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Judging by the prices on some of the mags I saw in his collection that were still intact (the store's grease pencil price across the front cover), I would be surprised if he paid more than $20 for the whole 65 story batch, including the 35 cents for the Adventures of Pussycat mag! About what it cost me to photocopy and bind one set of the run at a local copy shop. Wild!

While I have many of the comic book Mad's in pretty decent condition and the first 7 or so of the magazines and many more up to the end of the 1960's, I can't really say I collect monthly Mad's. My focus has always been the Annuals, even when I was a kid and bought my first one, Mad Follies #6. I set my mad collecting goal to be all of the Annuals, with the inserts intact until the Mad Specials stopped doing the Nostalgic Mad reprints. Those were the last inserts that really excited me. I have a complete collection of all the Worst Ofs, More Trash Froms, Follies and Specials and even have most if not all the price variants of the issues from the 60's (same issues have 50 and 60 cent cover prices, probably for Canadian consumption, I would guess) with the inserts intact. I did spread this obsession to collecting the hardcovers, but that's really where the collection ended. I think the appeal was probably that it was a finite collecting situation, but I still keep an eye out for reasonably priced issues that are as good or better than the ones I own...cause you never know. I had many lesser condition dupes I accumulated over the years, mostly cheap reading copies minus the inserts or sporting partial inserts. Recently I've gotten into having runs of comics and magazines professionally bound in hardcover and in my last batch I did one I call "An Assortment Of Mad Annuals 1962-68" and bound them by year rather than by title and number, just because I liked the idea of keeping the book flowing chronologically related to who was working for Mad or stopped working, such as Wood and Davis, movie and tv parodies, etc. I'm pretty happy with how the fat tome turned out. I also used to collect 25 cent annuals and squarebound comics because I liked that they had a real spine versus regular curved spine mags and comics....it's a little ocd, and that probably contributed to my obsession with Mad Annuals....

Judging by the way he had the file organized, it looked like he discovered the collected Marvel issue before he started clipping the strips. The only dupe he had from that magazine was the Hippie Caper strip. Also, the chap is 85+ years old and there may have been a memory burp in there somewhere, but he says he never bought Stag, just the Men/Male mags and Adventures Of Pussycat! Including The Adventures mag he batted 65 of 66, and for that he certainly made my day, month, year, etc!!!! Also, I'm pretty sure he amassed the collection via used book stores rather than buying the mags off the stand as they came out. This guy prides himself on finding bargains, and those mags were pretty plentiful in second hand stores during the period they were published. In fact I worked at the store he frequented back in the day, a couple of decades later, and in the basement were piles and piles of that pulp. Only I wasn't aware of Pussycat at the time and wasn't too interested in the mags. All that stuff was probably taken to the dump and is now part of the landscape, sad to say......but in it's heyday, a run of Pussycat could probably have been completed via the place pretty easily!!!

I think I'm up to 10 copies of the Ridiculously Expensive Mad (6 are complete with inserts still attached, in dj, with errata slip). It's one of those books I coveted as a kid, but no way were my folks going to give me the then princely sum of $9.95 for A MAD!!! Over the years I became quite obsessed with the book and bought every copy I'd come across....then the WWW came about and finding them was much easier...so I stopped! Hardest of the HC's for me to find was a nice copy of Golden Trashery. I think that book is the scarcest of the four, and I think it wasn't distributed as well as the previous 2, nor did it go through more than one printing. At least I haven't seen any later printings of it, while I have had later printings of Mad For Keeps and somebody told me they had a second of Mad Forever, but I've not seen it. Oh, and don't believe the bs when somebody says they have a sealed copy of Ridiculously. Unless it came from Gaines' estate, where he may have had his copies sealed, when the book was originally sold it was not...I used to spend lots of time in B. Dalton's slobbering over that book...multiple times, and never had to bust it out of a cellophane...I don't even think they sold books that way in 1969!

I guess another UG related magazine that might be considered 'key' would be Cheri (12/76) which contained, aside from his Yum-Yum Book, the first color comic book by R. Crumb in the form of a 20 page excerpt from Carload O'Comics, a collection which was published in black and white. Also, there was a band that went around the magazine that isn't usually found that mentions the comic book and was possibly designed by Crumb.....

Mad #21 has what is probably considered the first appearance of A. E. Neuman....and that's while it was still a comic book. You have to search the cover to find Alfred....think Where's Alfred!

