*Dell: An overdue update to our stocks of Dell, who arguably made their name with TV & Film adaptations, and this range of four colour and movie classic titles is no exception. We have Danger Man, Dinosaurus, Kona, Mad Monster Party, The Phantom Planet, The Pride & The Passion, Santa Claus Conquers The Martians (no, really), Spaceman, Twice Told Tales, Two On A Guillotine, Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea and Walt Disney’s Mars & Beyond. Full details of course in our catalogue. 

*Horror/Mystery 1960/1980s: A high quality update to our DC range in this category, with many key issues included, many in high grade. Titles include: Black Magic (#1 NM), Dark Mansion Of Forbidden Love (#1), Doorway to Nightmare (inc #1 NM 1st Madame Xanadu), Forbidden Tales Of Dark Mansion, House Of Mystery (many early issues in high grade with work by Adams, Wrightson etc,  inc #175 1st Cain and final issue #321 NM) , House Of Secrets (many early issues in high grade with work by Adams, Wrightson etc, inc #81 1st Abel and final issue #154), Madame Xanadu (#1 with Poster), Secrets Of Haunted House (#31 1st Mr E), Weird Mystery Tales and a quartet of Witching Hour from #8-11.

*Magazines/Books About Vintage US Comics: In 1983, David Anthony Kraft, having established himself as a comic book author, founded Comics Interview magazine, which ran for 150 issues between 1983 and 1995, and garnered Eisner and Eagle Award nominations. Each and every issue, as the name suggests, was filled with interviews with comics creators, which were noted for greater depth and breadth of scope than the standard promotional interview pieces found in other ‘zines of the day. We are delighted to have a range of fifty newly-listed copies of this quality magazine back in stock, from #2 to #113, including stellar creators such as Alan Moore, Jack Kirby, Dave Gibbons, Dave Cockrum, Moebius and Frank Miller, spotlighting features/series such as the original JLA/Avengers Crossover, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Elektra: Assassin, Sandman, and… the Howard the Duck movie. (Look, they can’t all be winners!)

*Collected Editions: Winner of the Outer Asteroids Jimi Hendrix Lookalike Context, Loner was one of the crew of Turbo Jones’ Wildcat, helping the survivors of a destroyed Earth find a new home. That concept was quickly jettisoned (and just as well – what’s somebody named ‘Loner’ doing as part of a team anyway?) when Wildcat crashed – the comic, not the spaceship – and Loner was the only strip carried over into Eagle Mark II, becoming the wandering anti-hero that his name suggested, illustrated by David Pugh (‘Slaine’) and Eric Bradbury (pretty much everything in British comics). Another volume in Rebellion’s admirable quest to archive all the significant British comics series they can, this 200+ page paperback collects all the Wildcat stories and continues through the Eagle years, and is brand-new at £15.

*Humour Comics: ‘Why Is A One-Wheeled-Bike Easy To Pedal?’ ‘Because You’re Never Two-Tyred!’. Such was the calibre of the jokes delivered by our host, Sammy, and his canine sidekick Flash on most covers of this humour weekly from D.C. Thomson, launched in 1975. Although seemingly barely remembered these days, Cracker managed a respectable 87 issue run before being absorbed by big brother Beezer; it starred, among others, ‘Simple Spyman’, a brain-challenged espionage agent, incompetent Knight Of Old ‘Rip Van Tinkle’, the completely inexplicable ‘Jim Kellie’s Wonder Wellies’, and – under the heading of ‘You’d Never Get Away With That These Days’ – ‘Young Foo’, a bright yellow, slant-eyed, barefooted Asian schoolboy who beat up bullies while being unable to pronounce his R’s. All together now: Oh Dear. Reservations aside, Cracker did have an engaging off-kilter humour, more engaging than much of the D.C. Thomson line, which by that time had become extremely formulaic. We have 40 issues newly listed, nearly half the entire run, ranging from the very first through to #86, which ominously promises ‘Great News Next Week, Chums!’ – and we all know what THAT means in Editorspeak, don’t we, readers?

