What's New

6 November 2009

American Update - DC 1950s-1970s plus Next Men, Rocketeer & Aphrodite IX

A nice range of American goodies this week in the following categories:

*DC: A comprehensive top-up of Silver Age classics, Bronze Age esoterica, and adventures under the sea, beneath the earth, and in outer space! A splendid selection of Sea Devils, with lovely art and often hallucinogenic stories that make you wonder what the late Bob Kanigher was on (“Discover a new sea locked in everyone’s brain!” What, like there was an *old* sea there?), and complete runs of E. Nelson Bridwell’s ‘Mission: Impossible’-inspired Secret Six and the 1970’s Secret Society of Super-Villains, which spawned the 21st-Century hit Identity Crisis. Early House of Mystery, from # 24, in very appealing mid-grade, and additions to our stocks of All-Star Comics, Black Lightning, Brave & Bold (including the rare first appearance of ‘Cave Carson – Adventures Inside Earth!’), DC Special, First Issue Special, Flash, Green Lantern, Justice League of America, Metal Men, Mystery In Space, Showcase, Star Hunters, Steel, Strange Adventures, Super-Friends, Teen Titans, and Wonder Woman!

*Modern Comics Special Interest: Our ever-burgeoning Special Interest section expands yet further with three cult series: Aphrodite IX, the tale of an implausibly-endowed, artifical amnesiac assassin (that is, she kills people and forgets about it, rather than she only kills amnesiacs…) and her wacky pals, illustrated by then-newbie, now-superstar, David Finch. We then move on to the Next Men – officially, ‘John Byrne’s Next Men’, but we’re having none of that ‘auteur’ nonsense here, thank you! The tale of abnormally-powered youngsters raised in a virtual reality environment to be a generation of living weapons, Next Men merged super-adventure with political machinations to great effect, and remains in many people’s opinions the finest thing Byrne’s done. All 31 issues (#0-30) are present, (including the rare #21 which features the debut of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy) as well as the standalone 2112 prototype. And we close with the small, but perfectly formed, Rocketeer Adventure Magazine, with a charming nouveau-retro heroicism reminiscent of the old movie serials, but, under the gifted artistic hand of Dave Stevens, far, far better looking. Taking a scant seven years from issue 1 to issue 3, these are nevertheless one of the rare items of which you can say it was worth the wait.

Posted by Rob | 06:00 p.m. GMT

30 October 2009

British Update: All Worlds Sci-Fi Album, Bullet, Express with Biggles, Comet final issue, Film, Radio & TV Fun, Blake's 7, 1960s Beanos, Knockout 1971-73, Jackpot, latest Spaceship Away! & Crikey! & more

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: We open with the All Worlds Album, a 100 page compendium of mostly science fiction stories from the 1950’s, featuring ‘Swift Morgan and the Feathered Serpent’, and further tales of interplanetary derring-do. We have new stocks of Bullet from 1976, featuring mustached & mulleted medallion man ‘Fireball’ in espionage adventures battling, among others, slinky adventuress the Cat; and Lion from the early 1970’s, just post it’s merger with the late Thunder. A splendid selection of Express from 1960 & 1961 is new in, with ‘Biggles’ as the lead strip, handsomely illustrated by Ron Embleton. And – “Harry’s got that shining purple plague!” – why yes, it’s the very final issue of Comet from 1959, as ‘Jet-Ace Logan’, ‘Buffalo Bill’, and ‘Commando One’ packed up their kitbags and shuffled over to Tiger, bringing the adventure weekly’s 13-year run of close to 600 issues to a sadly low-key finale.

*TV & Film Related Comics: Fun, Fun, Fun – and Blake’s Seven! We have new stock of the great trinity of media weeklies – Film Fun, Radio Fun and TV Fun – from 1951 to 1957, presenting a cavalcade of faded stars, rising stars, and people nobody had heard of even at the time. The roster includes Laurel & Hardy, Terry-Thomas, Petula Clarke, Issy Bonn, Tommy Steele, Arthur Askey, Jewell & Warris, and Peter Sellers – we’ll let you decide who fits which category! Plus, Blake’s Seven, the Marvel-UK produced adaptation of Terry Nation’s cult TV show. Featuring comic strips by Ian Kennedy and some new guy named Steve Dillon, it showcased the plucky crew of the starship Liberator as they thwarted the dastardly plans of space-vixen Servalan. (said plans mostly involving swanning around disused quarries in high heels and a sparkly evening frock. As you do.)

