*Marvel: Issue #41 of the Amazing Spider-Man saw the first new villain of Jazzy Johnny Romita’s artistic tenure, as he and Swingin’ Stan Lee brought us the curiously endearing Rhino, a virtually unstoppable behemoth whose sheer power and tormented soul made him an instant hit, and a popular recurring villain, showing up everywhere from the Defenders to the Unstoppable Squirrel Girl! (No, really…). Not only do we have his first appearance, but also his rapid return in #43 just two issues later, in one of those issues that came out during the UK dock strike of 1966, which made all Marvels for a two month period the very devil to get hold of here in the UK.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
#41 GD+ p £170 1st Rhino. Unusual 1 shilling stamp. Quite a bit of cover creasing, both colour-breaking and non. Tight, firm staples and nice white to off-white pages. A solid enough copy. SOLD
#43 VG+ £165 2nd Rhino. Nice copy; minor reading creases at spine and one very small colour-breaking crease across the very edge of the bottom right corner. Faint stamped arrival date by Spidey’s head. Good colour, firm, tight staples and white to off-white pages.

*Marvel: Soon after the inception of Cap’s debut Silver Age series (#100), Stan and Jack chose to retell his origin in #109. With its distinctive cover of Cap bursting through a newspaper front page dated 1941, this issue has steadily risen in collectability. This week we offer a CGC 5.0 (VG/FN) copy, pence stamped, blue label unrestored, case perfect, white pages.
PICTURED: CAPTAIN AMERICA #109 CGC 5.0 VG/FN p £110

*Marvel: After 17 issues of super-heroics, Marvel tried something new with their Amazing Adventures title in 1973, rebranding it as ‘Amazing Adventures Featuring War Of The Worlds’ from #18. (Very) loosely based on H G Wells’s novel of the same name, the Martians invade Earth in the far future and the warrior Killraven and his chums are our planet’s last defenders in this sprawling science fiction epic. Good enough to last until issue #39, due in no small part to the wonderful artwork of P. Craig Russell which adorned most issues. A selection of high grade copies fresh in between #20 and #39; full details as always in our catalogue.

*Vintage Magazine -Sized Comics: Marvel’s first foray into the magazine market in the late 60s, despite featuring its flagship character, didn’t last beyond two issues. But it was ahead of its time since a few years later, Marvel had much more success with its magazine line. Having said that, Spectacular Spider-Man Magazine was a quality item. #2 (which concerns us here) even upgraded to full colour interiors after the black and white #1, and featured none other than the Green Goblin, with creators Stan Lee and John Romita on board. This is an okay copy, some spine wear, top spine dinking and bottom right creasing throughout, but reasonably sound. More from the Good Doctor Collection next week!
PICTURED: SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN MAGAZINE #2 VG £15

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: A further update to our catalogue of several issues of Fleetway’s Air Ace Picture Library, always a top seller for us, between #61 & #198, in a mixture of grades, filling many gaps in our stock. Glorious painted covers. As a result, our stock of this title is particularly strong for this period at the moment, but we don’t expect it to stay that way for too long!

*Girls’ Picture Libraries: A further update to our catalogue for this long-running series, with new issues of Love Story Library listed between #234 and #250 (with some duplicates). Attractive interior art and lovely (if a little repetitive) painted covers. Mostly graded as GD, though it should be pointed out that the general condition would justify a higher grade if not for the insidious staple rust which has beset them in long-term storage.
PICTURED: LOVE STORY LIBRARY #241 GD £4

*DC: Introduced as a last-minute afterthought in the Batman Animated TV Show, a curvaceous minion of the Joker brainstormed to do a task thought inappropriate for ‘Mr. J’ himself, Harley Quinn caught on like wildfire, and after several reappearances in the show, crossed over into the comic books with Batman Adventures #12 in 1993. Since then, of course, she’s transferred from the DC Comics Animated Universe to the main DCU, had her own series and several spin-offs, cracked the big time of movie success and is now regarded as one of the big-earning ‘pillars’ of the DCU, alongside Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Our latest issue of the beginning of her comic life is a VF copy, flat with great colour and gloss, sharp corners, tight staples, spine clear of reading ‘ticks’. Held off NM only slightly by very small white marks at top edge above upper banner and bottom edge on Batgirl’s knee, which look like handling marks, and a couple of short white lines (about 1 cm each) at top and bottom spine, but that’s being very picky. A lovely copy of a ‘modern’ classic.
PICTURED: BATMAN ADVENTURES #12 VF £400 SOLD

