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Update Archives For June 2009

30 June 2009

American Update: 1940s/50s gems inc. Phantom Lady, jungle girls and sc-fi

*Miscellaneous Publishers 1940-1959: We have a reputation for diversity and esoterica here at 30th Century, and that’s amply demonstrated by this week’s update. Opening with several issues of Buster Brown Comics, a giveaway handed to young customers in American shoe stores throughout the 1940’s and 1950’s. This practice wasn’t uncommon, but most such were rebinds of random unsold comics. Buster Brown commissioned new material, often of surprisingly high quality, for its giveaways, and featured in most of the issues here are the exploits of the Interplanetary Police as they combat shapely galactic pirate queen the Space Siren, and the adventures of elephant mahout ‘Gunga’, homaging the now-obscure movie star Sabu who was then a hot property; Reed Crandall illustrates both series superbly. We then face off with Captain Rocket, a space adventurer from Canada’s P.L. Publications, who soared the stars with his lovely assistant Argo. Not to be outdone in the cheesecake department, the Captain’s back-ups feature evil but gorgeous Cassandra vs. ‘The Space Falcon’, and adventuress ‘Aurora of Jupiter’, who cruises the heavens in the ever-practical bikini-boots-’n’-bumveil ensemble. As you do. A bevy of jungle girls stalk the readership with new stock for Tiger Girl’s Fight Comics, Lorna the Jungle Girl, and Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, and the definitive ‘Good Girl Art’ superheroine, Phantom Lady, joins us for the first issue of her 1950’s Ajax/Farrell revival. Finally, something spiritually uplifting in the bible story ‘Samson & Delilah’, as liberally interpreted by the notoriously sleazy Fox publishers in Spectacular Features magazine, with an iconic cover image which may be seen – together with cover scans of Captain Rocket, Sheena #8, Lorna #12, and Phantom Lady #5 – in our Cover Gallery feature.

Posted by Rob | 11:28 a.m. GMT | 30 June 2009

British Update - Alan Class inc. Tales Of ACtion #1 & Rover 1961-67, inc. Free Gift issues

Another update replete with goodies from the sizzling sixties in this week's British update as follows:

*Alan Class Reprints: Additions to our ‘Big Six’ of Alan Class titles – Astounding Stories, Creepy Worlds, Secrets of the Unknown, Sinister Tales, Suspense, and Uncanny Tales – with more than 100 issues new to our listings. Furthermore, we have obscurities, rarities, short-run series and one-offs including Outer Space, Race Into Space, Weird Planets, and the debut issue of Tales of Action, the war title that reprinted Sgt. Fury & His Howling Commandos #1!

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: We continue our substantial Rover update, from the years 1961 to 1967, when it slid from ‘Rover & Adventure’ to ‘Rover & Wizard’. Braddock, the Wolf Of Kabul, Red McGregor and more continue to thrill, excite, and defend the Empire against ghastly beastliness of all persuasions in more than 150 issues new to our listings. As a bonus, we also have Fabulous Free Gift issues – the Sept. 30th, 1961 number, with a ‘Famous Fighting Planes of World War II’ booklet resembling a Picture Library in format, and the March 2nd, 1963 issue has a sheet of ‘Cars of 1963’ photo-stickers – these were the ‘lick n’stick’ kind, as self-adhesives hadn’t been perfected then, but this sheet is pristine, unlicked, and un-stuck. British comics with original free gifts are rare in any age, and from the early 1960’s particularly so. Scans of both these issues with accompanying free gifts may be viewed in our Cover Gallery – click on the catalogue links and see for yourselves.

Posted by Rob | 11:24 a.m. GMT | 30 June 2009

Housekeeping Update

As regular visitors to our site will know, on a regular cycle, we sweep through our entire vintage stock to delete sold items and keep our listing as up to date as possible. We've just finished deleting sold items from the following file in our British section:

*Boys' Adventure & War Comics (M-S only; T-Z to follow shortly)

As of the time of writing, this category is bang up to date (A-S) with every item listed available, so you may order with confidence! More soon!

