AJD

Thanks Peter. No ads at all, just comics from go to whoa in these.

I've been on something of a Prince Valiant kick lately. These copies were sitting on eBay for well over a year, just rolling around again and again, so I sent the seller an offer. I think both parties are happy now. It's nice to get consecutive issues too, as the stories are serialised. And I get to post some Hal Foster work. I love the negative space and silhouette work on this page. And I know the influence of Foster on Carl Barks' The Golden Helmet has been noted before, but it jumped off the page at me here. Call me old-fashioned, but a comic world in which books with Foster, Hogarth and Raymond are up with Superman and Batman for value makes eminent sense to me!

Camilla splash to Camilla splash

Smoking cigarette to smoking cigars

Cocktails to a c0ck's tail* *stupid dirty word filter

Marilyn to Marilyn

I'm with @comicjack - Zoot no, Vooda maybe/yes.

They are safe with fullback and mylar preservation. I thought about framing one or more, but decided against it on the grounds that they are really one of a kind objects and having them out in the light wasn't the best approach. I ended up framing some Russ Cochrane reprint duck covers instead. For those who came in late... 400 years ago a man washed up on a Bengali shore... oh, hang on, that's the wrong recap. Duffbloke is talking about these printer's proofs of the Dell July 1944 war bonds covers, which I am fortunate enough to own. They're somewhere back in the pre-history of this thread, but here they are again. These are some of my favourite collection items:

Thanks Steve. The early ones are too pricey, though not so very hard to find. Maybe five years ago when A$ = US$ but not now. Thanks Bob. They are great, but I think I'm going to content myself with 6-100 and then start picking up nice copies of higher numbers. Here's the last one I needed in the 19-100 range. A quite pretty copy with strong colours and lovely off-white to white pages. Here are some of those pages. The 5th Barks 10-pager, with the early long-necked Donald: Another WW2 shortages-themed MM gag: And another of my favourite features of the time - WW2 unit insignias with a Disney theme. These ones are all from US units, but Disney characters also appeared on British, French and even Axis vehicles and aircraft - I don't think Dell ever published the latter! I must try to dig a few of those up and post them here.

Yep, happy to help. It's nice to see Pitt getting some air time here. I was about to start a "series" on Australian artists in the GA in Australia thread too, so I might steal some images from here at some stage. (I was going to start with Virgil Reilly)

British weekly to British bi-weekly

Thanks Scrooge. There's at least one more. The middle daily on this page from WDC&S #9... ... is also the cover of #14 (which is one of the ones I don't have): While I'm here, here's another version of the rooster panel, this time on the front of a UK bi-weekly comic paper, repurposed as a WW2 exhortation.

Aussie dollar (a.k.a. Pacific peso) hit 67c yesterday.