*Marvel: Leading the charge of the Good Doctor Collection this week is the fourth issue of Amazing Spider-Man, a Lee & Ditko classic which introduced Spidey to the gentleman who would become one of his most vehement enemies – and occasionally, a reluctant hero – the shape-shifting Sandman, whose molecular mastery came close to baffling our hero. In addition, this issue features the debut of Betty Brant, a lady who was to become very important in the Wall-Crawler’s life. This is a low grade copy with spine roll and a worn spine. The original staples look loose but okay; someone had added additional staples at the top and bottom of the spine and the cover has come off the bottom one of these at the front. Lots of edge wear and small colour breaking creases at the edges. There’s a small number ‘263’ in biro above Spidey’s head in the first cover panel and some smallish white scuff marks on the word ‘Spider’ on the cover logo. Internally, there is a fine 2 cm tear which goes through most pages up from the bottom edge, but which does not affect the covers. Cover colour and central image are pretty good on this cents copy, although there is minor back cover staining. There’s a previous owner’s name above the splash page; pages are an okay off-white with some wear to right edges. High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #4 GD- £750 

*Marvel: Our last visit to the Good Doctor Collection this week features every issue of Amazing Spider-Man from #259 to #297, when Spidey sported the black costume later revealed to be Venom. Many classic stories and characters are included in this sequence, including tussles with, and the final defeat of, the Hobgoblin, the debut of Silver Sable, Secret Wars II tie-ins, the Sinister Syndicate, Peter proposing to Mary Jane and the Amazing chapters of the epic ‘Kraven’s Last Hunt’. Very high grades on almost all of these, and more excitement than you can sling a web at! More from the Good Doctor next week!
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ALL SOLD
#270 NM- £44
#281 NM- £60
#294 NM £55
#297 NM- £44

*Marvel: Logan’s Run was a 1976 film starring Michael York and Jenny Agutter and, as you probably remember, had the plot of a society where people were exterminated when they reached the age of 30. Marvel didn’t take long to put out their adaptation the following year, featuring the art of George Perez. The film adaptation took five issues, with a new sequence commencing in #6, but not completed when the series was cancelled after #7. Notably, #6 featured a Thanos back-up story with art by Mike Zeck. We’re pleased to present the entire 7 issue series, all VF or VF+, all pence printed copies, for one price.
PICTURED: LOGAN’S RUN #6 VF; COMPLETE SET #1-7 p £60 SOLD

*Horror 1940-1959: Dick Briefer was a talented writer/artist who worked in a variety of fields and media and although most of his work is largely forgotten today, his fame lives on through his series of Frankenstein for Prize Comics, which ran from 1945-1954 (with a gap); the character also appeared by him in the Prize Comics anthology series. Our update this week fully illustrates the difference between the pre and post gap publications. The first 17 issues had a juvenile, spooky humour content, as shown by #4 here. After a three year gap, Briefer revived the series with a more adult, horrific content with #18 (also available here), finishing off in 1954 with #33 (again, available here). Briefer’s sweeping lines and iconic imagery deserve to be remembered and celebrated.
PICTURED: FRANKENSTEIN
#4 FA+ £40 Pre-code. Long spine splits and off both staples at front of comic. Small chips out of front and back covers. Nice pages.
#18 PR £50 Pre-code. 1st adult horror issue. Covers detached and separated; chips out, tears and creases. SOLD
#33 GD/VG £105 Pre-code. Final issue. Small chip out bottom spine; edge wear, minor tears and fine creases. SOLD

*Alan Class Reprints: For many years now, we’ve been scouring the personal archives of legendary publisher Alan Class (who is still very much with us) and with his full co-operation, releasing for sale sets of the original printing plates that were used to print the covers of his comics from 1959-1989. We have now reached the final phase of these plate set releases, which will last us into 2022. These sets are time-consuming to prepare, so our release schedule will be staggered. But the good news is that all the sets we have left are among the best, either featuring a classic Marvel comic reprint, or else a very early fantasy/mystery issue. So, this final phase represents your last opportunity to add one or more of these unique pieces to your collection. Each set comprises the lead printing plates used in the original comic’s colour 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. Several sets (as noted) have additional historical artefacts such as colour proofs, interior page plates, printers’ photostats etc. (Please be aware that these weigh a lot and postage will be expensive. Also note that due to the onerous paperwork required for customs declarations following Brexit, we can no longer post these Plate Sets outside the UK.) Five new sets available this week, each with a variety of Extras, including a superb package in Suspense #58.
CREEPY WORLDS #52 £70 Comic: FA/GD (some loose pages)  Reprints Daredevil #3 inc cover (1^st Owl), ACG. Extra: 1 interior plate SOLD
CREEPY WORLDS #101 £90 Comic: VG-  Reprints Amazing Spider-Man #51 inc cover, & #52, Atlas, Charlton, pre-hero Marvel, 1 Ditko. Extra: Cover colour proof (torn and taped) SOLD
SUSPENSE #58 £250 Comic FN Reprints Amazing Spider-Man #10 by Ditko inc cover, Thor story from Journey Into Mystery #86 by Kirby (1^st full Odin, 1^st Tomorrow Man), Charlton, Atlas, pre-hero Marvel (1 Kirby). Extras: 2 interior plates (inc ASM #10 splash), 3 cover colour proofs in various conditions. What a package! SOLD
SUSPENSE #100 £60 Comic: VG Reprints Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD #11 inc cover, Charlton, ACG, 1 Archie Jaguar. Extra: Cover colour proof SOLD
SUSPENSE #107 £60 Comic: VG Reprints X-Men #48 inc cover, Charlton, 2 Ditko. Extra: Cover colour proof (slightly taped and stained) SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: A small update this week to Fleetway’s Battle Picture Library, mostly consisting of issues from the first 20 (with a handful of later issues). Too many of these earlier issues have been missing from our catalogue for too long, but you’ll find many of them listed there now.
PICTURED: BATTLE PICTURE LIBRARY #4 GD £15

