Beginnings

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Kashgar
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Beginnings

Post by Kashgar »

It is now forty years since I took my first tentative steps as a comic collector.
That sudden Eureka moment when I perused the then current Broons book and wondered if I could make a better fist of collecting the Broons and Oor Wullie books than my boyish self had managed the decade before.
Little did I know then how much there was out there to discover or that I would end up having to discover so much for myself.
The world of comic collecting was certainly a different place way back then. Like much else then it seemed a slower paced world of patience and perseverence. A world of the sae, the Exchange & Mart, the printed catalogue and the handwritten wants list. A world of chaos and confusion, certainly if you collected the annuals of DC Thomson, as Adley and Lofts hadn't even produced there first DC Thomson Indentification guide then.
The pioneers were already out there but there was still much uncharted territory to map. An exciting and frustrating time by turns, which in that regard, I'm sure it still remains.
So, when did you step out on this road and why?

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: Beginnings

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

Great subject for a topic, kashgar, and in my case I was haunted for quite literal decades of images from childhood comics read during the mid-late 60s [the most magical] and the very early 70s---everything from The Jellymen to Sammy Shrink, and all points in between.....


Sadly my Mater regarded last weeks' comics as disposable fare, and the entire shebang of weekly comics ended up as kindling for the roaring fireplace.


Tormented by potent images in my memory of vivid comics artwork, in the early 90s I started frequenting bookfairs in North London, where I started buying up good condition vintage annuals from my childhood, graduating to comics later on, via e-bay, as I'm sure most of us on here have done.....
Last edited by ISPYSHHHGUY on 05 Feb 2014, 22:35, edited 1 time in total.

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klakadak-ploobadoof
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Re: Beginnings

Post by klakadak-ploobadoof »

I am very glad to see you back on the Forum, Kashgar! As for collecting, I joined the club nearly 7 years ago (in April 2007 or thereabouts, I think). It coincided with the time I discovered eBay. I am not in the UK but around that time I remembered the issue of Whoopee! that my pen-friend from Leeds had once sent me three decated ago so I looked Whoopee! up on eBay and that‘s when the whole thing stared for me. Seven years later, I am sure I can now boast the biggest collection of UK comics East of the British Isles. This is also my third year on Blogger and I have to say that your indexes were an inspiration for me to do similar work on some of my favourite IPC titles. As of now, my blog contains details of every single strip that appeared in COR!! and SHIVER AND SHAKE, plus reviews of every Holiday Special and Annual of the two titles, and I am about to start a series on MONSTER FUN COMIC.
Check out my blog about comics from other peoples' childhood: http://kazoop.blogspot.com

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paw broon
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Re: Beginnings

Post by paw broon »

Excellent subject and hopefully we'll see the range of ages represented on the forum, because, given that some of you started collecting relatively recently, compared to older folk, there was a time pre-internet/ebay/comic shops/organized fandom when it was exactly as Kashgar says. To be clear, I'm sure the subject is collecting, as opposed to simply reading any and every comic available. Which was what I did. In the '50's, I read books and comics as often as possible but by the late '50's I made those first tentative steps in collecting. This was in a very basic, uninformed and piecemeal way, inasmuch as I had a few pocket libraries and some weeklies, all bought in the many wee paper shops in Airdrie and Coatbridge. This bit didn't last long as my mother decided to have a redd oot and chucked most of them. In the early '60's when at secondary school, any spare cash I had went on Marvel and D.C. comics and there was quite a pile of them eventually in my bedroom. organised sometimes by title, sometimes by company with small piles of either my favourite character/team or artist. Of course, parents stepped in again, suggesting that I was too old for comics and should devote my time to homework and studying. So out they went again. Fortunately, I married a very understanding lady who put up with my renewed interest in comics and a collection grew quite quickly but by this time it consisted of American comics. Later on, I wrote away for the Alan Austin catalogue and that almost put me in the poor house, as did those first visits to London comic marts. Some fans from Scotland made an expedition to Alan Austin's shop in Hackney and that was a revelation.
Lew's blog mentions Alan's fanzine. Have a look here:-
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2007/ ... art-1.html
As fanzines were a great way to pull together comics fans, and to kid ourselves on we weren't alone, a few of us started aka and you can read some examples here:-
As time went by, tastes changed and nowadays I regret not concentrating more on pocket libraries (with the exception of war titles) and weeklies with adventure strips. And it occurs to me that my interest in foreign comics started on our first holiday in France, when I discovered B.D. and realized that there was a huge market for comics outside U.K.
http://comicbookplus.com/?cid=1506