I believe we can now rest in the search for the NON-EXISTENT Men June 1970 issue. I confirmed this afternoon, after a visit to a store that specializes in back number magazines that Men May 1970 is Volume 19 Number 5 and July 1970 is Volume 19 Number 6. Therefore June 1970 was a skip month and it would appear that the number of Pussycat episodes is now complete at 66.

When I conveyed the information that the missing Pussycat adventure was in an issue of Stag Magazine to my friend who had every other installment (I forgot to mention that he ended up having the final page of Mixed-Up Model, and one of the stories I had been looking for in his 'dupe' file), his reaction was one of surprise. He feels the reason he missed it was because it was in Stag and he never had seen one there before. Ergo, I'm thinking if Men 6/70 exists, or had a Pussycat, it would have been in his collection! Makes me think the search will be for naught or a duplicate. At this point I'd almost wager on it! Very much looking forward to the findings of Divad!!!

Went by the store I discussed earlier, and while I found about 8 issues of Men circa 1970-72, I was not able to find the 6/70 issue. I have another feeler out, but I'm now wondering if it might have been an unscheduled skip month for the magazine. Has anyone here actually seen even a picture of the issue?

Yes 50, I'm good! There's a place in town that might have a copy of Men 6/70. Next time I'm in the neighborhood I'll ask if they do and if I can peruse it. Thanks again jjs5774 for all your help!

She Makes It With The Mafia

50, Thank you for your concise bibliography and cross reference. I have some corrections and additions you might be interested in: 58. Crime And Lusciousment...Featuring The Deadliest 38-23-38 Of Them All 30. It's A Gass, Lass should be It's A Gas, Lass! 28. Newest Misadventures Of Our Cuddly Little Cutie should be Newest Merry Misadventure Of Our Cuddly Little Cutie (handwritten in pencil on my copy is "1967 Male Annual")(Is it possible we are both right and there is a 67th story?) 50. A Racey Tale should be A Racy Tale 52. Scandinavian Sex Plot should be Scandinavian Sexplot ....Or Everything You Wanted To Know About Pussycat, But Were Afraid To Ask (Sexplot is one word in the title) 54. Venus And Venice should be Venus In Venice...Or Momma Mia! That'sa Some Spicy Signorina!

I'm on that forum and didn't realize there was more than one thread involving Pussycat. My guess is that the guy who started the thread you linked to didn't know that Wikipedia took your info. I have attempted to remedy the situation in that forum's original Pussycat thread as of yesterday: http://marvelmasterworksfansite.yuku.com/topic/5648/Pussycat I apologize for my wayward colleagues. I wouldn't have known either if I hadn't stumbled blindly into this forum having done a search for all things Pussycat!

I think my friend was pretty anal in buying the magazines as they came out in order to clip the Pussycat's. I mean he got 64 out of 66. Also, in 1969 wasn't January a skip month for Pussycat? I think it might be ok to make the leap that there may have been a skip month in 1970. It just seems odd to me that out of all the missing months, my guy and you guys would be missing the same June 1970 issue. Coincidence, perhaps, Pussycat? perhaps not?

Sadly, the only story where my friend identified the specific magazine was "The Newest Merry Misadventure Of Our Cuddly Little Cutie!" which is 1967 Male Annual. Any other point of reference included is only the month and year. The art for "Capricious Capers Of A Curvy Cutie-Pie" appears to be by Bill Ward . I'd love to get that last page of "Mixed-Up Model" and if anybody has scans of the two stories I'm missing could you be so kind as to send them to me. I'd really appreciate it. I'm very happy to reciprocate with any stories needed including the above.

Hello folks, this is my first post here. Today I came into temporary possession of a near complete batch of Pussycat strips that an elderly friend of mine dutifully cut out of magazines during the 1960's and early 70's. While he didn't date all of the stories, a good number of them are and a few of them identify which magazine they were removed from. Also in this folder is a copy of the October 1968 Adventures of Pussycat Magazine. Amongst the tear sheets there were duplicates of 2 of the stories contained within that magazine. The rest were not. According to the lists and bibliographies I've found on this thread and at Wikipedia there are 65 different strips. However, while I am missing 2 complete stories and the last page of one in this batch, I have discovered a story that I don't find in either place, bringing the total count to 66. It is from April of 1968 and is titled "The Capricious Capers Of A Curvy Cutie-Pie". I'd be happy to make a trade of scans of that story for the two I'm missing, 3/1968 "Mischievous Memoirs of a Merry Little Miss", 1969's "Look Ma, I'm Flyin" and the last page of 10/1968 "Mixed-Up Model". Thanks in advance!