*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 through 2021 and probably 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.) We continue this week with four more sets, details as follows:
PICTURED:
ASTOUNDING STORIES #9 £50 Comic FN Reprints  ACG, Charlton 
SECRETS OF THE UNKNOWN #108 £60 Comic GD/VG Reprints Daredevil #45 & #46 with Statue of Liberty photo cover, plus Charlton inc 2 Ditko. SOLD
SINISTER TALES #106 £75 Comic VG Reprints Amazing Spider-Man #72 inc cover & ACG. SOLD
UNCANNY TALES #29 £80 Comic GD Reprints Thor & Kirby Tales of Asgard from Journey Into Mystery #98 inc cover, a Tale of the Wasp, Pre-hero Marvel, Charlton, Atlas, 2 Ditko, 1 Ditko/Kirby. Extra: 2 interior plates, inc Thor splash page SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: Following on from previous releases of earlier numbers, we now have many issues between #101 & #149 of Commando War Stories In Pictures from the same source. A previous owner at some point decided to place two to four reinforcing staples through the spine, quite skilfully so as to not hamper the opening of the item nor hide any of the content; there is minimal bleed from these staples and the page quality is really rather nice. As we move up the numbers, the overall condition quality improves, so in most cases, the grade is assigned through wear rather than specific defects. Please consult our catalogue for full details.
PICTURED: COMMANDO
#101 VG £15
#132 VG £15

*Girls’ Picture Libraries: A further update for this title, with 13 issues added between #231 and #250.  Attractive and stylish art covers on these, with interiors to match. In lovely condition, with great page quality and not a rusty staple in sight. See our catalogue for details.
PICTURED: PICTURE ROMANCE LIBRARY
#241 FN/VF £9
#244 FN/VF £9

*DC: In 2001, DC let Stan Lee loose on its most famous characters to see what might have happened if the creator of the Marvel Universe had in fact created the DCU. Under the generic title of ‘Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating…’ he teamed up with the cream of modern and classic artists in a series of prestige format one-offs, and back cover art on each issue was by none other than Adam Hughes. We have six issues of this series new in stock: Green Lantern, with art by Dave Gibbons, JLA (Jerry Ordway), Robin (John Byrne), Sandman (Walter Simonson), Shazam (Gary Frank) and Superman (John Buscema, no less!). All in a spiffy NM condition at £10 each.
PICTURED: JUST IMAGINE STAN LEE CREATING…
JLA NM £10
SUPERMAN NM £10

*Marvel: Stan Lee created the Fantastic Four as a response to DC’s success with the Justice League of America, but it was the later Avengers concept that more properly copies the JLA format, with all Marvel’s nascent super-heroes banding together to fight common threats. The nature of the Avengers ever-changing roster was there almost from the start, since the Hulk left the team in this second issue, which also featured the menace of the Space Phantom in his debut appearance, and reflected the recent change of Ant-Man into Giant-Man. We have a nice mid-grade pence copy available, with strong colour, nice pages and tight, firmly-attached staples. There is minor edge and handling wear, and a small 1 cm tear at the right cover edge. Very small creases break colour at the edge of the bottom right cover. There is also a fairly faint UK book shop stamp below the upper cover blurb (above Thor’s head); fortunately, this is not too prominent and does not cover any of the characters. Some corner blunting but nothing too bad.
PICTURED: AVENGERS #2 VG+ p £375 SOLD

*Marvel: The Kingpin makes his cover debut on Amazing Spider-Man #51, towering menacingly over a fallen Spidey with his gang gathered round in one of John Romita’s most memorable covers. I remember thinking what a visually striking figure was cut by the Kingpin, a testament to Romita’s design skills. This issue also features the debut of Daily Bugle man Robbie Robertson, who, if memory serves, was the first black recurring character to play an important role in Peter Parker’s life. This is a superior pence printed copy, difficult to find in high grade due to the black background. It is tight and flat with firmly attached staples and nice off-white pages. The cover colour is great, unmarked and retains some gloss. Corners are fairly sharp. There are a couple of small spine ‘ticks’ and very minor wear along the top edge. A very nice prize for your collection.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #51 FN/VF p £250

