*Girls’ Comics: Another brace of Free Gift issues from the UK’s longest running girls’ title this week. From 1972, #766 comes with ‘the Bunty Fairy Ring’, #767 with ‘The Bunty Blue Necklace’. Both comics are VG, having suffered some creasing in storage with their gifts over the years, but with no other defects. The Fairy Ring is VF, still sealed in its original envelope; the Blue Necklace is still mounted on its original card and is in great condition, although the card itself is a little worn, so FN.
PICTURED: BUNTY
#766 VG WITH FREE GIFT VF £35 SOLD
#767 VG WITH FREE GIFT FN £35 SOLD

*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: Philip K Dick is one of our best-selling authors. I guess his themes of religion, drugs, counter culture and destructive relationships appeal. So we’re pleased to present five of his works this week in paperback. Clans of the Alphane Moon is about human survivors of a hospital moon and the family clans they comprise, Counter-Clock World is a story where time moves backwards, Eye In the Sky is a surreal tale of a personal world realisation with religious overtones, Our Friends From Frolix 8 is about a search for help for humans from the stars and the Penultimate Truth is about a feudal oppression of the masses in the future. Full details of all editions in our catalogue.
PICTURED:
CLANS OF THE ALPHANE MOON VG £7 US PB 1972
COUNTER-CLOCK WORLD VF £8 UK PB 1977
OUR FRIENDS FROM FROLIX 8 VG £7 1st US PB 1970

*DC: From Jack Kirby this week, that marmite of opuses, part of his Fourth World saga from DC in the early 1970s. Like it or loathe it, there’s no denying the power, majesty and ambition of vision by one of comics’ greats in his series of linked titles from this time. The Forever People from Super Town star in their own 11 issue series and are introduced in #1 along with the first full appearance of Big Bad Darkseid, following cameos elsewhere. All that plus Superman too! All 11 issues are present in this update; the #1 is a decent pence stamped copy with minor edge wear and corner blunting, good page quality and tight staples. For details on the rest, consult our catalogue as always.
PICTURED: FOREVER PEOPLE #1 FN- p £90 SOLD

*Marvel: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. This week, a jewel in the crown of the Square Mile Collection! In 1962, following the success of the Fantastic Four, Marvel were casting around for their next hit. Combining elements from popular TV shows of the time, Lee & Kirby brainstormed a ‘mash-up’ of Frankenstein and Jekyll & Hyde – the old horror movies then going great guns on late-nite TV – and threw in a jive-talking teenager a la ’77 Sunset Strip’s ‘Kookie’, leavening the mix with a hearty dose of Cold War paranoia. The result was the Incredible Hulk; mild-mannered scientist Bruce Banner runs out into a gamma-bomb test to save the life of a feckless teen, and in consequence Banner becomes the Hulk, a creature of incalculable strength and uncontrollable rage! Most key components of the Hulk mythos were introduced here: Banner and the Hulk himself, perpetual hero-groupie Rick Jones, love interest Betty Ross and antagonist General ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross – but several elements needed to be refined, including our hero’s skin colour. In this first issue only, he was grey, like the monsters in the black & white TV horror shows; from #2 onwards, without explanation, he became the emerald-hued behemoth we love today. But the main theme of the character – intelligence and compassion warring with brute strength – was evident from the beginning, as Bruce, not the Hulk, turns an enemy into an ally and saves the day. Curiously, the Hulk was an initial flop, cancelled after six issues, and condemned to a few years as a guest villain or back-up strip until the revival of his solo title in 1968, but this is where his long career began. This is a CGC Blue Label (no restoration) 3.5, a VG- equivalent, a pence copy (or ‘UK Price variant’, as our American cousins would have it). Several fine lines at the spine and corners do not detract from the central cover image, with beautiful unfaded midnight-blue cover background colour. Hulk #1 is regarded by many authorities as the second rarest Marvel key issue (behind Amazing Fantasy #15, with Fantastic Four #1 in third place); we have only been lucky enough to have three or four copies through our hands in our near 30 years of trading.
PICTURED: HULK #1 CGC 3.5 VG- p £10,000 SOLD

*Marvel: This week, a two part encounter with Mysterio, that most tricky of villains who benefits from a timeless and stylish design by Steve Ditko back in the day. Here again he’s trying to make our friendly neighbourhood web-slinger crack up in this harrowing story. Mysterio stories have become increasingly popular since his appearance in the MCU, so we expect demand for these two lovely condition issues to be high. Both nice flat glossy copies, #142 is just marred by ballast ink marks at the top and bottom edges which do not intrude on to the cover.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
#141 VF £47 SOLD
#142 FN+ £37

