*Girls’ Comics: Lindy was a bit of an anomaly for Fleetway/IPC, published on better quality paper and with more colour pages than the average weekly, seemingly attempting to straddle the gap between the usual girls’ comic and the teen magazines, with a heavy emphasis on TV and pop. The experiment doesn’t appear to have been successful, as, after a scant twenty issues, it was merged into Jinty. While Lindy didn’t offer any ‘star’ features – the comedy filler ‘Penny Crayon’ was the longest-lived of its strips – its short achievable run, and the fact that the plethora of pin-ups mean that undamaged copies are rare, means that today it’s highly collectable. We welcome an almost complete run to our catalogue, including the first three and final issues.
PICTURED: LINDY #1 VG £25 SOLD
Category Archives: What’s New
British Update: Pearson’s Picture Romance Library — the Tail End
*Girls’ Picture Libraries: For now, the last instalment of our updates to Pearson’s Picture Romance Library as the titles progresses into the mid 1960s following one last livery change. Issues in this update between #284 & #409. Shortly after this, the title switched to being published by (firstly) Newnes and (subsequently) Fleetway, but those are updates for another day.
PICTURED: PICTURE ROMANCE LIBRARY #342 FN/VF £7
Last Ordering and Posting Dates for Christmas
Please note that all orders received by Saturday 12th December and paid for by 4 pm on Tuesday 15th December should be posted on Wednesday 16th, which is the last date we are posting before Christmas. Due to the restrictions placed on us by the pandemic, there will be no last minute exceptions, so please ensure if you’re buying Christmas presents (and you’re in the UK) that you get your order in by Saturday 12th December to be sure of getting it before Christmas. Outside the UK, delivery times vary widely.
Super-Housekeeping Update
Since we’re now trading by mail order only, it gives us the chance to maintain our catalogue even more accurately. All items sold since lockdown are now being deleted within a few days of sale. We are also working through our entire catalogue to delete those items that sold pre-lockdown since files were last updated. This means that as we finish updating a file, you can rely on the catalogue for that category being (and staying) as close to 100% accurate as it is possible to get, with virtually everything available, apart from items sold in the last few days (and just a tiny amount of human error). We have now completed this exercise for the following category from our Books section:
*TV/Film Tie-Ins
All categories down to this point in our Catalogue Index have now been Super-Housekept! We will continue to post here as we make progress.
American Update: DC Debuts: The complete Zatanna’s Search inc 1st appearance in Hawkman #4
*DC: Now we’re straying dangerously close here to my all-time favourite comics! Absolutely delighted to bring you all 6 parts of the Zatanna’s Search storyline – a crossover story arc before there were such things — commonplace now but unheard of in 1964! A particularly timely update bearing in mind strong movie rumours! Zatanna is the daughter of DC’s Golden Age magician Zatara, first appearing in Hawkman #4 and taking her search for her missing father through the pages of Green Lantern, Atom, Detective Comics and the Justice League of America. Our latest copy of Hawkman #4 is an apparent VG-, pence stamped, with a good colour cover image, tight staples and decent pages. There is some edge wear, particularly to the spine, and some colour-breaking creases to the bottom right corner. We use the term ‘apparent’ because the right edge looks a little narrower than it should, suggesting a trim, although the wear at that edge would seem to contradict that. Nevertheless, we have priced it as if it was trimmed. The remaining five parts are shown below in order (completists should note that Zatanna only appears in disguise in Detective Comics #336, retconned into the Batman story, as we found out in JLA #51, in order to get Batman into that issue).
PICTURED:
HAWKMAN #4 App VG- p £140 1 of 6 SOLD
DETECTIVE COMICS #336 GD/VG £18.50 2 of 6
ATOM #19 FN- p £95 3 of 6
GREEN LANTERN #42 VG+ p £30 4 of 6
DETECTIVE COMICS #355 FA p £8.25 5 of 6
JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #51 FN/VF p £60 6 of 6
American Update: A Babe, a Board and a Bike! 3rd Teen Titans in Showcase #59
*DC: Following their two try-out adventures in Brave & Bold, the Teen Titans switched to Showcase for their 3rd appearance. In this they encounter an apparent teenage criminal gang (or are they?) named the Flips, whose theme song: ‘We’re just a Babe, a Board and a Bike’ somehow still resonates down the years. I love the DC writers and editors getting down with the kids. The gorgeous art of Nick Cardy adorns this issue, and indeed his was the definitive look for the Teen Titans in these early years. A gorgeous high grade pence stamped copy with lustrous cover colour and gloss, flat and tight with firmly attached staples and excellent white to off-white pages. Just minor stress marks at the spine prevent an even higher grade.
