*DC: Also from the Midas Collection, four consecutive issues of Superman from #101-104 in a mix of grades. Aliens, crooks and strange menaces all challenge the Man of Steel.
PICTURED: SUPERMAN
#101 PR £15 Cover by Plastino; interior art by Plastino, Boring. Very low grade copy with covers detached and separated. Corners off top and bottom spine. Thumbnail-sized chip out bottom edge. Otherwise complete. Centrefold loose; pages cream to tan. SOLD
#102 VG+ £115 Cover by Boring; interior art by Boring, Plastino. Solid copy with some gloss and good colour. Minor wear bu no specific faults.
#103 GD- £45 Cover by Plastino; interior art by Boring, Plastino. Mr Myxyztplk story. Upper and lower spine splits, edge wear, firm vertical crease down lower half of cover.
#104 VG £100 Cover by Boring; interior art by Boring, Plastino. Solid copy with good colour. Subscription crease.

*Marvel: From the Bute Collection this week, three excellent consecutive issues of Marvel’s first family. #37 is a cosmic outer space story featuring the Skrulls; #38 sees our heroes tussling with the Frightful Four, losing their powers in the process; and in #39, with an iconic cover, powerless, they face up to Dr Doom with the aid of Daredevil. All three issues have the ‘MMMS Wants You’ box, an ad for the Merry Marvel Marching Society. And, on a personal note, #38 was the first regular Marvel comic I read which spurred me on to investigate the Marvel Age of Comics, despite being a dyed-in-the-wool DC fan.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR
#37 FN/VF £95 Nice clean copy with residual gloss, a couple of tiny cover creases that don’t break colour, minor wear along top edge, tight, firm staples and supple white to off-white pages.
#38 FN/VF p £85 Pence stamped. Nice clean copy with minor corner blunting and slight spine wear, small ink stain on back cover, tight, firm staples and supple white to off-white pages. 
#39 VG- £37 Nice copy with residual gloss, strong colour, blighted only by ragged top edge with some small chips out. Tight, firm staples and supple white to off-white pages. SOLD

*EC: Additions to our Pre-Code Horror inventory have been somewhat lacking for these past few months, but we have an issue of probably the most famous horror title of them all this week: Tales From The Crypt from EC. Issue #39 from 1953/54, with our hosts the Crypt-Keeper, the Old Witch and the Vault-Keeper, features a cover by Jack Davis and stories with art by Davis, Joe Orlando, Jack Kamen and Graham Ingels – a classic EC Line-up. This is a reasonable copy with some flaws: tiny chip off top right corner, clean 3 cm lower spine split, wear to spine and right edge with some spidery colour-breaking creases along the right edge and a wax crayon small arrival date over the ‘R’ in ‘Crypt’ on the logo. But the staples are firm and tight, and the pages a nice quality white to off-white.  
PICTURED: TALES FROM THE CRYPT #39 GD/VG £225 SOLD

*Romance: For our final update from the Midas Collection this week, we feature three early issues of Girls’ Love Stories, one of DC’s longest running romance titles, which started in 1949 and finished in 1973. Our update features #4, #12 and #16.  Although mostly drawn by unknown artists, DC’s romance comics from this period featured a good standard of appealing art, and often very well composed and executed covers. Here, #4 is a photo cover, as was common with romance back then, but by #12 had changed to line-drawn art. All worn but in solid, decent condition without significant defects. Seldom seen, particularly over here in the UK, the Midas Collection is quite rich in this genre, with many more to follow.
PICTURED: GIRLS’ LOVE STORIES
#4 VG £45
#12 VG £35
#16 VG £35

*Humour Comics: The Christmas Beano is an institution of British comics. For many children (and adults) over the decades a real highlight of this special time of year, where many of their favourite characters engage in festive frolics, and the Beano logo is decked with snow. And whilst collecting 4000 plus issues of the Beano wouldn’t suit all Beano fans’ circumstances, a collection of Christmas issues is much more manageable, if you can find them. Let us help you with that.  This week, we have a copy of the Christmas Beano from 1946, #300 dated 29th December. Big Eggo, Lord Snooty and the gang, Polly Wolly Doodle and her Great Big Poodle and very many more are all here in celebratory mood, also featuring the first strip of Sticky Willie. This is a nice copy with bright colours, a totally intact spine and good definition; pages are near-white. One or two small foxing spots on the cover, and a slightly crumpled bottom right edge, with small creases only in the margin areas.
PICTURED: BEANO #300 29/12/46 GD/VG £70 Christmas issue.

