What comics did you buy today?

[Richard S.]

Strip reprints (presumably from Titan's other, previous, Roy reprints) rather than text.

[walker_1978]

Strip reprints (presumably from Titan's other, previous, Roy reprints) rather than text.

Any chance of a scan of the cover please or a review of which strips are included? Not yet been able to find them at my local Sainsbury. There is so little info online.

[starscape]

Managed to get the Battle and Whizzer & Chips at Sainsbury in Cameron Toll, Edinburgh. Look terrific but only a cursory glance inside as they are now hidden until Xmas. Not being a Dandy/Beano fan or interested in DCT action comics of the 50s/60s, it'll be great to have a new annual for Xmas with stories that are more my era/style.

[Lew Stringer]

I'll no doubt sympathize more with your opinion when I've actually seen the books but apart from the 'Whizzer-kids' typo and the slim page count (a finance dept decision) what do you consider was done badly?

As I mentioned above, "For example, in the Girls' annual, there's no annotation as to which comic title each piece is from, or from when, so it's all rather random. Again, how much effort would it have taken?" Just a little contextualisation: whether something's from Jinty or Misty, or from 1971 or 1985, I think would make a better collection, which readers would appreciate. There's also the feeling - as with some of those 'Best Of' magazines - of them being, rather than a thoughtfully curated Best Of, a fairly random selection based on what was to hand.

The printing quality in the girls one also looks a lot worse, and there's a bizarre excuse at the front that it's due to the material being "exceedingly rare", whereas there's nothing in there that's exceedingly or even slightly rare - if the original annuals are their source, they're all a click away on eBay - so it's a weird justification.

I've just received two of the books now, and they look better than I expected. The reproduction in the Whizzer and Chips one seems as good as the original books. Shame they didn't do it as a two in one annual, although that never worked in the books anyway, unless someone was insane enough to rip out the middle section of a square bound book.

The Best of 70s Girls' Comics does suffer from some fine lines dropping out in reproduction as you said. Looks like they fiddled around with saturation to eliminate yellowing, marks, etc, but didn't quite get the balance right. (Also pointless, as they then 'aged' the pages by adding a tinted effect). It's all still readable though.

I can understand why they didn't go to the effort of adding notations and credits etc. These books are light and breezy stocking fillers aimed mainly at kids and the general public, not the hard core collector. It's remarkable that Egmont have produced them after all these years. I'm not sure how well they'll sell (especially as not every Sainsburys is putting them on the shelves) but time will tell.

[Raven]

Shame they didn't do it as a two in one annual, although that never worked in the books anyway, unless someone was insane enough to rip out the middle section of a square bound book.

I thought it was an essential part of the annuals -the colour, higher quality pages in the books indicating the start and end of Chips, a highly appealing touch - as a then-reader. It wouldn't have been Whizzer and Chips without.

But when was ripping out Chips ever an essential? Instructions were printed on opening up staples, but did many readers really rip out Chips from Whizzer in the weekly and damage their comic? I never did - for what purpose? - and neither did 99.9999% of the readers of the many issues I've bought on eBay over the years.

The point was simply that the two comics were separate so they could pretend to be rivals and invade each other's tales. This works whether or not you rip it out, and would have been so easy for this collection. Having the Chips section title page straight after a Sid's Snake double-pager, followed by further Whizzer strips doesn't really work very well.

I can understand why they didn't go to the effort of adding notations and credits etc. These books are light and breezy stocking fillers aimed mainly at kids and the general public, not the hard core collector.

I think they're mainly aimed at nostalgic adults, especially the Girls one; I couldn't see many contemporary tween or teen girls picking this up.

As we're repeating ourselves, it's nothing to do with "hardcore collecting". Even a general reader would be interested in whether something's from 1971 or 1985, or from Jinty or Misty or whatever, so they can place it in their own memories, and try to link it with the correct era. I think the thought that none of that matters, no-one cares, it's all just interchangeable comics, interchangeable decades, is misguided.

The few reactions I'm aware of from people 'who quite like this kind of thing' so far are disappointment at the size, and cynicism over the 'Best Of' appellation. The "general public" aren't uncritical in their buying habits.

The huge Sainsbury's near me has only chosen to stock these two - still none seem to have sold yet, but Christmas is still some time off - and the smaller branches don't stock any at all, so people's choices and access will be a bit restricted with this 'exclusive' deal.

[Lew Stringer]

Shame they didn't do it as a two in one annual, although that never worked in the books anyway, unless someone was insane enough to rip out the middle section of a square bound book.

I thought it was an essential part of the annuals -the colour, higher quality pages in the books indicating the start and end of Chips, a highly appealing touch - as a then-reader. It wouldn't have been Whizzer and Chips without.

