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Update Archives For August 2007

26 August 2007

British update: James Bond, Modesty Blaise, Judge Dredd, Commando & War Picture Libraries, Beano, Cor, Mickey Mouse Weekly (1950s) & long run of over 400 issues of Debbie from first to last! And even more!

Once again, a huge offering in this week's British update across sveral categories as follows:

*Collected Editions (UK): An unusual burst of activity brings us not only new volumes in the James Bond and Modesty Blaise newspaper strip reprint series ('Deathwing' and 'The Inca Trail', respectively), but the Judge Dredd Complete Case Files, with the guardian of Mega-City One’s adventures reprinted in their sequential entirety. Spider: King of Crooks is available once more, presenting the early adventures of the Lion’s anti-hero, there are a couple of Roy of the Rovers collections and one of the limited-edition full-colour hardcovers reprinting Don Lawrence and Martin Lodewijk’s fantasy series Storm – a selection of iconic characters to appeal to virtually every taste!

*Boys’ Adventure and War Picture Libraries: War and Commando updated this week; in excess of 300 additional issues to our range of these long-running series, both pre-and post decimal, in a range of grades and prices to suit every reader. These hardy perennials of the genre are plentiful, but sell rapidly, so order early to avoid disappointment. Very soon, we’ll be rounding off our series of updates in this category with a selection of earlier issues in rather nice grades, but in the meantime, now’s a really good time to fill in those odd gaps in your collection!

*Humour Comics and Picture Libraries: Three titles severely topped-up: stalwart Beano, from 1976 to 1985, with approximately 200 different issues new to our listings; Cor! The IPC weekly featuring 'Andy’s Ants', 'Gus Gorilla', 'The Slimms', 'Jelly Baby', and of course 'Ivor Lott and Tony Broke', upgraded with close to 100 issues from 1970 to 1974; and Mickey Mouse Weekly, a selection from 1952 to 1955, with a range of humour and adventure series featuring the popular characters as rendered by European and American artist, in nice grades averaging VG/FN.

*Girls’ Comics and Picture Libraries: Set a date with Debbie as our girls' comics bopnanza continues! This DC Thomson girls’ weekly launched in 1973 as a companion to Bunty, Judy, and Mandy, and had a very good run of 518 issues, just edging into 1983. We don’t quite have all of them, but we can offer more than 400 new to our listings, including the very first and very final issues, averaging VG or FN grades. Highlights include 'The Dark Days Of Dorcas' (Victorian orphan chimney sweeps suffering, with child mortality a’plenty – it was a cheery place, Debbie-world..), 'Maid of the Temple Dogs' (Chinese orphan is slave to the Emperor’s pampered pets, but uses her knowledge of herbs to, well, poison all her enemies, basically. And anybody else who gives her grief!) and 'Lisa the Lonely Ballerina', who apparently didn’t manage to make a single friend in close to a decade. An often-overlooked title with the same high quality creators and engagingly loopy stories as its elder sisters, Debbie well deserves a second glance – and now’s your chance! More pink n’ girly antics imminent – keep watching the updates!

Posted by Rob | 05:16 p.m. GMT | 26 August 2007

American update - Silver & Bronze Age Marvel inc. many Avengers & Strange Worlds #1

*Marvel: Avengers Assemble! A substantial Silver Age update to the adventures of Marvel’s premier-league super-team, running from #19 to #90, in a variety of grades from FA to VF, something to suit all tastes and budgets. Plus, the ultra-scarce Strange Worlds #1. This short-run anthology title, often overlooked by indexers and historians, was a companion to Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish, and featured Kirby, Ditko and other bullpen stalwarts. This debut edition is only in FA – but given how few remain, when are you going to get another crack at it? We’ve also listed new stock for Captain Marvel, Hulk, the 1970’s Nick Fury and his Agents of SHIELD, Nova, Spectacular Spider-Man, and the oversized Marvel Treasury Editions and Specials, including Kirby classics 2001 and Captain America’s Bicentennial Battles – so browse away!

Posted by Rob | 05:06 p.m. GMT | 26 August 2007

19 August 2007

American Update: EC's Tales From The Crypt & a Moon Girl bonus!

*EC: Our ‘EC Does It’ summer continues with a further selection of Tales From The Crypt, a nice run from #20 (the first issue) to #27 inclusive, in a variety of grades, with many falling in a very affordable price range. Star of the show is a FN copy of #21, one of the nicest condition ECs we’ve had in our summer input. And, as a bonus, there’s a rare sighting of Moon Girl, #7, a Canadian edition. Tales From The Crypt #20 & #21 and Moon Girl #7 have been added to our Cover Gallery and you may view the covers of these by following the link from the appropriate catalogue page. More EC's to follow!

