Get Marwood & I

Yeah, shady past they have, as Yoda might say. In the absence of being able to prove anything for them, I think I'll stick with the general 'circumstantial' evidence of the Miller stamps and place them landing in the UK sometime in 1960.

I always liked that cover - the big fellow 'hiding' looks so odd doesn't he with his funny hand and massive 'how did he miss them' feet. Do you think the cover blurb should say 'fantasy, as you like it' instead of the 'as you live it' that it does say though? Meeeooow!

I mentioned in a previous post how difficult it was to add any meaningful entries to the table for I.W. Publishing / Super comics. I used to own quite a few of these with 6d LM stamps on which I picked up during my early research into Miller Charltons. Here are two examples - Blazing Sixguns #8 and Love and Marriage #2: Both have standard (for the time) L Miller 6d cover stamps... ...and neither, annoyingly, have cover dates or indicia dates: Mike's Comic Newsstand does not have any books by I.W. on their site, probably for the same reason I am experiencing here - you can't date the damn things! The GCD has a go though... ...but places both books as 1958 copies. One of the most knowledgeable people I know about I.W. Publishing is Jon McClure who has studied them in some depth. I asked his opinion on dates a while back and he advised as follows: "All #1-6 IWs were published in 1958, #7-9 were published in 1959, 10-11 in 1963 and #14-18 in 1964. This is true of all IW comics, although a couple of indicias accidentally read 1963 during the 1964 period" If true, this would place our Love & Marriage #2 as 1958 and our Blazing Sixguns at 1959. However, the Miller cover stamp in evidence does not appear on the Marvel UKPVs until May 1960 and the Charltons until the back end of 1960 - example below, of the November 1960 Brides in Love #21: I think it is therefore likely that the I.W.'s came over in bulk, around 1960, and were stamped up and sold in that year. Otherwise, as 1958/1959 books, the stamp would presumably be an Arnold type, not a Len type, and more like our 1958 Harvey Spooky - wouldn't it? For the time being, I.W. / Super will have to sit it out. Even with pretty stamped copies like these doing the rounds:

I'm not aware of any availability of those specific ones in the UK I'm afraid. Out of stock on Amazon UK, none on eBay UK and nothing on CGC UK's website to show they are sold here, sorry. Closest I can find here is this: https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/263091824079?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=710-134428-41853-0&mkcid=2&itemid=263091824079&targetid=909953938039&device=c&mktype=pla&googleloc=9045963&poi=&campaignid=10199630638&mkgroupid=101938330797&rlsatarget=pla-909953938039&abcId=1145987&merchantid=113729202&gclid=EAIaIQobChMItKeqida46gIViK3tCh3khgTGEAQYBCABEgIXCfD_BwE

That's interesting @Mr Thorpe, the Attack there with the one and three stamp. Here's a second copy of @Kevin.J's FAF #12, also with a 'one and three' stamp: One and three would be right for these oversize 25c books of course - which makes Kevin's original FAF #12 a bit of an anomaly, stamped as it is at 9d: The date stamp in the Attack adds to the unease, and leaves me thinking we should note these books as outliers still, until a more consistent pattern emerges. The Feb 1959 Charlton is part of a clear pattern, with books for each successive month in evidence in multiples. One Attack with a suspicious internal date stamp and two FAFs with differently priced stamps aren't enough to convince me - yet. They can clearly hold the title for 'earliest T&P stamped cover date' on paper, but I'm not yet convinced that they were shipped and stamped in line with those cover dates - much more likely that they were done later. What do you boys think? Meanwhile, here's a cool 'Out of This World' #8, indicia dated May 1958, with a cool one shilling sticker from 'S.B.S.': It's always Charlton isn't it, giving us more

That's our first June 1959 Charlton Mr Thorpe, thank you I'm going to have to come up with a new format for this table now which is filling up fast: Our two current 'outliers', not listed for now: Fightin' Air Force #12 (Charlton) - October 1958 Spooky #30 (Harvey) - April 1959

Thanks Gary - I do own the 104, yes. I picked it up at a fair a year or so back and just instinctively knew it was a new find (it's difficult to keep 3,020 books in your head when you travel without a list!). It is legit, but I just can't find another copy. That's not to say that they're not out there - it's hardly a popular title - but I do find it odd that I've never seen another copy on all my travels given how recent it is compared to, say, the 1960 Wyatt Earp #29 that was understandably in hiding for so long. Thanks for chipping in though - keep em peeled for me won't you.