But when was ripping out Chips ever an essential? Instructions were printed on opening up staples, but did many readers really rip out Chips from Whizzer in the weekly and damage their comic? I never did - for what purpose? - and neither did 99.9999% of the readers of the many issues I've bought on eBay over the years.

The point was simply that the two comics were separate so they could pretend to be rivals and invade each other's tales. This works whether or not you rip it out, and would have been so easy for this collection. Having the Chips section title page straight after a Sid's Snake double-pager, followed by further Whizzer strips doesn't really work very well.

I know we can all be guilty of not explaining ourselves properly at times but surely it's clear I was talking about the annual format, which would require ripping if one was to pull out Chips. I wasn't talking about the weekly stapled comic, which wouldn't rip, by the way, if you pulled out the middle 16 pages properly, and most of us who did that opened the staples first as instructed in the comic.

But yes, it seems silly to just mix the two rival comics up in one book. Especially when the back cover says "Chips is inside". As I said before, I suspect the person who was saddled with the job is too young to remember the comic and the two in one gimmick wouldn't occur to them unless told about it. Either that or they thought it'd just confuse younger readers with no knowledge of the weekly to have a rival book start on page 19, but which was not really a proper book.

We'll have to agree to disagree on who the books are aimed at. Going by the cheapness, the lack of historical background, and the simple editorial messages written for kids I'd say that they're mainly aimed at children. I don't think the UK comics nostalgia market is big enough to support these particular titles like it does the Dandy/Beano collections. Thing is, I can't see many children being interested in them either.

[Raven]

I know we can all be guilty of not explaining ourselves properly at times but surely it's clear I was talking about the annual format, which would require ripping if one was to pull out Chips.

Yes, of course, I was just saying that being able to physically remove Chips was never really a part of what made the concept work, as I doubt many readers did that anyway.

I can imagine the W+C collection being bought for kids (I doubt many non-aficionado adults, even nostalgic ones, would actually read children's comic strips unless they were framed within some kind of interesting retrospective editorial material), but not the Girls one, with '70s fashion features and the like. I assumed that one's aimed more at the nostalgic 'Best of Jackie' type buyers.

[TwoHeadedBoy]

This week's post has brought the first 20 issues of Strip (as in, the 1990 version, not the one from a couple of years ago), as well as the first issues of Itchy Teeth and Space Junkk.

(The double "K" there is deliberate).

[SID]

Well I have read Battle Annual and without giving away any secrets, I found it very well done not only for kids but for nostalgia lovers too - especially at the price.

[Lew Stringer]

Well I have read Battle Annual and without giving away any secrets, I found it very well done not only for kids but for nostalgia lovers too - especially at the price.

Too bad Sainburys won't sell books online any more:
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/sains ... oks-online

[SID]

Well I have gone mad, put hand in pocket and bought the Supermarionation box set including the new TV21. Really looking forward to it.

Too bad Sainburys won't sell books online any more:
http://www.thebookseller.com/news/sains ... oks-online

Very short sighted in my opinion.

[abacus]

At last! Some comics from a charity shop at a reasonable price after finding others too pricey in recent weeks.Ventured
off my usual town route today to check out holiday brochures and went in a charity shop along the way and bought the following--

2 anthologies

ALAN MOORE TOMORROW STORIES book I
ALAN MOORE TOM STRONG book2

Both at 99p each

[Mr McScotty]

I picked up "Giant - Size Kung Fu Bible Stories" by Image a large size comic (the old 70s Treasury edition size)- at wait for it....... £14.99 ( a totally unreal price) However it has 8 pages of Bruce Timm art which is just amazing and worth the purchase price alone. Great stuff the double splash page by Timm (reminiscent of the Marie Severins work on "Not Brand Eeech" - but sooo much better) has to be seen to be believed in fact every page is wonderful , I wish Timm did more comics. The other strips are good as well but without Timms contribution its not worth picking up at that price.

[stevezodiac]

Picked up Marvel Legends number 1 today in newsagent. Yes its been relaunched. Also picked up Lion Annual 1961 and Tiger Annual 1966 for £2 each in Deptford flea market. I also got three copies of the Sunday Times Magazine from three consecutive weeks in 1969 covering the Apollo 11 moon landing. 50p each.

[starscape]

I did too (Marvel Legends that is). Unfortuantely, it just hasn't inspired me to read Marvel again. Marvel UK is my main point of collection but, whereas the stories aren't bad, they just don't have that mythic quality. Iron Man has been intolerable for an age. Thor's been pretty disappointing since his rebirth but Cap has had some great periods. Unfortunately, that went off the boil too a few months ago. Sadly, that's my Marvel Universe gone. Oh well, I'm rereading the entire run of the Avengers, so at least I've got that. Hadn't realised how poor Cap's kooky quartet was when first reading it but it's very poor. Nevertheless, it soon picks up after that.