*Humour Comics: ‘A new comic for boys and girls’, averred this 1965 launch from DC Thomson, though it ought really to have said ‘for white boys and girls’, as the peculiar racist caricature of the titular character would surely offend and deter any readers not of the Caucasian persuasion. That aside, the series was well-crafted although seemingly aimed at a younger audience than stablemates Dandy and Beano, with an almost fairy-tale character to some of the series like ‘Dreamy Dave and Dozy Dora’ while others – ‘Freddy the Fearless Fly’, ‘Keyhole Kate’ – were retreads of old Beano stalwarts. By the late Sixties, the title aged up its target audience slightly, Sparky himself was mercifully shuffled off, and a new lead character, ‘Barney Bulldog’ took the covers, together with his life-partner, a slightly younger bulldog named Ben. Sadly, they broke up after a few years, and Barney was last seen sobbing into his pint in the Coleherne. After an interval, the cover was taken by ‘Some Mummies Do ‘Ave ‘Em’, which took its title, but nothing else, from the Michael Crawford-fronted popular sitcom. The slender premise – a family of ancient Egyptian mummies came alive after museum hours, to the consternation of the guard – was presented with verve and charm, seeing the title out to its 1977 conclusion. We have approximately 160 issues of Sparky newly added, from 1967’s #136 to 1976’s #620, including previously-unrepresented years 1973, 1974 and 1976.

Dr. Evilla celebrates the coming of 2020 with a window display of some of our top US comics currently in stock (as of the time of writing). To see large images of these, simply check out the slideshow. And all the best for the New Year to all of you from all of us at 30th Century! 

no images were found

*Childrens’ Books:  First appearing in the Magnet #1 (1908), Billy Bunter was originally a minor character in the stories of Greyfriars School, but as time went on and the stories grew in popularity, author Frank Richards (Charles Hamilton) realised the comic potential of his most famous creation, so much so that after the Magnet ceased publication in 1940, Bunter was the starring figure in his own series of novels from 1947 to 1967. We have five examples joining our stock this week (all HCs with Dust Jackets): Billy Bunter Afloat & Bunter Out Of Bounds are 1st editions, Billy Bunter’s Double a 3rd edition, and Billy Bunter Of Greyfariars School (the 1st Bunter novel) and Billy Bunter And The Blue Maurituius are faithful facsimiles published by Hawk Books. The ‘Fat Owl Of The Remove’ has now passed into legendary status as an icon of English literature, so here’s your chance to get acquainted with his antics. Yarooh!
PICTURED:
BUNTER OUT OF BOUNDS: 1ST VG/FN WITH DJ GD £35
BILLY BUNTER AND THE BLUE MAURITIUS: FACSIMILE VF WITH DJ VF £25
BILLY BUNTER’S DOUBLE: 3RD FN WITH DJ VG £30
BILLY BUNTER AFLOAT: 1ST VG/FN WITH DJ GD £35

*Marvel: In issue #22 of the Marvel Universe’s First Family, the sinister subterranean Mole Man resurfaced to perpetrate more dastardly schemes upon the surface world – but to be honest, that drama was overshadowed, in the long term, by developments in the life of the team’s distaff member. Sue Storm, the Invisible Girl, who had been mostly a bit wet and useless so far, discovered new applications of her power. Instead of merely being able to turn herself invisible, she gained the ability to render others invisible, and, more importantly, her invisible force fields, which rendered her a true asset to the team – though she was still told when and how to use them by a man for a depressingly long time, but that was the Sixties for you. This VG/FN p copy has a tiny hint of fading mid-lower cover edge, but is otherwise crisp, clean and vivid.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR #22 VG/FN p £75 SOLD

*Marvel: Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, becoming discontented with his role in the Fantastic Four, strikes out with a new partner, the Acrobat, as ‘The Torrid Twosome’ (a much less mirth-inducing title then than it would be now), to the chagrin of his former partners. Needless to say, it’s all a bluff, as Johnny pretended to fall in with the Acrobat to learn his larcenous schemes – and while it was refreshing to see Johnny not played as a dupe for a change, this issue would have been glossed over as unremarkable, but for the fact that the Acrobat later resurfaced as a faux-Captain America, testing the waters for the eventual Silver Age revival of the genuine Cap. This ‘prelude to a pilot’, as it were, is FN p, with light spine wear and very slight foxing above upper staple area, but clean bright pages and firm staples.
PICTURED: STRANGE TALES #106 FN p £70

