AJD

Pretty much any AF15 is worth grading. Yours looks solid and complete with very amateurish colour touch. The tape won't matter so much as CGC will just grade it as if the tear wasn't sealed at all. If I had to guess, I think it might be 3.5 C-1 or maybe C-2. (C= amateur resto, 1 = slight, 2 = medium). I'm sure others will know more than me.

Treasure chest to Treasure chest

Sticking with the Egypt theme

Is Major Herringbone happy with the results? Err, not quite: Because having "pinup pictures" of your daughter up on the wall at work is completely non-creepy...

The last of the latest batch of books Most of the M.D. stories are pretty dense on medical technologies and general practice as it was in the 1950s. Having a daughter in the medical field, it's interesting to see what state of the art looked like back then. This story is a bit different though, centering on a mental illness - in this case hypochondria.

No, I had both hands full with glasses of beer and couldn't get to my knife.

Ah, I love it when Europeans try to compare distances and realise how big some countries are. I was asked in London if I knew someone who lived in Perth. I got to explain that Perth was about 40% further from my place than Moscow is from where we were standing.

Putting aside the "cor, you don't get many of those to the pound" hilarity of our British mates, here's another recent pickup. And as an 'under the covers' treat, here's the complete story "In the bag" by Krigstein that appears in this issue. (Scanned from a Cochrane reprint.) Of all the EC artists, I think Krigstein and Kurtzman were the most experimental in their layouts and style, though in quite different ways. I think I've said before that I'm not a fan of the first person voice, but this is a fine piece of visual storytelling as well. Enjoy.

Is the spine split at the bottom, or just worn? I think maybe 5.0 if not, but down a tick to 4.5 otherwise.

$300 a pop? Can you provide a link to the books you are talking about? The Dark Horse volumes are great, being full colour on a really nice glossy stock, but they are much cheaper than that. I can get them delivered in Australia for A$60 or about US$42 each.

The spirits of Sid James and Benny Hill live on, I see.

Comic book to comic book (I had nothin')

So... I stop into a little country town in New South Wales on my way back home from a trip to the coast, and go poking around in a shop that has some boxes of comics. Hmm... overpriced low grade Australian Disneys... overpriced Gold Key Boris Karloff and Twilight Zone... underpriced Matt Baker cover Fightin Marines... trashed and overpriced Phantoms... some overpriced low grade Dell TV tie ins... wait, what? Yep. With a Baker Canteen Kate story as well, in which our heroine surprisingly has to pose for some glamour photos to replace some that were broken. Entirely coincidentally, Mr Baker gets to draw some pinup poses on every page.

Candle to candles

Speed boat to row boat

Time for an obituary, I'm afraid. The 'Comics Down Under' site has a nice write-up of Paul Wheelahan (1930-2018), an Australian comic artist from the late 1940s onwards who died just after Christmas. You can see some of his work elsewhere in this thread (the Panther and Raven comics above are both Wheelahan creations, written and drawn), and here are a few more from my collection: He also did quite a few covers and filler stories for Australian reprints of Fiction House titles: I think @Duffman_Comics probably has some more to add on this subject.

Here's some more material guaranteed to get Dr Wertham worked up. This was an attempt by Bill Gaines to get around the code by publishing edgier material in a magazine non-comic format. Lots of good artwork in this, but the writing - of which there is a lot given the picto-fiction format - isn't great. Given the high 25c price, no wonder the series didn't last long. Here's an example of the splash pages And this ad on the inside back cover is a hoot:

You rang? Pretty sure the CGC listing is an error. A few Four Color series books got an Australian printing, but mostly the movie adaptations. Westerns were popular here, but I've never seen a Peter Gunn issue, and AusReprints comes up blank as well. If I had to bet, I'd say it's like the Donald Duck I posted here earlier - a UK issue incorrectly identified by CGC as Australian. Now, if you'll excuse me, as king of this ridiculously hot country, I have to go order the execution of the entire Australian cricket team.

Before this journal disappears over a distant event horizon, I thought I'd post a few pickups from late 2018. First up is this SOTI book. (A big thankyou to @EC ed for this and the other books to come). So... what did Dr Wertham pick on in this particular book? Was it the headlight cover? Or maybe the suggestive "hello boys" seated posture of Zazenda? Or maybe the blonde bikini twins catfight (interspersed by rather nice animal drawings) All good choices, to be sure. But the good doctor was having none of that. The true delinquency-inducing filth was on this page (study it closely): Not seeing it? Here's a hint: Still not getting it? OK, here's the unmitigated filth presented in all its glory: I think Dr Wertham effectively demonstrated that comic books can be an excellent projective tool for a disturbed mind that's determined to discover filth.