*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: Top Three was an oddity from Famepress. A standard sized Picture Library, it featured three stories from different genres, with some pages in full colour. #1 has a tale of old India, a Western and an adventure story. A solid copy with just a minor crease and a short tear, with minimal wear.
PICTURED: TOP THREE #1 VG £15 SOLD

*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, and turn our attention to J G Ballard, one of the leading lights of the New Wave of Science Fiction which came to prominence in the UK and USA in the 1960s. Initially a writer of surreal and disturbing short stories such as in the collections ‘The Overloaded Man’ or ‘The Terminal Beach’, he wrote several haunting novels around themes of a decaying world such as ‘The Drought’ and ‘The Wind From Nowhere’ and later collections included ‘The Venus Hunters’ and ‘Vermilion Sands’. All of these and more can be found in our catalogue. Ballard’s work was often steeped in controversy such as in ‘Crash’ (adapted to film by David Cronenburg), but it is perhaps for the mainstream war novel ‘Empire of the Sun’ (filmed by Spielberg) that he will be best remembered outside the genre. Ballard is not a comfortable, easy read; rather he is unsettling and thought-provoking, playing with dystopias and the psychological effects of topographical catastrophes. He’d have had a field day with our present dystopia.
PICTURED: ALL by J G BALLARD (others listed in our catalogue)
THE DAY OF FOREVER Panther 1967 1st UK PB GD £10 Short stories
THE DROUGHT Penguin 1968 1st UK PB GD/VG £7
THE FOUR-DIMENSIONAL NIGHTMARE Penguin 1965 1st UK PB VG £10 Short stories
THE OVERLOADED MAN Panther 1967 1st UK PB VG £20 Short stories
THE TERMINAL BEACH Penguin 1966 1st UK PB VG £12 Short stories
VERMILION SANDS Panther 1973 1st UK PB FA £8 Short stories
THE WIND FROM NOWHERE Berkley 1962 1st US PB GD/VG £15

*DC: A favourite here at 30th Century, 1961’s Brave & Bold #34 saw the introduction of the Silver Age Hawkman (not to overlook his lovely bride Hawkgirl), by scripter Gardener Fox and illustrator Joe Kubert, both of whom had worked with distinction on the character’s 1940’s incarnation. In keeping with the other Silver Age ‘reboots’, Hawkman and Hawkgirl’s origin was thoroughly Space Age this time – visiting police officers from the planet Thanagar, here to study Earth law enforcement while masquerading as co-curators of the Midway City Museum. A refreshingly equal partnership – far from being Hawkman’s sidekick, Hawkgirl was his wife, his partner in life and work, and, many of us believe, actually the smarter of the two – smart enough to let him think he was in charge, at least! One of the best relationships in comics, some of the most inventive and diabolical villains, and sumptuous, beautifully detailed artwork. This is a nice copy from an original owner collection and new to the marketplace. One of THE great Silver Age covers! Pence stamped, with strong cover colours, tight firm staples and supple off-white pages. The spine has just a little wear, with a very tiny chip out at the bottom, a few very shallow but long cover creases, two of which just break colour, but are not too apparent. Overall, a decent copy.
PICTURED: BRAVE & BOLD #34 VG p £285

*DC: A lovely vintage item this week from 1955. Adventure #219 led with Superboy (‘The Gorilla With X-Ray Eyes’), backed up by Aquaman (The Greatest Show On Water’) and Green Arrow (‘The Human Chess Game’). What great value! A lowish graded copy with small spine tear, tiny chip out base of spine and small corner off back cover, but nice cover image and excellent content.
PICTURED: ADVENTURE COMICS #219 GD- £33 SOLD

*Marvel: Also from the Good Doctor this week, four excellent Lee & Kirby issues of Captain America just after the start of his Silver Age series. Heavily featuring the Red Skull and Sharon Carter, this four part extravaganza is a roller-coaster of action and twists, some of the best Cap issues ever, and all in really nice condition. 
PICTURED: CAPTAIN AMERICA 
#101 FN+ £55 Bright colours and gloss, tight staples, off-white to cream pages. Slight stress marks at spine and upper staple and a faint spine reading crease, nothing breaking colour. SOLD
#102 FN+ £55 Bright colours and gloss, tight staples, off-white pages. Slight edge wear, one tiny colour-breaking crease across very edge of bottom right corner.
#103 VF £75 Glossy with rich black background cover. Tight staples, off-white pages. Square corners, just very slight wear to top edge.
#104 VF+ £90 Great shiny and glossy cover with pure white background. Excellent staples (bottom prong of lower just slightly loose at centrefold). Square corners, near white pages. Virtually no wear. 