*Humour Comics and Picture Libraries: Beano from 1961-1969, second series Knockout from 1971-1973, Whizzer & Chips from 1980 up, and the 1991 Comic Relief Comic one-shot, all newly listed this week, plus almost the first year of Jackpot, the popular 1979 title that shamelessly appealed to readers’ greed with spectacular prizes such as the chance to ‘raid’ a sweet or toy factory, and featured some of the most blatantly pandering TV rip-offs such as ‘Little & Large Lenny’, ‘Angels’ Charlies’, and ‘Incredible Sulk’. Nevertheless, it managed a lot of charm and originality, as well as some more offbeat notions – the ‘Amazing Three’, a virtual love letter to Fawcett’s ‘Marvel Family’, is a clue that some old fanboys were at work behind the scenes. 1st and 2nd issues as well as the 1979 Christmas issue included in this latest update.

*Magazines & Books About Vintage Comics UK: A double delight this week, with new issues of Crikey! and Spaceship Away! Spaceship Away’s 19th issue features all the usual ingredients – new stories of ‘Dan Dare’ done in the classic style, plus ‘Jet Morgan’ and ‘Nick Hazzard’, plus, as a special treat, the beginning of a series of reprints of Frank Bellamy’s ‘Garth’ newspaper strip, presented for the first time in gorgeous full-colour by John Ridgway! Crikey’s 12th issue features an extensive issue with Pat Mills, the ‘Godfather’ of the ‘gritty’ UK comics revival of the 1970’s, a retrospective on the comic strip career of ‘Dr. Who’, ‘D-Day Dawson’, and an appreciation of comic artist Frank McDiarmid. All issues of both publications are now fully restocked and available as of the time of writing.

Posted by Rob | 04:06 p.m. GMT

American Update - Bronze Age Batman "Family"

*DC: An update to the Bronze Age Batman titles this week, with Batman himself, Batman Family, Brave & Bold, and Detective Comics, including noted creators Alan Brennert, Jim Aparo, Steve Englehart, Mike Golden and Marshall Rogers. Catch the Darknight Detective in some of the stories that radically changed the public’s perception of this iconic character.

Posted by Rob | 03:37 p.m. GMT

23 October 2009

British Update - The Supercats are here, in Spellbound & Debbie!

*Girls’ Comics: The lycra-clad teenybopper guardians of the future are here! No, not the Legion of Super-Heroes, but the Supercats, who patrolled in the pages of Spellbound weekly from 1976-1978, and in Debbie & Spellbound thereafter. Fauna, Hercula, Electra and Helen provided positive role-models for a generation of ‘Supercats Girls’ – and, under the artistic hand of the Romero studios, entertainment of a rather more furtive kind for middle-aged men in later years… A nearly complete run of the extremely hard-to-find Spellbound is added to our listings this time, as well as many of the ‘combo’ issues when, after its sad demise, it merged with Debbie, the Supercats and sinister storyteller Damien Darke sitting rather oddly alongside Up-To-Date Kate and company. Because of the high quality artwork and supernatural subject matter, Spellbound doesn’t linger on our shelves for very long, so buy now or miss out on your chance to join the Supercats Club and get a spiffy denim-effect belt or Zodiac bangle! (Because, you know, when you’re patrolling the universe, it’s all about the accessories…)

Posted by Rob | 06:43 p.m. GMT

American Update: DC Silver Age Superman titles, Marvel What If, Silver/Bronze Age Horror & UK and US Mad

A large influx of American titles this week in the following categories:

*DC: We’re visiting the family this week – the Superman Family, to be exact! Lengthy selections of Action (from #316), Adventure (from #276), and World’s Finest (from #148), as well as additions to Jimmy Olsen, Lois Lane, Supergirl, Superboy, Superman (including Annual #1), Superman Family (the compilation title that replaced Lois, Jimmy and Supergirl’s solo series), and – Danger! Danger! Super-DC Giant S-24, starring Supergirl, a book-length reprint featuring the Maid of Steel’s first battle against Black Flame. All very respectable, so why the cry of ‘Danger! Danger!’? Three words; Fashions From Fans. Be afraid. Be very afraid…

*Marvel: The debut of the Human Torch’s solo series in Strange Tales #101, illustrated by Jack Kirby, in which our teenage hothead fights the menace of the Dastardly Destroyer - plus the wondrous worlds of What If? What If? ran for two series, from 1977 to 1998, totalling more than 160 tales of alternate realities, in which classic heroes such as the Fantastic Four, Avengers, Spider-Man and Dr. Strange switched powers, origins, identities, and more, and in which pivotal events changed the course of the Marvel Universe – at least for one issue! Both series newly relisted, and the second run added to our catalogue, so both series are, in the classic wording of 1970’s Marvel cover blurbs, ‘Together Again – For The First Time!’

*Mad: More than 100 new issues for both the American and the British incarnations of everyone’s favourite parody magazine, with the US update starting from 1964’s #84 and encompassing Super Specials with Free Gifts, and the British one from #5, running up beyond the extra-thick #100 with Free Gifts, and specials galore!

*Horror/Mystery 1960-1980’s: More spooky eeriness from ACG (Forbidden Worlds, including the team-up of their supernatural adventurers, Magicman and Nemesis, in #136), Charlton (Ghost Manor and Haunted Love), and most of all DC, with substantial additions to Ghosts (including the issues co-starring the Spectre and Dr. 13), House of Mystery (with a lengthy run of tormented anti-hero Andrew Bennett, in ‘I… Vampire’), House of Secrets, Plop! (incorporating the first three hard-to-find issues of this top-notch horror parody), and Secrets of Haunted House.

Posted by Rob | 03:50 p.m. GMT

17 October 2009

American Update: Jack Kirby at DC in the 1970s

DC: A Kolossal Kirby Katch-Up! Jack Kirby’s ground-breaking work at DC, after his 1972 defection from Marvel is celebrated this week with complete sets of his Fourth World epics, Mister Miracle and the New Gods, as well as a complete run of his vision of ‘The World That’s Coming’, in the form of the One Man Army Corps, OMAC, plus new stock for the Demon, Justice Inc. and Kobra.

Posted by Rob | 03:27 p.m. GMT

16 October 2009

British Update: Marvel UK, Hornet, 2000 AD, Valiant, Knockout 1958 & 1961 and loads of Girls Inc Tammy, Mandy & June & 1950s Girls' Crystal

Great news, chums! Over 1000 new British comics leaping into our display boxes this week in the following categories:

*Marvel UK: An extensive trawl through Marvel’s Brit branch gives us new stock for several old favourites, including Avengers, Savage Sword of Conan (2nd series magazine), Forces In Combat, Fury, Mighty World of Marvel, Rampage (weekly and monthly, first & second series), Spider-Man Comics Weekly, and the Super-Heroes. Increasingly collectible now as the generation who first encountered the Marvel heroes in this form have grown to maturity, the Marvel UK weeklies feature ingenious and sometimes bizarre repackaging of the classic stories, with new covers and splash pages by people who would go on to better things. (Well, some of them would, anyway; hello Ron Wilson, wherever you are…)

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: A splendid selection of Hornet from the under-represented year of 1970, including new stories of goalkeeper ‘Manny Kritch’ and, er, goalkeeper ‘Bouncing Briggs’; so, variety not a high priority on the Hornet editor’s checklist then. A significant range of 2000 AD, from 1988-1990, featuring Slaine by Simon Bisley, Bix Barton, Hewligan’s Haircut, and most of the ultra-scarce Zenith series by Grant Morrison and Steve Yeowell, which, owing to ownership disputes, seems unlikely to be reprinted in the foreseeable future. Turning to more traditional fare, we have extensively restocked Valiant from 1963 and 1975, with many new issues starring ‘Kelly’s Eye’, ‘Mytek the Mighty’ ‘The Steel Claw’, ‘Billy Bunter’, ‘The Wild Wonders’, ‘Raven on the Wing’, ‘House of Dolmann’, and scores more familiar friends from the past.