PICTURED: SHOWCASE #59 VF p £90
American Update: Batmania: New Look plus Annuals
*DC: In 1964, with issue #164, newly transferred editor Julius Schwartz ushered in the ‘New Look’ for Batman; the Caped Crusader gained a yellow circle around the bat emblem on his chest and the tone of the stories changed to emphasize mystery and crime, away from the science-fiction tales so often employed in the ‘Old Look’, with monsters, aliens, super-powered villains and the Batman Family, including Alfred, Batwoman, Bat-Girl and Ace the Bat-Hound. This update we focus on the ‘New Look’, from the first issue (#164) up to #192 — more mystery, more detection, more action; lots of really nice grades among these and lots of lovely Carmine Infantino covers to boot. But there’s still plenty of ‘Old Look’ charm to be found in those wonderful 80 page reprint annuals, several of which are included in this update under the Annual sequential numbering at the end of our Batman listing.
PICTURED: BATMAN #173 VF- p £46
American Update: Mighty Marvel Firsts: Fantastic Four #48, with Debuts of the Silver Surfer and Galactus
*Marvel: One of the most sought-after Marvel Comics of the 1960s is Fantastic Four #48, which introduced the Silver Surfer, a cosmic-powered being the equal of the combined FF… and the Surfer’s master, Galactus, an entity of even more monstrous might! Both became major figures in the Marvel Universe, with the Surfer repenting his role as Galactus’ herald and choosing the side of justice, while Galactus’ insatiable hunger drives him ever onwards to more heinous acts. This is a low grade pence printed copy; it benefits from a relatively unspoilt cover image with (non-severe) creasing and handling wear but no markings; edge wear and corner blunting; the staples are a little loose (particularly at the upper), but firmly attached at the centrefold where there is a tiny bit of rust migration. The spine is weak with more than moderate wear and a couple of chips out, plus an upper spine split of about 2 cm. The back cover also has a couple of chips out but the interiors are okay. Nevertheless a relatively affordable copy of this iconic issue.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR #48 FA/GD p £320 SOLD
American Update: What’s Old: Spider-Mania/Slab Happy/Mighty Marvel Firsts: Debut of Punisher in Amazing Spider-Man #129 9.4
*Marvel: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. One of the later breakout characters of Marvel, Frank Castle, aka bereaved urban vigilante the Punisher, became one of the company’s super-stars in the 1990s, but had spent most of the previous two decades ‘bubbling under’ as a guest-starring anti-hero. His media presence – and commercial appeal – has been heightened by numerous film and TV appearances. The Punisher’s first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #129, February 1974, is particularly rare in the UK, where, owing to the presence of Spider-Man Comics Weekly, the US title was embargoed for distribution for several years. This is a cents copy (there are no pence copies, of course), CGC certified Blue Label (no restoration) graded 9.4 (NM equivalent).
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #129 CGC 9.4 NM £2500 SOLD
American Update: Spider-Mania/Mighty Marvel Firsts: Debut of Morbius in Amazing #101
*Marvel: By his 101st issue, Spider-Man had become temporarily encumbered with six arms, leaving him a true eight-limbed arachnoid hero; but more importantly, he met a foe who was destined to become one of the Marvel Universe’s prime anti-heroes. Following the 1971 relaxation of the Comics Code Authority (which had hitherto banned mention of vampires and werewolves in the wake of the 1950s horror comics scare), the floodgates were opened for all manner of supernatural beings; one of the first was Michael Morbius, tragic scientist who, while not a traditional vampire, gained many vampiric attributes after an experiment gone awry. Among said attributes: enhanced strength, speed, senses… and an uncontrollable craving for human blood. A big hit with the Spider-Man audience, Morbius the Living Vampire made a rapid reappearance in Marvel Team-Up #3, graduating to his own series in Fear thereafter. There have been several Morbius series in the intervening decades, and the upcoming Morbius flick is scheduled to premiere early next year, leading to a heightened demand for his premier appearance. This is a low grade pence printed copy with several defects: a torn spine with small chunks missing (mostly from rear cover) taped tear on rear cover, colour-breaking creasing and a cover detached at both staples, but there aren’t many copies around for under a ton these days.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #101 FA p £80 SOLD
American Update: Days of Future Past – Classic X-Men Storyline in #141 & #142
*Marvel: From 1981, and the days when alternate future storylines were not nearly as cliched as they’ve since become, one of the most compelling of them all: the classic ‘Days Of Future Past’ two-parter from X-Men #141/142 by Claremont & Byrne. This was virtually Byrne’s swan song on the title. Featuring an aged X-Men line-up against the Sentinels (and the first appearance of Rachel Summers, who became Excalibur’s Phoenix, (later Marvel Girl II)), this really is the story where, as the cover gleefully proclaims, “Everybody Dies!” Already a sought-after two-parter, but its popularity (and value!) skyrocketed after the release of the X-Men film, ‘Days of Future Past’, which adapted the narrative to the big screen (though, it must be said, Wolverine was very unconvincing in the role of Kitty Pryde…).