*DC: Following his debut in Green Lantern #59, in what was effectively an ‘Imaginary Story’ (though the editors didn’t call it that), Guy Gardner returned unexpectedly to the DCU in Green Lantern #116, substituting for an incapacitated Hal Jordan, and kicking off the lengthy string of appearances which led to his own series in the 1990s, as well as a lengthy term in the latter-day Justice League. Green Lantern #141, meanwhile saw the appearance of a coterie of outer-space rebels and heroes who would go on to greater things as the Omega Men. Both these latter-day milestones are back in stock; the GL 116 is VG p, light to moderate wear and with one faint book centre stamp on the cover, while #141 is a desirable VF/NM cents copy.
PICTURED: GREEN LANTERN
#116 VG p £20 SOLD
#141 VF/NM £30

*DC: We continue our run through the Silver/Bronze ages of the DCU with additions to the following titles: Suicide Squad, Superboy (lots of Legion stories prior to the title change with #197, and even more Legion thereafter), New Adventures of Superboy (#50 Anniversary issue with the Legion), Super Friends, Supergirl (1st series), Superman (including Giants and Annuals, with Annual #11 by Alan Moore), Superman Family and Swamp Thing.  

*Marvel: Amazing Spider-Man #102 saw the conclusion of a story begun in #100, when our hero, Peter Parker, suddenly became a true ‘Spider-Man’, an eight-limbed aberration. In this issue by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane, Spidey battles the dual menaces of Morbius the Living Vampire (who had debuted the previous issue, but whose origin was disclosed in this), and the ever-loveable Lizard, before finding himself mercifully – ahem – ‘disarmed’ by story’s end.
PICTURED: AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #102 CBCS 8.0 VF £120

*Marvel: The first series of Marvel Feature, having been home to the successful Defenders try-out and the less successful Ant-Man series, rounded out its run with two issues teaming the Fantastic Four’s Thing with the Hulk and Iron Man, respectively. Given the successful launch of the Spider-Man starring Marvel Team-Up the previous year, it was clearly hoped that a second team-up book might be viable – and boy, was it ever! Illustrated by Jim Starlin and written by Wein and Friedrich, respectively, these done-in-one tales proved so popular that Marvel Feature was cancelled to make way on the schedules for Marvel Two-In-One, an ongoing series teaming Bashful Ben with a bewildering variety of the great and the grotty from the wider Marvel Universe. Both of these scarce Two-In-One ‘pilot’ issues, never distributed in the UK, are available in high grades.
PICTURED: MARVEL FEATURE
#11 VF £45
#12 VF- £15

*Marvel:  Writer Don McGregor’s 1970s run on the Black Panther strip in Jungle Action was renowned for its ambitious, philosophical, emotionally textured, and verbose – by Cracky, was it verbose – nature, receiving acclaim and derision in roughly equal proportions. Following Jack Kirby’s very different take on T’Challa in the Panther’s first solo series, McGregor made a return to Wakanda in a serial in Marvel Comics Presents, and subsequently in this four-part, squarebound Prestige Format series, in which T’Challa, the Black Panther, is being hunted in Wakanda by Solomon Prey, a taloned and winged villain who is also setting himself up as the kingdom’s resident illegal drug lord — while, at the same time, T’Challa decides to reunite with his former love, Monica Lynne. Duty, love, responsibility, obsession, obligation and philosophy are the themes on display, as well as a fair bit of gratuitous violence and flying dinosaurs, because, well, why wouldn’t you? So is McGregor rambling loon or unacclaimed genius… or a bit of both? Buy this complete NM Prestige Format mini-series and find out! £20 for the set of 4.
PICTURED: BLACK PANTHER: PANTHER’S PREY #1 (SET OF #1-4 NM £20)

*Marvel: A chunky update to the Sub-Mariner/Hulk era of this shared title, with many issues added between #72 & #100. A quality period, with the art of Gene Colan, Bill Everett, Marie Severin and Dan Adkins standing out.

*Miscellaneous 1960 Onwards: No, not X-Men – that’s a different update! – but Next Men, the science fiction series pioneered by John Byrne over at Dark Horse Comics. Though Next Men in general remains a respected run, the appeal of this issue specifically is that it’s the first full appearance of Mike Mignola’s character Hellboy, who appears in a Mignola-drawn chapter. Hellboy, of course, has been the star of two successful movie franchises, and looks to be in the public consciousness for some time to come. This is a respectable FN+ copy, with only a number of small spine ticks precluding a higher grade.
PICTURED: NEXT MEN #21 FN+ £40

