AJD

I had a few minutes before I head off, so let me post another Cheetah book with a locally drawn cover. It's based on the pretty neat splash page: But the local artist has managed to make the figures so stiff that it has turned it into 'Ken and Barbie' ride an elephant... (and is it just me, or does Kaanga's elbow/shoulder seem to be on back to front the way he's holding that tusk?)

I'll be away for a couple of weeks, and I'll get back to the Cheetah collection on return. Until then, here are a couple of Australian crime reprints to tide you over. For those keeping score, it's blondes 1 v criminals 1 for this round. She seems nice... And this lass is just tired and having a lie down...

Well "My World" is very cool and would be nice to own, but I don't think it's a story that 'blows the others away'. But I'll be generous - you can have that and I'll have the flying machine one.

If it was me wanting a single example of EC original art, it would be the adaptation of Bradbury's The flying machine. It was 6 pages and is in a Cochran reprint...

Well, yes, 16 is indeed more than 11, but I think a statistician would tell you those numbers are the same, being just a bit over a standard deviation apart. You'll need bigger numbers before you can say that for sure. </nerd>

Windscreen to cockpit canopy.

Now you've got me thinking. This cover also appeared on the US edition of Kaanga #17 which I'd assumed where the Australian edition sourced its cover. https://www.comics.org/issue/10832/cover/4/ But come to think about it, the layout is more splash than FH cover. I'm not sure where to start looking though...

I wish. That one continues to elude me. It won't be in hand for a couple of weeks so I'm wary of jinxing myself, but it's a UK book from the end of WW2 that caught my eye in a book of world comics back in '08 and which is a great fit in my collection, sitting in the overlap between two themes. Sorry to be mysterious, but all will be revealed in time. Of course, it might be that I'm the only person on earth who cares so much about it.

Good call I think. The heavy shading on the figure did look familiar.

19 complete volumes x 12 = 228 + 11 = 239

Yes, my comedic stylings are always greatly improved by laborious explanations... Aqualung (Ian Anderson/Jennie Anderson) EMI Music (c) 1971 Sitting on a park bench Eyeing little girls with bad intent ...

For some reason the opening lines of Aqualung are running through my head right now... Oh dear, are you sure you didn't accidentally go to a meeting of the Southwark hip replacement survivor bachelor's club? Seriously, the deomographic here does not bode well for the future of comic collecting in the UK. It looks like every model club event I have ever attended... All jests aside, that was a great post, and it made me want to go to London again!

Everyone should do it. I hereby volunteer to be the reception centre for all Australian comics returned to these shores. Thanks M&I. You'll like the quest book - it's a UK pence copy. Tuppence, to be precise... Thanks Jon. Yes, the colours on these are great. The earlier issues of these titles had slick covers, as opposed to the newsprint ones that came later, and the colours really pop on them. Of the 30 books I think there are only three local covers. The local editors must have had plenty of US-sourced covers to work with in the early runs of these titles. (All of the Kaanga, Jungle and Jumbos here are in the #1-10 range.) Later as the needed new covers for the 24 unused pages from every US edition (these are 28 page books, compared to 52 pages originally) they started generating more. The Kaanga special and the two below have covers adapted from one or more panels in the stories. The Kaanga #3 cover has a really interesting look about it with the heavy shading in places. Here's the giant snake panel from Kaanga #3 And here's a completely gratuitous page with an 'interesting' view of a diving Sheena from Jungle #9:

I had a great day in collecting today. I'll expand on it in the next few days, but here's a preview of what I'm calling the " @cheetah collection". I was delighted that Jeff chose to sell me his collection of Australian books and he was great to work with. Here's a quick snapshot of them home in their natural habitat - spread out on a floor in Australia! There are some really beautiful books in this lot. For a start, here's Kaanga #1. I scanned this one first because the GCD didn't have it. If that box turning up wasn't good enough for one day, I also won a book I've been looking for for ten years on eBay tonight. The only copy I've ever found for sale... more anon.

Great cover gag on that one. If only the writer of this gag had been brave enough to go 'there'...