*TV & Film Related: ‘Kinema Comic’ from 1927 joins us this time, as well as two more recent titles. Firstly, Look-In from 1978 & 1979, a handful of copies starring ‘The Tomorrow People’, ‘The Bionic Woman’, and ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’ in all-new picture strips. The combination of science-fiction strips, ‘name’ artists, (John Burns on Tomorrow People, Martin Asbury on Six Million Dollar Man, John Bolton on the Bionic Woman), and the plethora of easily-removable pop pin-ups and centrefolds means that unmutilated copies of Look-In are almost impossible to get, and command a high price. This selection have all been checked and double-checked, and are guaranteed complete. We conclude with a sweeping swathe, from the very first issues, of Star Wars Weekly, from Marvel UK. This fed the then-insatiable demand for the adventures of Luke Skywalker & Co. to such an extent that stories were being generated for the British weekly months before they hit the US version!

*Humour Comics & Picture Libraries: Humour in disguise this week, as the ‘double agent’ Knockout comes into play! During its long career (1939 -1963), Knockout racked up an impressive 1,231 issues (with only occasional hiatuses in the 1950’s), and Billy Bunter and Sexton Blake were there from the beginning! Knockout vacillated between a traditional Beano-alike comedy title and an adventure weekly throughout, but most of its run featured funnies up front, hence its inclusion in this category. More than 100 new issues join us this week from the more adventurous period, 1958-1961, with Blake & Bunter still holding strong, ably enhanced by aviators Johnnie Wingco and Battler Britton, beskirted superboy Thunderbolt Jaxon, Shark-Boy Sinbad Simms, and a veritable rodeo of cowboys. Issues from early 1958 have been removed from glued binding, and average Poor to Fair, but the only significant drawback is weakness and occasional tearing at the spine; otherwise, they’re GD+ copies. Fortunately, the original owner gave up this habit after mid 1958, and the remainder average VG/Fine.

*Girls’ Comics: Several big girls’ batches join our lists this week. Major improvement to our range of June from 1973, with more than half the year added in, including the first ‘June & Pixie’ combo. A stunning selection of Tammy, 100+ issues from 1971-1977, averaging Good/Very Good grade and sporting ‘funny’ covers that give no hint of the torment & suffering inside. Speaking of torment and suffering, Mandy is also extensively updated, with more than 150 issues from the 1980’s and 1990’s, featuring the laugh-a-minute ‘Angel’, a saga of grinding poverty, disease and starvation, and a number of other series that were a good deal less chirpy! But if that wasn’t enough, we’ve also thrown in Debbie from 1979 (Scarce ‘& Spellbound’ numbers), Emma from 1978, a selection of Girls’ Crystal from 1953 to 1960, Diana from 1966, Jinty from 1976, and the merely magnificent Misty from 1978 & 1979.

Posted by Rob | 06:10 p.m. GMT

9 October 2009

British Update: Crisis, Tornado, Lion & Valiant Picture Libraries

*Boys’ Adventure and War Comics: This week, two significant 2000 AD spin-offs. From the 1980’s, Crisis, the ground-breaking, hard-hitting politically-aware fortnightly that launched to much fanfare with two ongoing series. Corruption was the theme – of business and politics in Mills & Ezquerra’s ‘Third World War’, and of super-beings in Smith and Baikie’s ‘New Statesmen’, but the title incubated many future movers and shakers of the next twenty years. The roll call includes Garth Ennis (whose ‘Troubled Souls’ and its sequels attracted much condemnation for portraying the unrest in Northern Ireland), Warren Pleece, Mark Millar, Rian Hughes, Al Davison, Paul Grist, and Sean Phillips. This range is short only a handful of issues from the 63-strong series, and includes the entire four-issue run of Morrison and Yeowell’s ‘New Adventures of Hitler’, which was abruptly yanked from the title following mass outrage by sphincter-faced simpletons who’d never actually read it. From the 1970’s, we have some rare issues of Tornado. Helmed by Dave Gibbons as superhero the ‘Big E’ in photo-features (odd he never mentioned his own time in tights when he met the ‘Watchmen’ movie cast …), this ran a scant 22 issues before merging with 2000 AD, with temporally-displaced gladiator ‘Black Hawk’, super-spoof ‘Kaptain Klep’ and psychic tearaway ‘The Mind of Wolfie Smith’ (think ‘Carrie’ as a boy) being the only survivors of the transfer. Owing to its low print run and short sequence, Tornado is extremely sought-after, and this selection of later issues, including the final issue, very seldom seen.