Yup. The no price copy is very scarce. I've only seen 3 copies so far. I class it as a printing error though - bit of a stretch to call the complete absence of any price at all a variation in font

That seems logical, that the DCs shipped to the UK were the returned copies that were unsold in the US. The erratic placement suggests by hand doesn't it - they're not always in the same place on the same cover. Interesting theory on the operative numbering - if true, operative number 5 was rubbish. They're very scarce compared to the other numbers. Predating the import ban? Call the Police!

Incoherent ramblings in response to my incoherent ramblings are always welcome Stephen, you know that Could be. August would be about right in the US for an October cover dated book. But so could October in the UK for an October dated book - printed in July, 3 months shipping, lands in the UK in October. Or it could be 816 - some blokes 816th comic. We may never know. Almost certainly, yes I don't think so Stephen, no. The books were specifically solicited by Miller with a 9d cover price for the UK and were not old on arrival in the UK - assuming 3 months shipping from production, they'd arrive and go on sale in the actual cover month (probably why the cover months were later dropped from the UKPVs). My guess is that Miller, who was competing with T&P at that point, decided to try to undercut them by selling their comics cheaper. Miller went on to have their Charlton UKPVs priced at 6d initially though, so maybe the US printers just got it wrong and were supposed to price the early Miller Marvels at 6d too (getting confused perhaps by having to print 9d copies for T&P). Interesting isn't it.

Cheers Frisco - I have indeed covered the no price version somewhere but can't lay my hands on it just at the moment. All my threads cross over so Gawd knows where it is

+1

https://www.milehighcomics.com/nice/nice.html

OK, to Marvel. Currently, the tale of the tape for each publisher's first cover dated book with a UK distribution stamp is either this (if you ignore outliers): 02/59 - Charlton 06/59 - Archie 09/59 - DC 11/59 - ACG 01/60 - Harvey 05/60 - Marvel Or this (if you include them): 10/58 - Charlton 04/59 - Harvey 06/59 - Archie 09/59 - DC 11/59 - ACG 05/60 - Marvel For the time being, I'm going to exclude the many L Miller stamped IW/Super books that I have found as they are proving very difficult to date accurately (more on that in a later post). Whether you ignore the outliers or not, Marvel trail a distant sixth when it comes to offering up their first distribution book example in the UK. We already know from my research that the first two Marvel UKPVs are cover dated May 1960, and that one was distributed by T&P and the other by L Miller: The UK distribution aspect is definitive here of course, as the books have printed 9d UK cover prices and country specific variant indicias. In the case of the L Miller distributed Gunsmoke Western #58, not only do we have a UK specific indicia, but an L Miller 6d cover stamp. I speculate to some degree as to why Miller solicited 9d printed copies, only to place 6d stamps on them, in my L Miller thread. Miller was always bucking the trend though - here's #59 of Gunsmoke Western with the same printed 9d / stamped 6d scenario: To date, I have yet to find an example of a cents priced Marvel book cover dated prior to the above May 1960 UKPvs with either a Miller or T&P price stamp on them. This suggests that Marvel were never in the game when the other publishers started having their books shipped over to the UK. I am in discussion with a fellow enthusiast offline as to why that may be - he knows far more about it than I do - but it looks very much like a contractual thing may be the cause. I'm trying to get that chap to join here and start posting - in the meantime, if anyone reading can find an example of a Marvel stamped earlier than 05/60, I'd love to see it. In my Marvel UKPV research, I identify and document the first gap in the UKPV production run as follows: What my subsequent research here has found is that there appear to be no Thorpe & Porter 9d stamped Marvels in the run up to the production gap. The first T&P stamped copies begin to appear, logically, around the time that the UKPVs stop, and are stamped 10d. Here is an early example, Amazing Spider-Man #19 cover dated December 1964: My initial research has shown that the majority of T&P stamped copies surface around this time, the end of 1964, probably due to the noted temporary cessation of UKPVs. But there are a handful of annual titles - none of which, incidentally, have known UKPV copies - which predate that main event. The earliest I have found (and I have seen multiple examples) is Strange Tales Annual #1: According to Mike's Comic Newsstand, the book was on sale in the US from July the 3rd 1962, with a cover date of 1962: I also have examples of T&P stamped copies for Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1, Fantastic Four Annual #1 and Marvel Tales Annual #1 so, in summary for Marvel, it looks like a certain group of titles were solicited as pence printed copies from May 1960 and, when that formal process was interrupted around the end of 1964, cents priced copies were shipped over as a matter of course. But a handful of key annual titles beat them in 1962 and 1963 and were distributed as stamped copies even though all other ongoing titles were either subject to the UKPV process or not distributed at all. It's quite a complicated, interesting picture over all for Marvel in the early days - multiple distributors (Miller and T&P) - printed prices and stamped, shipping gaps and so on. And of course the very fact that the UKPVs exist at all seems to be the reason why 14 US cents priced copies have multiple US fonts (new example found just the other day!) So, please post any Marvels that you may have, especially if they contradict anything I have posted here. Next up, a brief summary of the remaining publishers (Dell, Tower, IW/Super etc)

