*DC: After his abandoning Marvel, Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, moved over to DC, where one of his earliest assignments was the Creeper, a bizarre anti-hero created when TV reporter and commentator Jack Ryder, fired for his outspoken views, falls in with scientist Dr. Yatz, whose knowledge gives Ryder greatly enhanced strength, agility and damage resistance, which he uses to terrify monsters and enforce his own kind of justice. Although ostensibly scripted by Denny O’Neil, the plot and opinions carry strong flavours of Ditko’s own libertarian views, and present a considerably more politically-motivated hero than was commonplace at the time. The art, though, is what sells the book, a newly refreshed and remotivated Ditko turning out moody, vertiginous artwork fully exploiting the character’s agility. The Creeper remains a recurring figure in the DCU, and this copy of his premier appearance is a stunning VF, bright and lustrous with only minimal spine wear. VF p £50. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: Our Mighty Marvel Firsts sequence continues this week with the most sought-after comic of the 1970s. Hulk #181 features the first full appearance of Wolverine, the Canadian super-hero who, outstripping everyone’s expectations, became the most popular Marvel character created since the dawn of the Marvel Age. Created by Len Wein and Herb Trimpe (from a John Romita design), Wolvy was revived by Wein when he put together the ‘New’ X-Men who debuted in Giant-Size X-Men #1, and since then, Wolverine has become the star of the lucrative X-Men franchise, and a multi-media darling in his own right. This issue, where it all really kicked off following a one-panel cameo in the preceding ish, has good interior page quality, excellent cover colour and a number of faint fine creases at cover edges and corners which do not in any way detract from the cover scene. There is light spine roll, causing the back cover to ‘lean’ slightly, but staples are attached at cover and centrefold and, most crucially, the Marvel Value Stamp (probably the most important appearance of Shanna the She-Devil, bless her!) is still in place. This promotional coupon is the blight of Marvels from a certain period, often clipped and missing – but not in this instance! Between the frequently-missing Marvel Value Stamp, and the fact that this issue was never distributed in the UK, intact copies of Hulk #181 in any grade are at a premium. We have graded this full debut of Marvel’s most popular mutant at VG-, and the price is £950. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: In the 11th issue of the X-Men, Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants accosted a mysterious figure who appeared to be a mutant possessing power to dwarf even Magneto’s own – but the Stranger was soon revealed to be much, much more, a cosmic entity rivalling the Watcher in might, but, unlike Uatu and his chums, all too willing to use that power! A chain of events began which led to the dissolution of the Brotherhood, and the beginning of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch’s road to heroic redemption, all in this Lee/Kirby classic – oh, and Chuck X. and his merry mutant students are in there too! This is a very lovely FN- cents copy on sale at £90.

*Marvel: One of many new titles launching for Marvel in 1968, we present a chunky run of Captain Marvel, most of the first 20 odd issues starting with #2, including the costume change in #17, and #28 (4th Thanos) and #29 when the good captain attained true cosmicosity at the hands of Jim Starlin.

*Horror 1940-1959: Leading off our Atlas Explosion event, and continuing with our Pre-Code Horror Mega Fest this week, we turn of course to Atlas Horror. When Atlas embraced the Horror genre, they embraced it with a vengeance! 1952 saw the launch of several horror anthologies, including this week’s spotlit series, Adventures Into Weird Worlds! We have twenty of the thirty-issue run (it faltered in 1954, just shy of the advent of the Comics Code Authority) new to our listings, commencing with #2 and ending with the final issue #30. The stellar line-up of artists we’re accustomed to is present – Everett, Heath, Williamson, etc. – but it has to be observed that they excelled in producing a number of gloriously lurid covers for these shock-fests. (A particular favourite being #9…talk about ‘putting your face on’!) This selection runs from low to mid-grade, with some hitting VG or nicer. Depicted are #6 VG- £68, #9 GD/VG £59, #11 VG £73, #12 VG £73, #15 GD/VG £55, #16 FN £110, #28 VG £73 and #29 VG+ £72. This title, entirely Pre-Code, offers a plethora of delights to connoisseurs of the arcane and macabre.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: In January 1961, Battle Picture Library joined its elder brethren, Air Ace and War, to complete the ‘Big Three’ of Fleetway/IPC Picture Libraries, running, between them, thousands of issues and showcasing scores of talented writers and artists. Early issues of these iconic titles are increasingly sought-after, and we are delighted to have Battle Picture Library #1, ‘The Rats of Tobruk’, back in stock in a highly attractive VG+ £80. The cover is tight and flat, spine in generally excellent shape with minor wear at top, and only very slight penetration by staple rust at mid-spine. These minor flaws, however, are offset by vibrant unfaded cover colour and superior interior page quality, resulting – as you can see for yourselves in the illustration – in a copy with considerable eye appeal at £80. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*TV & Film Related Comics: The ever-popular Star Wars weekly from Marvel’s UK division has been refreshed with 60 issues, pre-screened by our crack Stock Control Team, that were not previously in our inventory! from 1978’s #3 to 1980’s #117, the adventures of Luke, Leia, Han, Chewy and the gang, in mid to high grades, in glorious black & white and recut to fit the UK format, are yours to enjoy anew!