*Marvel: Amazing Spider-Man #252, like many Secret Wars ‘epilogue’ issues, featured a major ‘twist’ only explained retroactively. In Spidey’s case, it was a dramatic black & white costume which would eventually be revealed as an alien symbiote, which in turn would evolve into Venom, who eclipsed most longer-established villains to become Spidey’s crucial nemesis for the modern era. Although the first appearance of the symbiote in internal continuity was Secret Wars #8, its joint debut in real time was this very issue. But please take note — this is a low grade cheap copy, with some crumpling, blunt corners, lots of spine ticks and colour-breaking creases across the top and bottom right corners, including a small chip out at the bottom right. Nice as a gap filler, but not an investment collectable copy.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #252 FA/GD £20 SOLD

*Marvel: For those who like their Marvel Universe with a huge dollop of Cosmic thrown in, we present Silver Surfer #34 (1990), featuring the return of both Thanos (as the ultimate nemesis) and Jim Starlin (on scripts). Also featuring Death (the character, that is). A nice glossy, flat copy with just very minor reading wear at the spine.
PICTURED: SILVER SURFER #34 VF/NM £30 SOLD

*Horror 1940-1959: In our regular pre-code horror feature this week, we present four issues of Fawcett’s This Magazine Is Haunted, famous for its horrific covers. Hosted by Dr. Death in a shameless bit of nominative determinism, the series went on to be published by Charlton from #15 onwards. These issues are all low grade, with the faults being described below for each issue.
PICTURED: THIS MAGAZINE IS HAUNTED
#1 FA £50 Taped spine. Corners off lower and upper right front cover.
#2 GD+ £75 Mis-cut. Small pieces out interior margins (only) 3 pages.
#4 PR £32 Off lower staple. Lower spine split. Brown and brittle.
#7 PR/FA £30 Extreme upper edge wear with piece out. Colour touches.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: From 1976, the second issue of the notorious British Boys’ weekly, Action, home of Hookjaw the cuddly man-eating shark and several other strips of unprecedented violence and controversy. This is a decent copy, with reasonable pages, a cover unmarked except for a faint small ‘2’ in pencil to the left of the logo and a small split at the base of the spine. The Free Gift, a delightful Hookjaw transfer to iron on to your T-shirt comes unused with its original backing and has one or two small signs of wear only. 
PICTURED: ACTION 21/2/76 (#2) VG WITH FREE GIFT FN/VF £90

*Humour Comics: Continuing our policy of providing more information for Beano and Dandy, we have a new batch of Dandy in this week from the first half of 1958, annotated with details of strip debuts and other significant events. Unfortunately, no strip debuts in these new issues, except for the first strip appearance of Quick Nick, who had first appeared years earlier as a prose feature; however, we do have both the New Year issue, the April Fool issue and #847, which includes a rather splendid flyer for Rover, advertising the Free Gift ‘Dazzle Rocket’. Full details in our catalogue.
PICTURED: DANDY #847 VG £16 with Rover promo flyer SOLD

*Childrens’ Books: A further update from this quirky sidebar in publishing history this week. ‘Blitz Books’ is a generic name for various publishers’ series of miniature books (approx 8.5 x 12 cm, around 16 pages, and published 1940-1944), these booklets helped distract children in air-raid shelters and Underground stations during bombing raids over London. They became known as ‘Blitz Books’, and, like many publications from the years of World War II, are quite scarce, particularly in as nice condition as the examples we have here. Six from the Little Marvels Series, illustrated text stories with colourful, evocative covers. None of these have ever passed through our hands before.
PICTURED: BLITZ BOOKS: LITTLE MARVELS ALL SOLD
#17 BOMBS ON BERCHTESGADEN VG/FN £7
#18 ACE V ACE FN £8
#21 SCOUTS OF DOOM FN £8
#33 THE MAN WITH THREE EYES FN £8
#39 THE RECAPTURE OF SINGAPORE VG/FN £7
#41 FORCED LANDING VG/FN £7

*DC: Although, a decade later, Alan Moore became for most readers the definitive writer on DC’s muck monster, back in 1972, the first series of Swamp Thing launched at the hands of Berni Wrightson, who is undoubtedly the definitive artist for the character. After debuting in House Of Secrets #92, Swampy appeared in his own series and this first issue is a high grade cents copy with great cover colour and gloss, tight and flat with firmly attached staples and off-white to white pages. No cover marks, just very minor edge and handling wear; corners are relatively sharp.
PICTURED: SWAMP THING #1 VF £170 SOLD