*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: Often dubbed ‘the poor man’s Sherlock Holmes’, there’s still no doubting the popularity of Sexton Blake, who has probably had far more fiction written of him than the world’s greatest detective. This week, we have added six digests from the famous Sexton Blake Library. These are picture library sized, but mainly text. The series ran from 1915 to 1968 and this selection follows on from editor William Howard Baker’s 1956 revamp of the character.
PICTURED: SEXTON BLAKE LIBRARY ALL SOLD
#363 GD/VG £6 Front Page Woman by Peter Saxon
#365 GD/VG £6 Night Beat by Arthur Maclean
#405 FA £4 High Heels and Homicide by Desmond Reid (small corner off bottom right cover)
#445 VG £7 Mission To Mexico by Arthur Maclean
#453 GD/VG £6 Man On The Run by Arthur Kirby
#462 GD/VG £6 Journey To Genoa by F. Dubrez Fawcett

*DC: Although Neal Adams is probably the artist most associated with Deadman, I’m sure many people forget that he was created by Carmine Infantino (with writer Arnold Drake) in Strange Adventures #205, before Adams came along a little later. A unique figure in DC’s supernatural heroes pantheon, Deadman has long been a stalwart of the DCU. Although this is the first copy we have seen of this issue for some time, we can only offer you a Poor copy, spine rolled, with many cover creases (including a long one horizontally across the middle) this pence stamped copy is marred by a spine split halfway up from the bottom and a tear from the bottom staple with an almost concertina-like creased segment. In addition there is a previous owner’s small sticker over the Comics Code box. There is also some staining to a page or two of the science-fiction back-up story. Not great for a Deadman collector, but perhaps ideal for a Strange Adventures completist who doesn’t want to pay an arm and a leg for this issue to help complete their run.
PICTURED: STRANGE ADVENTURES #205 PR p £50 SOLD

*DC: An overdue update to those unique Silver Age robots the Metal Men. In a perfect blend of wackiness, the stories of Bob Kanigher were complemented by the art of Andru and Esposito for an insane ride of way-out stories. Many issues new in between #4 & #56. A couple of Metal Men anecdotes if you will: at school I was an arts buff, but I’m sure I owe my one science qualification (chemistry O level) to reading the Metal Men. Plus, when Will was a kid (stretch your imagination here), his Mum hit him over the head with a copy of Metal Men in a shop to keep him quiet (it was the first thing that came to hand); she had to buy it and thus it became Will’s first comic, and the rest is history…

*Marvel: We continue our first foray into the Good Doctor Collection with Amazing #20 and #29, two issues which seem to turn up a bit less often than those around them for some reason. They feature the debut and second appearance of the Scorpion, one of Spidey’s most enduring foes.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
#20 App GD p £155 Ad/text page out; story complete. Stamped as ‘7D’, so we’re not quite sure what the origins of this copy are. A little tired, but structurally sound; some edge wear and corner blunting, but not bad. SOLD
#29 VG/FN p £130 Nice copy with no particular defects beyond some corner and edge wear. Strong colour cover, unmarked, white to off-white pages, good staples. SOLD

*Marvel: Our last visit to the Good Doctor Collection this week features a storyline that has reverberated throughout the Spider-verse ever since it first appeared in these issues: Amazing Spider-Man #144-149, the Clone Saga. The clones of Gwen Stacy and of Peter Parker himself (Ben Reilly) were created here and both have gone on to have significant ‘careers’ in the Marvel Universe. The clone creator, the Jackal, is the main perp here, but along the course of this storyline, Spidey also tangles with the Scorpion & the Tarantula. All issues are now featured in our catalogue. Not pictured are #144 (VF- £35), #145 (VG+ £30) and #146 (FN/VF £28). More from the Good Doctor Collection next week!
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
#147 VF £45
#148 FN/VF £45
#149 FN £90 (1st Ben Reilly) SOLD