Phoenix
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Re: Beginnings

Post by Phoenix »

Kashgar wrote:Like much else then it seemed a slower paced world of patience and perseverence. A world of the sae, the Exchange & Mart, the printed catalogue and the handwritten wants list.
Yes, the saes went regularly to Norman Shaw because he never produced catalogues on the grounds that his stock was too large, and constantly changing, the printed catalogues were sourced from R Davies of Garthorne Road, London SE23, and a Mr Lambert of Omaha, Rackheath, Norwich, both of whom had a standing advert in Exchange and Mart. I even got regular catalogues from Sarah Baddiel, David's mother! The hand-written Wants Lists you carried around with you from book fairs to comic fairs to secondhand bookshops, and you religiously crossed off every story paper you acquired. They were good times, enjoyable days out. I have lovely memories of the monthly comic fairs in the basement of the Piccadilly Plaza Hotel in Manchester, and thanks to my copy of Driffs Guide To All The Secondhand & Antiquarian Bookshops In Britain, I was able to ring up the shops that sounded the most promising sources of DCT story papers, and so save time and petrol if their owners' comments indicated that they were not as promising as they sounded. Nevertheless, I freely admit that I combed the North West from Chester to Pudsey, and Preston to Sheffield, and occasionally further afield to Warwick, Worcester and Leicester, and naturally London, especially to the Vintage Magazine Shop, then in Earlham Street, just off Shaftesbury Avenue, and to Norman Shaw's treasure trove in Upper Norwood near Crystal Palace. It made more sense to drive down then, rather than take the train, because I could buy more DCTs and put the boxes in the boot of the Corsair or the Cortina, or whatever else I was driving at the time. Mind you, you wouldn't catch me driving through central London these days!

Those days were of course before eBay. My collection of DCT boys' story papers has increased from there in recent years, especially the picture strip ones, but somehow the pleasure is no longer the same as in those pre-eBay days. I think the excitement and fun of the search has gone. On the other hand, eBay has been a boon as far as my collecting of DCT's girls' story papers is concerned, because I have bought virtually my entire collection from eBay dealers.

My question would not be the same as Kashgar's. It would be about when and how to stop collecting. Last night, about half ten or so, I went onto eBay for a nose round, and within an hour I had bought four more DCT girls' annuals, bringing my total up to 58, and I'm watching half a dozen more. Stop the world, I want to get off!

Kashgar
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Re: Beginnings

Post by Kashgar »