*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: We’re continuing to introduce the new layout for our books categories, with an image for each book. This week, we return to our Crime, Spies & Sleaze category, for the first part of our inventory for the formidable crime, mystery and thriller author Edgar Wallace. Edgar Wallace died at 56 in 1932 (during the script drafting for the original King Kong film), but despite his relatively short life, had a reputation for being very prolific. One of his publishers claimed that a quarter of all books in England were written by him. As well as journalism, Wallace wrote screen plays, poetry, historical non-fiction, 18 stage plays, 957 short stories and over 170 novels, 12 in 1929 alone. More than 160 films have been made of Wallace’s work. I can remember growing up with re-runs of his characters The Four Just Men (who had their own TV series), plus the Edgar Wallace Mystery Hour, an anthology series of his mysteries and thrillers. Later, there was The Mind Of Mr J G Reeder, a detective series in 1969-1971. So Wallace’s popularity continued way beyond his death, although it has faded somewhat in the 21st Century, with few of his books still in print. His output earned him the title ‘The Man Who Wrote Too Much’ and I can recall in one of Agatha Christie’s Tommy & Tuppence novels, there was a reference to a bookshelf with a ‘yard of Edgar Wallace’. We start an impressive inventory of Wallace in our re-listings this week, including several editions published in his lifetime, which are among the oldest books we have. Condition notes and more about each book in our catalogue. More parts to come in future weeks.
PICTURED: ALL BY EDGAR WALLACE ALL SOLD
AGAIN THE RINGER Great Pan 1962 UK PB GD £4
ANGEL ESQUIRE Reader’s Library 1928 UK HC VG £25 With DJ  (GD)
THE BIG FOUR Reader’s Library 1929 1st UK HC VG £25 With DJ (GD)
CHICK Ward Lock 1929 UK PB FA/GD £12
THE CALENDAR Great Pan 1961 UK PB VG £4
THE COUNCIL OF JUSTICE Ward Lock  1930s? UK PB GD/VG £4
THE CRIMSON CIRCLE Pan 1950 UK PB VG £6

*DC: From the Midas Collection this week, a CGC encased copy of Batman #6 from 1941. Great dynamic cover by Bob Kane, with four Batman stories, all by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, featuring various crime stories and mobster-like villains, in particular the Clock Maker in his first and last appearance. Universal blue label (unrestored). Case perfect. Cream to off-white pages. NB The cover has rich colours; the image suffers a little from glare on the plastic case. CGC Code: 1027575002. High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: BATMAN #6 CGC 3.5 (VG-) £1,600 SOLD

*DC: Three consecutive issues new in featuring the Emerald Gladiator between #27 and #29. Green Lantern divides his time between fighting super-villains and having science fiction adventures, as well as courting Carol Ferris. Includes 2nd Shark in #28 and, in #29 the debut of the Blackhand and a JLA cameo. Nice mid-grade copies.
IN THIS UPDATE: GREEN LANTERN 
#27 VG+ p £19.75
#28 VG+ p £17.25
#29 VG+ p £34 (PICTURED) 1st Blackhand; JLA cameo.

*Marvel: I always thought when reading Amazing Spider-Man #30 that it was a little off-beat compared to what had gone before, a one-off tale of a fairly nondescript cat burglar, somewhat understated when compared to most of Spidey’s rogues gallery. Years later, I realised that this was probably due to the fact that Steve Ditko had (uniquely) plotted this issue, and that his art gave the story a distinct noir flavour I came to appreciate. This copy from the Good Doctor Collection, a pence-printed ‘Marvel Pop Art Production’, is very nice with rich, moody colour cover and residual gloss. Minor corner blunting with a small dink at top left spine and small stress marks along the spine. Nice white to off-white pages and tight staples. Presents very well.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #30 VG/FN p £85