*Marvel: Hey, it’s the early 1990s (gosh, 30 years ago) and the age of the polybag and trading card, as exemplified by the mega 12 part X-Men crossover ‘X-Cutioner’s Song’ which ran in Uncanny X-Men, X-Men Vol 2, X-Factor & X-Force and featured Stryfe as the central villain. The main issues of the crossover were sold polybagged with a special trading card that featured Stryfe’s personal views of key characters from the crossover. This week we have the first four parts of the crossover new in, all still sealed in their polybags and untouched by human (or mutant) hand, complete with trading cards. I’m sure if you were there at the time, these will have some nostalgic appeal for you.
PICTURED: ALL SOLD
PART 1 UNCANNY X-MEN #294 NM £23
PART 2 X-FACTOR #84 NM £10
PART 3 X-MEN #14 NM £13
PART 4 X-FORCE #16 NM £10

*Marvel: Several issues of Astonishing Tales new in this week from the early 1970s. Prominent are #1 with the debut of the Ka-Zar and Dr. Doom strips, plus #6, with the first appearance of Bobbi Morse, who would later become Mockingbird. We also have a couple of solo Ka-Zar issues, a couple of Deathlok issues and a nice #29, featuring a reprint of the first Guardians Of The Galaxy story. See our catalogue for full details.
PICTURED: ASTONISHING TALES
#1 VF- £35 SOLD
#6 FN p £40 SOLD

*Horror/Mystery 1960-1980s: Greer Nelson started her super-heroine life as The Cat, in her own short-lived series in 1972 and resurfaced here, in the one-off Giant-Size Creatures in 1974, as we learn how she was transformed into Tigra, the Were-Woman, who has since gone on to be a fan favourite in the MU. The double-length origin story also featured Werewolf By Night. We have a nice, above average copy, with minor edge and handling wear, a tight squarebound, very presentable issue. 
PICTURED: GIANT-SIZE CREATURES #1 FN+ £60 SOLD

*Vintage UK/Australian Reprints of US Material: A large intake of Westerns in this category this week, with several titles from several publishers. From Miller: Black Fury, Fawcett Movie Comic, Hopalong Cassidy, Kit Cowboy, Lash Larue, Rocky Lane, Tom Mix, Western Hero. From Gordon & Gotch Distributors (Aus): Black Rider, Hi-Yo Silver. From Streamline: Boys’ Ranch. From World Distributors: Hi-Yo Silver, Indian Chief, Roy Rogers, Wild Bill Pecos. From T&P/Jenson/Strato: Jesse James, Kid Colt, Tomahawk, Wild Bill Hickok. All now listed in our catalogue.  

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: Battle Picture Library this week, one of Fleetway’s Big Three. From 1970 to 1972, straddling the chasm between pre- and post-decimal, 23 issues ranging from #417 to #657. Nearly all these new additions are a sparkling VF grade, with just a handful of FN. As always, please consult our catalogue for details.

*Humour Comics: A very large chunk of the 1956 issues of Dandy freshly listed this week. It was a year with a lot of strip debuts, and has prompted us to start annotating these, so look out for the first appearances of My Pal Baggy Pants, Willie’s Whizzer Broom, Just Jimmy, Big Bang Benny, Roly-Poly Joe, Turtle Boy, Kipper the Copper, Corporal Kim, Buster’s Battling Beetle & Rip Snorter (whew!). As well as all that, we also have the Fireworks issue, the Christmas issue and an issue with a Beezer promotional flyer. We’ll be adding first appearance data to all new Dandy issues listed from now on, and, if we ever have time, we’ll go back and look up that info for all our previously listed stock as well. 
PICTURED: DANDY #788 GD/VG £14 CHRISTMAS ISSUE