What did it say, your post @themagicrobot? How will we ever know? Come back! (It's nothing personal - all board members first posts have to be approved by a moderator prior to posting due to an attack by the Chinese Mafia the other year!)

I'm going to have me dinner before I post the Marvel findings. In the meantime, who needs a price stamp when you can just write the price on the cover with a marker pen? Whoever did this one got a bit cocky with it though I think...

You never get over it really, do you Kev On the subject of outliers, here is a book that completely bucks the trend. Step forward, Spooky #30 from Harvey Comics: The book is cover (indicia) dated April 1959 and has the same 'AM Co 9d' stamp on it that our DC 'Date With Judy' book had: More circular than oval, but clearly the same publisher's stamp. What makes it odd is that Harvey Comics don't appear in the UK until January 1960 with L Miller price stamps on them according to my research. The Spooky beats that by 9 months and the Miller stamps that were to follow in 1960 looked like these: A Miller shilling is a rare event by the way, I tell you: So we know that L Miller distributed Harvey Comics - I don't have an example yet of a T&P stamp on one - but the dates are inconclusive. If we accept the Spooky outlier, then they leapfrog Archie into second place. But until I find multiple examples dated April 1959, the book appears to be a one off outlier, much like our 1958 Charlton FAF #12. I'll put it to one side for now. Now, where was I? Oh yes, Marvel....

A quick recap then By cover date alone, Charlton have the earliest known comic with a UK distributor stamp, Archie are in hot pursuit in second and DC take the Bronze medal publisher position. The next publisher in line is the American Comics Group (ACG). The earliest example I have of an ACG comic with a UK price stamp is the November 1959 cover dated Adventures into the Unknown #112 – here’s my copy: ACGs are often dual monthed (is that a word?) but this copy is a singular November. The distributor is again Thorpe & Porter, and the number of the stamp is ‘1’. Make’s you wonder if there is a connection there doesn’t it, the ‘1’ and the fact that it appears to be the first imported copy for the title. According to Mike’s Comic Newsstand ACG were producing these four titles around the time: I have T&P stamped examples for all of them ranging from November 1959 to January and throughout 1960, indicating that all their books found their way to Englandville. Here’s a particularly nice example of Romantic Adventures #114, cover dated October 1960: A nice, inconspicuous Thorpe & Porter stamp on this copy along with what may be a handwritten arrival date (8th of October possibly?): I haven't got too much more to report on for ACG unless anyone can post an earlier example. But I wanted to post this final example – the dual monthed Unknown Worlds #4 cover dated Dec 59/Jan 60 – for no other reason than I think it is the most stamps I have ever seen on a comic book! We have two Miller 6d stamps (and not the usual kinds), a T&P 9d stamp, a Miller 6d book exchange sticker.... ....and, on the back cover (no, they didn’t give up) another Miller 6d stamp along with a date of 1761: So Miller got in first by 200 years. How cool is that! Marvel are up next!

Cheers Eric - always nice to get feedback on one's comical endeavours

Higher than an eight! I did quite of bit of research some years back into the T&P stamp numbering when I was capturing the DC UKPVs. The results were inconclusive, and I could detect no meaningful pattern. And none of the usual UK dealer suspects had any leads, including those with the longest experience. I did at least identify that all the numbers from 1 to 9 existed on the early 9d stamps, as this pretty mock up of mine proves: You get the odd blank one as well, although that may be a result of an ink smudge: Hopefully one day we'll crack the code - my first thought was that the numbering might correspond with cover or 'on sale' months but that didn't pan out. Maybe it was a regional thing

That's a cool one, thanks Mr T, which I don't recall seeing before. I've filed a copy in my 'other types of stamps' folder, examples of which I'll be posting later in the thread.