*Boys’ Adventure and War Picture Libraries: Lion and Valiant, two of the numerous imitators of DC Thomson’s Commando, appear here with tales of wartime gallantry (perplexingly, despite their titles, they don’t feature any of the popular series characters from the Lion and Valiant weeklies!) including ‘Commando one’, ‘The Long March’, ‘Battle Shock’, ‘Mosquito Navy’, and ‘Sky Trap’. This selection includes reasonably early numbers (Lion PL from # 22, Valiant PL from # 25), in surprisingly good grades.

Posted by Rob | 09:41 p.m. GMT

American Update: The Legion Of Super-Heroes

DC: Continuing our re-evaluation of catalogueable titles, we at 30th Century are pleased to add our namesake series, the Legion of Super-Heroes, to our lists this update. (And if you need to have the connection between the Legion and the 30th Century explained – get off our website, heathens!) Continuing the numbering of the former Superboy title, which it had effectively taken over for the preceding fifty-odd issues, the far future’s super-team rose to new heights from 1980 onwards, markedly when writer Paul Levitz came back to the title and teamed with illustrator Keith Giffen to give the Legion’s universe a depth and scope it had seldom previously shown. This update of a couple of hundred issues includes the Great Darkness Saga (regarded by many as the greatest Legion story), the first issue, 300th special, the definitive clash with the Legion of Super-Villains, and many more. (Okay, it also includes the Jovian Attack Squid and Dr.Mayavale; nobody’s perfect.) In the two series of the Legion from the mid-1980’s onwards, Levitz and Giffen demonstrated that you don’t need continuity reboots, stunt-creators, gimmicks or cover variants to drive the sales up – you just need to Make The Comics Better. (Hey, why hasn’t anybody tried that with the Legion since?) We’ve also included the mini-series associated with this phase – Cosmic Boy, Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes, Who’s Who In The Legion of Super-Heroes, and the credibility-defying Legion of Substitute Heroes Special – for a complete enhancement of your reading enjoyment.

Posted by Rob | 09:37 p.m. GMT

6 October 2009

British Update: Lion 1953, Sandie & more girls, Schoolgirl's Own Library

A large batch of gems from the 50s to the 70s this week in the following categories:

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Continuing our previously-announced massive Lion update, we have the entirety of the second year, 1953, cover-starring Captain Condor, spacefaring adventurer of the year 3000, as well as schoolboy hijinx with ‘Sandy Dean of Tollgate School’, ‘The Amazing Adventures of Mr. X’, ‘The Case of the Masked Boxer’, and ‘Grit Gregson of the Foreign Legion’, among others. These average Good condition, but are mostly nice copies, with only rusty staples precluding a higher grade.

*Girls’ Comics: The oft-overlooked Sandie takes the lead this time; an oft-overlooked IPC/Fleetway weekly that barely lasted two years in the early 1970’s, it featured a high standard of storytelling and some unusual twists on the staples of the genre, such as ‘The School of No Escape’, ‘Captives of Madame Karma’, ‘Sisters In Sorrow’, and ‘Captives of Terror Island’ – with the degree of captivity and suffering on display, it came across as covering very much the same ground as Tammy, but deserves to be better remembered. Sandie’s back-up girls this week are the newly topped-up Jinty (issues from 1977), Misty (1979), Princess Tina (1968 & 1970), and Tina from 1967, as well as the recent facsimile of Tammy #1 from 1971, presented by the Guardian newspaper in an enjoyable, if inexplicable, synaptic misfire.

