomorrow”, “Tiny Tania In Space”) and one stonking great heap of bonkers (“The Legion of Super-Slaves”, in which a master villain kidnaps and brainwashes nubile teenage girl athletes & gymnasts into being his spandex-clad army of conquest. As you would. If your objective wasn’t actually conquest. Ahem.) This run commences with the second issue, and features a copy of #3 with the original free gift of a “Lucky Birthday Wheel”. Being a short achieveable run of only 94 issues and with the heavy adventure bias, Sally is always sought after, and we expect the copies we have to be briskly contested – get your skates on!

*Childrens’ Books: Two Enid Blyton hardcovers and several of Frank Richards’ Billy Bunters join our wonderful Childrens’ section today. The Famous Five Fall Into Adventure and Shadow the Sheepdog is put through his paces. Bunter gets up to his usual hilarious tricks, permanently waiting for the elusive postal order that never comes.

*Humour Comics: A big cackle of classic British humour titles fresh in, including: Beano 1951/52, 1954, 1956/57, 1962, 1964/65, 1967-1970; Beezer 1968; Buster 1965, 1967, 1969; Cor 1970 (inc 2nd issue); Dandy 1958, 1962, 1964/65, 1967/68; Giggle 1967; Sparky 1967-69 & Topper 1965, 1968 & 1970.

*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: A small addition to our Crime section today, with Sherlock wrestling with a sinister hound, Ellery Queen hunting out facts and Modesty Blaise ‘doing her thang’!

*Marvel: For those who like big guys with guns, here’s New Mutants #87 (VF p £20), the first full appearance of Cable. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

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:
*Marvel
As of the time of writing, this category is bang up to date, with every item listed available.