*TV/Film Tie-Ins: Two iconic and very different cultural classics from the 1960s in this week’s books update. First up, the novelisation of ‘The Beatles in their first fab film’: ‘A Hard Day’s Night’, with eight pages of photographs from the film (some beginning to come loose), written by John Burke from the screenplay by Alun Owen. Secondly, two novels of that most stylish series the Prisoner in relatively modern editions in great shape; the Prisoner was a surreal, unique and enigmatic series that has never been matched. Now’s your chance to relive those heady years when we were fab and not numbers. 
PICTURED: ALL SOLD
THE BEATLES: A HARD DAY’S NIGHT 1st UK PB 1964 GD £6
THE PRISONER:
A DAY IN THE LIFE 1st UK PB 1981 VF £8
WHO IS NUMBER TWO? 2nd UK PB 1982 VF £8 

*DC: Our alphabetical romp through the DCU has reached the letter ‘H’, with lots of additions to the following titles: Hawk & Dove, Hawkman, Hercules Unbound (a title new to our listings), Hot Wheels (a nice copy of #1 with art by Alex Toth), House Of Mystery & House Of Secrets. A word about a couple of these: Hawkman is a personal favourite, with wonderful scripts by Gardner Fox (who excelled in the sort of science-fiction and fantasy setting so often used in this series, plus superlative art by Murphy Anderson — a woefully underrated series which deserves much more popularity; the later issues of House of Mystery (#156-173) are the origin of the Dial H For Hero feature which has returned many times in different guises to the DCU over the years, and here is quite frankly often quite potty, but original and endearing with very effective art mostly by moody Jim Mooney. Sockamagee!
PICTURED: HAWKMAN #2 FN  p £44

*Marvel: Not a dream! Not an imaginary tale! (How very DC-like of Marvel to use those blurbs!) How does Spidey get out of this one? Well, we’re not saying… In the 12th issue of Amazing, Spidey comes up again against the dastardly Doc Ock, with the results shown on the cover. Not at all a bad copy this, with some gloss and a rich yellow background, good firmly attached staples and nice page quality. There is a small amount of Marvel chipping along the right edge, a mostly-erased pencil or pen mark centrally above the logo with a small spot of discolouration and a 5 cm upper spine split. We’ve awarded a grade of Apparent VG+, due to there being a missing advert page; the story is complete. This makes this pence printed copy relatively bargainaceous. Like most issues of Amazing Spider-Man below #20, it won’t be with us for long.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #12 APP VG+ p £100 SOLD

*Marvel: In our ongoing series focusing on key events in the ‘Wandavision’ TV hit, we turn this week to the underestimated run by John Byrne as writer/artist on West Coast Avengers, and in particular issues #42-45, ‘VisionQuest’. In an earlier story arc in the main Avengers series, Vision had infiltrated computer networks and tried to take over the world, albeit under external influences, and when he gained access to the WCA’s databases, various governmental agencies feared this might recur. They kidnapped Vision, rebuilt and reprogrammed him into an emotionless, pallid simulacrum of his original self – and in the final episodes of ‘Wandavision’, which shoplifted large chunks of Byrne’s original plot, government ‘spooks’ came up with a similarly pallid ‘Vision 2.0’! This four issue sequence concludes with the first ‘White Vision’ in #45 in VF; issues #42-44 average VF/NM. Available as a set.
PICTURED: WEST COAST AVENGERS #45 VF; SET #42-45 £75 SOLD

*Horror 1940-1959: The spotlight shines on Atlas Horror this week with four pre-code issues of Uncanny Tales new in: #3, #4, #24 & #25. #3 has some edge wear, small colour-breaking creases, one long crease across the bottom right corner and some rodent chew along the back cover edge. #4 is heavily spine-rolled and also has a long colour-breaking crease across the bottom right corner. See our catalogue for details on the others. The usual Atlas standard is evident throughout.
PICTURED: UNCANNY TALES
#3 GD- £50 SOLD
#4 GD- £50

*Alan Class Reprints: The Sinister Tales title is updated this week with several new additions, mostly pre-decimal issues, including #39 with a Kirby Captain America story and #119 with a Ditko Dr Strange. Mandrake, the Phantom, the Fly and THUNDER Agents also put in appearances. You can check our catalogue for details and our Alan Class Rough Guide for content detail. This update is for our regular, non-certificated stock.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: Following on from previous releases of earlier numbers, we now have most issues between #43 & #50 of Commando War Stories In Pictures from the same source. A previous owner at some point decided to place two to four reinforcing staples through the spine, quite skilfully so as to not hamper the opening of the item nor hide any of the content; there is minimal bleed from these staples and the page quality is really rather nice. As we move up the numbers, the overall condition quality improves, so in most cases, the grade is assigned through wear rather than specific defects. A selection of the issues now available is shown below; please consult our catalogue for full details.
PICTURED: COMMANDO
#43 VG £30 SOLD
#45 FN £40
#47 VG+ £32.50
#48 VG £30
#50 VG £30