PICTURED: X-MEN
#141 VF- p £55
#142 VF- £40
American Update: Mighty Marvel Firsts – The Man Who Lived Twice! First Appearance of Brother Voodoo from Strange Tales #169
*Marvel: Okay, this is an oddity; the 1970s revival of Strange Tales restarted with the ‘classic’ numbering of #169, and featured Brother Voodoo, a peculiar attempt at a heroic practitioner of, duh, voodoo, intended to tap into both the ‘blaxploitation’ and horror crazes of the time. Len Wein and Gene Colan were the creators, so it was competently done, but a fundamental misunderstanding of the religion of voodoo, combined with objections to the depiction of non-Christian religion and severe criticism about the portrayal of non-white characters, meant that the heroic sojourn of Jericho Drumm, intermittently possessed by the ghost of his deceased twin Daniel, stuttered to a halt within five issues, to be replaced by the hastily thrown-together Golem. That might have been it for this Bronze Age update of Quality’s old Captain Triumph (look it up if you don’t get the reference), but for the zeal of fan-turned pro writers, who brought the character back from oblivion. He’s been a Skrull. he’s been the Scarlet Witch (kind of) and now he’s Doctor Voodoo, Sorcerer Supreme (well, one of them) of the Marvel Universe! This VG copy of an origin issue never distributed in the UK has a small chip out of the bottom right edge of the cover, minor edge wear and corner blunting and slight tanning to inside covers, but is otherwise very sound, glossy and presentable.
PICTURED: STRANGE TALES #169 VG £80 SOLD
American Update: Mighty Marvel Firsts: Tales of Suspense #75 – Debuts of Sharon Carter (Agent 13) and Batroc the Leaper
*Marvel: The Captain America half of Tales of Suspense #75 introduced not one, but two, characters who were to factor largely in the life of the Star-Spangled Avenger. One was Batroc the Leaper, the savate-stomping stereotype who has unexpectedly kick-boxed his way into the hearts of fandom, who know him with affectionate derision as ‘Batroc Zee Leapair’; the other was Sharon Carter, a.k.a. Agent 13 of SHIELD, in this story a nameless young woman whose innocent appearance conceals a deadly skill set – and who became the second love of Cap’s life. This is a lower graded cents copy with heavy spine roll, tanned interior covers and edge wear, particularly at spine, but is otherwise okay, with good staples and decent pages.
PICTURED: TALES OF SUSPENSE #75 GD/VG £30 SOLD
American Update: Venom: Tooth & Claw: Vs Wolverine
*Marvel: Fans of grisly slug-fests, I pretty much think you know what you’ll be getting here just from the title. All 3 issues of this 1996 mini now available in a sparkling NM.
PICTURED: VENOM: TOOTH & CLAW #1 NM £15 SOLD
American Update: Catalogue Expansion: What If (2nd series)
*Marvel: The ‘What If’ franchise has been an enduringly popular one for Marvel over the years (although it was DC who pioneered the concept with their ‘Imaginary Stories’ back in the 1960s), so we’ve expanded our catalogue to add a couple of dozen issues from the second series from 1989 onwards. Each issue done-in-one, the many stars of the Marvel Universe are featured.
American Update: A Miscellany of Dell
*Dell: Dell published loads of stuff. Although probably best remembered for their TV and Film titles and their famous Four Colour series, super-heroes and all sorts of other genres found their way into their titles. This update is typical: Movie ‘Classics’ The Cat, A Dog of Flanders and Hatari, animated cartoon characters Chip’n’Dale, Bugs Bunny & Quick Draw McGraw, TV adaptations Three Stooges, Mission Impossible & Peter Gunn, Ellery Queen Detective, Super-Heroes Nukla and the Super-Heroes (duh!), and Toka, Jungle King. You have to have very wide taste to be a Dell completist!
American Update: Atomic Sci-Fi: Brick Bradford #6 — classic Schomburg Girl & Robot cover
*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: It’s a thing, isn’t it? Girls menaced by robots in the Golden Age. One only has to think of the classic advertising posters for the Forbidden Planet movie to see the iconography of this type of image. Planet Comics #70, Robotmen of the Lost Planet, countless others. Perhaps the most famous of these is Nedor’s Startling Comics #49 by Alex Schomburg. Whilst the prices on this have risen stratospherically out of reach for the average collector, the lesser known Brick Bradford #6 from King Features in 1948 provides a relatively more affordable alternative. Brick Bradford is a space adventurer in the mould of Flash Gordon, with his adventures more than competently illustrated by Clarence Gray. But it’s the cover of #6 that’s the big selling point. Drawn by Alex Schomburg, a typical Schomburg robot menaces our heroine, with Brick there to save the day. This is a superb copy for a comic published in 1948, with vivid colour, flat with tight staples, great page quality and only very minimal wear. What looks like an arrival date is pencilled near the robot’s head and a faint trace of a non-colour breaking crease can just be made out close to the right bottom edge. There is a very small scuff at the top of the spine, but this hardly shows against the yellow background. I doubt there’s many better copies in existence. High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: BRICK BRADFORD #6 FN- £750 SOLD
American Update: A Date With Patsy: Miss America 1952-58
*Teen Humour/Funny Girls: Continuing our massive Patsy Walker stock update, we add issues of Miss America from 1952 to 1958, transitioning from the clumsy volume number system to more straightforward sequential numbers. By this time, the erstwhile features of Miss America Magazine had long gone and the title was in effect a traditional comic book full of picture strips starring Patsy and others. Another 30 gems for your consideration!