*Marvel UK: Commencing in 1972, Marvel UK started re-packaging ‘vintage’ (from all of a decade previously!) stories for the British audience. This involved breaking up the book-length tales to shorter instalments for serialisation, and thereby often necessitating brand new covers and splash pages, including early work by luminaries such as Jim Starlin. We have a selection of Spider-Man Comics Weekly from its third issue up to its thirteenth, all before the mag switched from pulp to slick covers. Often the form in which a generation of readers first encountered the Marvel heroes, these UK editions, particularly the earlier, ‘pulp’ ones, are becoming harder to find as they’re snapped up by aging nostalgists.
PICTURED: SPIDER-MAN #5 FN £8 SOLD

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: A latecomer to the D.C. Thomson weeklies devoted to war stories was Warlord, but its tardy arrival didn’t prevent it from being a success, running until 1986 and clocking up a very respectable 627 issues before being subsumed into its stable-mate Victor. With such features as Union Jack Jackson, Bomber Braddock, Code-Name Warlord and Young Wolf, Warlord set out to enthrall a new generation of war devotee readers. New listings for this popular series begin with issue #1 (28th September 1974) and end with #115 (4th December 1976), approximately fifty issues added to our inventory.
PICTURED: WARLORD #1 VG £15

*Girls’ Comics: The more observant of you will have noticed we’ve been working our way backward through the classic long-running girls’ comics, and this week we hit our fabulous finale with the doyenne of the girls’ weeklies, Bunty! Though not the first girl-centric comic paper, Bunty was the longest-running (1958 to 2001) and this week we present 300+ issues from almost a decade, with numbers ranging from 1967’s #498 to #986 in 1976. The Four Marys, Moira Kent, Toots and a multitude of friends are ready and waiting!

*Modern Reprints: More from Marvel’s reprint lines, including a facsimile edition of Eternals #1 (£4) and the following cheap and cheerful True Believers reprints, all at £1 each: Carol Danvers (1st app from Marvel Super-Heroes #13), Hulk Head Of Banner (Hulk #6), Annihilation Moon Dragon (1st Moon Dragon from Iron Man #54), Annihilation Nova (1st Nova from Nova #1) & X-Men Betsy Braddock (1st Betsy Braddock from Captain Britain #8-10).
PICTURED: ETERNALS #1 FACSIMILE NEW/MINT £4

Updates will resume here after Christmas, so it just remains for us to wish you all the very best for the festive season and the year ahead, and to thank you for all your custom throughout 2019. We’ll leave you with a reminder of when we’re open over the holiday period:

Monday 23rd December: Open as usual 11 a.m to 6 p.m.
Christmas Eve Tuesday 24th December: Closed
Christmas Day Wednesday 25th December: Closed
Boxing Day Thursday 26th December: Closed
Friday 27th December: Open as usual 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturday 28th December: Open as usual 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Monday 30th December: Open as usual 11 a.m. to 6 p m.
New Year’s Eve Tuesday 31st December: Open 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
New Year’s Day Wednesday 1st January: Closed
Thursday 2nd January onwards: Open as usual 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

*Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror: This time we’ve added seven Robert Silverberg books. Winner of many SF awards, Silverberg wrote at an incredibly fast rate (estimated as equivalent to a novel each week), but unusually he wasn’t driven by financial necessity, as so many SF authors were. Time travel was a theme that he frequently used, and several of these books reflect that – The Masks Of Time, The Time-Hoppers and Up The Line. The other titles are Nightwings, Stepsons Of Terra, The Man In The Maze and To Open The Sky. All except The Time-Hoppers are 1st PB editions, and The Masks Of Time has stunning Bruce Pennington cover art.

*Crime, Spies & Sleaze:  From the Golden Age of crime fiction, we present seven mysteries by one of the ‘Queens Of Crime’, Ngaio Marsh, the New Zealand Dame who wrote of Inspector Alleyn in a series of novels from 1934 to 1982. She was passionate about the theatre and painting (she was also a Shakespearian producer) and these themes often appear in her work. Despite her nationality, the vast majority of her books are set in England and have a distinctive British air about them. Featured in this update are: Colour Scheme, Dead Water, False Scent, Off With His Head, Photo-Finish, Spinsters In Jeopardy and The Nursing Home Murder, all but one in an attractive Fontana cover style.

This is an early Silver Age Collection from an original owner notable for the freshness and vibrancy of the cover colours and page quality; even those with minor reading and handling wear are vastly superior to the majority of comics that have been in circulation since the 1960s. The average grade is well above Fine, with many much nicer.