*Marvel: Smack in the middle of Todd McFarlane’s run on Amazing Spider-Man comes issue #316, featuring the first cover appearance of Venom, the character that defined this period. The cover image portrays what the character is all about. There’s little doubt that Venom is one of the Marvel characters originating later than the Bronze Age who has gone on to become a cornerstone of the Marvel Universe. This is a beautiful high grade copy, great colour and gloss, tight and firm staples, white to off-white pages, square corners. Only the absolute tiniest of stress marks at spine (and just a couple at that) prevent an even higher grade being awarded. 
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #316 NM- £145 SOLD

*Horror 1940-1959: Another batch of five post code Mystery Tales from the Bute Collection this week. Whilst it’s fair to say that the introduction of the Comics Code saw the ‘teeth pulled’ from the horror titles that survived, with horrific elements toned down, it’s also true that such titles as Atlas’s Mystery Tales continued showcasing excellent stories of mystery and imagination from the cream of Atlas’s creative talent at the time.
PICTURED: MYSTERY TALES
#36 VG/FN £100 Burgos cover. Krigstein, Forgione, Sinnott & others. Nice copy with great colour and gloss. Cover unmarked but for reading crease between staples at spine.
#38 VG+ £95 Everett cover, Powell, Benulis, Stallman, Hartley & others. Nice copy with great colour and gloss. Minor edge wear and slight reading crease.
#39 VG/FN £100 Everett cover, Krigstein, Brown, Colletta & others. Nice copy with great colour and gloss. Very minor edge wear and slight reading crease. 
#41 VG/FN £100 Everett/Burgos cover, Drucker, Romita, Schaffenberger, Brodsky, Reinman & others. Rich colour and gloss. Minor edge wear, tiny chip out bottom cover.
#42 GD/VG £65 Brodsky cover, Forte, Robinson, Abel, Hartley & others. Solid copy with tiny lower spine split/nick. Minor edge wear; very small colour touch bottom edge and a couple of very small water marks.

*Vintage UK/Australian Reprints of US Material: Three uncommon and eclectic reprints of classic US jungle stories this week. From Streamline, an unnumbered (and as far as we know one-off) reprint of Fox’s All Top Comics, with a re-worked cover. All Top contained (as here) Rulah, Jungle Goddess and Jo-Jo, Congo King, plus Blue Beetle and a wonderful Matt Baker Phantom Lady story, all black and white. This copy has a back cover stain and wrinkle, which extends into the last few pages to a lessening degree. Only ever seen this issue once before. Action Series #8 (Cave Girl) from Miller is 68 pages of Bob Powell’s beautiful Cave Girl and Strong Man, plus Frank Frazetta’s White Indian, all in black and white. Never before seen by us. Solid copy with a little glue puckering at spine and a lower spine split. Also from Streamline, an unnumbered Jungle Comics featuring Camilla and other Fiction House adventure reprints in full colour. Off bottom staple, which is rusty.
PICTURED: ALL SOLD
ALL TOP GD £20
CAVE GIRL (ACTION SERIES #8) GD £15
JUNGLE COMICS GD £10

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: Famous later following a name change to Cowboy Picture Library, this title started out in 1950 as Cowboy Comics, originally published by Amalgamated until Fleetway took over. It lasted a very respectable 468 issues until 1962. We have five early issues for your consideration this week, when the title alternated between Buck Jones & Kit Carson. Low grade but rarely seen, these all have taped spines with a heavy rust stain at the staple with heavy to moderate rust migration, but are all complete.
PICTURED: COWBOY COMICS
#2 FA £12.50
#3 FA £12.50
#6 FA £10 SOLD
#7 FA £10 SOLD
#8 FA £10