Exploding on to our What’s New page over the coming months will be one of the most significant collections of Atlas comics (the 1950s Marvel pre-cursor, not the 1970s failed experiment) that we’ve ever seen. Covering several genres (Horror, Western, War, Crime, Adventure and Miscellaneous, with a smattering of Super-Heroes, Romance, Funny Girls, Science-Fiction and Humour/Satire) and full of the work of such artistic greats as Everett, Heath, Severin, Maneeley, Pike, Colan, Baker, Krigstein, Shores, Williamson, Torres and many more, this will be a rare opportunity to build or add to a very nice range of Atlas in your collection, with over 1500 comics to choose from. We’ll be starting to list them this weekend, and will be working through them as quickly as time permits. Look out for the ‘Atlas Explosion’ tags on our What’s New page and in our Newsletter week by week!    

*Marvel: I don’t know, you wait around for ages for an Amazing Fantasy #15 to turn up, and then two come along at once! Join us as we celebrate the ultimate Spider-Mania/Mighty Marvel Firsts event — the first appearance of the Amazing Spider-Man in Amazing Fantasy #15.

In the final issue of the mystery anthology Amazing Adult Fantasy, dated September 1962 and renamed Amazing Fantasy for that one issue, Stan Lee and Steve Ditko created a character who was destined to change the then-nascent Marvel Comics’ fortunes, and the face of the comics industry. Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man, became Marvel Comics’ solo super-star, wisecracking his way through all the slings and arrows a capricious fate (and the imaginative writers) could throw at him, and, decades later, following thousands of comic books and multiple multi-million media adaptations, he remains one of the most recognized characters worldwide. Copies of his first appearance, pre-dating his own series, are the most sought-after comics ever, always topping such lists of ‘hot’ comics that are compiled, so we are highly pleased (and honestly, a little staggered) to have not one, but TWO copies of this ground-breaking debut issue available.

The first is an unabashed Poor: a Pence copy, this has a long horizontal taped tear across the front cover, bisecting the logo. The spine is heavily taped, and there is a corner, approximately 2 x 3 inches, off the upper left back cover, which also has a horizontal taped tear similar to that of the front cover. The body of the book is taped to the inside front cover at the staple areas. There are minor biro markings on the advertisement on the inside front cover. There are two sets of rubber-stamped initials, one at lower splash page margin, another (with added date 1967, presumably a previous owner’s year of purchase) at the bottom of the inside back cover. All interior pages are present and complete, with no defacements or significant defects, and the interiors, if considered in isolation, would present as GD+ to GD/VG. Although there are, as detailed above, extensive drawbacks with the cover, they do not significantly impact upon the cover image, which is clean and unmarred. For this PR p copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, the price is £4,000.

The second copy is a significantly higher grade, which means, paradoxically, that there is less to actually say about it. Another Pence copy, we have graded this as GD+. There is one tiny diagonal tear on the lower cover edge, around ¼”, just below the yellow Editor’s Message box. There is moderate to significant spine wear, but the spine remains firmly intact, and staples are solid at cover and interiors. Numerous small creases and ‘scuffs’ on the cover image, but none of a cumulative magnitude to detract from the cover image. No tape or any interior markings of any kind. Interiors clean, off-white and flexible. Owing to the multiple small and light creases and spine wear, as detailed above, we have graded this copy of Amazing Fantasy #15 at GD+ p and the price is £10,000.