Posted by Rob | 11:20 a.m. GMT | 30 June 2009

22 June 2009

American Update: Ghost Rider #1 (1950) VF/NM

*Westerns: Only one item in this week’s American update, but it’s a major one: Ghost Rider #1 from 1950! For those of younger vintage, the Ghost Rider name wasn’t always appropriated by various Marvel skull-headed motorcyclists; instead, inspired by a combination of the popular song ‘Ghost Riders In The Sky’ and the Disney movie ‘The Headless Horseman’, Dick Ayers came up the idea of a spectral avenger of the Old West, a character that became a hit for publishers Magazine Enterprises, and which Ayers later reprised for Marvel in the 1950’s. This debut issue is both #27 of Magazine Enterprises’ ‘try-out’ title, A-1 Comics, and the first issue of Ghosty’s ongoing series. Not only historically important, but in exquisite condition, with tight staples, unmarred black cover, clean edges and vibrant white interior pages. Easily the nicest comic grade-wise from this period we've ever come across! A scan of this landmark item can be seen in our Cover Gallery feature – click on the link in the catalogue listing.

Posted by Rob | 11:35 a.m. GMT | 22 June 2009

British Update: Rover 1954, 1960/61, Buster 1975-78, Bimbo + Holiday Specials and lots more for Younger Readers, Nikki 1985-87

Another large slice of British Comicana for you this week in the following categories:

*Boys’ Adventure And War Comics: Two selections of Rover this week, the earlier being from the year 1954, where it was still a story paper (though grudgingly admitting tiny proportions of comic-strip content). Highlights of the series were stalwarts of the DC Thomson stable: air ace Braddock, Morgyn the Mighty, the Tough of the Track, and Swamp Rat, though occasional short-run serials like post-apocalyptic drama “You Can’t Stop the Wind!” (who hasn’t felt that from time to time?) and “The Floating Thing – It Will Make You Gasp!” promised much. After a few stray issues from 1960, we then jump to 1961, and a makeover for the series, as DC Thomson combined two of their venerable story papers, Rover and Adventure, into (wait for it) ‘Rover & Adventure’. The combo title lasted longer than average, until 1964 when it became ‘Rover & Wizard’, before finally settling into being just series two of ‘Rover’ by the early 1970’s. We have the debut issue, and all but one of the first year, of ‘Rover & Adventure’, averaging VG/FN. Although the revamped paper was perhaps being overoptimistic in boasting on its strapline, “Every Kind of Thrill Inside”, the recharged incarnation did offer a more exciting line-up with ‘The Scarlet Arrow’, ‘Johnny Ghurka’, and other new characters – though fans of Braddock need not despair, as his Hun-bashing antics survived the transition effortlessly.

*Humour Comics & Picture Libraries: Our Big Buster Bonanza rolls on, with new issues added from 1975-1978; by this time, the voracious juggernaut that was Buster had siphoned off the cream of several other weeklies, including Giggle, Jet, Cor! And Monster Fun, so the featured stars, including ‘Ivor Lott & Tony Broke’, ‘Disappearing Trix’, ‘Stan Still’, ‘Martha’s monster Make-Up’, ‘Kid Kong’, ‘Faceache’, ‘Gums’, ‘Mummy’s Boy’, and ‘Kid Gloves’, had a very mixed pedigree indeed. Plenty more Busters await your attention, as soon as space clears in the boxes – keep watching the web for further episodes!

*Younger Readers’ Comics: Bimbo aplenty and a plethora of Holiday Specials! From the days when the word Bimbo had a kinder meaning, the juvenile weekly from the DC Thomson studio was fronted by Tom Thumb, illustrated by legendary Dudley D. Watkins, and hosted a galaxy of nursery-rhyme favourites. Issues from 1963-1966 are new to our stock this week. We also have new inventory, and in some cases entirely new listings, for Benjy, Jack & Jill, Lamb Chop, Magic, Noddy, Pellephant, Playhour, Playland, Pippin, Toby, Toytown and Teddy Bear, including Holiday Specials for Pippin, Playland, Teddy Bear, (including the scarce 1968 ‘Bedtime Extra’!), Bobo Bunny *and* Jack & Jill & Bobo Bunny – together again for the first time!

*Girls’ Comics: A nice selection of Nikki, from 1985’s #3 through to 1987, more than fifty new issues added to make our stock more comprehensive – appropriately, as ‘The Comp’, a grim n’ gritty educational establishment, was at the forefront of Nikki for its nearly five-year run, with vandalism, truancy, boyfriends and (gasp!) smoking among the problems besetting the inner-city school, in a far cry from the sedate St. Elmo’s tradition of ‘The Four Marys’ – which made it a bit ironic that Bunty is where ‘The Comp’ ended up after the 1989 merger.

Posted by Rob | 11:33 a.m. GMT | 22 June 2009

Alan Class Rough Guide Updated

Alan Class Feature Update: In preparation for another big update to our Alan Class stocks, once again featuring rarer, pre-decimal issues, we have updated this ‘rough guide’ to the Alan Class series with more information about their diverse content. Full details can be found by following the link from our Features & Articles page. Look for more Alan Class issues being added to the catalogue very soon.