*Marvel: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. Always in high profile due to being Iron Man’s arch-nemesis (his Dr. Doom, if you like), the Mandarin has risen now to even more to prominence due to the upcoming Master of Kung Fu film, where Mandy is the Big Bad. The Mandarin, a master of science, martial arts, and controller of an international network of operatives, whose ruthlessness is outmatched only by his ingenuity. And he’s got the bling, too! Famously, each of Mandy’s digits carries a ring (“More than Zsa Zsa Gabor”, as Ben Grimm once remarked) with its own unique powers, at their master’s deadly disposal. So here’s your chance to grab the Mandarin’s first appearance in decent grade before it goes ballistic… From the Square Mile Collection, in superior shape, tight and flat with good staples, unmarred cover image and great colour cover with some gloss. Off-white to white pages and minimal edge wear; tiny crease across bottom 1 cm of right cover corner, but almost indiscernable. A pence copy, labelled rather than the usual stamp or overprint. High resolution images are available on request.
PICTURED: TALES OF SUSPENSE #50 FN+ p £500 SOLD

*Marvel: Our latest third-party graded acquisition is the landmark 98th and antepenultimate issue of New Mutants, featuring the premier of not only everyone’s favourite Merc-With-A-Mouth and blockbuster movie star, Deadpool, but also the very first appearance of the probability-manipulating assassin Domino and, for good measure, Gideon. Since Domino also co-starred in the smash-hit ‘Deadpool 2’ movie, her presence has enhanced the desirability of this already hot collectable issue. Although Deadpool as presented in this issue is very different in tone from his later more popular appearances, this is where it all began, and no modern comic collection is truly complete without this cornerstone, graded and encapsulated by CGC, universal grade (no restoration) and noted as ‘White Pages’, with the case in perfect condition. 
PICTURED: NEW MUTANTS #98 CGC 9.2 (NM-) £475 SOLD

*Marvel: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. This week, one of the most iconic covers of the Ditko run on Amazing Spider-Man, as the Molten Man debuts in Amazing Spider-Man #28. This was the second issue of Spidey I ever read, and the black cover, with just the red lines of Spidey’s costume shown, plus the gleaming Molten Man with his Ditko leer is a real stand-out cover image. The black background makes this a really tough comic to find in high grade, and our mid-grade example here attests to that. A pence printed copy with spine and edge wear, white spine ticks showing up quite markedly, and some colour-breaking creasing at the base of the spine, with a small cover nick on the right edge. Nice off-white pages though, good cover colour and some gloss, decent firm staples.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #28 VG p £110

*Marvel: Fan favourite Todd McFarlane’s run on Hulk peaked at issue #340, featuring the classic cover design of the Hulk reflected in Wolverine’s claws and an ensuing battle royale within. Peter David’s intelligent script meant that this was more than a simple slugfest. Our latest copy is a superior one, tight and flat with great cover colour and gloss, firm staples, nice off-white to white pages and fairly sharp corners. The grade is brought down a little by small spine ticks, a bit of handling wear at the bottom edge and a tiny impression of a pressure mark near Wolverine’s right eye. But still a very nice copy.
PICTURED: HULK #340 FN/VF £110

*EC: Always a joy to get original EC comics through our hands, the benchmark of quality from the 1950s. This week, it’s two issues of one of their classic science fiction titles, Weird Fantasy. The numbering on this series is a little confusing. The first issue is #13 (taking the numbering from A Moon, A Girl, Romance) and it carried on that sequence for five issues until #17, after which it converted to new numbering, starting with #6 and lasting up to #22 (after which it changed to Weird Science Fantasy). Got that? Good. Thus in this update the #16 is the first issue to bear that number (from 1950) and the fourth issue overall and the #21 from 1953 is the only #21. #16 has an Al Feldstein cover, with interior art by him, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kamen and Wally Wood. A not bad copy with some corner cover creasing and edge wear, with a small chip missing at the top right edge of the cover. One interior page (of the Kamen story) is coming loose and has a small corner off, which intrudes into the panel art, but nothing significant is missing. Beneath a stunning Williamson/Frazetta cover, #21 has art by Orlando, Williamson, Kamen and Severin/Elder. A tired copy, the cover colour is good but there are long colour-breaking creases down along it and a tear of 3.5 cm centre right edge. A small chip is also missing at the base of the spine and the spine itself has more than moderate wear, although the staples are good; page quality is quite decent. Story quality, of course, is superb on both throughout!
PICTURED: WEIRD FANTASY
#16 (#4) GD+ £90
#21 GD £80 SOLD