PICTURED: MISS AMERICA #70 GD/VG £13
British Update: Quirky Corner: Two unusual Alan Class oddities
*Alan Class Reprints: A couple of really unusual items from the Alan Class vaults this week. First up, Astounding Stories #150. This copy (and we’re not sure if this applies to all copies) has several pages printed more than once (including part of the Marvel BPM Spragg story). What makes it unique is a sheet of Alan’s handwritten instructions to the printers advising them that the flongs (the plastic or papier mache plates that the pages are printed from) were uncut on presentation and therefore not in the right order, so to make sure they double-checked the correct running order for the pages, an instruction they seem to have ignored! Secondly, Creepy Worlds #73, which reprints the Dr Strange story from Strange Tales #123 by Lee & Ditko, where the Master of the Mystic Arts comes up against Loki, with Thor guest-starring. This copy comes with the full Dr. Strange story in printer’s proof form i.e. black and white copies. Both issues of course are accompanied by a hand-signed certificate from Alan Class himself. Your chance to own a unique piece of Alan Class history!
PICTURED:
ASTOUNDING STORIES #150 VG £20 With Alan Class instruction sheet SOLD
CREEPY WORLDS #73 VG £40 With Dr. Strange story printer’s proofs SOLD
British Update: Wham! #3
*Power Comics: We’re very pleased to have an early issue of Wham! fresh into stock, #3 in fact. With General Nitt & His Barmy Army, The Wacks, the suspiciously Bash Street-alikes the Tiddlers, Billy Binns, Eagle-Eye Junior Spy, Danny Dare, Georgie’s Germs and loads more packed into its very full 24 pages. Not the best copy, a little spine-rolled with a worn and foxed spine, but not too bad either!
PICTURED: WHAM! #3 GD £25 SOLD
British Update: Hornet 1963/64 from #1
*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Created as a companion to Hotspur, Hornet’s star was ‘Bouncing’ Bernard Briggs, soccer goalie (and later jack-of-all-sports – British comics presented sportsmen the way American ones did scientists, with all the disciplines being interchangeable), who was the only survivor from the original line-up to make it all the way to the end. After a very respectable run, Bernard, along with everlasting wonder-man ‘Wilson’, crossed over to Hotspur. But this week we have Hornet from the beginning, with the vast majority of its first two years, 1963 and 1964, in a mixture of grades, including the first three issues. The first issue is a nice copy, but with a small tear at the lower left cover margin.
PICTURED: HORNET #1 GD/VG £45 SOLD
British Update: Commando Picture Library #901-1000 in high grade
*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: About 30 additions to Commando, the most popular and longest-lived of all Picture Library titles in the range #901-1000, published in the mid-70s. These are in the best condition you’re likely to come across, all VF with just a couple of FN grades. They are from a newsagent’s unsold stock, never circulated or read. Glossy covers with vibrant colour, tight spines and sharp corners; truly exceptional copies.
British Update: Free Gift Farrago: Judy 1968/69
*Girls’ Comics: Two Free Gift issues from the long-running Judy this week: #419 (1968) features a pristine sheet of stick-on ‘Funflowers’; #475 (1969) features a ‘Two-In-One Bracelet’, still sealed in its original envelope.
PICTURED: JUDY BOTH SOLD
#419 VG/FN WITH FREE GIFT VF £30
#475 VG/FN WITH FREE GIFT VF £40
British Update: Debbie Picture Library
*Girls’ Picture Libraries: This week, a small selection of later, cheap and cheerful Debbie Picture Libraries between #100 & #200.
Super-Housekeeping Update
Since we’re now trading by mail order only, it gives us the chance to maintain our catalogue even more accurately. All items sold since lockdown are now being deleted within a few days of sale. We are also working through our entire catalogue to delete those items that sold pre-lockdown since files were last updated. This means that as we finish updating a file, you can rely on the catalogue for that category being (and staying) as close to 100% accurate as it is possible to get, with virtually everything available, apart from items sold in the last few days (and just a tiny amount of human error). We have now completed this exercise for the following category from our Books section:
*Crime, Spies & Sleaze
All categories down to this point in our Catalogue Index have now been Super-Housekept! We will continue to post here as we make progress.