Front and back covers and splash page images are shown here. High resolution versions of these are available on request. Please note that viewing of either or both copies can be done at our shop, but STRICTLY by appointment only; since we do not keep these comics on the premises, we will require a minimum of 24 hours’ notice for an appointment to view. SORRY, THESE HAVE BOTH NOW SOLD

*Collected Editions: Celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ animated feature, ‘Yellow Submarine’, Titan Books have released a previously-unpublished graphic novel adaptation of the film. In 1998, artist Bill Morrison, having established his reputation with Bongo Comics’ The Simpsons and their companion titles, was asked by Dark Horse to produce a Graphic Novel Adaptation to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the movie. Some 25 pages in, the project stalled, but now, in time for the movie’s half-century, Morrison has extensively redrawn the previous pages and completed the work, for a full-colour hardcover extravaganza creatively adapting and reinterpreting the original! This brand-new iteration of a pop-culture landmark is £27.

*DC: Something a little more modern in this week’s Batmania instalment. 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. We are lucky enough to have received two copies of the first US Prestige Format printing, one in NM at £60, and the second in VF at £50. In addition, we have a copy of the first UK printing – identical in format and content – in NM at £20.

*DC: A selection of Aquaman issues from the final years of the King of the Seas’ Silver Age run. Jim Aparo’s spare, kinetic artwork gave a genuinely alien feel to the undersea adventures, and while the previous artist, Nick Cardy, had abandoned the interiors by this point, he was designing the heck out of the covers, producing some of the most lush and innovative images of his career. This selection runs from #50 (guest-starring Deadman by Neal Adams) to #56, the final issue of the original series, with the dynamic debut of a new DC super-star – the Crusader! (Spoiler: don’t get too attached…) In attractive grades, averaging FN or better.

*Marvel: Ditko Spider-Mans are always a welcome addition to our lists, and this is one previously unrepresented in our inventory. Returning from a period of insecurity and self-doubt, Spidey roars back into action despite the Daily Bugle’s carefully-orchestrated smear campaign, aided by his best ‘frenemy’ the Human Torch, as they take on the combined menace of the Sandman and the Enforcers. A Lee/Ditko classic, with all the tropes you look for – JJJ’s insane ranting! Aunt May’s dicky ticker! Betty and Veronica – sorry, Betty and Liz’s – dating shenanigans! And, as a bonus, the first fleeting appearance of MacDonald ‘Mac’ Gargan, the man who would become the Scorpion! This copy is a cents copy with no pence price or overstamp, in VG with just a hint of sunshadow in a very narrow band at the spine, and a light sub crease (best seen in the illustration by checking out the sole of Spidey’s outstretched foot), otherwise it would be still nicer. On sale at VG £75. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: From 1984, a little later than most fare in our catalogue, the famous Marvel series which launched a sequence of crossover ‘events’ which still reverberate through the Marvel Universe today. Secret Wars was the first of its kind, and featured many landmarks, but most famously the origin of Spidey’s black costume (later revealed to be the alien symbiote Venom) in #8. Cuddly brain-eating symbiotes remaining eternally popular with the kiddies, this origin issue is keenly sought-after – especially now our evil protoplasmic chum is the star of his own movie franchise – and our new copy of Secret Wars #8 is a highly attractive VF p copy at £40. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Horror 1940-1959: In the 1950s, every comics publisher was having a go at the horror field, and the relatively neophyte Charlton Comics was no exception. One of their most notorious and lurid titles is This Magazine Is Haunted, with the usual Pre-Code array of giblets and gore, but occasional flurries of creative potential. We have two issues of TMIH new to our lists: #15, FA/GD £20, with a cover by Dick Giordano – another artist who would go on to greater things  and issue #18, with striking cover and interior art by then-newbie Steve Ditko. #18 is a superior mid-grade copy with moderate spine wear, and only slight creasing to right edge and lower corner, not impacting on the cover scene; illustrated, GD+ at £63. SORRY, THESE HAVE NOW SOLD

