Get Marwood & I

Here's an old Alan Class reprint and it's original printing plate which I picked up a while ago. You can see where the 5p on the plate corresponds with the book. Follow my logic @VintageComics Roy. If I scratched out a square around the 5p on the plate it would print a corresponding white square on the comic. If I made a square block the same size as the square I'd etched out, and etched a 12c price into it, it would print 12c on the book. So I'm assuming someone etched out the 15c and curtis circulation on the ASM 101 plate, and replaced it with a raised shilling price. What do you think?

It looks like the plate was scratched out Roy - crudely in this case - and a shilling price was added. It's a shame there isn't a detailed description or video showing exactly how it was done. The stuff I've seen online has been grainy and inconclusive. And if I'm honest, when people from the printing industry describe it to me in writing, I can never actually envisage it.

Check

Thanks Gnash. I'll have a read. I've concentrated more on the physical appearances than the finesse on these - sharing brings the details in I find

Another example of a scenario which strengthens my 'what doesn't exist in pence' arguments earlier in the thread. Tales to Astonish has yet to yield a 9, 11 and 12: A UK seller lists an original owner run on eBay: 9 is missing 10 is a pence 11 is missing 12 is a cents 13, 14 and 15 are pence When I PM him he advises as follows: "All books bought from new in the UK" So it all fits. Time and time again, this is the pattern I see. The books were lovely by the way, but far too rich for me. Some very impressive prices if you check ebay sold.

Excellent! I told you the research was in it's infancy

I see your position. I'm not an expert on page quality but I can't see an encapsulated book deteriorating that rapidly. Also, CGC make some odd calls on page quality - I have cracked out many books and have found, shall we say, inconsistencies in their assessments. So the CTOWP may not look as creamy as you might expect. Now you've described them more, the 7.0 certainly sounds more appealing visually. So its all down to whether you can forget / ignore the page quality. Maybe someone else will chip in and say whether a CTOWP today will be a CTOWP in 20 years time if stored correctly. I think it will... Good luck!

Hopefully it wont be catalogued next to BS

9d 9d 9d 9d 9d

'Still' a shilling, and 'still' we wait for a Limey review...

We're all superheroes now...

Yep. Woman Doctor - check Black man - check Asian woman - check Mixed race couple - check Northern dialects - check Unnecessary US star to woo the US audience who don't need wooing. They love it for what it is - check Gay woman - did that last time. But will likely do again Lefty leaning dialogue / exposition - check A good story - DELETE

In the lav, cowering. Like the companions should've been.

Not sure they'd be much of it left Sqeggs I've done a few in my Marvel pence thread. The book shots aren't so great and the cosplayers are terrible. Unless 'Smelly Old Man' is a comic book character?

Indeed. Nothing new in life, is there.

One issue I faced when cataloguing the books is the sometimes unhelpful indicia details. Here's issue number 275 of Tom and Jerry: Nice and easy, October 1973. Here's number 270: No month. Not on the cover either. So how do we know it's April, as the GCD has it? And does the fact that the indicia says that books are published monthly except for January, March, May, July and November mean that those months missing on my sheet wont be found? We shall see....

Ok, this is for @Gnasher, my sole thread participant! In line with the usual drill, I have gathered all the Western Gold Key pence copies I have found and plonked them on this spreadsheet: It's the same format as all my others, and the above is just a picture before anyone posts that they can't 'open it'. There are a lot of Gold Key titles which cross the pence presence dates. A lot! But I have found only eight of them to have pence copies. These are the eight: Beep Beep The Road Runner Boris Karloff Tales of Mystery Pink Panther Ripley's Believe It or Not! Star Trek Tom and Jerry Tweety and Sylvester Yosemite Sam This thread is a work in progress, so here are the headline observations from what I have identified so far. The earliest pence books are indicia dated (no dates or issues numbers on GK covers alas) April 1973 The final pence books are indicia dated November 1975 I have found no books dated prior to or after these months Assuming I have plotted them correctly, there are a potential 168 issues within the time frame for the eight identified titles I have currently found evidence of 98 I have found no evidence elsewhere online of an attempt to document which GK pence books exist. Due to its popularity, there are a number of Star Trek sites which list the pence variants however. My research tallies with their conclusions and show that there are 'gaps' for Star Trek, i.e. issues where no pence book has been found in the date range. Accordingly, it is likely that the remaining seven titles will also have gaps and, therefore, the final total may be difficult to pin down. But it certainly looks like there will be much less than 168 books out there There are only 3 price types - 6p, 7p and 8p I have found no double size issues, or annuals There are no differences between the US and UK copies bar the prices. Everything else, including the indicias, is the same I have found no evidence so far of who the UK solicitor was - there are no copies with L Miller or T&P stamps on them to indicate who it could have been Here are the current known issue numbers with pence copies: Here are some examples: As noted earlier, it is possible that there will be gaps where no pence copies exists. If you look at the four titles below you will see that each follows the same pattern: 7p book Missing book 8p book Missing book 8p book This is unlikely to be a coincidence but we'll see. In my Marvel research I identify that the absence of Amazing Spider-Man pence copies from issue 121 up coincides with the launch of Spider-Man Comics Weekly in the UK. No point importing a pence version of the US books if you have your own ongoing title. In a similar vein, Tom and Jerry seems to 'stop' at number 276, November 1973: Lo and behold, the UK Tom and Jerry weekly commences in October 1973: Coincidence? So, if anyone has a pence issue not on my current list here: Do let me know! I'll update the thread as new books appear.