*Girls’ Comics: The ever popular and iconic Misty features in our Free Gift Farrago this week, with issues #2 and #3 of that highly collectable title, both with their original Free Gifts. #2 has the Lucky Black Cat Ring and #3 the Wheel Of Fortune Wallet. The ring is unused, the wallet not made up and still on original card backing. The comics themselves are in nice FN condition (#3 has a small delivery name on upper right cover margin).
PICTURED: MISTY BOTH SOLD
#2 (11/2/78) FN WITH FREE GIFT VF £75
#3 (18/2/78) FN WITH FREE GIFT VF £75

Although we are currently out of Alan Class Plate Sets prepared for sale, we will shortly be launching the Final Phase of the release of these one-off historic items, with new sets available on a regular schedule throughout this year and (probably) next. This will represent your last chance to obtain one of these unique celebrations of Alan Class comics direct from us as his official representatives. Sets will focus on both Marvel Super-Heroes issues plus early horror/mystery issues. Watch this space!

*DC: Originally planned as a regular Batman Annual, the story which would become The Killing Joke evolved by accident; as the wait lengthened for the pages to come in from illustrator Brian Bolland, Alan Moore’s story shifted, becoming more of an examination about the nature of the relationship between Batman and his arch-nemesis the Joker. Collateral damage along the way was Barbara Gordon, Batgirl, who was crippled and traumatised in the start of events which transformed her into Oracle, a sequence which outraged many at the time and polarises factions even today. Regardless of whether you love it or hate it – and there’s many on both sides – its importance and popularity can’t be denied, as it has remained constantly in print and gone through a myriad of formats. This first printing copy is a superb NM, with no sign of age or having been read.
PICTURED: BATMAN: THE KILLING JOKE NM £85 SOLD

*DC: We’ve reached the letter ‘G’ in our alphabetical romp through the DCU, and in this context that means just one title: Green Lantern, but we’ve got a lot of it! About 100 issues added to our catalogue, some previously missing, many in a choice of grades. Between #2 and #89, this selection features the debuts of a number of GL’s foes, namely Sonar, Dr. Polaris, the Tattooed Man, the Shark, Black Hand,  Evil Star, Major Disaster, Goldface etc, as well as numerous appearances by Flash, the Golden Age Green Lantern and other guest stars. It finishes up, of course, with the ground-breaking Green Lantern/Green Arrow run from #76-89 by Denny O’Neill and Neal Adams, of which we have loads new in (although sadly not #76 itself). Green Lantern fans, there has never been a better time to browse our catalogue and fill your gaps!
PICTURED: GREEN LANTERN #78 VF- £47

*Marvel: The first Dr Strange series started in 1968 with #169, taking over the numbering from Strange Tales, so, following a highly successful run in Marvel Premiere, when the Master Of The Mystic Arts started his second series in 1974, the first issue was in effect the first Dr Strange #1. A thing of beauty, at the hands of Steve Englehart (writer) and fan favourite Frank Brunner (artist). This is a comic you really want to own in high grade, and fortunately, we can oblige with this NM- cents copy (non-distributed in the UK, so there are no pence copies). All the things you want from a high grade: tight, flat, glossy, white to off-white pages, shiny staples firmly attached at cover and centrefold, sharp corners — it looks a treat. There are just enough minute signs of handling wear at edges  to stop us calling this NM or even higher, but it comes very close.
PICTURED: DR. STRANGE #1 NM- £165 SOLD

*Marvel: A handful of Amazing Spidey issues new in this week, mostly in high grade. These include #108, #111, #135 (2nd full Punisher), #138 (1st Mindworm), #139 (1st Grizzly), #140 (1st Glory Grant), #143 (1st Cyclone), #144 (1st full Gwen Stacy clone) & #147. Go get ’em, web-slingers! 
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #143 VF £40

*Marvel: From 1986, the sought-after Captain America Annual #8, where Cap teams up with Wolverine, not that there appears to be much teaming-up going on in the dynamic cover scene, which, like the interiors, is executed by fan favourite Mike Zeck. A near faultless copy.
PICTURED: CAPTAIN AMERICA ANNUAL #8 NM- £45 SOLD