Posted by Rob | 06:53 p.m. GMT | 19 August 2007

British Update - War, Western & Adventure Picture Libraries plus 4 girls' titles: Emma, 1980's Girl, Mandy & M&J!

Another mammoth update to our British stock this week in the following two categories:

*Boys' Adventure & War Picture Libraries: non-war titles Action, Eagle, Lion, Top Secret, Wild West, and World Adventure Library (starring the Man From U.N.C.L.E!) are reorganized with new stock, but fans of battle (or rather Battle) should not despair, as Battle, Air Ace, Combat, Conflict, Lion and Pocket War are also replenished, some with only one or two additions, but with a couple of dozen new items for the longer-running titles. War and Commando sit it out for this update, but they won’t miss the party; more Picture Library Updates on the immediate horizon inc #1 issues of long-running titles – keep watching the website!

*Girls’ comics and picture libraries: We have four titles ranging from the 70’s to the 90’s for you this update. Beginning with Emma, a short-lived series featuring our eponymous action girl and aspiring media superstar, who has her own adventures in the comic and interviews celebs of the day (‘The Day’ being 1979) in the feature pages. It’s these latter feature pages that make getting a nice run of Emma problematical, as the pictures and competition coupons are frequently clipped from them. We don’t have the complete Emma series, but the majority of the 81-issue run are now up on the website. Comic strip content includes rookie policewoman 'Kitty and the Crooked Myles', inadvertent astronaut 'Pam on the Purple Planet', plucky fox cub 'Red Fur' and of course, 'The White Mouse', valiant resistance fighter who thwarted the Nazis while wearing her nurses’ uniform and an enormous papier-mâché mouse’s head. Well, I expect the Nazis welcomed the change from all cat-costumed opposition they had over in the other girls’ comics! Moving on, we progress to the 1980’s revival of Girl, 'Your New Best Friend', which interspersed photo-stories and strips with the same pop pin-ups and features that make Girl, like Emma, seldom found in complete condition. Nearly four years’ worth of Girl, from 1981, to 1984, new this week. A longer-running title, Mandy, is refreshed with new stock from 1976 to 1991, with perennial favourites like wonder girl 'Valda' and the eternal 'Angel' (society girlie devotes the last years of her life to helping sundry waifs in Victorian times; it’s not a laugh a minute, but it was hugely popular.). Lastly, the combined title Mandy & Judy (M & J, as it later became known) merged two veteran series from 1991 and enjoyed a surprising new lease of life with strips like 'Fast Fido' and modern soap 'Penny’s Place' – although the classic reprints like 'Wee Slavey' and 'Valda' remained big hits with the newer audience. Substantial runs of M & J from 1991 to 1995 are now available, and worth a look despite the off-putting photo-covers on later editions. Much more to come in future weeks from our girls' comics beanfeast!

Posted by Rob | 06:51 p.m. GMT | 19 August 2007

14 August 2007

British Update - Captain Britain with free gifts, and early June inc #1

We have free gift issues and #1s for you this week in the following categories:

*Marvel UK: Classic Captain Britain, New Doctor Who, and more! Top-hole, blokes, it’s a gorblimey peasouper tonight, wot? Yeah, you guessed it – Captain Britain is back in the house! In the mid 1970’s, Marvel, flushed by the success of their repackaged reprints for the UK market, decided to bestow upon us a new British superhero… but rather than assign it to anyone who was actually, you know, British, they handed the task to Chris Claremont and Herb Trimpe, on the grounds that they’d been to Britain once. Or met a British person at least. Or, I dunno, maybe read a book. Anyway. The risible results have to been seen to be deplored, but the character having been tied so tightly into the Marvel Universe, these stories are, Gods help us, canonical, so you Marvel completists have NO CHOICE, y’hear? This impressive run has all three free gift issues (#1,#2 and #24) in high grades, plus most of the remainder of the series, so don’t take our word for it – buy ‘em and be appalled for yourself! Other additions to this popular listing are early issues of Savage Sword Of Conan Weekly, Super-Heroes starring the Silver Surfer, Spider-Man Comics Weekly from 1976 (when it’s temporary title was 'Super Spider-Man With The Super-Heroes') ,substantial run of the landscape-format Titans and… Doctor Who Adventures. Yes, we know it’s published by the BBC, not Marvel UK, but it’s got comics in it, so we’re putting it with the older Doctor Who weekly/monthly in our listings, otherwise how’s anyone ever going to find it? From #1 and focusing on the Tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant, the Time Lord’s adventures go from strength to strength, now in his second century!