*Girls’ Comics: Launched in 1967 as a companion to Bunty & Judy, Mandy quickly discovered its own niche: suffering! While cruelty of some sort had long been a mainstay of girls’ comics, Mandy, behind the perky covers featuring our can-do hostess and her faithful hound Patch, rapidly degenerated into a litany of misery, with the serials’ heroines abused, betrayed, neglected, abandoned, enslaved, crippled, blinded or deceived, only finding happiness (and their enemies getting their comeuppance) after many, many instalments of grief and woe. One generally optimistic strip was the long-running ‘Valda’, atmospherically illustrated by Dudley Wynne, in which an apparently ageless girl who appears to be in her teens roams through history, using her great strength and other supernatural powers to aid others – well, in her first story, she used them to cheat in a figure-skating competition, but she rapidly moved beyond that! Other strips included ‘The Sorrows of Laughing Anne’, ‘No Friends For Freda’, ‘Hard-Hearted Harriet’, ‘Heartbreak School’ and ‘The Lying Eyes of Linda Lee’, which gives you a fair idea of the chirpy optimism that was rife in the comic! We have 150 issues of Mandy newly added to our listings, from 1967’s #4 to 1976’s #516. If sad songs – as the song says – say so much, then these tales of woe should send you off with a smile on your face and a spring in your step!

*Modern Reprints: Recently, both DC and Marvel have issued reproductions of their classic key issues. These facsimiles are, apart from legally-necessary cover additions for modern pricing, exact, full-colour cover-to-cover replicas of the originals, including all story pages, text pages, lettercols and advertisements – though we strongly advise against sending off for anything from the ads! Marvel has brought us facsimiles of Hulk #181 (first full appearance of Wolverine), New Mutants #98 (double debut of Deadpool and Domino), Spider-Man #252 (1st black Spidey-costume, which became Venom), Spider-Woman #1 (first of Jessica Drew’s solo series) and Giant-Size X-Men #1 (premiere of the new team, with the first appearances of Storm, Colossus, Nightcrawler and Thunderbird, and the second full Wolverine). DC has hit back so far with Batman #181 (first appearance of Poison Ivy) and House of Secrets #92 (debut of the Swamp Thing concept). With the exception of the extra-thick GS X-Men #1, which clocks in at £5, all of these other reproduction editions are brand new at £4 each, with more on the way from both companies!

*Marvel: Although Sue Storm Richards is unquestionably the First Lady of the Marvel Comics Universe, that title in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – Captain Marvel’s solo success notwithstanding – is held by the Black Widow, as played by Scarlett Johansson in, to date, seven major feature films (not counting quickie cameos). With her first solo feature film coming up next year, we’re pleased to present four issues spotlighting events or characters central to the Black Widow movie mythos. She’s been a hero and a villain, a spy, assassin, friend and lover, an Avenger and a Champion, and many more roles in the Marvel Universe, on screen and on the printed page. One of the most fascinating and enduring characters in the Marvel mythos, finally achieving mass recognition. A toast to you Ms. Romanoff – Nostrovia!
We’re starting, of course, with the Big One! Tales of Suspense #52, April 1964, saw the debut of Boris Turgenov, the second man in the Crimson Dynamo armour – and one of the longer-serving title-holders – but more importantly, it brought us the very first appearance of Madame Natasha, the Black Widow! At that time a Milton Caniffesque femme fatale, slinking around in cocktail dress and fur stole, Natasha was a very different creation from her later iterations, but this is where the Black Widow’s long career in comics and in other media got its start. This is a FN/VF cents copy; no pence stamp or overprint. There is no defacement of the cover scene. Interior pages are off-white and sharp, no fraying, creases, tears or other defects. There is minimal edge and spine wear, with a trace of raggedness at the top cover edge owing to the cover being a smidge taller than the body of the book – an original printing aspect, not a defect as such. The cover colour is deep and unfaded, excellent gloss, still a fresh looking copy despite its vintage. This premiere issue of a significant character in Marvel history is priced at £1,500. Front cover, back cover and splash page are shown here; high resolution images are available on request.