*IW/Super: We continue with our series of updates from that most esoteric publisher IW/Super. IW Publications was a short-lived comic book publisher in the late 1950s and early 1960s, named for the company’s owner Israel Waldman. Comics were published under both the IW and Super imprints and were notable for publishing unauthorised Golden Age reprints of other company’s properties. Usually these companies were out of business, but not always. Basically, it seemed to be whatever they could get their hands on that determined the esoteric nature of their output. Thus you get super-heroes, war, romance, western, funny animals, crime, horror, science fiction and just about every genre within their pages. Full details of what was reprinted in what are listed in our website catalogue. NB usually with newly-drawn covers. Over the next few months, we’ll be presenting a series of issues from this publisher. Inasmuch as most IW/Super titles were portmanteau series, Fantastic Adventures, with its mix of war, crime, horror, good girl, jungle, adventure etc, all from different sources, was a typical example. 6 out of the 7 known issues here, starting at #10 and running to #17 (there were no issues #13 or #14 and we don’t have the final issue, #18) (we told you that the IW numbering system was esoteric, right?)
IN THIS UPDATE: FANTASTIC ADVENTURES ALL SOLD
#10 VG+ £5.75 Reprints He-Man #2 Toby 1954. New cover by John Severin.
#11 VG £6.75 Reprints Blue Bolt Weird Tales #118 Star 1951. New cover by Ross Andru.
#12 VG £5 Not reprints. Unused Chesler material, most likely would have been Zor the Mighty #3. Cover by Ross Andru.
#15 FN+ £9 Reprints Spook #23 Star 1953. New cover by Ross Andru. Pictured below
#16 VG £5 Reprints Dark Shadows #2 Farrell 1958. New cover by Ross Andru
#17 GD- £3 Reprints Seven Seas #6 Iger 1947. New cover by Ross Andru

*Alan Class Reprints: Long-time visitors to our site will remember that we’ve been selling the Printing Plates from Alan Class’s Private Archive for many years. Although they ran out in 2023, there has always been the possibility of a few more being located with the co-operation of Alan himself. Such has now happened with Suspense #115, which reprints the cover and story from Daredevil #60 and is a 100 page special. The set comprises the lead printing plates used in the original comic’s colour cover printing, a copy of the comic printed with these plates and a signed certificate of authenticity signed by Alan Class himself. These are packaged in a special protective presentation case. Full details follow (please remember that these sets are not available for postage to addresses outside the UK).
PICTURED: SUSPENSE #115 Comic and Plate Set £100 SOLD
*Comic VG. Vibrant colour, solid spine with very minor wear at bottom. Reading crease at spine, with further creases at right edge and across bottom right corner. 100 pages; nice clean copy. Reprints Daredevil #60, plus  Charlton, ACG, Atlas, inc 1 story by Bill Everett.
*Colour cover plates:  4
*Signed certificate of authenticity
*Presentation case

*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: We’re continuing to introduce the new layout for our books categories, with an image for each book. This week, we return to our Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror category for authors alphabetically from Hill to Holly. Douglas Hill edits an anthology of adventure on other planets with stories from some big names in science fiction; The Judges Of Hades is a collection of occult mysteries with Simon Ark, seemingly immortal investigator into the paranormal; Chain Reaction is a ‘mushroom cloud’ thriller by Christopher Hodder-Williams; and J Hunter Holly contributes three engaging space opera romps. 
PICTURED
DOUGLAS HILL (Ed): ALIEN WORLDS Piccolo 1982 1st UK PB GD/VG £3
EDWARD D HOCH: THE JUDGES OF HADES Leisure Books 1971 1st US PB VG £13 SOLD
CHRISTPHER HODDER-WILLIAMS: CHAIN REACTION Corgi 1966 1st UK PB thus VG £4
J HUNTER HOLLY: THE GREEN PLANET Monarch 1961 1st US PB GD £4
J HUNTER HOLLY: THE GREY ALIENS Mayflower Dell 1964 1st UK PB VG £10
J HUNTER HOLLY: THE RUNNING MAN Monarch 1963 1st US PB VG/FN £4

