Comics UK

Picked up a pile of War Picture Libraries, 3 Football ones, a Girl's Crystal 1968 Annual and most intriguing for me was Micron's hardback Combat Picture Annual from 1962 and the first story HMS Jinx appears to have been illustrated by Josep Marti. What a find!

I've got one of those Micron hardbacks somewhere Col; I'll have to check if it's the same. Incidentally I think Fleetway produced a couple of similar hardbacks in the early 1960s - both supposedly 'written' by Robert Hereward 'Battler' Britton!

A very quiet week of buying for me with only Starburst #2 and #3 from 1978 with their free gift posters purchased. I'm concentrating on selling currently to build up for the next "must have" comic(s) that I find for sale!

philcom55 wrote:I've got one of those Micron hardbacks somewhere Col; I'll have to check if it's the same. Incidentally I think Fleetway produced a couple of similar hardbacks in the early 1960s - both supposedly 'written' by Robert Hereward 'Battler' Britton!

Ooh, I'd love to see them. This is the first hardback picture library I have ever seen. It's amazing to look at. And I would love any more information you have on them.

Thanks to the article I put up and the knowledge of Ramon Schenk, we have now identified that P Mar is Primo Marcarini.

Hi Col,

I think the books to which Phil is referring are the two published in 1960 and 1961.
They are both in the novel, A5 format and contain 252 pages and are a mix of strips, stories and features. Artists include Joe Colquhoun, Pete Sutherland, drawing illustrations for a couple of text stories in the first volume and in the second volume, a bit bizarrely for a Battler Britton strip, the work of Pat Nicolle.

I've just checked and, unfortunately, my Micron book is the same as yours Col. Here's the dustjacket for the second Battler Britton book which, as Kashgar says, was published in 1961.

...And here's the opening spread to Volume One, with a nice Geoff Campion drawing of Wing-Commander Robert Hereward 'Battler' Britton DSO, DFC and Bar, Croix de Guerre. (I wonder if Braddock had the Croix de Guerre...? )

philcom55 wrote:...And here's the opening spread to Volume One, with a nice Geoff Campion drawing of Wing-Commander Robert Hereward 'Battler' Britton DSO, DFC and Bar, Croix de Guerre. (I wonder if Braddock had the Croix de Guerre...? )

VC with bar for him. None of this European malarkey for him!

On a slightly more serious note, I think he may have been awarded a Silver Star in one of the Pacific serials.

...Bet he wasn't commissioned in the Peruvian Navy though!

Whent to first bootsale for weeks ( been ill for a while ) picked up the first 50 issues for £5 the lot No1 still had a pink flyer inside
Plus 4 DC comics 50p each

Bethanys grandad wrote:Whent to first bootsale for weeks ( been ill for a while ) picked up the first 50 issues for £5 the lot No1 still had a pink flyer inside

The first 50 issues of what, BG?

Opps it's spike comic fighting a ipad which is almost unusable and still not felling 100%

Issue 1 of Nasty Tales arrived this week, only for me to realise I already had it, whoops...

Not EXACTLY comics, but I also got 30 issues of Fortean Times from 1998-2000 for £14 which cheered me up a lot. Each of those has a Hunt Emerson page or two so they sort of count

Bethanys grandad wrote:spike comic

Only seventeen left to get then, BG. Should be manageable in the very short term, although as it did get amalgamated with Champ as Champ Spike you just might want to collect those as well.

Picked up seven newspapers from the 1960s yesterday in Deptford market. 50p each. Covering Apollo 8, Apollo 11, Middle East war (that lasted six days), Assassination of Bobby Kennedy. Most had comic strips inside. They were Sunday Mirror and London Evening Standard mainly with a couple of Local SE London papers too. Millwall report from 1967/68 mentions crowd trouble at Millwall v Birmingham. So what else is new?