American Update: Batmania: A Pair Of Jokers: Batman #159 & #163
*DC: The two final appearances of the Clown Prince of Crime in the Batman ‘old look’ period before the ‘new look’ relaunch in 1964. In #159, in a double-length feature, Batman and chums get embroiled in the ‘Great Clayface Joker Feud’ and in #163, Batman & Robin encounter the ‘Joker Jury’. These issues are also among the final appearances of Batman Family regulars Batwoman and Bat-Girl before they were swept away by the ‘new look’ to resurface years later in different guises. #159 is a nice above average pence stamped copy, tight and flat with good staples, page quality and cover and only very moderate edge and handling wear. #163, also pence stamped, has some edge wear at spine and right edge and corner blunting, good staples and page quality and a couple of small creases to the right bottom edge area. Both copies present very well.
PICTURED: BATMAN
#159 VG/FN p £90
#163 VG+ p £65
American Update: What’s Old: DC Debuts: 1st Hawkman in Brave & Bold #34
*DC: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. In the wake of the successful Silver Age revivals of Flash and Green Lantern, DC decided to try one of their most popular Golden Age characters, Hawkman, recast in a ‘Space-Age’ mode. This version was Katar Hol, police officer sent from Thanagar to study Earth law-enforcement customs, and his helpmate Hawkgirl was no silly debutante as in the original, but rather his colleague in policing, and his wife. A husband-and-wife superhero team was virtually unheard-of at that time, and Gardner Fox’s scripting, gave equal time to both Hawks. Superbly illustrated, first by Joe Kubert, then by Murphy Anderson, the Hawk’s adventures combined a true partnership of equals with derring-do all over Earth and on other worlds. We’re proud to have the first Hawkman revival issue, Brave & Bold #34, available in a choice of two grades and prices. There’s a Fine copy, pence stamped, with good cover colour and gloss, tight and flat except for some very minor non-colour breaking creasing near the top edge and a faint small crease across the top right corner; great page quality and a fresh, supple copy, with minimal spine and edge wear. Our second copy is GD (cents), with moderate spine and edge wear and corner blunting, but unspoilt cover image; specific defects are a fingernail-size chip out of the bottom edge near the spine and interior tape to front and back cover interiors along the spine. I bang on a bit about the quality of DC’s colour palette at this time; here the deep blue background gives this awesome cover an almost 3D effect. One of my favourite comics.
PICTURED: BRAVE & BOLD #34
FN p £370
GD £125 SOLD
American Update: More DC A list: Action, Adventure, Aquaman & Atom
*DC: A further top up to DC titles beginning with ‘A’: Action Comics, Adventure Comics (with the Legion of Super-Heroes), a lot of early Aquaman (inc #18 with the wedding of Aquaman & Mera), and Atom, a personal favourite. Full details as always in our catalogue.
PICTURED: AQUMAN #18 VG+ p £35
American Update: Spider-Mania meets Batmania in 1995 Crossover
*DC/Marvel: In the midst of a great many company crossover events between the Big Two came Spider-Man & Batman, starring the most popular character from each company. It’s a nice package, squarebound with an embossed shiny cover and featuring the Joker and Carnage as the baddies. Written by J. M. DeMatteis and drawn by Mark Bagley, you know what? It’s actually pretty good, and in a sparkling NM condition to boot!
PICTURED: SPIDER-MAN & BATMAN NM £35
American Update: Mighty Marvel Firsts: Debut of Sentinels in X-Men #14
*Marvel: The implacable robotic Sentinels, nemeses of the X-Men, have loomed large in the history of Marvel’s Mutant Heroes, making multiple appearances, each more fearsome than the last. The creations of a man determined to expunge the mutant genome from humanity, they emphasise the X-Men’s ‘otherness’, which is why they resonate so strongly with the readership – and in a world where fascism seems sadly to be coming back into fashion, they’re more relevant than ever! This is the first appearance of the Sentinels, a decent mid-grade pence printed copy with a nice clean cover image, firmly attached staples and nice page quality. There is just a tiny hint of spine roll at the top and three small colour-breaking creases across the top of the masthead; minimal edge wear and corner blunting; a little tanning to inside covers.
PICTURED: X-MEN #14 VG+ p £200 SOLD
American Update: Spider-Mania: Amazing #34 with Kraven the Hunter
*Marvel: Another fabulous issue of Amazing Spider-Man drawn by Steve Ditko this week. #34 features Spidey’s re-match with Kraven the Hunter and is a sound pence printed copy with a cover unmarked but for a narrow dust shadow along the right edge, good firm staples and minor edge wear and corner blunting; nice page quality and minor tanning to the edges of inside covers.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #34 VG p £50 SOLD
American Update: Hulk Vs Venom One-Shot
*Marvel: From 1994, written by Peter David, comes this fancy one-shot: Hulk Vs Venom. What more can we say? It does what it says on the tin. Cardstock embossed shiny cover, for all you magpies out there, and a pristine NM copy.