*TV/Film Tie-Ins: We’re continuing to introduce the new layout for our books categories, with an image for each book. This week, we return to our TV/Film Tie-Ins category, where the TV show or film pre-dated the book. There’s one helluva lot of fiction written about Dr Who, but we concentrate on the true vintage stuff, the adaptations of the stories of the first seven Doctors, published by Target, lovingly remembered from the days before video, when this was the only way of re-living these classic stories, and still fondly collected today. Our third (of multiple updates) devoted to the Doctor, has stories of the 2nd and 4th Doctors, including fan favourites Genesis Of the Daleks and the Ice Warriors.
PICTURED:
GENESIS OF THE DALEKS by TERRANCE DICKS Target 1981 4th UK PB VG £5
THE GIANT ROBOT by TERRANCE DICKS Target 1975 1st UK PB GD £3 SOLD
THE HAND OF FEAR by TERRANCE DICKS Target 1980 2nd UK PB VG £4
THE HORNS OF NIMON by TERRANCE DICKS Target 1980 1st UK PB VG/FN £5
THE ICE WARRIORS by BRIAN HAYLES Target 1976 1st UK PB FN £5
THE IMAGE OF THE FENDAHL by TERRANCE DICKS Target 1979 1st UK PB FN/VF £5
THE INVISIBLE ENEMY by TERRANCE DICKS Target 1979 1st UK PB VG/FN £4

*DC: Before Adam Strange started his regular series in Mystery In Space #53, DC’s premier science-fiction series featured stand-alone stories alongside occasional features such as Space Cabbie (here in #46). Editor Julius Schwartz gathered around him his usual team of top-notch writers and artists.
IN THIS UPDATE: MYSTERY IN SPACE
#46 PR £4 Ad/text page out; stories OK. Colour touched; Spine and right edge taped.
#52 VG+ £33 (PICTURED) Some spine wear, but no specific defects. SOLD

*Marvel: Back in the Silver Age, Spidey guest appearances in other characters’ series weren’t all that common, and thus were rather special when they did occur. Spider-Man clashed with the X-Men in #35 of the merry mutants’ book (I guess he was just misunderstood). This nice pence printed copy from the Good Doctor Collection is clean, glossy and with good colour. The staples are tight and firm at spine and centrefold and the pages are a supple white to off-white. There are slightly blunted corners, some minor edge wear and handling wear to the right cover edge, with a very small soft crease just breaking colour bottom right corner across the Beast’s foot. A solid copy that presents very well.
PICTURED: X-MEN #35 VG/FN p £130

*Horror 1940/1959: A Harvey classic from 1957 in this week’s Bute Collection update. Harvey’s Man In Black first appeared in 1945’s Front Page Comic Book, and after serval other appearances was granted his own four issue series in 1957. He was a host character, occasionally participating in the stories he introduced. He meted out punishments to those who deserved them, with a blend of horror, mystery and adventure. Bob Powell dealt up some of the best artwork of his career on this title; a superb cover and even more stylish splash on #1 attest that. This nice copy is clean and unmarked, with some spine wear (nothing bad) and a tiny nick at top of spine. The nice grade is otherwise brought down by a 4 x 1 cm chip out of the bottom right cover edge (see scan). Half the missing chip is present as a detached piece.
PICTURED: MAN IN BLACK #1 GD/VG £50 SOLD

*Alan Class Reprints: For many years now, we’ve been scouring the personal archives of legendary publisher Alan Class 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 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. We’re getting towards the end of these now, but this week’s release is one of the jewels in the crown of this enterprise.
PICTURED: CREEPY WORLDS #33, Cover, Splash, Certificate and all four Colour Plates £1,000 SOLD
Creepy Worlds #33 reprints the cover and content of Fantastic Four #2, the debut of the Skrulls.
Comic FN+ with brilliant colour, square corners, unmarked, slight nick at base of spine, slight spine glue puckering, a lovely copy. The Plates are among the best, in excellent untarnished condition, vibrant still with the colours of the inks used on them.
Remember: there’s only one of these in the world!

*Girls’ Picture Libraries: A nice haul of early-mid 1970s Girls’ Picture Libraries, all in GD to FN range. 15 Debbies, 13 Judys and 14 Mandys. Always popular done-in-one stories. Full details as always in our catalogue.