*Miscellaneous 1940-1959: From 1949, Avon’s unique Slave Girl series lasted only two issues. Issue #1 was entitled Slave Girl Comics, and #2 Slave Girl Princess, which concerns us here. A beautiful fantasy/magical adventure following the trials of Malu, the Slave Girl in question and her paramour Garth with pirates, slavers, mongols and the like. Three linked Slave Girl stories in #2, accompanied by two further accomplished stories in the same genre. Excellent art on the Malu tales by Howard Larsen. Although ending on a cliff-hanger, only one further Malu adventure was published in Strange Worlds #3, which did not follow from this. A nice copy, with only fairly minor edge and handling wear, good tight staples and little creasing or nicks; some corner blunting and minor graffiti on Garth’s face on the cover, which does not spoil the cover image. Not too bad at all for a septuagenarian comic.
PICTURED: SLAVE GIRL PRINCESS #2 VG- £200 SOLD

*Marvel UK: Captain Britain’s various stints in Marvel UK productions are always keenly sought, and none more so than those in Daredevils, where the creative team of Alan Moore and Alan Davis brought the good captain to new heights of glory. 8 of the 11 issue run fresh in from #1, each complete with the centrefold full colour pull-out poster. See our catalogue for full details.
PICTURED: DAREDEVILS #1 GD/VG £10

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: We’re very pleased this week to be able to add many of the first hundred issues of the first of the long-running war-themed Picture Libraries. War started in 1958 and lasted over 2000 issues until 1984. Too many of these earlier issues have been missing from our catalogue for too long, but you’ll find many of them listed there now. 
PICTURED: WAR PICTURE LIBRARY
#3 GD/VG £17.50
#5 GD/VG £17.50

*Crime, Spies & Sleaze: Post-war faux American gangster novels (often termed pulps due to their paper quality) written and published in the UK have become something of a collector thing over the last decade or so. Written mostly by house names and featuring sleazy dame covers, the most famous of these are by the Hank Janson/Reginald Heade combo, but there are plenty of other fish in the sea too, for all the rarity of editions that have survived the decades. Just two additions this week: Bewitched and Unlucky Virgin; the former is pretty much sleazy romance rather than a gangster tale, but the luridly attractive cover puts it squarely in the same collector market; the latter is a US imprint of a UK original.
PICTURED:
BEWITCHED by Louis-Charles Royer FA £15; 1st UK PB 1952. Evocative art nouveau cover by David Wright. Translated from the French. Much cover wear around all edges, but central image remains unaffected.
UNLUCKY VIRGIN by Michael Storme VG £35; 1st US PB 1951. Striking cover by Thorpe. A little dingy with wear at top edge, but intact spine.

*DC: Dozens of issues of Action Comics added to our listings this week, between #270 and #386, including very many previously missing from our catalogue. A great period for the title, with many classic Superman stories backed up by Supergirl, illustrated by Jim Mooney and later by Kurt Schaffenberger, with the tail end of this update featuring many of the Legion of Super-Heroes back-ups following the switch of Supergirl to Adventure Comics. You know where to find the details…

*Marvel: I think if you’re reading this, you must know who Norman Osborn is, so we won’t dwell on that, save to say that this where he made his very first appearance (as Norman Osborn, that is). In this penultimate Ditko issue, Spidey comes up against a couple of wacky robots as only Sturdy Steve could design them. This is an okay pence printed copy, with good cover colour and some gloss, unmarked and flat, nice off-white to white pages. There is some staple rust, and the lower staple is just detached from the cover; very minor spine wear.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #37 VG- p £80 SOLD

*Marvel: Following his 1976 return to Marvel, the legendary Jack Kirby was anxious not to get trapped in the cycle of just illustrating super-heroes again, and one of his conditions was that he would be allowed to write and draw his own concepts. How much of the Eternals concept was his is, politely, open to debate; reminiscent of the then-popular Erich Von Daniken paperbacks, which asserted that mankind’s historical ‘Gods’ were alien visitors, Kirby’s Eternals postulated the return of ancient immortal extraterrestrials and the cataclysmic repercussions for humanity. Originally intended to stand apart from the Marvel Universe, it was shoehorned in at editorial insistence, which resulted in Kirby eventually abandoning the strip mid-story, but with the confirmation of an Eternals movie this series is heating up! This is a lovely high grade pence printed copy of their debut issue, tight, flat and glossy, great staples, sharp corners and just very minor handling wear.
PICTURED: ETERNALS #1 VF p £150 SOLD