*Marvel: Moving on to July 1970, we have Amazing Spider-Man #86, in which the Widow, having previously worn a cute-but-retro fishnets & cape outfit, remade her image into the sleek, leather-clad redhead that we know her as today. Taking on Spidey in a story by noted feminist (ahem ahem) Stan Lee, she delivers immortal lines such as “Don’t think I’m helpless just because I’m soft and cuddly.” Ah, they don’t write them like that any more; aren’t we lucky? This first appearance of the Widow as today’s movie-goers would recognise her is a highly attractive Fine, bright and glossy, tight staples, sharp corners, white pages, and only a light touch of lower spine wear precluding a FN+ or better. A cents copy, it’s yours for £60. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*DC: ‘Stop! This is the new Green Lantern co-starring Green Arrow!’ So proclaimed the 76th issue of what was the Emerald Gladiator’s Silver Age series. With sales falling as GL’s traditional sci-fi adventures began to look a bit dated, editor Julius Schwartz turned to the creative team of Denny O’Neil and Neal Adams to add Green Arrow to the title and re-invigorate the series. And that’s just what they did, bringing in contemporary ‘relevant’ storylines dealing in issues such as drugs, racism, pollution, and modern life in 1970s USA – not that we’re significantly better off these days…. The fame of their run extends to this day, and it is avidly collected, but it all began here in #76, as Social Justice Warrior Green Arrow (himself only newly made over by O’Neil and Adams in Brave & Bold #85) confronts GL with the issues arising on Earth while Green Lantern’s off among the stars. This is a highly attractive FN copy. There is a tiny upper spine split, approx. 1/4″, and light lower spine wear, but overall condition is excellent, with verdant colour, good gloss, firm staples, and lovely interior page quality. A cents copy, with no UK price markings, this is on sale at £240. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*DC: One of the less commonly seen issues of 80 Page Giant is #7 from 1965, which broke away from the superhero pattern to focus on DC’s war stars. Fronted by Sgt. Rock, behind a new Joe Kubert cover, this tome presented battle tales illustrated by Kubert, Mort Drucker, Russ Heath and Andru & Esposito, showing the grim reality of war on land, on sea, in the air and, er, with dinosaurs. This VG+ copy is a cents edition, without UK price stamp or overprint, and is on sale at £47. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: There were few more significant debuts, in the latter days of the 20th Century, than everyone’s favourite brain-eating symbiote Venom, who graduated from being a genetically modified costume in a jar to the Alpha Dog of Spidey’s Rogue’s Gallery! Having debuted in Secret Wars #8 as a semi-sentient blob which configured itself into Spider-Man’s new costume, the ‘symbiote’ became a regular feature in Spidey’s own series before being revealed as a malevolent alien parasite! Now more popular than ever, Venom has starred in his own solo film sans Spider-Man (with a sequel in the works). This copy of the first full appearance of Venom is an attractive VF-, tight staples, bright colours, and only a few small breaks in the cover colour at the spine precluding a higher grade. VF- p £135. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: Having driven away the Hulk in their previous number, the newly-formed Avengers set off to track him down in their third issue – not to apologise or reconcile, but in an attempt to neutralise any harm he might do. Unbeknownst to them, Old Jade Jaws had found a new chum, the savage Sub-Mariner, and the two together formed an alliance that took every ounce of strength and ingenuity the Avengers could muster in this epic battle – so epic, in fact, that Marvel had to do a call-back to it in Journey Into Mystery #112! Notable spine and edge wear on this copy, with multiple fine creases particularly at the top edge, but the cover scene is largely unimpaired, firm staples, light spine roll. A presentable and eminently affordable copy of a key early Avengers battle. GD p £65. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: In 2002, Jim Starlin was persuaded to revisit the cosmic realm which had proved so successful with Infinity Gauntlet, War, Crusade and so on. Unlike the previous series, Starlin was encouraged to draw the strip as well as write it, and his renditions of Thanos, Warlock, Gamora and company were welcomed back by fandom at large. This six-issue epic centres on the Thanosi, clones of Thanos created to fulfil his agenda, and Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, Moondragon and Spider-Man are among the heroes intervening in Thanos’ plot to destroy the anchor of reality and eliminate Earth once and for all. This complete 6 issue series is NM, and sold as a set for £40. SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: In the 1970s, cuddly man-eating sharks were all the rage, and Marvel’s favourite skull-headed Satanic minion had his close encounter with the species in the bandwagon-jumping 16th issue of his ongoing series. This is a CGC Blue Label (no restoration) 9.4 (NM equivalent), on sale at £25 – a bargain to get your teeth into! SORRY, THIS HAS NOW SOLD

*Marvel: A shimmering glissade through Marvel’s Bombastic Bronze Age this week, with many additions to the following titles: Avengers (between #200 & #300), Doc Savage (#2 with Steranko cover), Fantastic Four, Hulk, Marvel Chillers (with Modred the Mystic), Marvel Spotlight (1st series with Son Of Satan), Punisher, Secret Wars (1st series), Squadron Supreme (our catalogue now expanded to include most of the superlative 12 issue series from 1985), Thor, 2001 A Space Odyssey and X-Men (#96 & #115).