*Power Comics: Although Alan Class had been reprinting Marvel super-hero tales in his various titles from the early 1960s – and Len Miller presented some in his anthologies ‘Spellbound’ and ‘Mystic’ – it took until 1967 before a concerted attempt was made to reprint Marvel superheroes in sequential order. That was in the Power Comics weeklies, and after trials in Smash! Wham! and Pow!, they released Fantastic, a weekly devoted entirely to super-heroes, with Thor, Iron Man and the X-Men from the beginning, in glorious black & white and oddly re-edited for the UK market (such as changing American idioms for more intelligible jargon). We may mock – in fact, those of us who’d been reading the originals all along did – but for those benighted parts of the country where the American editions weren’t imported, this was a gift much appreciated, and many people’s first exposure to the Marvel Universe was in these pages. Followed later that same year by Terrific weekly – starring the Avengers, Sub-Mariner and Doctor Strange – these hooked an entire generation of readers on the Marvel habit, and we are delighted to have almost full runs of both, from their first to their final issues (#89 for Fantastic, #43 for Terrific) back in stock for your browsing pleasure!

*Humour Comics: From one of the last long-running humour launches, Whizzer & Chips Holiday Specials – the final few editions. The Whizzer & Chips Holiday/Summer Specials began in 1970, one year after the weekly comic’s launch, but by the 1990s W & C was reaching the end of its long run, and the last few are not commonplace. We have what we believe to be the final few W & C Holiday Specials – 1991, 1992, and 1993 – plus an undated and unidentifiable issue from the same period (cover shows the Whizz-Kids invading the Chip-Ites’ sandcastle, if that’s any help at all), all VF at £10 each. Join ‘Sid’s Snake’, ‘Shiner’, ‘Wear ‘Em Out Wilf’, ‘Odd Ball’, ‘The Toughs and the Toffs’, ‘Fuss Pot’, ‘Sweet Tooth’, and more popular features in what, unbeknownst to them, were their final years. SORRY, THESE HAVE NOW SOLD

Marie Severin, veteran comics artists and colourist, passed away on the 30th August 2018, at the age of 89, after moving into hospice care following a stroke a few days earlier.

Born 21st August 1929 in East Rockaway, New York, Severin began her career in the 1950s, by doing a favour for her brother, artist John Severin, who needed help in colouring pages for EC Comics. Her flair for the job was evident, and she became chief colourist for EC, as well as working in production, paste-up and in her own words ‘whatever else needed doing’. Following EC’s demise, Severin worked for the US Treasury Department, producing educational comics on banking and economics.

At Marvel in the 1960s she began, again, in colouring and production, but also started illustrating stories of the Hulk, Doctor Strange and the Sub-Mariner. Her first Marvel Bullpen Nickname, ‘Marie the She’ was a sad commentary on the fact  she was at that time the only female comics creator in the superhero field (Ramona Fradon, co-creator of Metamorpho, having retired the year previously to become a full-time mother). Later, the nickname was changed to ‘Mirthful Marie’, to reflect her mischievous sense of humour, as shown in the caricatures of her co-workers she frequently drew. This adept cartooning was pressed into service in Marvel’s parody title, Not Brand Ecch, which Severin stated was one of her favourite assignments, and later in Marvel’s Mad parody, Crazy.

Her versatility, speed and dedicated work ethic led to her becoming, for several years, essentially Marvel’s Art Director, drawing many of the company’s covers, and providing layouts for the majority of the other cover artists to work from. Despite this, she never received the official job title or promotion. During this period, she continued to turn out acclaimed artwork, particularly in conjunction with her brother John on Kull the Conqueror.

In the 1980s she was assigned Marvel’s Special projects, producing illustrations for merchandising and licensed properties. She retired in the early 2000s, but contributed occasional illustrations to special projects until her first stroke in 2007.

In 2001, Severin was inducted into the Will Eisner Comics Hall of Fame as well as receiving the Comic Con Inkpot Award in 1999. That was followed up in 2017 with a Comic-Con Lifetime Achievement Award.