*Comic Strip Books: A real collector’s curiosity this week: from 1967, the Souvenir Press/Four Square edition of the Incredible Hulk Collector’s Album, reprinting in standard paperback format in black and white some of the earliest tales of the Hulk by Lee, Kirby & Ditko. Featuring a new (we think) British cover and advertising similar volumes for Spider-Man, Thor and the Fantastic Four. Nice solid condition, with just a faint reading crease at the spine.
PICTURED: INCREDIBLE HULK COLLECTOR’S ALBUM #1 by LEE, KIRBY & DITKO
Souvenir Press/Four Square 1967 1st UK PB VG/FN £15 SOLD

*DC: Early issues of Silver Age Flash (which, you’ll remember, started at #105, continuing the Golden Age numbering) don’t turn up too often, so it’s a joy to welcome this copy of Flash #108 to our listings. Featuring the third part of the Gorilla Grodd trilogy which commenced in #106, #108 has two stories by John Broome and Carmine Infantino. Broome’s science-fiction storylines matched perfectly with Infantino’s futuristic cityscapes. This copy is a very presentable pence-stamped lower grade, with rich colour cover (one of DC’s lovely purple background jobs), a worn spine being off at lower staple with a 4 cm split, small colour breaking creases around all the edges and the occasional tiny cover tear. Corner blunting, nice off-white pages turning cream-ish at the edges, staples firm at centre. All in all, not too bad. From an original owner collection and new to the marketplace. 
PICTURED: FLASH #108 GD p £75 SOLD

*DC: A large upgrade to our stocks of World’s Finest, the Superman/Batman team-up title between #151 and #200, almost every issue added, sometimes in multiple grades. There was a darker edge to World’s Finest by this time, with a lot going on: several Joker cover appearances, 80 Page Giants reprinting classics, plenty of Neal Adams covers and sometimes interior art, the 3rd ever Batgirl appearance and the two-part 3rd Superman/Flash race in #198/199. See our catalogue for full details.
PICTURED: WORLD’S FINEST #156 FN p £30 1st Bizarro Batman; Joker cover.

*Marvel: Leading our Good Doctor Collection releases this week, Avengers #28 is a landmark issue, featuring not only the return of Giant-Man in his new Goliath identity, but also the debut of the cosmic gatherer the Collector, now famous for his MCU persona. Stan Lee and Don Heck at their best beneath a strikingly iconic Jack Kirby cover. A solid, clean pence printed copy with bright cover colours and gloss against a pure white background. Supple off-white pages and tight, firm staples. No cover marks except for a couple of short creases in the masthead box which only break colour for a miniscule amount at the spine edge. A lovely copy.
PICTURED: AVENGERS #28 VF- p £150

*Marvel: I grew up reading DC from about 1961, so didn’t really discover Marvel until about 1965. Thus Fantastic Four Annual #3 was one of the first Marvels I ever read. What an issue! Featuring not only the wedding of Mr Fantastic and the Invisible Girl, but the event was gate-crashed by just about every hero and villain in the Marvel Universe. I didn’t even know who most of them were at the time, but the scale of this epic blew me away! Hey, even Stan & Jack appeared! Now a fondly prized Silver Age relic, this pence copy (both printed and stamped) is a solid mid-grade, with an intact spine, good colour and gloss, excellent staples, corner blunting and just a few minor creases (mostly caused by shrinking spine glue) with some edge and corner wear, but nothing too bad. Every true Silver Age Marvelite will want a copy of this in their collection!
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR ANNUAL #3 VG+ p £65 SOLD

