AJD

Awesome. I am somewhere in that bidder list. My plan was to get some leafcasting done on the cover, but it got a bit rich for that to be viable. Glad another boardie snagged it.

Well, clearly that didn't work. Anyway, it's always nice to increase the number of Dell ducks in Australia. Incidentally, the first Dell I ever saw in the flesh was an Uncle Scrooge #12 I bought at Lee's Comics in California in the 1980s. It was probably a 1.5 or so, but I felt like I'd made an incredible find.

Wow, that's a great copy Marty. Many (most?) of that print run has really washed out red colours, but yours is nice. Can I have it? Please? (Kidding, of course, though it would go to a good home. )

Why was there a tracking number if the order wasn't being filled?

The Daffy Duck video is great. The key Supergirl appearances is a good idea, but you should've at least grabbed cover pics from comics.org or somthing to illustrate it, and maybe you could've explained who some of the characters are for those who don't know. (I have no idea who Di-k Wilson is, though I am well acquainted with Streaky the cat. ) Just showing your handwritten list isn't that exciting, although it's still better than Jupiter Ascending.

Yup, just add new posts as you go and there'll be a record for future historians who chronicle your path.

Only just noticed this. As a big duck fan, I wonder what you got?

I've picked up a few books lately, but they've been very slow coming in the mail. But this one arrived yesterday: This #15 is my 69th of the first 100 WDC&S. Progress on this set is slow these days, but I also have a #37 on the way in the post. To tell the truth, I'm not sure if this set will ever be completed. I'm missing some expensive books - nine of the first ten, #31 (first Barks) and the few after that. When the Australian dollar was US$1.10 it seemed doable. At US$0.78 I'm much less enthused. Thankfully there are always Australian GA books to chase as well. I usually don't have to pay Forex on those.

The quest continues. This #15 is my 69th of the first 100. I have another on the way in the post, but progress is slow these days. Still, lots to like about this copy, and the colours are lovely.

It's marked with a copyright, so I won't post it, but there's a nice picture of a girl enjoying Carl Barks' third contribution to WDC&S on ebay here.

I never knew that's where that cover art was from. Very cool! I think Daughters of Doom would have made an even better album title. BZ: That's really cool, thanks for the lesson. P5: I always thought a better album would've made a better album. Not Bob's finest moment...

Well, relatively big bucks, for the Australian comic market. The #4 above sold for $2,200 and I've seen similar prices for early copies. #1 is the biggie, though I haven't noticed one selling for a while. It's at least a $10k book though. The only Australian comics that run The Phantom close are early Disney reprints. WDC&S #1 and #3 are both hard to find and expensive (#2 is easier than #3, but again that's relative).

Finally for this year, it's about time I mention The Phantom - the single most successful title in Australian comic publishing. Published continuously by Frew from 1948 and still going strong today ( website ). I bought issue #1750, the 2015 bumper sized annual, yesterday. Here are a few early ones, 4, 7 and 10 (again, #4 is portrait, the other two are landscape): OK, that's it for this year's Oz Day special. I'm off to cook that well-known Australian dish Jambalaya.

Here are a couple of issues of Captain Atom. #3 has the most bizarre cover I've seen. I have no idea what's going on in this picture (answers on a postcard please): #39 and 40 are at least more comprehensible. They are also in landscape format - not unusual for Australian comics of the day: Here's another landscape book. This is an Australian version of Classics Junior:

But all is not lost. I've scratched together a few interesting things for this year's update. Let's start with one of Australia's most popular home-grown supheroes. (Most popular at the time - no one has heard of him now.) The best book on Australian comics is John Ryan's Panel by Panel (long out of print but see earlier in the thread for a few pictures). Here's what he says about the Crimson Comet: "While with Edwards [publishing], John Dixon drew over 150 issues of Tim Valour, about 50 issues of the crimson Comet, many issues of Biggles..." It also says "The Crimson Comet, with tight-fitting red costume and real wings, made it's debut five months after Tim Valour and was the first regularly published comic that came close to the traditional US super-hero... With the Korean War and the McCarthy era... both Tim Valour and the Crimson Comet spent a lot of time fighting 'the reds'." Bonzer by Annette Shiel and Mick Stone gives us the origin of the CC: "John Dixon's the Crimson Comet had the wings of a giant eagle grafted onto his back by his father, a surgeon whose mind snapped after his wife was killed by a burglar". ("I shall become a bat. No, wait, I'll make my son into an eagle instead. Yeah, that'll work.") Bonzer has a checklist that says there were two series of Crimson Comet. The first ran #1 - 69 and had cover prices of 6d (sixpence = 5c) and 8d. The second series was numbered 10-42 (possibly higher) and a single issue labelled CI. The cover price of the later series was 9d or 1/- (one shilling = 10c). Here's #1, offered for sale on eBay recently: Collecting Australian comics is a challenging business. As well as poor documentation, they are just really hard to find and many exist in small numbers. The GCD only has partial coverage of the covers of some titles. Here are some other CC issues. Enjoy the production quality:

Hi everyone, happy Australia Day. The Ghost Who Hops (cannot die) welcomes you to some new posts in this thread. I had been hoping that I'd be able to dazzle with some photos from a display of Australian comics at the National Library of Australia. After drumming up press interest I assumed that the library planned something worth seeing. I was wrong. Here it is, in its entirety: Two - count them - actual golden age comics and two enlarged photocopies. At least there's a library blog post which has some more on the subject, and a few internal shots of the comics as well, here. (There are other library blog posts on comics in their collection. Here's one on Australian Doll Man reprints.) Here are a few shots of the display, just for posterity. It's interesting to see that Library of New South Wales is going to feature their Frank Johnson comics in a display. I'd like to think that me requesting them being retrieved from storage for last year's update played a role. In any case, let's hope they do better than the National Library did.

You'll get a 0.5 for that in a blue label.

QA error at CGC. Should be a green label.

don't worry Jon I think that's a boy thing!!! my son is almost 1 and he tears the lids off my comic boxes just to throw the books on the floor!! funny story though when my daughter was about 2 I took her to the LCS to see her reaction and she went and found a Garfield comic off the rack and subsequently ripped it to shreds! Thus showing that good taste in comics can be inherited. My son at age 3 coloured in some of my B&W hardcover Barks library. He didn't even stay within the lines...

That didn't ring a bell. There was a very good Australian comic called Silver Starr, but Rocky doesn't appear in the index of either standard reference on Australian comics. But I did find this via a Google search on the image: Rocky Starr-Destination Venus (AUS) - All-otr.com www.all-otr.com/R010a_RockyStarr.htm 250 × 250 - Rocky Starr-Destination Venus (AUS). This is an Australian children's show about the interplanetary adventures of daredevil Rocky Starr and his intrepid team. So I searched the television database at the National Film and Sound Archive, and found this entry: Title No: 714742 Title: ROCKY STAR Production Date: 1 January 1992 Produced as: Series Media: Television Summary: Satirical black and white TV series produced in 1992 which reinterprets the 1950's radio drama series Rocky Starr. Rocky Star (Richard Morsley), Mitch Morgan ( Stephen Fearnley) and Diana Moore ( Kerry Fox) return to earth which is being terrorised by evil alien Zog. Screened on SBS. 20 episodes of 5 minutes duration. Country of Origin: Australia Language: English The radio database had more - apparently Rocky ran for over 600 episodes. So now we know.

Since I've paid MCS for these, hopefully they won't mind me using their auction scans until they arrive.

Excellent pickup. Those issues have shot up in the last few years. Wish I'd bought them five years ago.

I picked up some cool books at the MCS auction yesterday. Australian reprints of Planet Comics. These are about as good as it gets condition wise for Australian GA comics. They were all printed on newspaper stock, including the covers, and truly high-grade is unknown for many of them. They look even better in hand than they looked on the MCS auction listing. It's also hard to find decent documentation. Between the Ausreprints site and the GCD, you can see about half of the covers of the 24 thought to be in the run.

I'd decided to start the new year slowly comics wise, take my time and make fewer but bigger purchases this year. But sometimes the comic gods care little for the plans of collectors. I was putting the original Barks run of Uncle Scrooge together back in 08/09. (Issues Four Color 386 (#1) through to Uncle Scrooge #72. The hardest to find by far was Uncle Scrooge #6. It's much less common in grade than the others. Because of a common production flaw there were only two in the census then - a 6.5 and an 8.0. Today there are still only four blue labels in total; two 8s, a 7 and a 6.5. There are also two SA 7.5s, which I'm willing to bet are trimmed to get rid of the production overhang. Anyhow, I recall joining Heritage a week after the 6.5 was auctioned and was sorry I'd just missed it when I checked the archives. Oh well, I thought, I'll just make sure I buy the next one... In the meantime I bought a VG+ that presented OK but was almost certainly trimmed copy. It filled the hole in my collection but I always wanted a better one. Fast forward almost seven years and thanks to the boards I get a second chance. Here's what will be winging its way to me soon: I feel like I just won a lottery.

Some of you might recall the trouble I had running down a nice Uncle Scrooge 6 when I was putting that run together back in 08/09. Because of a common production flaw there were only two in the census then - a 6.5 and an 8.0. Today there are four blue labels in total, two 8s, a 7 and a 6.5. There are also two SA 7.5s - I'm willing to bet they're trimmed to get rid of the production overhang. Anyhow, I recall joining Heritage a week after the 6.5 was auctioned and was sorry I'd just missed it when I checked the archives. Oh well, I thought, I'll just make sure I buy the next one... In the meantime I bought a VG+ copy which presented well but is almost certainly trimmed. It filled the hole in my collection but I always wanted a better one. Fast forward almost seven years and thanks to the for sale section on these boards I got a second chance at that book. Here's what will be winging its way to me soon: I feel like I just won a lottery.