*Girls’ Comics and Picture Libraries: June is bustin’ out all over – in August? Well, yes, as we’re pleased to present a big batch of June from her first five years of publication, 1961-1965, including the first three issues in low, but affordable grades. June ran until 1974, racking up an impressive 630+ issues before being merged with the upstart Tammy, absorbing Poppet (1st merger issue in this batch!), School Friend (with whom its name was linked for eight years) and Pixie on the way. June’s alumnae, including Lucky’s Living Doll, Bessie Bunter, Vanessa From Venus, Zanna the Jungle Girl, and Kathy at Marvin Grange, were part of the cultural landscape for girls growing up in the Sixties, and they always get a warm welcome from staff and readers here at 30th Century. As previously mentioned, the earliest issues in this selection tend to be FA/GD at best, but they improve as the years advance, and there are many VGs and FNs among the 90 or so issues added to our stock. Watch for thousands more comics from our summer girls' bonanza over the coming weeks!

Posted by Rob | 05:35 p.m. GMT | 14 August 2007

6 August 2007

British update - Starblazer, Pink, Oh Boy, My Guy

In this week's British update, as well as the ever popular Starblazer, we have the next phase of our massive girls' comics collection, updates from which will last well into the autumn. Details as follows:

*Boys’ Adventure & War Picture Libraries: DC Thomson’s Starblazer series is featured this update, with an extensive run increasing our previous stock by roughly 50%, including many of the issues written by a fledgling Grant Morrison, who went on to more notorious and controversial things at DC’s Vertigo imprint. Created as a blatant Star Wars cash-in 1979, the Starblazer series never really became the hoped-for sales juggernaut, but had a respectable run until 1991’s final issue, #281, along the way giving steady work to Enrique Alcatena, Tony O’Donnell, Ray Aspden, Jose Casanovas, Cam Kennedy and scores more with self-contained stories of outer-space derring-do. Light on characterization, the series nevertheless featured several recurring heroes, including Planet Tamer, blind cop Mikal Ryan, the man-droid Carter, and the savage-but-shapely Cinnabar and her brother Wulf, (a woman? In a *boy’s* comic? Stop the presses!) all of whom popped up in several adventures. Our additions this time commence with the very first issue, and continue until the mid-260’s, with approximately 75 entirely new to our listings.

*Girls’ Comics and Picture Libraries: Think Pink! A new title to our listings, Pink ran from 1973 till at least 1979, mopping up Tina, Mirabelle and Music Star along the way. More than 100 sequin-spangled issues are added in, with a heady mix of comic strips (including the adventures of desperate wannabe media tartlet 'Sugar Jones'), photo-love stories, hairless vealcake pop pin-ups, and blatant publicity fabrications about celebs. ('Starsky and Hutch – Their Secret Love!' 'Gary Glitter’s Tragic Secret!' and my personal favourite, 'The Bay City Rollers’ Manager – His Secret Band Photos!' Yeah, I know it’s easy to point and sneer, but often, as they say, the subtext becomes the text…) In addition, we’ve topped up our stocks of Oh Boy! from 1976 to 1980, and My Guy from 1978 to 1987, which offer, well, pretty much more of the same, really. The same stories, the same gossip, in fact, I swear it’s the same cover models… If you lived through the Seventies, scramble into your tartan and prepare for a foray back to the decade of flicks, flares and Flintlock (now *there* was a band…) , and if you’re too young to remember – be afraid; be very afraid….

Posted by Rob | 01:09 p.m. GMT | 6 August 2007

American update -- 1940s/50s DCs plus War inc Atlas titles

Some lovely true vintage stuff this week as follows:

*DC: The Forties and Fifties are freshened-up with a late Gold & Silver update focussing on DC’s ‘Big Three’ – Superman (in Action, World’s Finest and an oddball Canadian edition of his own title.), Batman (in Detective and World’s Finest, backed up by Green Arrow and Pow-Wow Smith – no, really….) and the Amazing Amazon, Wonder Woman, in her own title. Plus, a sprinkling of stellar sci-fi with Strange Adventures; new additions to our stock between #50 and #100 (an unusually scarce range in the UK), with work by Kane, Infantino, Fox, Greene, and other stalwarts of the spaceways.

*War: ‘Make War No More!’ - just read about it instead, with our battle-scarred tales of combat spanning four decades! Headliner this time is a selection of 1950’s Atlas war titles, including Battle-Front, Combat Casey ('The Red-Bearded Riot!', it says here), Marines In Action, War Adventures and War Comics, mostly Pre-Code issues featuring art by Maneely, Heath, Berg, Sale, and Krigstein. Often lovely art, and in very affordable mid-grades. On the second front, we have Charlton’s Army Attack, Attack (for when an Army Attack just isn’t enough…), Fightin’ Army and Fightin’ Marines, Marvel’s Captain Savage and Sgt. Fury, and DC’s Sgt. Rock, for new angles on the old war story from the Sixties to the Eighties. So if you want to find out why 'The General Said Nuts!', to quote merely one of the evocative story titles in this selection – pick up a few and try ‘em out!

Posted by Rob | 12:25 p.m. GMT | 6 August 2007