*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: All the Queens Of Crime had their recurring detectives of course, and Margery Allingham’s was Albert Campion, a suave sleuth of noble blood, perfectly portrayed on TV by Peter Davison. Four Allingham Penguins in classic green and white stripe livery from the 1950s/60s fresh in this week, three featuring Campion in typically clever murder mysteries, and the fourth a double bill of suspense stories. Although perfectly readable, these copies are not in the best condition; full details, including condition notes, await you in our catalogue.
PICTURED: ALL BY MARGERY ALLINGHAM ALL SOLD
THE CASE OF THE LATE PIG Penguin 1961 5th UK PB GD £4 A Campion Mystery
DEATH OF A GHOST Penguin 1959 4th UK PB GD £4 A Campion Mystery
THE FASHION IN SHROUDS Penguin 1954 2nd UK PB FA/GD £4 A Campion Mystery
NO LOVE LOST Penguin 1959 1st UK PB thus GD £4

*DC: DC took over the Quality title Robin Hood Tales with issue #7, and the adventures of the legendary archer lasted from 1957 to the final issue, #14 in 1958. We have from the Midas Collection this week three of the DC issues, including the first. The art is all by the classic team of Andru and Esposito (cover on #7 only by Novick, Kane and Kubert); writers included Bob Haney and Bill Finger. The DC iteration of Robin Hood also appeared in early issues of Brave & Bold.
PICTURED: ROBIN HOOD TALES
#7 GD- £28 Off top staple; considerable spine wear, colour-breaking creases.
#10 VG £53 Structurally, a solid copy, with colour-breaking creases at edges and a longer fainter crease across the moon.
#11 VG/FN £66 Nice solid copy without significant defects; just minor edge wear.

*Marvel: We present the last four issues of Tales of Suspense to go on sale from the Good Doctor Collection, issues #67-69 and #75, featuring some significant milestones in the history of both Iron Man and Captain America; the first three feature Cap & Bucky in WW2 adventures.
PICTURED: TALES OF SUSPENSE
#67 FN- £45 Nice glossy copy with great colour; some wear along top edge.
#68 FN £35 Nice glossy copy with great colour; minor edge wear and corner blunting; small colour-breaking crease across extremity of bottom right corner. SOLD
#69 FN/VF £95 1st Titanium Man. Really nice glossy copy with great colour; just very minor edge wear and a tiny nick top spine
#75 FN £80 1st Sharon Carter, 1st Batroc. Nice glossy copy with great colour; just minor edge wear and corner blunting.

*Marvel: Six more issues of the X-Men, as we continue John Romita Jr’s run on Marvel’s Merry Mutants, with guest artists Barry Windsor-Smith (#214) and Alan Davis (#215). These issues feature, among other things, the Mutant Massacre.
IN THIS UPDATE: X-MEN ALL SOLD
#208 VF+ £5.50
#209 GD/VG £2.75
#210 VF £13
#211 VF+ £16 (PICTURED)
#214 VF £6.75
#215 VF+ £4.75

*Vintage Magazine-Sized Comics: The 1970s was the heyday of magazine comics, and Marvel were one of the biggest contributors. This week we have a complete run of their Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction, issues #1-6 plus the one Special, where some of their greatest artists illustrated stories by many of the US & UK’s greatest science fiction authors: Bradbury, Wyndham, Bester, Shaw, Ellison, Niven, Herbert, Van Vogt, Silverberg, Moorcock, Sturgeon and many others. 
IN THIS UPDATE: UNKNOWN WORLDS OF SCIENCE FICTION ALL SOLD
#1 VF £17 (PICTURED)
#2 VG+ £5.75
#3 VF- £13
#4 VF- £13
#5 VF- £13
#6 VG £5
Special 1 FN- £7

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Following strong sales and a big influx of new stock, we’re totally overhauling and relisting our Eagle stock: many additions and deletions and new streamlined pricing. One of the icons of British comics’ history, Eagle started up in 1950; every issue of its twenty year run starred Dan Dare, its most famous son, as well as loads of other strips, featuring the cream of British artists and superior quality printing and paper. Starting this week, Volumes 1 & 2 are now processed and re-listed. Please refer to our catalogue for details. Volumes from 3 upwards will be dealt with over the coming weeks, but for now they remain at half the old prices in our half-price sale. 