*Girls’ Picture Libraries: Additional Schoolgirls’ Own Library issues, earlier than our previous listed copies, from #95 to #175, in which clean-living young ladies have genteel adventures mostly involving dressing up in masks and robes and thwarting the wrongs of boarding-school society, viz. ‘The Warning of the Phantom Watcher’, ‘The Elusive Grey Ghost’, and – horrors! – a corrupt secret society in ‘The Girl Who Fought The Phantom Five’; now there’s a twist!

Posted by Rob | 11:01 a.m. GMT

American Update: Marvel Silver/Bronze, Archie, Modern Reprints

Another selection of popular goodies this week as follows:

*Marvel: Another substantial addition to our inventory of Marvel titles, helmed by the Savage Sub-Mariner! When Stan & Jack revived the old Timely star as an antagonist in Fantastic Four #4, they unleashed an aquatic juggernaut that carried Namor the First into numerous guest appearances, his solo series in Tales To Astonish, and eventually his own title, which ran 72 issues from the late 1960’s to the mid 1970’s. All 72 are here, plus both Annuals, with art by such luminaries as Buscema, Colan, Severin, and the character’s creator, Bill Everett. We also have a complete series of the Sub-Mariner follow-up, the bizarrely-titled Super-Villain Team-Up, in which Namor, Dr. Doom, the Red Skull and sundry others plotted to rule mankind, defied only by the Batmanesque Shroud. Complete runs, also, for Doc Savage, the pulp hero incarnated into comics by Thomas and Andru, and Warlock, the controversial Messianic hero who managed to cause outrage below the Bible Belt not once but twice, under the respective regimes of Thomas, Kane & Sutton, and jaunty Jim Starlin. Not content with all that, we’ve also added to our stocks of Avengers, Black Goliath, Black Panther, Champions, Daredevil, Dazzler, Defenders, Dr. Strange, Eternals, Ghost Rider, Invaders, Ka-Zar, Logan’s Run, Ms. Marvel, Skull the Slayer, Spider-Woman, Spectacular Spider-Man, 2001 and the X-Men – all for your delectation…

*Archie: More of Riverdale’s favourite son, recently the centre of much media attention when it was announced he’d be marrying his long-time girlfriend Veronica (I give it six months…). From more halcyon days of the early seventies, we’ve added nice-grade copies of Archie Giant Series Magazine (newly ‘tagged’ for your convenience, so you can tell your Betty & Veronica Summer Funs from your Sabrina’s Christmas Magics!), Archie’s Joke Book, Betty & Veronica, Jughead, Life With Archie and Reggie & Me, plus the world’s worst super-team, the Mighty Crusaders, and the second series (actually a one-off, though we’ll never know if it was intended as such!) of the satire mag, Tales Calculated To Drive You Bats.

*Modern Reprints: A plethora of the great, the good and the grotty from days gone by. DC leads with a splendid hardcover compilation of the 1940’s Sandman, collecting Joe Simon & Jack Kirby’s daring ‘reimagining’ of the character from 1940’s Adventure Comics. The Silver Age Batman Showcase paperback reaches a fourth volume, and we have additions to Millennium Editions, Best of the Brave & Bold, and the Neal Adams/Denny O’Neil Green Lantern/Green Arrow. Marvel offers several new Masterworks, with the Golden Age Young Allies getting their first collection, the Atlas Era Black Knight (by Joe Maneely) and Yellow Claw (by Kirby) getting a ‘combo’ volume, and the Silver Age Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Sub-Mariner series reaching their 6th, 11th, and 3rd volumes respectively. The Essential paperbacks are also enhanced with Sub-Mariner’s debut volume, and the 70th Anniversary Special One-Shots produced by Marvel to commemorate their Timely-era stars are rounded out by Human Torch, Miss America, All-Select, All-Winners, and Mystic, each featuring a new period story backed up by vintage reprints. Other publishers are represented by Baby, You’re Really Something!, a compilation of Frank Frazetta’s lush illustrations; Die Monster Die! a proudly self-proclaimed selection of the worst text stories ever from pre-Code horror comics; and the new volumes, 6 and 2 respectively, of the superlative collections of Mary Perkins: On Stage and The Heart of Juliet Jones.

Posted by Rob | 10:55 a.m. GMT

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