I've checked out your blog before KP and it is a masterful piece of work and if, as you suggest, my stuff in any way inspired you to do it then I am more than pleased.
I was lucky in that my collecting self and my kid buying comics self were only seperated by three years but even so, like you PB, my collecting self still had to start from scratch thanks to the clutter-free home my mam always tried to maintain at the expense of the various hordes of comics I tried to squirrel away in my formative years.
I remember very early on writing to Norman Shaw through his perennial ad in the 'Ex & Mart' asking him if he had any Broons and Oor Wullie books for sale. He said he hadn't but he did say he had a good stock of other Thomson items such as Dandy and Beano books if I was interested. Tentatively I asked him to send me the earliest example of each annual he had, Norman was very trusting and always sent stuff to you first with an invoice to be payed later, and by return I received what were (although I didn't know it then as Adley & Lofts wouldn't come to my aid till the following year) copies of the Dandy Book for 1954 and the Beano Book for 1961. Little did I know it then but my Dandy and Beano collection had just started.
Similarly and again off the back of an ad in the 'Ex & Mart' I sent for a little catalogue (a few stapled sheets in reality) from someone whose name has not lasted the subsequent years. From this source I bought the 1957 Film Fun annual, which I had acquired in my youth in a jumble sale and which already gave me pangs of nostalgia at the thought of owning it again and, for 10p, the first comic I was ever to collect Beano No 326 from Jan 1948 which, although I didn't know it when I bought it, was the last issue to feature Big Eggo on the cover.
The acorn was firmly planted and a fair sized sapling was already beginning to grow but little did I know that, in time, 'The Big Tree' in the Rover would be a mere bush by comparison!

Kashgar
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Re: Beginnings

Post by Kashgar »

Phoenix wrote: My question would not be the same as Kashgar's. It would be about when and how to stop collecting. Last night, about half ten or so, I went onto eBay for a nose round, and within an hour I had bought four more DCT girls' annuals, bringing my total up to 58, and I'm watching half a dozen more. Stop the world, I want to get off!
Hi Derek,
I imagine there is probably some aversion therapy available if you are in dire need!
I think that there is a marked difference between someone who is a collector and someone who happens to own a collection. A collector is someone who still has the desire to travel on, looking for the next something, on the collecting road whereas the end product of it all, the collection is in some senses secondary to the process.
A collector who has ceased to collect is no longer a collector he just happens to own a collection.

Phoenix
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Re: Beginnings

Post by Phoenix »

Well, as I've still got 282 issues of The Big Five to find, and as I'm still acquiring DCT girls' story papers and annuals, I'm obviously still a collector, so fortunately I'm not yet in need of any therapies. Thank you for the suggestion though, Ray. Your reasoning, in this case at least, is immaculate.
Kashgar wrote:little did I know that, in time, 'The Big Tree' in the Rover would be a mere bush by comparison!
In this instance, however, I am more impressed by the intended hyperbole than by the reasoning. The Big Tree was a VERY BIG tree, indeed it was ENORMOUS, almost other-worldly!!!!!!!!! See below. In the end, in order to escape from some HUGE creatures, one of Sam's friends had to descend 2000 feet by means of a parachute spun originally by giant spiders, and bear in mind please that at this point the explorers are only part way up the tree. :D
Attachments
bigtreeeg.jpg

Lew Stringer
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Re: Beginnings

Post by Lew Stringer »

Collecting was more of a gradual process with me I think. My mum used to save things and she actually tried to discourage me from throwing out my comics in 1966 when I was seven. "You might want to read them again someday" she said. "Nah I won't" I naively replied, happily ripping up my 1964 Dandy's, 1965 TV21 comics, Whams and Smash comics, ready for a bonfire.

I carried on having comics, as a reader, but it was meeting a collector at junior school in early 1967 who inspired me to start saving them. That also led to me buying American comics too, and me and my new best pal, Dave Bird, (the aforementioned collector), would buy or swap old issues on a market stall on Saturdays, after we'd been to the local ABC cinema to watch the Flash Gordon serial.

I remember we both wished there would be a shop that sold nothing but comics. As if! :lol: My pal and I drifted apart for a few years when we were about 11 and although I carried on buying comics into my teens I kept it quiet because I thought no one else my age read them!

My interest in comics history began in 1971 when I saw The Penguin Book of Comics in WH Smith. Had that for Christmas that year, and became fascinated by the chapter on UK comics history. Avidly bought any books on British comics after that, including those by good Ray Moore here.

