AJD

Yes, all of those. And yes to the art and stories. I've been reading through Prince Valiant lately and really enjoying it. You can see a few pages of it in the recent posts in my 'AJD's comic notebook' thread. Edit: to second what the duck said, the Little Nemo strips are amazing and quite trippy for the time. And while I'm here, Herriman's Krazy Kat has an odd charm to it as well - it's far, far better than the Dell comics with the same characters that came later.

"Viking funeral"

Betty S. carved in stone to statuesque Betty C.

Many Fiction House books have exactly that sort of variation due to uneven colour saturation during printing.

Interesting. Is there a chance that this 9.4 was once one of the 9.0s? Or is it genuinely new to market?

More Hal Foster goodness in my mailbox today I always enjoy reading these, but #17 was especially good, as Val and his entourage traverse the Alps from France to Italy on a quest to recruit missionaries to take Christianity to the benighted Norsemen. Along the way we get some interesting history and geography, and get to meet the original Dalmations (not enumerated here) and a wonderful full page splash of the laying of a keystone in an arch to found the Principality of San Marino. It reminds me of the things I learned from reading Uncle Scrooge 50 years ago, or Don Rosa more recently. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about San Marino. Note that the stonemason Marinus has become Marius in Foster's story. The country, whose independence has ancient origins, claims to be the world's oldest surviving republic. According to legend, San Marino was founded in 301 AD when a Christian stonemason Marinus (lit. from the sea), later venerated as Saint Marinus, emigrated in 297 AD from Dalmatian island of Rab, when Emperor Diocletian issued a decree calling for the reconstruction of the city walls of Rimini, destroyed by Liburnian pirates. Marinus later became a Deacon and was ordained by Gaudentius, the Bishop of Rimini; shortly after, he was recognised and accused by an insane woman of being her estranged husband, whereupon he quickly fled to Monte Titano to build a chapel and monastery and live as a hermit. Later, the State of San Marino would bud from the centre created by this monastery. Living in geographical isolation from the Diocletianic Persecution of Christians at the time, the mountain people were able to live peaceful lives. When the settlement of fearful mountain people was eventually discovered, the owner of the land, Felicissima, a sympathetic lady of Rimini, bequeathed it to the small Christian community of mountain dwellers, recommending to them to remain always united. Evidence of the existence of a community on Mount Titano dates back to the Middle Ages. That evidence comes from a monk named Eugippio, who reports in several documents going back to 511 that another monk lived here. In memory of the stonecutter, the land was renamed "Land of San Marino", and was changed to its present-day name, "Republic of San Marino".Later papers from the 9th century report a well organized, open and proud community: the writings report that the bishop ruled this territory. In Lombard age, San Marino was a fief of Dukes of Spoleto (linked to Papal States), but the free comune dates to the tenth century. The original government structure was composed of a self-governed assembly known as the Arengo, which consisted of the heads of each family (as in the original Roman Senate, the Patres). In 1243, the positions of Captains Regent (Capitani Reggenti) were established to be the joint heads of state. The state's earliest statutes date back to 1263. The Holy See confirmed the independence of San Marino in 1631.

Man in parachute harness with machine gun to woman in same

It ran for five issues. And in all of the comic stories in all of the issues, no hill of beans.

Finally, here's Extra! #1. Quite a nice cover layout, I think. And here's the blurb on the inside page. It might just be hindsight bias, but does it sound a bit like even the publishers aren't sure about this one? Here's the title's first splash. Is it just me, or is Craig visually invoking the final scene of Casablanca here?

Whippersnapper.

Another Extra! With a nice (and recently topical ) splash by Reed Crandall (I'm pretty sure). "The sensitive Crown colony on the edge of the bamboo curtain..."

Crown to golden helmet

It's pretty well done. A bit like some of the Marvel covers that blended a drawn character with a photo background.

Brain to brain in a jar.

Soldier with face partially shaded facing away from the firefight depicted on the rest of the cover to .... well, you get the idea

Holy Moley! Put that down as a win.

It was a comic based around reporters, and tried to bring in adventure and spy angles. Not too many of the stories are memorable.

Apologies then. But my point about selling books remains - the recent female characters have been a bigger commercial success than previous iterations, so it makes perfect sense, even if we long-term fans would rather see more established ones.

Heaven forbid that a comic book company would (a) want to sell comics and (b) realise that > 50% of potential purchasers are female. Offset against that, of course, is the possibility that other potential customers who can't cope with sharing their hobby with - gasp - women might then not buy it because 'pandering'.

Yep, gotta love the purple label of affordability!