Because the production team managed to hire a crane. Hire crane first, work out how to fit it into the --script second. Why didn't any of the 603 companions act in a way remotely realistic throughout the whole sorry mess? Why weren't any of them paralysed with fear? Why did the fat woman climb the crane to fight the alien spaghetti? So she could fall off and die. What was the time frame in between her dying and the grand son helping the zany Doctor get dressed? Who was the bloke who stole the spaceship? What was that all about? Why did he do it? How did he get it in the van without freezing his hands off? Why wasn't anyone else on the train? Why didn't the government launch defcon 5 when a smashed up train was discovered with a dead driver? Which police force does this girl work for that she travels alone in a car and can ring her boss because she's bored? What part of all that police interaction was even remotely true to life at the start? Where were UNIT? Why don't any of the Earthlings remember the last 95 alien invasions, especially that one when planes were stuck in the sky and Cybermen turned up. Again. How did I know at the start that the 'strong woman' the boy was lamenting wasn't the Doctor, but his Nan? Because it was telegraphed. Bad writing often is. If Doctor Who is a kids show, none of this matters. But it isn't. Is it ?

Spot on . It's not about whether a woman can play the Doctor. My personal opinion is that the Doctor is a man and that would be my preference. Men and women are different. That's a personal preference. I think it could be done well with the right actress. Maybe a much older one. The problem is the story and -script. I mentioned Killing Eve earlier. Funnily enough, the creator of that show was in the running for the part. I saw her on Graeme Norton and thought she would be great at it. Look at the quality of the first Killing Eve episode. Look how quickly you can create a compelling narrative with believable characterisation in one hour. Something totally new, fresh and exciting. The people that made that show have flair and talent. I've looked around the Web today. People are saying the Who opener was exciting, fresh, relatable. Jodie was 'really funny'. When? Why is it if I watch a show of a man walking into a square room and taking a dump, the following day I read others extolling the virtues of the show where the bloke paraglides into a circular room and places a vase of flowers in it. And they were so fresh and lovely looking. What does everyone see something different to the glaring, obvious, palpable facts. Could it be because they are scared that any criticism would be seen (by definition of course on the current age) as a criticism of a female Doctor? Male Doctor, female Doctor. Doesnt matter. It. Was. Rubbish. And the choice of female actor did not, in my opinion, nail it. Unless you mean the last nail in the shows coffin that is.

@Gnasher

Nice! ASM #101 has it too, as do the other titles for October 1971: if you look at the US copies, you can see the 'Still' is on them - here's my old cents copy: So all I think has happened is that the US price has been overwritten by the UK price and they didn't bother to block out the 'still' wording. The ASM is a good example of how crudely it was done. I don't think it implies there are any variants out there Gnash but I'd love it if it did!

So, a successful trip to the comic fair yesterday. Some new finds, some books new to my collection and some nice upgrades. Here are a few highlights. A nice early Teen Confessions #12 in great shape and with a poor lass afraid to love: Isn't it always the way. Another Timmy! Did I tell you I loved Timmy? No? Well yes. I love Timmy. This is the last pence copy in the run - number 41 - before pence prices scarper: This Freddy #37 has a great cover. It's very busy, which I like, and just a lovely composition. I like it when you get the head - or heads in this case - of the title characters sitting with the title: Nice car! Hunk #1, with a title banner oddly reminiscent of a similar sounding title (leave it!). Hunk is a fairly obscure title and this is the only book I own so far of the four pence copies I've found to exist: Ahhh Two pages from the Love Diary conclude the show today - pages 15 and 17: My word these are nice. I like the hand drawn competition on page 17 which looks like it is part of the original artwork. Much better than the usual printed blurb on page 15. I haven't read them yet but I do hope Sally finds a hubby I may take a break from this thread now and concentrate on loading all the 400+ images I have up to the GCD. I doubt anyone will notice based on the responses I've been getting lately but you cant really expect it when the books are so 'obscure' I suppose. Ciao!