*Marvel: Spinning out of a two-part ‘stealth pilot’ in X-Men #120 and #121, Alpha Flight were introduced as Canada’s premier super-team, retconned as the superhuman project from which Wolverine originated. Although therefore linked to Marvel’s most lucrative franchise, writer/artist John Byrne resisted too many crossovers with the mainstream MU, having the Flight predominantly operating in mainland Canada, and using the virtual tabula rasa of the characters to create stories which evoked the classic Marvel Silver Age, yet with a modern sensibility. Byrne quit the title after issue #28, and while the series went on for a long while after that (and indeed has had several subsequent revivals), it’s a truth universally acknowledged that the first 28 are the only ones really worth bothering with, so we’ve promoted the ones we have in stock to our catalogue listing.

*Western: Twenty new ‘oaters’ added to our inventory from different publishers. From Marvel, we have early issues of Rawhide Kid, featuring Kirby art and including the first team-up with Two-Gun Kid, plus the cowboy Ghost Rider, who preceded the 70s Satanic super-hero. From Dell, we have additions to our stock of TV star Cheyenne and multi-media personality the Lone Ranger. And DC brings us All-Star Western (second series), the one-shot Trigger Twins, Weird Western Tales, American Revolutionary hero Tomahawk (not quite ‘period’, but if it’s got horses and is set in the past, it’s a Western by us), and spaghetti western-inspired anti-hero Jonah Hex. Jonah was an unexpected hit, bucking the anti-Western trend to win his own long-running title, and we have not only his first solo issue (VF- £48, pictured) but also the last, #92, a scarce item beautifully illustrated by Gray Morrow, among our new additions.

*Vintage UK/Australian Reprints of US Material: One of Fawcett’s other long-running series, besides Captain Marvel and Family, was Nyoka the Jungle Girl. Originally adapted from a B-movie serial, Nyoka’s comics series lasted from 1942 to 1953, and she was unique among jungle girls in that she had realistic anatomy and sensible clothing! During the British Comics Famine of the 1950s, Len Miller, indefatigable re-packager of US titles, took Nyoka on, launching her British b & w series with #50, and running till #117. We have a Bakers’ Dozen Miller Nyokas, four later ones being fan-created facsimiles in VF, and the earlier issues being the first-run Miller reprints, in grades ranging from GD to VF.

*Collected Editions: Five collections of classic series, commencing with the 1961 ‘landscape’ double-feature of Garth in ‘The Last Goddess’, featuring the endlessly-reincarnated hero’s first encounter with his beloved Astra, and on the flip side, there’s two stories of ardent but maladroit Romeo Brown, delightfully illustrated by Jim Holdaway in a comic style very different from his Modesty Blaise work. Judge Anderson of Mega-City’s Psi-Division graces our shelves in two volumes of her Titan Books collections; Sydney Jordan’s interplanetary adventurer Jeff Hawke (think Flash Gordon, but in more sensible clothes) is featured in a 2008 hardcover, ‘Overlord’, with a new Brian Bolland cover and brand-new this week, Rebellion’s Turbo Jones, from the pages of Wildcat, a far-future Noah who predicted Earth’s destruction and assembled a space ark to find a new home for humanity. Anderson, Psi-Division Books 1 & 5 are both VF at £5 each; Garth/Romeo Brown (pictured) is VG/FN at £30; Jeff Hawke, Overlord is FN/VF £15 and Turbo Jones is a brand-new paperback compilation at £15.