*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: Something rather special this week as we present a complete set of the Baroness series, all eight books written about Penelope St John-Orsini, aka the Baroness. To the world a model, millionairess and international playgirl, but to a crack team of superspies she’s the chief -the deadliest of them all. She knows how to make it hot for a man – in bed or in action! Written by Paul Kenyon, a nom de plume for Donald Moffitt. The book synopses alone as shown below will give you a flavour for this series from the mid-1970s. Offered here as a complete set of eight, not individually.
PICTURED: COMPLETE SET OF THE BARONESS #1-8 £140 BY PAUL KENYON SOLD
Pocket Books 1974/75 All with cover art by Hector Gando; uniform editions
THE BARONESS #1: THE ECSTASY CONNECTION
VG 1st US PB Mild cover creasing; some spine fading 671779060
‘She likes her action fast…and her men one hundred proof!’
THE BARONESS #2: DIAMONDS ARE FOR DYING
GD 4th US PB Light creasing front, heavy creasing back; looks better; slight staining to some pages 671779044
‘The Sexy Superspy tangles with modern-day Nazis deep in the Brazilian jungle!’
THE BARONESS #3: DEATH IS A RUBY LIGHT
VG/FN 1st US PB Some spine fading 671777289
‘It’s America’s sexiest spy against a mad Chinese scientist and half the Red Army’
THE BARONESS #4: HARD-CORE MURDER
VG/FN 3rd US PB Very slight fading to spine 671779184
‘The Sexy Superspy in a sizzling scenario of gangland warfare’
THE BARONESS #5: OPERATION DOOMSDAY
VG 3rd US PB Reading creases at spine 671777629
‘The Sexy Superspy must save the world from a deadly lunar virus!’
THE BARONESS #6: SONIC SLAVE
VG 1st US PB Slight spine fading; small corner crease back cover 671779494
‘The Sexy Superspy in a scorching desert duel of sonic death’
THE BARONESS #7: FLICKER OF DOOM
VG 1st US PB Spine fading 671779613
‘The Sexy Superspy in an ultraviolent clash with Arabic death’
THE BARONESS #8 BLACK GOLD
VG/FN 1st US PB Slight spine fading 671779621
‘The Sexy Superspy in a wildcat war against SPOLIER – and a slimy struggle for world domination’

*TV/Film Tie-Ins: The Professionals was a TV crime-action series from the late 1970s/early 1980s, created by Brian Clemens who had been a driving force behind the Avengers. Unlike the latter’s unique and surreal quirky eccentricities, the Professionals was an all-action hard-hitting crime series, with a trio of memorable male leads. 15 books were published from the series, each one adapting one to four of the scripts for the TV show. We have six of these new in as follows:
PICTURED: THE PROFESSIONALS by KEN BLAKE SOLD
#7: HIDING TO NOTHING Sphere 1981 UK PB FN £6
#9: NO STONE Sphere 1981 1st UK PB VG/FN £5
#11: SPY PROBE Sphere 1981 1st UK PB FN £6
#12: FOXHOLE Sphere 1982 1st UK PB FN £6
#13: THE UNTOUCHABLES Sphere 1982 1st UK PB FN £6
#14: OPERATION SUSIE Sphere 1983 UK PB VG/FN £5

*DC: Three slabbed issues of Superman from 1953/54 lead off our Midas Collection updates this week. #84 and #88 are CBCS graded, #85 is CGC.
PICTURED: SUPERMAN
#84 CBCS 4.0 VG £160 Unrestored. Serial number 17-33CC7DE-065. Off-white to white pages. Case perfect. In the lead story, Superman travels back in time and creates a new life for himself as a disc jockey. In the second story, Superman is captured by aliens and becomes their “super-pet.” In the cover story, Lois and Clark join the Metropolis Police Department to get an insider’s perspective. Cover by Win Mortimer, interior art by Al Plastino and Wayne Boring.
#85 CGC 4.0 VG £160 Unrestored blue label. Serial number 1495537004. Cream to off-white pages. Case perfect. In the lead story, Luthor pretends to turn good. In the second story, the Planet’s publisher temporarily turns the reins over to his prudish sister. In the cover story, a college professor develops a way to imitate Superman’s incredible powers. Cover by Win Mortimer, interior art by Wayne Boring and Al Plastino.
#88 CBCS 3.0 GD/VG £115 Unrestored. Serial number 17-33CC7DE-069. Off-white to white pages. Case perfect. In the cover story, Superman takes on the Terrible Trio – Luthor, the Toyman and the Prankster. Cover by Win Mortimer, interior art by Al Plastino and Wayne Boring.