*Horror 1940/1959: From the prestigious Bute Collection this week, the second and third issues of Atlas’s Journey Into Mystery from 1952. Like Strange Tales, Journey Into Mystery is one of those titles that started out in the 1950s horror boom, converted to Big Panty Monsters in the post-code phase and lasted into the Marvel Age Of Comics in the super-hero Silver Age. But it’s the title’s inaugural outings that concern us here. #2 has stories by Russ Heath, Jay Scott Pike, Howie Post, Gene Colan and others. Corpses. monsters and vampires aplenty. #3 features Ben Benulis, Joe Maneely, Mike Sewowsky, Carmine Infantino and others. More corpses, dismemberment, ghosts etc.
PICTURED: JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY
#2 GD/VG £425 The Bute Collection. Pre-Code. Worn but intact spine with long vertical colour-breaking creases and several short horizontal ones. Edge wear and colour-breaking creases across top and bottom cover corners. Staples slightly loose at cover, but holding firm. A couple of small nicks to front and back covers. Great colour, lovely off-white pages. SOLD
#3 VG/FN £475 The Bute Collection. Pre-Code. A superior copy with great cover colour and some gloss. Only faint spine and edge wear; tiny nick at base of spine. A couple of shallow creases across bottom right cover just break colour. Staples are tight and firm, mostly sharp corners; excellent pages are off-white to white. 

 

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: 9 issues of the long-lived Boys’ weekly Tiger, all tabloid-sized from the less common year of 1957, fresh in this week. Throughout its history, Tiger (original home to Roy of the Rovers) always had strong sporting associations and indeed in later decades, virtually became a comic of sport-related strips, but here in 1957, Roy and other sporting stars rubbed shoulders with war and adventure strips and indeed it is the first appearance of Olac the Gladiator that is our featured issue in this selection that runs between #160 and #169 (September to November). Lowish grades on these, but all perfectly readable.
PICTURED: TIGER #166 FA/GD £12.75 1st Olac the Gladiator SOLD

*Girls’ Picture Libraries: A nice addition to our stocks of Bunty Picture Story Paper, the done-in-one series at great value. Our 17 new additions, all Good to Very Good grades, run between #163 and #277 and are sure to find eager recipients.

*Children’s Books: We’re continuing to introduce the new layout for our books categories, with an image for each book. This week, we return to our Children’s Books category and the William books by Richmal Crompton. The quote in our title is from the Sunday Times. William, the eternal naughty but lovable schoolboy, is a personal favourite here at 30th Century and his stories are possibly even more amusing when read as an adult than as a child — I’ve done both! There’s no doubt that William Brown provided the inspiration for the character Adam in Terry Pratchett’s and Neil Gaiman’s ‘Good Omens’. We have 13 vintage hardcover volumes, all with dust jackets protected by removable archival film, listed in our catalogue and, for those on a budget, we also have a strong representation of paperback editions from sundry publishers, mostly ‘Red’ MacMillan editions with the famous artwork of Thomas Henry adorning the covers, as on the hardcovers. Most highly recommended; see the full range in our catalogue.
PICTURED: ALL BY RICHMAL CROMPTON
SWEET WILLIAM Newnes 1956 14th UK HC VG £15 With DJ (GD)
WILLIAM AND THE BRAINS TRUST Newnes 1956 6th UK HC VG £25 With DJ (VG)
WILLIAM – IN TROUBLE Newnes 1963 25th UK HC FN £25 With DJ (FN)
WILLIAM – THE BAD Newnes 1963 20th UK HC VG £15 With DJ (GD)
WILLIAM – THE DETECTIVE Newnes 1967 20th UK HC VG £10 With DJ (GD)
(Includes ‘William & The Nasties’, infamous Nazi parody edited from later editions)
WILLIAM – THE DICTATOR Newnes 1963 12th UK HC FN/VF £20 With DJ (VG)
WILLIAM – THE GANGSTER Newnes 1965 20th UK HC FN £25 With DJ (FN)

A final reminder that today (Saturday 10th December) is the last day to place orders to be posted before Christmas. All orders placed by 4 pm today will be filled tomorrow (Sunday 11th) and if paid for by 4 pm on Monday 12th, will be posted on Tuesday 13th. After that we are closing down for the holidays, resuming as follows:

Saturday 31st December: Newsletter resumes. All orders placed after 4 pm on 10th December (up to 4 pm on 31st) will be filled this weekend and bills issued on 1st January 2023.
Wednesday 4th January: Posting for all paid orders outstanding.

Please note that these posting dates may be subject to change if Royal Mail announce any further strike action over this period.

It just remains for me to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for 2023 from all of us here at 30th Century, humans and cats.