PICTURED: HULK VS VENOM #1 NM £55
American Update: Mighty Marvel Firsts: 2 Avengers key issues: Red Guardian, Valkyrie & Lady Liberators
*Marvel: In August 1967’s Avengers #43, we found out that the Black Widow’s nom-du-guerre was a teeny bit inaccurate, as her previously ‘deceased’ husband was discovered, not only alive, but the first subject of the Soviet Union’s own super-soldier project, the Red Guardian! Now announced as one of the major figures of the BW film (though whether as antagonist or ally is not yet known), the Red Guardian’s debut is a low grade good pence printed copy with heavy spine roll and misaligned staples, but otherwise okay. Avengers #83 saw several of Marvel’s fabulous femmes – Black Widow, Medusa, the Scarlet Witch and the Wasp – join forces as the Lady Liberators, under the leadership of the vivacious Valkyrie! Val’s origins and history are too complex to go into here, but this was the first appearance of the Valkyrie character and persona, as later portrayed by Tessa Thompson in ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ and ‘Avengers: Endgame’. This is a respectable mid-grade pence printed copy with the only specific defect being a small tear on the back cover at the base of the spine.
PICTURED: AVENGERS
#43 GD p £25 SOLD
#83 VG+p £45
American Update: Mighty Marvel Firsts: Giant-Size Invaders #1 and Invaders #1
*Marvel: In 1975, Roy Thomas’ lifelong love affair with all things Golden Age paid off, as he got to reunite the 1940s iterations of Captain America, the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch in a series of ‘untold tales’ set in World War II. Intended to be an ongoing double-sized title, Giant-Size Invaders #1 proved to be a one-shot owing to Marvel editorial retrenchment, but relaunched as an ongoing series later in the year, running 40+ issues, and being generally accepted as the retconned foundation of the Marvel Universe. This premier team-up of Timely’s ‘Big Three’ (plus their sidekicks, Bucky and Toro) is a nice superior copy with just minor stress marks at the top and bottom spine. We also have #1 of the ongoing series in high grade. Never distributed in the UK, these are of course cents copies.
PICTURED: BOTH SOLD
GIANT-SIZE INVADERS #1 FN+ £34
INVADERS #1 VF+ £47
American Update: Mighty Marvel Firsts: Legion of Monsters in Marvel Premiere #28
*Marvel: After a one-off black & white magazine in 1975, Legion of Monsters, used up a rag-bag of separate inventory stories starring Frankenstein’s Monster, Dracula, Manphibian and other horror heroes, someone at Marvel decided that the title was nifty enough to merit a further outing, and therefore the bizarre and otherwise inexplicable Marvel Premiere #28 came about. Unlike the Legion of Monsters one-shot, which featured unrelated stories, Marvel Premiere #28 brought Ghost Rider, Man-Thing, Werewolf By Night and Morbius the Living Vampire together as an actual team, albeit one even more mis-matched than the Champions! From the team of Bill Mantlo and Frank Robbins, it’s… everything you might expect! For decades discarded in bargain boxes everywhere, this issue has acquired white-hot collector’s status in the last decade. Our latest copy is a glossy, flat pence printed comic with just minor edge and spine wear; the grade is brought down by a small tear and loose but attached chip mid right edge of the cover.
PICTURED: MARVEL PREMIERE #28 VG p £35 SOLD
American Update: Back To Infinity! Jim Starlin’s Infinity Crusade, complete 6 issue set
*Marvel: One of the phenomena of the last decade of the 20th Century was Jim Starlin’s Infinity Gauntlet, which spawned many crossovers and two direct sequels. This is the second such sequel, third series in the ‘Infinity Trinity’, Infinity Crusade, in which ‘The Goddess’ separated the more devout of the Marvel Heroes into a super-powered jihad, a move surely calculated to offend both the pious and the pagan alike! The ‘Infinity’ series have been hugely popular ever since their inception, but with Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet at the centre of the Avengers/Guardians of the Galaxy cinematic franchise, demand for them is at its height.
PICTURED: INFINITY CRUSADE #4 NM; COMPLETE SET OF #1-6 NM £35
American Update: Catalogue Expansion/Spider-Mania: Spectacular Spider-Man #152-200
*Marvel: Another expansion to our catalogue as we unleash more of the second Spider-Man title, Spectacular Spider-Man, with issues between #152 & #200 joining our inventory. Highlights in this period include Spidey getting cosmic powers in #158 and the giant-size foil cover 200th issue with the Green Goblin.
American Update: A Superior Pre-Code Horror Fest: Strange Mysteries
*Horror 1940-1959: Superior was a Canadian publisher active from 1945-1956 who mostly reprinted American comics from the same time period. They also published a number of original series that were distributed in the United States. Among these were three horror titles famous for their hallucinogenic covers and accomplished Fiction House style interior art. When you see a lot of these together, they have an almost hypnotic and uncomfortable effect. This week we round up the last of our haul of Strange Mysteries from #14 to #18, mix grade copies, with specific defects listed below. (The three issues after this, #19-21, are all reprint).