Posted by Rob | 11:26 a.m. GMT | 22 June 2009

16 June 2009

Housekeeping Update

As regular visitors to our site will know, on a regular cycle, we sweep through our entire vintage stock to delete sold items and keep our listing as up to date as possible. We've just finished deleting sold items from the following file in our British section:

*Boys' Adventure & War Comics (A-L only; M-Z to follow shortly)

As of the time of writing, this category is bang up to date (A-L) with every item listed available, so you may order with confidence! More soon!

Posted by Rob | 09:59 a.m. GMT | 16 June 2009

Back with a Vengeance!

I return from my hols in places Jurassic with updates both British and American filled with many rarities and high demand items. I suggest your early attention to this week's updates as listed below may well be a good idea:

Posted by Rob | 09:56 a.m. GMT | 16 June 2009

American Update: Pre-Ditribution DCs inc Action #154, Challengers #2, Showcase #6 (1st Challengers) and three 1950s Wonder Womans plus 1950s horror from Atlas, Charlton and ACG

*DC: A significant selection of Silver Age classics from the pre-distribution years: Action #154, with Superman as Man Friday to Lois Lane’s 'Miss Robinson Crusoe'; Showcase #6, with the debut of Jack Kirby’s Challengers of the Unknown, and the second issue of the Challengers’ own series, after the death-defying daredevils proved a hit with the readership; and three issues of Wonder Woman - #75, #81 and #82 – in which the Princess of Paradise Island battles Angle Man and the Duke of Deception, squares up against stroppy Leprechauns, teams up with Robin Hood, and runs on her hands across a field of skittles to retain the right to her tiara. Well you would, wouldn’t you?. Scans of all of this spiffy sextet may be viewed on our charismatic Cover Gallery – click on the link from the DC catalogue page and check them out.

*Horror 1940-1959: A captivating quartet of thrills, chills and occasional bloodspills, with Atlas’ Adventures Into Terror #27 and Strange Tales #23, ACG’s Forbidden Worlds #58 (with the charmingly loopy 'My Strange Godfather' story by the ineffable Ogden Whitney), and Charlton’s Tales of the Mysterious Traveller #3, featuring classic Ditko cover & art. Scans of Strange Tales and the Traveller may be viewed on our Cover Gallery feature.

Posted by Rob | 09:53 a.m. GMT | 16 June 2009

British Update: Battle 1975-1988, Eagle 1985/86, Hornet, Hotspur, Lion Holiday Special 1976, plus early Schoolgirls Picture Libraries (from #5) and more!

*Boys Adventure & War Comics: Several hundred new items added to our inventory of four popular and long-running titles: Battle from 1975-1988 (including the first merger issues with Action, Valiant, and Action Force, 5th and 10th ‘Birthday’ issues, and several 1980’s Holiday Specials), Eagle from 1985 & 1986, and the DC Thompson anthologies Hornet (1967, 1968, and 1971 issues), and Hotspur (1964 and 1970), with the additional bonus of the Lion 1976 Holiday Special. Fans of United Alley, Briggs the Goalie, Skyboy, Muscles Malone, Wilson, Corporal Fry (He’s One Foot High), Major Eazy, Jimmy Chang, and Doomlord – this is your chance! This is the first part of a major overhaul of our Boys’ Adventure file, so keep watching for future instalments!

*Girls’ Picture Libraries: A veritable hockey team of Old Schoolgirls! Schoolgirls’ Picture Library, the much sought-after series from the 1950’s and 1960’s, graces us with some of its earliest issues this week, commencing with #5 ('Fourth Form Film Makers'), and #6 ('Prisoner In The Pagoda'), and including such treats as 'Masked Hostess of the Holiday Camp', 'The Cruising Merrymakers' and 'Sally’s Surprising Parrot', in this selection, predominantly from the first fifty issues. But the excitement doesn’t stop there, as we also have a June & School Friend Holiday Special from 1969, and the previously-unknown True Life All Picture Library, which features (at least this one does) troubled romances of falsely-accused young ladies. All human life is here! Scans of SPL #5 & #6 may be viewed in our Cover Gallery - just click on the links for these items from the catalogue listing.

Posted by Rob | 09:47 a.m. GMT | 16 June 2009

1 June 2009

British Update: Lots of annuals 1930s-2000s, Warrior, Jet #1, early Commando PL plus many others inc Pearson's, Princess 1962-63 and much more!