A few years later, in the mid seventies in the UK Marvels, there was an advert for comics fanzines. I sent off my postal order, received the zines, and noticed adverts for a comic shop in London called 'Dark They Were and Golden Eyed'. A shop that only sold comics! Went down to London on the train with my mum in the hot summer of 1976, entered this comic wonderland, bought loads of American imports and more fanzines, and basically realized there were hundreds of collectors around.

Unfortunately, that comic shop didn't sell old UK comics, but I was more interested in American ones at the age of 17 anyway. Then a comic shop a bit closer opened up (Nostalgia and Comics in Birmingham) which DID sell old UK comics, so I started rebuilding my lost comics from there, as well as trying other old titles. I also started attending marts, and luckily found a dealer at a London event who had practically all the Odhams Power Comics going cheap. (Again, comics I'd mostly thrown out.) So I bought all I could carry that day, and asked him to post me the rest.

I fortunately managed to require the TV21 comics I'd destroyed, and the rest of the run, in perfect condition via a dealer pal about 30 years ago for £25.

These days I only buy old comics from eBay, but have the ones I want so I've pretty much given up buying old comics for now.
The blog of British comics: http://lewstringer.blogspot.com
My website: http://www.lewstringer.com
Blog about my own work: http://lewstringercomics.blogspot.com/

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Re: Beginnings

Post by AndyB »

I started in the very traditional fashion of having the Beano and Whizzer and Chips bought for me every week from when I was about 4, although my first Beano Book was 1977, and I was also getting the Dandy, Beezer and Plug, Topper and Sparky or Buster and Monster Fun with my pocket money from time to time. My mum insisted on binning my amassed comics from time to time, but it was acceptable for me to keep my collection of annuals, which was supplemented with early 1970s Beano and Dandy books and two 1960s Beryl the Peril books by one of my dad's colleagues.

I've never stopped reading the Beano, although I gave up on the Dandy during the Xtreme period, and I seriously considered giving up on Whizzer and Chips in the months between it losing 8 pages and being cancelled altogether. I keep pondering starting a 2000AD subscription, with the writing well above what Morrison and Millar were doing in the 1990s, and of course I get the Phoenix and keep looking out for annuals I don't have!

As I said to the guy who runs the comic shop in Belfast, though, ultimately I buy comics for the same reason as I buy Lego: to enjoy them.

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Digifiend
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Re: Beginnings

Post by Digifiend »

Mine was gradual. I got the Dandy Book 1991 for Christmas when I was 7. Next was the 1992 Beano Book. My brother bought a few issues of both comics in 1993-4, and I started getting the Beano every week, with an occasional Dandy, in 1995. Then my Mum picked up a copy of Dandy and Beano: An Alphabet of Fun, and that got me interested in the history of the comics. From then on, I've been collecting mainly the old DCT humour annuals (I've nothing against Fleetway, the focus was mainly for storage concerns - I do have two Whizzer and Chips annuals and a Roy of the Rovers one, the latter acquired because it would've been the last annual left on a car boot stall after I bought a couple of others, so the stallholder threw it in for free). I now have almost all of the 90s ones (just missing a couple of Beezers and Toppers) and most of the 80s ones. I even have a few from the 60s, including the first Sparky annual.

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: Beginnings

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

Just goes to show how mitooken in my assumptions I have been!

kashagar: I have had these visions---for a few yars now--of you as a young pup in the 1960s, purchasing regular orders of BEANO/ DANDY/ TOPPER BEEZER/ SPARKY/ BUSTER/ MANDY /JUDY /VICTOR /HOTSPUR /WHAM! SMASH! POW! ---to name the mere tip of the iceberg, spend all your free time reading them, then storing them carefully in proper storage, correctly assuming that in the fairly 'near future ' there would be a fair bit of interest in the material therein......


You reveal above that it was 'only' 1974 that you started amassing your massive archives: so I would be interested to hear how difficult--or surprizingly easy, perhaps---it was, to obtain a full run of, say, 1963 BEANO or DANDY comics in, say, 1975, to thrust forward an arbitary example.