*Vintage UK/Australian Reprints of US Material: This week, four issues of reprints of Fiction House’s long-running adventure series, Rangers, from the publishing house of H John Edwards in Australia. These are in a remarkable state of preservation for their age, with very little wear and vivid, glossy and beautiful covers (the work of Maurice Whitman, we suspect) that pop out at you in an almost three dimensional way. Three out of the four (#20, #26 & #27) are VF; the fourth (#20 is FN). These are from the later years of the Rangers title, with war themed covers; inside the usual Fiction House mix of war, western, detective and adventure, including repeat features such as Rip Carson, Suicide Smith, Commando Rangers and the Eye, as well as many a sexy chick or sultry oriental siren. Full details in our catalogue.
PICTURED: RANGERS #26 VF £15

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: From that most distinguished vintage publisher of British comics Gerald G Swan, a nice copy of Dynamic Thrills #1 from 1951. Swan published all genres of comics, but issue #1 of Dynamic Thrills concerns itself with detectives and adventurers such as Chester Kean, Ah Wong, the Bat, Gentleman Jim, Krakos the Egyptian and many others. Strips are in red and grey and black and white. The series lasted 10 issues and is quite scarce. This copy is in nice nick, with some cover creasing but little wear, no tears and good staples; the cover stock is similar to that of an American comic.
PICTURED: DYNAMIC THRILLS #1 VG/FN £40 SOLD

*Humour Comics: One of the nicest Summer Specials we’ve ever seen in terms of condition is this Beano from 1968. Flat, never folded, with only the tiniest soft creasing to the bottom right corner extremity, this copy retains great colour, page quality and remarkable freshness. All your favourite characters are here, of course, many of them in glorious full colour. Can you imagine the thrill of being a kid when this giant edition came out and being given it for your summer holiday reading pleasure?
PICTURED: BEANO SUMMER SPECIAL 1968 VF £60 SOLD

*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. This week we have four works by Paul Renin (pen name of Richard Goyne), whose novels are pretty much sleazy romance rather than gangster tales, but their luridly attractive covers put them squarely in the same collector market.
PICTURED: All by PAUL RENIN
A DOUBLE LIFE UK PB 1950s Harborough FA £15
(Cover art by Reginald Heade; water damaged, edge discolouration, some loss to bottom right cover, image okay)
LONELY WIVES UK PB 1950s Archer VG £35 SOLD
SEX UK PB 1950s Archer VG £35 SOLD
UNEASY VIRTUE UK PB 1950s Archer VG £35 SOLD
(Small spine split at base)

*DC: What’s Old is our feature where we highlight stuff from our catalogue that you may have missed. A high grade for such a vintage Batman this week, a great-looking CGC 7.5 (VF-) copy of Batman #94 from 1955, Universal grade, blue label unrestored. With a dynamic Win Mortimer cover and three mystery stories (including one where Alfred plays Batman), this lovely item also has the distinction of being the earliest issue of Batman we have in stock at time of writing. 
PICTURED: BATMAN #94 CGC 7.5 £350

*DC: Our DC alphabetical romp concludes the letter ‘J’, which, in this second part, is all about DC’s premier super-hero team, the Justice League of America. Over 100 issues added, starting from #8 and going right up to the last issue #261, adding many not previously represented in our listings for possibly the most comprehensive selection of this series on sale anywhere. And, as a bonus, all four issues of the mini-series, America Vs the Justice Society.

*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. A decent pence printed copy fresh in with great cover colour and gloss, minor corner blunting but very little wear. Good tight staples and nice off-white pages; just a suggestion of browning at the very top and bottom of the cover, but overall clean and presenting very well.
PICTURED: CAPTAIN AMERICA #109 FN p £80 SOLD