A huge British update this week as follows:

*Annuals: Significant new stock in all of our sub-categories this week. From Humour, we lead off with a rarity, the 1938 Fun Book For Boys, a D.C. Thomson production with art by the legendary Dudley D. Watkins, and follow it up with new stock for Beano, Buster, Dandy, Dennis the Menace, Topper, and the 1970’s incarnation of knockout. Film & TV is graced by the 1969 James Bond Annual, starring the one true Bond, Sean Connery, in a selection of photos and features; other entries in this division include those fun-loving cyborgs, the Bionic Woman and the Six-Million Dollar Man, the TV series of Planet of the Apes, Dr. Who, Dad’s Army, Space 1999, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and the Daleks. Boys’ Adventure has several vintage items – three Adventure Land, (the Annual incarnation of Adventure weekly) a 1937 Hotspur, and a 1939 Triumph, as well as modern and vintage Eagle, and Valiant. Western is refreshed with 1969’s High Chaparral and several Bonanza Annuals, and the Girls’ section is topped up with new Bunty, Jinty, Tammy and several very scarce Misty Annuals. Cover scans of the Fun Book For Boys and the James Bond Annual may be viewed in our Cover Gallery feature – click on the link in the catalogue listings and see for yourselves!

*Boys’ Adventure & War Comics: Warrior, the ‘incubator to the stars’ of the 1980’s, is substantially replenished this time. The groundbreaking anthology, which introduced ‘V For Vendetta’ and the revised ‘Marvelman’ (later ‘Miracleman’, after a certain House of Ideas said, ‘Oi!’) to the world, helped bring to prominence Alan Moore, Garry Leach, David Lloyd, Steve Parkhouse, Steve Dillon, John Bolton and a plethora of other gifted creators who had been slaving away, in some cases for years, to become overnight successes. With co-features ‘Laser Eraser and Pressbutton’, ‘The Bojeffries Saga’, and ‘Father Shandor’, among others, each issue offered a variety and consistent quality of work that was seldom seen in the industry at that time. Most of the run, from the first issue to #22, new in this listing. Also restocked are Bullet (from #7), Jet (from #1), Vulcan (from #2), Eagle (1985), Lion (1971-1974), Roy of the Rovers (1977), Shoot! (1975), Valiant (1974 & 1975), and Wizard (1975).

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: An astounding array this week, mostly of pre-decimal editions in mid-to-good grades, opening with more than a dozen of the highly sought-after Pearson Picture Libraries in their Air War, Picture Stories of World War II, Private-Eye, (their hyphenation error, not ours!) and Secret Agent series. Commando is refreshed from #114 upwards, Fleetway Super Library’s Fantastic/Stupendous and Front Line series are restocked from #2 and #1 respectively, and we have major upgrades to our Thriller Picture Library listing from the late 300’s onward. Not content with that, we also offer the first issue of the Gold Token Secret Agent X-9 series, Super-Detective starring Buck Ryan, TV Picture Stories starring Charlie Chan, Wild West Picture Library Holiday Special, and the never previously heard of Silhouette Picture Series, which offers not candlelit romance, as you might have expected, but more war stories (because, y’know, there aren’t enough of those…)!

*Girls’ Comics: The main entry this week tried hard to deny that it was a comic, disguising itself instead as a fluffy pink ‘Look & Learn’ with added Royal Family gossip, but the presence of ‘The Happy Days’ belied its true roots. Princess, from 1962’s Christmas issue through to the end of 1963, is the centrepiece of our Girls’ update, with Sue Day’s family saga holding such an audience that it survived the title’s eventual amalgam into ‘Princess Tina’. Here, however, ‘The Happy Days’ are joined by ‘Circus Ballerina’, and a succession of comics adaptations of children’s literature – ‘the Wolves of Willoughby Chase’, ‘Children of the New Forest’, and ‘The Daughter of Lorna Doone’ (was that one an actual book, or did someone just make it up?) to provide genteel entertainment for ‘young ladies’. Over in the tomboy front, meanwhile, new stock for Bunty (from 1962), Judy and June (both from 1963), keeps a more robust end up, so to speak.

There will be a short hiatus to updates whilst yours truly escapes for a week by the seaside. We'll be back with our usual mix of vintage and diverse goodies around the middle of June. Our shop remains open 7 days a week of course, where Will, Sandy and the merry minions await your pleasure.

Posted by Rob | 08:00 p.m. GMT | 1 June 2009