PICTURED: STRANGE MYSTERIES ALL SOLD
#14 App VG+ £95 Mis-cut/misprinted cover; more information in our catalogue.
#15 GD- £75 Upper spine split; small pieces of tape inside back cover
#16 GD £85 Upper spine split; off staples with tape and small tape inside front cover; small cover tear
#17 FA+ £55 Long creases front and back cover; 8 cm tear front cover
#18 VG- £145 No specific defects
American Update: War To End Wars: DC
*War: We conclude our massive sequence of updates to our War stock with a large selection of DC titles, starting out with Captain Storm and G I Combat. There’s a lot of Our Army At War, featuring Sgt Rock (including #162 with the Viking Price), but mostly nice copies in the 200’s range. Our Fighting Forces commences with some relatively early issues with Gunner, Sarge & Pooch, then moving on to the Losers (inc #123, the first Losers app). Star Spangled War starts out with dinosaurs in ‘The War That Time Forgot’; there’s solitary Enemy Ace and Unknown Soldier issues, and we round off with several issues of Weird War Tales. Much lovely Joe Kubert artwork, particularly on covers, is in evidence, but there’s also Toth, Heath and even Kirby within these pages. That’s it — war is over (at least for now), Merry Christmas (as someone once sang). Peace has broken out.
PICTURED:
OUR ARMY AT WAR #162 VF- £48
OUR FIGHTING FORCES #123 FN+ £28
STAR SPANGLED WAR STORIES #120 FN+ p £38 SOLD
British Update: Classic DC Vintage Reprints: Blackhawk, Flash, Mystery In Space
*Vintage UK/Australian Reprints Of US Material: Some beautiful packages of classic DC stuff this week. There’s a quartet of Blackhawks, including both the 1st (#30) and 2nd (#36) appearances of Zinda Blake, the Lady Blackhawk. #1 of the 2nd series of Flash has not only two early Silver Age Flash stories, but also four Golden Age Wonder Woman stories and Mystery In Space #10 features many DC science fiction stories, with one by Jack Kirby.
PICTURED:
BLACKHAWK #30 GD/VG £15
FLASH #1 FN/VF £35 SOLD
MYSTERY IN SPACE #10 VG £15
British Update: Free Gift Farrago: Wizard 1971 x2 (a sticky problem)
*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: The D.C. Thomson story paper Wizard, launched in 1922, was laid to rest in 1963 – but after a decent interval the Powers-That-Be tried Wizard again, this time in comic strip format. The fact that football dominated its content (although there were also adventure strips and features) is reflected in this Free Gift selection from its second year in 1971. Both these items come with a sticky problem. #55 comes with a Giant Football Wall Chart (too big to show here other than in its folded state) and a sheet of six footballer figures to stick on it; the latter comes on an uncut sheet which is glued into the spine of the comic’s interior. #56 has a similar sheet of 12 to complete the chart, but this is actually stuck to an interior page. We’ve showed the interiors on these to illustrate the gifts.
PICTURED: WIZARD BOTH SOLD
#55 GD WITH FREE GIFTS FN £25
#56 VG WITH FREE GIFT VG £25
British Update: Battle Picture Library
*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: Around 50 issues of the famous Fleetway title Battle PL fresh in, all from the 1960s in the range #232 to #385. Almost all this batch are a nice FN grade, with a handful affected by minimal staple rust which are VG.
British Update: Long Hot Summer: 1st Dandy Summer Special from 1964
*Humour Comics: We’re very pleased to present a decent copy of the 1st Dandy Summer Special from 1964, which we very rarely see. This copy is in quite reasonable condition, with the odd tiny nick, minor creasing and some edge wear with very minor foxing, and the bottom right corner of the back cover is slightly dog-eared, but the staples are good, all pages firmly attached and the colours are strong. All the contemporary comic favourites are present: Korky the Cat, Desperate Dan, Winker Watson, Dirty Dick, Joe White and the Seven Dwarves, Smasher, Big Head & Thick Head and more.
PICTURED: DANDY SUMMER SPECIAL 1964 GD £125 SOLD
British Update: Another bumper selection of June & School Friend Picture Libraries
*Girls’ Picture Libraries: June & School Friend Picture Library continued the numbering of Schoolgirls’ Picture Library from #327 onwards, and this week we have very many issues of J&SF PL fresh in between #501 and #571. Many favourite recurring characters are here: Sue Day, Sara Topper, the Peewits, the Rolling Stones etc. Like our previous recent updates to this title, these are from a newsagent’s uncirculated stock, and are in superior condition, mostly in the FN to VF range.
