Comics UK

Phoenix wrote:On May 7th, Col, you managed to add five illustrations to a post. How did you manage that when everybody else is restricted to three?

RHIP my dear fellow.

However, I digress. I just saw a lot on Ebay on Buy It Now and just had to buy it as the price was absurdly low. It was for issues 8-20, 24, 26-29, 35, 43, 62-65, 72, 78 and 93 of The Victor. I think I have some of those issues, but some do need upgrading as some of my copies can be best described as "good for their age"...

To give you an idea of how low the price was, go and look at the cover price for the Megazine as that matches what I have just spent.

geoff42 wrote:Hi, Phoenix, how's the progress on your book, regarding girl's comics? And then, of course, your project on Victor?

I've been in London for the last six days looking after my two little granddaughters there, and I have to say that you really get a refreshing perspective on life when you are pressurised into blowing up half a dozen balloons and then creating a dinosaur with them. As far as the issues in your questions are concerned, Geoff, I was talking these very matters over with Will Morgan in 30th Century Comics on Monday. To answer you succinctly I told him that the book on The Victor is on the back burner, but not as far back as The Hotspur, which is no longer even in the kitchen. This is despite the fact that they are both relatively straightforward to create because we have all the issues but time is the determining factor, and most of mine is currently dedicated to the history of Thomsons' papers for girls. If I'm being realistic I would have to say that the former pair will have to go on line, presumably on a website, but I haven't got one yet. I also need to say that Kashgar is being extremely patient with me, and I know that I am still guilty of the same procrastination that disturbed my 'A' level French teacher, Charlie Dimond, who was frequently heard uttering sentences such as Procrastination is the thief of time, Marsden, and Procrastination is the death of human endeavour especially when my homework did not appear when he was expecting it.

colcool007 wrote:RHIP my dear fellow.

RHIP? Rough harridans in Putney? I have to be honest with you, Col, I never saw any, but to be fair I never went down there at night. My son Andrew and I did have a nice evening meal in the Woodman though, but I think that was in Earlesfield. Definitely no harridans there!

Just won the free gift from Sparky Comic No 3 the "Red Racketty" The seller had thought it was the similar styled "Sparky Whirrrler" as he had Issue No 501 which that came with!

I pointed out that the gift was from issue No 3, but that I was fine with that as I have issue 3. He hadn't realised it was wrong gift for 501, but glad I was happy to bid! He also had issue 500 with (Correctly) the "Super tooter" gift in its identifying holder- I told him I had that already!

Overjoyed to have won another "Sparky" free gift!

alanultron5 wrote:Just won the free gift from Sparky Comic No 3 the "Red Racketty" The seller had thought it was the similar styled "Sparky Whirrrler" as he had Issue No 501 which that came with!

I pointed out that the gift was from issue No 3, but that I was fine with that as I have issue 3. He hadn't realised it was wrong gift for 501, but glad I was happy to bid! He also had issue 500 with (Correctly) the "Super tooter" gift in its identifying holder- I told him I had that already!

Overjoyed to have won another "Sparky" free gift!

Great win that was!

yesterday got my 1st ever Victor comics a near complete final year of 1992,i bid on all the lots and was determined to win at least one after being sniped every time if that is the correct term

The seller told me that the `Super Tooter` with Sparky 500 sold for just £9. So someone got a bargain!

Picked up from a bootsale today Macabre Stories comic No6. Published by john Spencer and co, very much like a Alan cass comic, not seen one of these before and worth the £1 the seller was asking for it

Didn't buy any as such but acquired 4 trade paperback collections of Ms Marvel (teenager Kamala Khan not Carol Danvers) on Friday, have read them all in short order and liked them a lot. In sad circumstances - they belonged to a friend who has recently died.

The usual varied mix this past week:

Buzzer #1 from 1937
#10 & #11 of Starblazer...62 to go
TV Tornado #2 & #3
The set of Batman by World Adventure Library #1-11 from 1966
Champion #2 from 1966
11 Vulcan comics (14 to go for the set of 28) as well as the 1977 annual and duplicates of #1 and #2 with free gifts which will be going back on Ebay.
Finally, the fascinating looking Collectors Comics #1 "Penny Comics of the Thirties" by New English Library/Denis Gifford - 1975

The Comic Journal issue 1-16 - very happy with that

Richard S. wrote:The Comic Journal issue 1-16 - very happy with that

I know very little about The Comic Journal. How many issues were there? How did you manage to get the first 16!? I've just looked on Ebay as my curiosity got the better of me and could only find a couple of issues (35 & 36) which I've bought to have a look at. I noticed one issue sold for almost £45 at the beginning of this month! I loved Crikey! so I'm hoping I'll enjoy these as much.

The first issues were pretty flimsy but the later ones were excellent.

Richard S. wrote:The Comic Journal issue 1-16 - very happy with that

There were just 39 issues of The Comic Journal, Richard. The original compiler was Manchester-based Alan Cadwallender, who produced the first 18 issues, originally on stapled A4 sheets but he changed the presentation to A5 with issue 13. I think it was illness that persuaded him to sell to Bryon Whitworth in 1990, a further 5 issues later. I well remember Bryon approaching me that year at a book fair in Leeds, where I had a stand selling books and comics/story papers, to ask me if I would write an article for issue 19, his first obviously. I agreed, and wrote an eight-page piece that I called The D. C. Thomson Big Four (1946-1955) - A Preamble. Alan Coates did an article on Happy Days, which had been launched in 1938, and Colin Morgan wrote an article he called ''Q'' Squadron Goes To War For The Hotspur. There were four other articles in that issue.

Bryon eventually persuaded several more people to contribute articles, including such luminaries as Bill Lofts, Derek Adley, Ray Moore, Denis Gifford and Steve Holland, the A5 booklets getting thicker and thicker up to issue 28 in Autumn 1984. For issue 29 in Spring 1995 Bryon opted for an A4 format, with coloured covers and some internal pages in colour too, a format that he retained until issue 38, the Spring/Summer 2001 number, at which point he sold more or less his entire business to David Mirfin of Rotherham. Bryon did go on to produce issue 39, the Spring/Summer 2002 number, which turned out to be the final issue, despite David's stated intention to maintain production.

It is probably worth mentioning that early in Bryon's A5 phase he produced two Omnibus Editions covering issues 1 to 10 and 11 to 15 respectively. Presumably he still had reasonable stocks of issues 16, 17 and 18 that he had acquired from Alan.

These were Alan's copies.
They are all held together in a binder. I started reading the Comic Journal from about issue 20 so I have my copies from when they originally came out. I then bought Bryon's reprints of the earlier issues as I thought they would be too hard to collect! So now I just need a couple of issues (18 & 19) and I will have the full set.

Bryon's reprints were all A5 size so I was surprised to find that the first dozen issues were A4 sized.

I really like it as a magazine/fanzine. Essential reading for British comics collectors.