*DC: Concluding our Midas selections for this week, we have 3 issues of Blackhawk which follow on from DC’s takeover of the title from Quality. #117 features a villain called Mr Freeze, but we don’t believe there’s a connection to the later Batman foe.
PICTURED: BLACKHAWK ALL SOLD
#117 GD+ £16
#135 GD/VG £13
#138 GD- £8

*Marvel: Four very decent mid-grade early issues of the Fantastic Four from the Bute Collection this week, featuring the debuts of the Molecule Man and the Hate Monger, a return engagement  with the Mole Man and the Master Plan of Dr Doom.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR
#20 VG/FN p £190 1st Molecule Man. A sound pence-printed copy with great colour and gloss. Firm staples and supple off-white pages. Minor edge wear and corner blunting.
#21 VG+ p £90 A sound pence-printed copy with good colour and residual gloss. Firm staples and supple white to off-white pages. Minor edge and spine wear and corner blunting.
#22 VG £105 A sound copy with great colour and gloss. Firm staples and supple white off-white pages. Minor edge wear and corner blunting. There are a couple of small tears bottom edge back cover, with a small piece out near bottom staple, which hardly shows on front cover. 
#23 VG+ p £95 Dr Doom cover and story. A sound pence-printed copy with good colour and residual gloss. Firm staples and supple white to off-white pages. Minor top edge and spine wear and corner blunting. SOLD

*IW/Super: We continue with our series of updates from that most esoteric publisher IW/Super. IW Publications was a short-lived comic book publisher in the late 1950s and early 1960s, named for the company’s owner Israel Waldman. Comics were published under both the IW and Super imprints and were notable for publishing unauthorised Golden Age reprints of other company’s properties. Usually these companies were out of business, but not always. Basically, it seemed to be whatever they could get their hands on that determined the esoteric nature of their output. Thus you get super-heroes, war, romance, western, funny animals, crime, horror, science fiction and just about every genre within their pages. Full details of what was reprinted in what are listed in our website catalogue. NB usually with newly-drawn covers. Over the next few months, we’ll be presenting a series of issues from this publisher; this week, the #1 (of 2) of Planet Comics, which reprints stories from Planet Comics #41 (Fiction House 1946) with art by Lily Renee, Joe Doolin, Murphy Anderson and more. Interplanetary adventure with many a scantily-clad female. New cover art by Gray Morrow. 
PICTURED: PLANET COMICS #1 VG+ £40 Solid mid-grade copy with some edge wear and soft creasing (mostly not breaking colour). Nice firm staples and clean white to off-white pages. SOLD

*Miscellaneous 1960 Onwards: Frank Miller’s Sin City burst on to the comics scene in 1991, firmly establishing the neo-noir mood he had built on in his earlier classic run on Daredevil and the seminal Dark Knight Returns. The original Sin City series (later entitled The Hard Goodbye) originally appeared in serial form in Dark Horse Presents, and That Yellow Bastard (a six part mini-series) was the sixth instalment of these stories of Basin City and its denizens. It tells the tale of retired cop John Hartigan and his harrowing encounters with the title character over many years. It’s chock-full of the dark, seedy characters that inhabit the city and the locations that form it. The film noir influence on the series’ artwork is seen in its use of shadow and stark backgrounds. Black and white are the sole colours most of the time, with other colour used sparingly to highlight certain characters. The writing style also draws heavily on detective and crime pulp fiction. We’re delighted to present all six parts of That Yellow Bastard in pristine condition from an original owner collection.
PICTURED: SIN CITY: THAT YELLOW BASTARD #1; COMPLETE SERIES #1-6 All NM £30 SOLD