*Clearance Corner: Three complete and self-contained mini-series starring the Gotham Guardian in this week’s Brucie Bonus – sorry, Clearance Corner. Gotham Nights II, from 1995, is a follow-up (though not a direct sequel) by John Ostrander and Mary Mitchell to their previous GN series, focusing on the citizenry of Gotham, integrating the everyday lives with the extraordinary events which follow the Caped Crusader. Intelligent and thoughtful, it’s quite a contrast to the two Batman: Odyssey series, from 2010 and 2011, in which legendary creator Neal Adams writes and draws… those. The good news? His artistic skills are undiminished. The illustrations are superb, emotive and breathtaking. The bad news? The script is insane ranting gibberish. No, really. I can’t even describe it. Must be seen to be disbelieved. Don’t ask, just look at the pretty pictures. To clear up any possible bewilderment, Odyssey was originally solicited as a 13-part series, but after six issues, Neal had to go and have a lie down, so despite the strapline saying ‘of 13’, it ended with #6, to be taken up again with series 2, #1 the next year. So: complete four-issue Gotham Nights II, 6-issue Odyssey I, and 7-issue Odyssey II, all around VF/NM, yours for £20 (UK postage if required will be an additional £3.50). Bargainacious!

*DC: Additions to DC’s other tryout series, The Brave And The Bold (to give it its full official title), spanning almost 100 issues in range, from #35 (the Second Silver Age Hawkman & Hawkgirl), through to #130 (a Batman team-up co-starring Two-Face and the Joker, less common in the UK). Along the way, we have some of comics’ master artists at the height of their abilities: Joe Kubert (Hawkman in #35 and #42, Cave Carson in #40), Alex Toth (#53), Ramona Fradon (#57 & #58, the first two appearances of cult character Metamorpho) and Murphy Anderson the superlative Starman & Black Canary team-up issues in #61 & #62), Most of this range is from before B & B settled down into being just another Bat-book, when the title still had a dazzling variety of content and creators.

*Marvel: Following his debut in Fantastic Four #48, Norrin Radd, Herald of Galactus, gained popularity as a recurring guest-star, and his status was confirmed when Marvel launched the Silver Surfer’s own series in the double-sized format in 1968. This premier issue featured, for the first time, John Buscema’s illustrations on the Surfer, a body of work generally acknowledged to be among his finest, and presented also for the first time a 38-page account of the Surfer’s origins, plus, in the back, a 13-page tale of the Watcher, detailing for the first time reasons behind the Watcher’s oath of non-interference. The first run of the Surfer’s solo series has achieved cult status, with the first seven double-sized issues in particular being keenly sought out. Uncommon in any grade, this latest copy of Surfer #1 is a GD+ pence copy, with a small lower corner off the cover, and noticeable cover wear at the top edge, but a clear unimpeded cover scene, sound spine, and decent interiors. On sale at £55. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*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 broaden the heroic market, and tap into both the ‘blaxploitation’ and horror crazes around at the time. Len Wein and Gene Colan were the creative team, so it was competently done, but a fundamental misunderstanding of voodoo, plus 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 identical 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 want the reference), but for the excessive 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 of the Marvel Universe! Get the early appearances of this bizarre and unique series here; his debut, pictured, is VG £25, would grade higher for a small lower cover tear and accompanying diagonal crease, but still a bright and glossy copy. The entire first run of Brother Voodoo, none of which were ever distributed in the UK, is now in stock. SORRY, THESE HAVE NOW SOLD

*Collected Editions: A bane of classic UK comic strip aficionados is that the series were usually, well, serialised in one or two pages per week (or a strip a day in newspapers), so for a good solid chunk of reading, collected editions are the answer. New to our lists this week are a variety of such, some in magazine form (Archive Adventures, featuring Ron Turner’s ‘Space Ace’ and Daily Strips, featuring O’Donnell & Holdaway’s ‘Romeo Brown’), but most in book format. In softcover, we have the 1981 Dan Dare collection from Hamlyn and the 1979 Dragon’s Dream ‘Man From Nowhere’, with a detached cover, but with a Frank Hampson signature! Other paperbacks include a brace of Frank Bellamy; Eagle Classics’ ‘Fraser of Africa’, and High Command, which collects Bellamy’s bio-comics of both Montgomery and Churchill in one volume. In hardcover, we have more Dragon’s Dream Dan Dare volumes – ‘Reign of the Robots’ and ‘Rogue Planet’, but the star of this update is the 1973 Look & Learn Book of the Trigan Empire, collecting the epic space saga by Don Lawrence. The first such collection of the classic series, this is highly sought-after and extremely scarce. This copy (pictured) is a lovely VF condition at £60.