We’ll be adding selections from this collection for sale here each week across the range of titles represented. These will be over a range of prices each week to suit most budgets, so that all interested collectors have an opportunity to purchase something from this special collection. Each comic will come branded with a special label and certificate of authenticity verifying it as part of the Square Mile Collection. Here’s this week’s:

*Marvel: Having gained his own series following the 1968 break-up of Marvel’s shared titles, the Armoured Avenger was one of the first series not to be scripted by Lee; instead, Archie Goodwin penned a distinguished run on the series, illustrated with flair by EC alumnus Johnny Craig. This issue introduces Janice Cord, later the romantic interest for Tony Stark until her tragic demise, and pits Iron Man against the Demolisher, a creation of Janice’s Dad (a business rival of Tony Stark’s) in what was intended as a very hostile takeover indeed! This early issue of Shell-Head’s solo series is FN/VF, tight corners, vibrant colour and firm staples at cover and centrefold.
PICTURED: IRON MAN #2 FN/VF p £65 SOLD

*Marvel: Another listing from the Square Mile Collection for pre-hero Marvel. Before the advent of the Human Torch, Strange Tales was the home to myriad stories of space invasion and gargantuan menace in what we’ve come to describe as the ‘Big Panty Monster’ genre (the giant creatures, however fiendish, always being attired in stalwart bloomers to assuage the fears of the Comics Code.) Two such stories are featured this issue: “When the Thing Runs Amok!’ and ‘Earth Will Be Lost Tonight!’, both by Lee & Kirby, though neither graces the cover – perhaps it was thought that the ‘Thing’ might be confused with Bashful Ben Grimm, star of the then-new Fantastic Four? Instead, a Kirby/Ditko cover spotlights the Lee/Ditko twist-ender:  ‘The Wax People’, while the stylish Gene Colan-drawn ‘Mister Black’ rounds out the issue. This VG+ copy is marred only by a very small upper back cover tear, adjacent to the spine, which does not affect the content or structural integrity of the comic.
PICTURED: STRANGE TALES #93 VG+ p £57

More from the Square Mile Collection in two weeks!

*DC: The tabloid-sized Limited Collectors’ Edition/All-New Collectors’ Editions are always popular sellers, not having been extensively distributed in the UK, and we’re delighted to offer two seasonally-appropriate issues this update. 1976’s Christmas With The Super-Heroes (C-43) presents Yuletide-themed stories of Superman (by Jack Burnley), Wonder Woman (by H.G. Peter), and the Golden Age Sandman (by Simon & Kirby), plus 1970’s tales of Batman (by Neal Adams) and the House of Mystery (by Berni Wrightson). Two puzzle pages have been neatly completed, but otherwise this is a nice-looking VG copy. Our second entry flips around the traditional role of a festive favourite, as All-New Collectors’ Edition C-60 answers the question ‘What does Santa’s reindeer do for the rest of the year?’ with Rudolph’s Summer Fun, featuring previously-unpublished tales of Rudolph and chums written and drawn by classic creator Sheldon Mayer.
PICTURED:
ALL NEW COLLECTORS’ EDITION C60 VG+ £15
LIMITED COLLECTORS’ EDTION C43 VG £15 SOLD

*DC: This week’s sweep through DC, concentrating on just part of the letter ‘S’, is rich in both #1 issues and first appearances. Titles covered are: Secret Society of Super-Villains (from #1), Sherlock Holmes (#1 and only), Showcase (inc. #57 – 1st Enemy Ace, #59 – 3rd Teen Titans, #60 – 1st Silver Age Spectre, #77 – 1st Angel & the Ape & #94 – 1st New Doom Patrol), Spectre (#1), Steel (#1), Strange Adventures & Strange Sports Stories (from #1).

*Marvel: As the premier series of the Marvel Universe, the Fantastic Four did seem to spend a lot of time incubating the stars of tomorrow, as their guests frequently spun off into their own titles. One of the most popular ‘break-out’ stars was the Silver Surfer, and in issue #50 the former Norrin Radd, having been introduced two issues previously as the minion of the planet-devouring Galactus, breaks away from his master and defends the threatened planet Earth. Cosmic menace, epic grandeur and, hm, college hi-jinks, as the Human Torch commences his blink-and-you’ll-miss-it struggle with higher education. The latter subplot introduces Johnny’s fellow student, Wyatt Wingfoot, soon a stanuch ally of the FF. (As well as She-Hulk’s favourite squeeze-toy, but that was a couple of decades later…). This defining issue for the Surfer is a FN+ cents copy with a beautiful unmarred cover, but two small ‘thumbnail’ tears on an interior margin, which do not impinge upon the story.
PICTURED: FANTASTIC FOUR #50 FN+ £260