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Tin Can Tommy
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Re: Beginnings

Post by Tin Can Tommy »

I started getting interested in the Beano after reading dad's old beano annuals from the 1970s and getting the beano book of amazing animals for Christmas one year. I didn't fully start getting the Beano weekly until a saw a beano competition on a packet of skips and ever since then really I've been collecting.
I started off mostly just getting old Beano annuals from car boots and eBay. I have them all from the mid 1950s onwards now.
After finding this forum a couple of years ago, and reading about loads of interesting comics, I diversified what I collected although my collection is still mainly focused on the Beano and similar comics. Although I have got some other interesting stuff including one 100 year old comic. I also tried to get interested in non-humour comics but after visiting a car boot sale and getting quite the haul from that most of the annuals I got are still left unread. Some of them have very nice covers though especially the Lion annuals from the 1950s.

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stevezodiac
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Re: Beginnings

Post by stevezodiac »

It was in 1965 when Terry Smith (still a mate now) knocked on my door (he lived along the landing from me) and showed me TV Century 21 issue 21. I have no idea where i got the money from but i bought a copy. I used to get threepence a day pocket money and TV21 was sevenpence and, given my love of sweets which endures to this day, it must have made quite an impact on me to sacrifice my Palm Toffee or Spanish Gold to buy a comic. But I got it every week from then on and still have them. Later Terry and I would go to the Popular Book Centre in New Cross and Swan's Bookstall in Deptford High Street and pick up DC comics. I still remember sitting on my doorstep doing swaps. It was a few years later in the late sixties when I had progressed to buying Real West magazine and Charlton westerns that I saw the front cover of Spider-Man 50 (Spider-Man No More) and couldn't resist buying my first Marvel comic. It wasn't the first Marvel i'd owned though as schoolmate John Young had earlier give me Tales Of Suspense issue 39 that introduced Iron Man. It meant nothing to me and I pretty soon got rid of it. Still regret that move somewhat. It was in the late sixties that I also started buying Pow! every week but couldn't afford Wham! and Smash! Luckily they'd all combined by 1968 so problem solved. I also bought every issue of Fantastic but could not afford Terrific as well. It goes without saying that, to this day, the Power Comics and TV Century 21 are my favourite comics but I also place Real West magazine alongside them as my love of the Wild West has also endured. If I had to save only one of them from a fire? The Power Comics would be narrow winners there. Or maybe Real West? Still can't decide.

Getting back to Kashgar's opening post - I was reading an interview with actor Martin Shaw at the weekend (I recently saw him in Twelve Angry Men so feel connected with him now :) ) and he happened to mention being a collector of the Broons and Oor Wullie books. Who'd have thought it?

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Muffy
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Re: Beginnings

Post by Muffy »

I never imagined that when my Dad bought me Monster Fun no.57 in 1976, that I would have a collection of comics. It was not until 1978 that I was getting a weekly comic and not until 1981 that I began to realise that I had about 200 issues of mostly IPC and UK Marvel comics. Other people at school had different titles.

By 1985 though my sister gave me her collection and so did 2 people at school - I had more than 1,500 issues!! In the papers you read how some comics fetched $1,000's, so I kept them and gained a few more afterwards, probably 2,000 issues.

Back in the '80s, when Forbidden Planet was in Denmark St, down a narrow back alley was a comic shop 'LTS' which sold lots of British comics. It closed down in the '90s when lots of comic shops opened in Denmark St.
At the Comic Mart in Westminster there was loads of choice X-men and back then, a brand new comic named Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. One stall had lots of old UK titles - virtually falling off the tables and many stacked on the floor.

I sold some and gave others away and now I am back to about 850 core issues and for sentimental reasons keep them and sometimes read them and remember way back when.
:)
Last edited by Muffy on 06 Feb 2014, 17:32, edited 3 times in total.

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