PICTURED: JUNE & SCHOOL FRIEND PICTURE LIBRARY
#535 VF £9
#557 VF £9
British Update: June is busting out all over 1970-1974
*Girls’ Comics: A significant update to the last five years of the hugely popular June; whilst by no means a continuous run, every year from 1970 to 1974 is well represented in this update, replenishing our depleted stocks. A Christmas issue, issues with Promotional Flyers, the final issue (15/6/74) and, in 4/7/70, the delightful debut of Glory Knight, time travel courier, who you can read about in Will’s article.
PICTURED: JUNE 4/7/70 VG/FN £9
Super-Housekeeping Update
Since we’re now trading by mail order only, it gives us the chance to maintain our catalogue even more accurately. All items sold since lockdown are now being deleted within a few days of sale. We are also working through our entire catalogue to delete those items that sold pre-lockdown since files were last updated. This means that as we finish updating a file, you can rely on the catalogue for that category being (and staying) as close to 100% accurate as it is possible to get, with virtually everything available, apart from items sold in the last few days (and just a tiny amount of human error). We have now completed this exercise for the following category from our Books section:
*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror
All categories down to this point in our Catalogue Index have now been Super-Housekept! We will continue to post here as we make progress.
American Update: Justice League Of America #21 & #22 — ‘Crises On Earth-One & Two’
*DC: A pair of beauties that are among the closest to our collective hearts here at 30th Century – in Justice League of America #21 & #22, the ground-breaking ‘Crisis On Earth-One’ and ‘Crisis On Earth-Two’ the heroes of the Justice League met their parallel world counterparts, the Justice Society of America, for the first time, and an annual tradition was formed. Superbly created by Gardner Fox, Mike Sekowsky and Bernard Sachs, the multiple heroes and villains of these stories were expertly juggled, with everyone getting their moment to shine. The DC palette of cover colours were superbly used here with deep purple and almost turquoise blue backgrounds making the figures seem to leap off the covers, and these two well-preserved examples are just right to appreciate that. Both VG+ pence stamped, they have a little edge wear, handling wear and corner blunting, but tight staples and nice page quality, with unmarred cover images. I was blown away by the concept when I read these as a kid in 1963 — now’s your chance to be blown away too!
PICTURED: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA
#21 VG+ p £70
#22 VG+ p £60
American Update: Green Lantern #40 – Crisis On Infinite Earths ‘Prequel’
*DC: We know, it sounds a bit weird, but two decades after the publication of this 1965 issue, DC linked it retroactively to their blockbuster crossover ‘Crisis on Infinite Earths’, by declaring the major events therein (no, we’re not going to tell you what they were – spoilers!) as the retconned kick-off to Crisis. This nifty team-up between the Green Lanterns of Earths One and Two has therefore acquired an historic value beyond that seemingly justified by its (admittedly considerable) merits. This pence stamped copy is a very nice FN-, tight and flat with great cover colour and gloss, firm staples and excellent pages. Just slight corner blunting and edge wear with a few small faint non-colour breaking creases are the only defects. And it’s a great read!
PICTURED: GREEN LANTERN #40 FN- p £100
American Update: Batmania: The ‘Old Look’
*DC: In 1964, with issue #164, newly transferred editor Julius Schwartz ushered in the ‘New Look’ for Batman; the Caped Crusader gained a yellow circle around the bat emblem on his chest and the tone of the stories changed to emphasize mystery and crime, away from the science-fiction tales so often employed in the ‘Old Look’, with monsters, aliens, super-powered villains and the Batman Family, including Alfred, Batwoman, Bat-Girl and Ace the Bat-Hound. All of these novelties can be found in this selection between #138 & #162, and the Joker himself pops up in #140 and #152 (although in the latter he is in disguise for much of his story). As much as Batman is famed for the dark and gritty period which followed, the whimsy of these ‘Old Look’ stories is quite charming and has quite a following.
PICTURED: BATMAN #152 VG p £40 SOLD
American Update: Mighty Marvel Firsts: Double Debuts for Franklin Richards and Annihilus in Fantastic Four Annual #6
*Marvel: Franklin Richards, son of Mr Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, made his debut in Fantastic Four Annual #6, by way of being born in that issue, which is fairly unusual for a character debut. The issue itself is typical Jack Kirby grandeur in the Negative Zone (also featuring the debut of Annihilus) with big panels, overblown action and devices and masterful inking by Joe Sinnott. Right at the end we see mother with child for the first time in an historic moment for the Marvel Universe. Franklin has gone on to star in many comics and events of the MU ever since and remains a frequently appearing character. This is not a great copy; superficially it is nice, with good colour and some gloss and just minor edge wear, but the spine is a little tatty and the back cover (only) is detached from it from the top down about 75% of its length. Nevertheless, a chance to get a copy that presents reasonably well; this comic has risen a lot in price in recent times, so a nice one to tick off your list.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #6 GD+ p £75 SOLD