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: A massive top-up to the D.C. Thomson adventure weekly Hotspur this week. When the first series of Hotspur, the story paper, breathed its last in 1959 after 1197 issues, the readership barely had time to mourn before it was relaunched the next week as ‘New Hotspur’, from #1 again – but although there were still a couple of token text stories, the thrust of Hotspur Mk II was comic strips. Over the next two decades, the series featured the usual mix of war, adventure and sport, but also ventured into science fiction (‘Return of the Fisters’, anyone?) and a surprising number of what our American cousins would call super-heroes – subterranean marvel the Black Sapper, daring aviator the Scarlet Hawk, teenage robot-botherer Red Star Robinson, time-displaced flying highwayman Nick Jolly and serpentine crimebuster King Cobra being prominent entries in the genre. Heck, even the Iron Teacher, a formidable robot who spent as much time inflicting corporal punishment on villains, dinosaurs and aliens as he did educating, would probably qualify. Hotspur Mk II absorbed its look-alike sibling Hornet in 1976, before itself stumbling into the maw of Victor in 1981, after a very respectable 1110 issues. We have 125 of said issues newly restocked, commencing with #2 and with a handful of other early numbers, but primarily dating from 1970 to 1976, when the quasi-superheroic craze was at its height.

On a regular cycle, we sweep through our entire stock to delete sold items and keep our listing as up to date as possible. We’ve just finished deleting sold items from the following files in our American section:
*DC/Marvel
*Marvel  M – S
and in our American/British section:
*Memorabilia & Esoterica
As of the time of writing, these categories are bang up to date, with every item listed available.

*DC: From the Gerry Conway and Gene Colan period of Detective Comics, when the Batman was once again being brought back to his noir roots, a new villain emerged: Killer Croc, the sideshow wrestler whose genetic anomaly caused him to degenerate into an animalistic killer and haunter of Gotham City’s sewers. Catching on big time with the readership, Croc has subsequently made it into animated TV shows, video games, and of course the big screen as one of the ‘Suicide Squad’ ensemble. Croc’s first cameo appearance was in Detective Comics #523 in 1983, and his storyline crossed over with early appearances of Jason Todd, the second Robin. Detective #523 (pictured) is NM p £50; #524 (1st ‘full Croc’, second Jason Todd) VF/NM p £20; and #525 (2nd full Croc, third Jason Todd) NM £30. SORRY, THESE HAVE NOW SOLD

*DC/Marvel: In 1976, after some delicate negotiations, Marvel and DC decided to create a team-up between their two iconic characters which proved too big for a regular-sized comic – so the tabloid-sized format, as seen in Marvel’s Treasury Editions and DC’s Limited Collectors’ Editions, was co-opted for this event! Superman and Spider-Man (as well as guest-villains Lex Luthor and Doctor Octopus) are note-perfect in this mega-sized saga. This triggered a series of cross-overs between the two companies, with DC and Marvel alternating on the publishing chores: DC Special Series #27 featured an apparent mismatch between Batman and the Hulk – which, owing to the intervention of the Joker and the Shaper of Worlds, isn’t the one-panel wonder you’d expect! Superbly illustrated by Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, the Bat/Hulk clash is less frequently encountered ‘in the wild’. Marvel was at the production helm by 1981, when Marvel Treasury Edition #28 was released, with the follow-up Superman and Spider-Man team-up, this time co-featuring Wonder Woman and the Hulk and the villainy of Doctor Doom and the Parasite! We are delighted to have all these epic editions back in stock: Superman Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man, to give the first its full title, is a FN/VF cents copy, no pence price or overstamp, clean and bright with minimal corner and edge wear. DC Special Series #27 is VG, light to moderate spine wear and a few small breaks in cover colour. Marvel Treasury Edition #28 is FN, light wear, but still clean interiors, vivid unimpaired cover scene. Superman Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man is FN/VF £90; DC Special Series is VG £35 and Marvel Treasury Edition #28 is FN £50.

*Marvel: We’re delighted to add to our catalogue this week the first series of Moon Knight, the multiple secret identity super-hero often considered an ersatz Batman. He’s been around now since 1975, and it’s about time he got better exposure in our catalogue than his various guest appearances and one-shots which led up to this, his first on-going series lasting 38 issues from 1980-1984. With Adamsesque art by the moody Bill Sienkiewicz on most issues and some stunning covers, this has very much become a fan favourite series in recent years, and a TV series has just been announced. Issue #1 (pictured) is NM £45; issue #25 (VF p £30 1st Black Spectre, MK’s arch-nemesis) is also included, as are most of the run — see our catalogue for details.