Get Marwood & I

Before we get started on the facts and figures, here’s another wonderful cover – ‘Teen-Age Love’ #30: Beautiful! I do like busy split-scene cover, the red colouring and the heart shaped ‘O’: I purchased this copy because I thought it was a price variant of a pence priced variant (I know, I know). Its UK price should look like this (old 9d pricing): The sellers online picture was fuzzy… …so I took a chance that the ‘6p’ that I could see was a printed price. Wouldn’t that have been cool! On arrival it turned out that the 6p was in fact a sticker: Drat. Unusually, the stickers background was also red, hence the appearance of a genuine ‘price variant’ in the fuzzy photo. Never mind (I’ve found other copies with the exact same sticker by the way, and will post them at a later date with my thoughts). The good news is that I now have two copies of ‘Teen-Age Love’ #30, so I’ve taken one of them and scanned its entire contents for your reading pleasure. Accordingly, here are the entire contents of the book. It’s a great read and includes our lovely cover star looking as stern inside the book as she does on the cover! Have fun reading P.S. I have two copies of Konga #1 too, so you’ll get the full story of that book too soon P.P.S. There’s a post regarding genuine US price variants coming soon, so do keep watching

Hello reader, and welcome to my latest pence thread Over the coming weeks and months I will share with you all the wonderful Silver Age pence priced Charlton books that I have discovered hiding between the years of 1960 and 1963. Charlton it seems isn’t the most admired of comic publishers but I hope you will grow to love them, as I have, if you decide to come along for the ride. Every cover that you see from me in the posts to come will be of a book that I own. I was brought up on Marvel comics, and Spidey and Hulk were always my favourites. But as I’ve grown older I’ve come to appreciate the non-super hero titles so much more, and Charlton was a great proponent of them! Romance, war, westerns, monsters, sci-fi, the medical profession: sit back and prepare for a feast of wonderful cover scans. To be clear, the books that follow are all first printing pence priced variants of the US regular cents copies. They were printed alongside their US counterparts in the same place at the same time, much like the more widely known Marvel and DC pence copies. Not many collectors seem to know that Charlton pence versions exist, and it has been a real labour of love tracking them down over the last year or so. Our publisher friend L Miller is responsible for bringing them to the UK, so there will be some cross referencing to my Marvel Miller thread as we go. Normally, I start my pence threads with a breakdown of what I’ve found to exist with dates, details and observations. This time I’m going to start with ‘Just Married’ #28, one of the nicest covers I think I’ve ever seen on a comic book (cover pencils by Joe Sinnott and inks by Vince Colletta according to Google): Isn’t that just great? As a kid, I wouldn’t have given this book a second glance in the newsagents, and would have homed in instead on the latest Spidey adventure. But now I can look at it with fresh, albeit older eyes, and marvel (no pun intended) at its understated splendour. The colouring is striking. And the attention to detail is quite extraordinary when you think that these books were supposedly ‘churned out’ with, I’m told, very little care. But Joe Sinnott clearly cared. If I were responsible for that cover I would want everyone to see it. Look at the paint on her cheeks. The detail through the door way. Wonderful. At the risk of offending the PC brigade, we have a typical woman’s approach to painting here. Never open one can of paint when three will do! The ‘Joe’ of our cover scene looks to be a reasonable chap, and I do like the wood panelling on his car door. Quite what he has done to deserve to be called a ‘vulgar clod’ by our cover star Valerie is anyone’s guess (how cool a four letter putdown beginning with ‘c’ is clod! I guess it could have been worse though…), but I love the story that is being told here (maybe the Joe is an in joke to / from Mr Sinnott?) Either way, why would our male lead Mark want to go out with Joe when he has the lovely Valerie, with yellow paint on her cheeks, to stay home and be creative with? I know which I’d choose. Charlton covers are packed with so much detail during this period. It’s like there was a competition on to see who could leave the least unused space every month. Just wait until we get to ‘Doctor Tom Brent, Young Intern’ and you’ll see what I mean! And I love all the wording all over the place. It seems that a Time Lord is to make an appearance inside… …and we are left to ponder this time honoured question: I think we all know the answer to that one, don’t we lads ;-) On a technical point, Charlton took the unhelpful approach of not numbering their covers. You won’t find a single comic with an issue number on it among these pence copies (a handful say ‘first issue, more on that in later posts). I have to say, it made / makes collecting them very hard, as you effectively have to take a picture of what you own when you’re out hunting, rather than the usual easy number list. It adds to the fun though, and forces you to memorise each cover that you have (not easy, when there’s over 800 of them). Also on a technical point – and you’ll see this on every cover too – I can’t work out why the pence price is so timidly small compared to the US cents copies? A much bigger font could easily have been used to proud effect. But I suppose it saved on ink, which I understand is what Charlton were fond of doing (they had their own printing capability which I think I saw noted somewhere was actually built to print cereal packets!) If we look inside, we can see that the indicia tells us the title, volume, issue number, month and year. All Charltons in this period follow this format. Often the number and date are barely legible due to, shall we say, printing deficiencies, which means you’ll often see number 8 listed online as number 3 and things like that. The cover paper stock is pleasingly firm and strong though, and the internal pages are just as nice as those I’ve owned in Marvel books of the same period. “Charlton comics give you more!” can usually be found at the top of the first page. I tend to agree. If we jump ahead, our cover scene is reproduced inside the book, as is often the case. Here, our lovely stars Mark and Valerie have changed the colours of their shirts. And paint. And hair! Even Joe has painted the door of his car. Yellow suits Valerie I think, but I’m not sure it would have worked around the house so that probably explains the switch to orange. So what becomes of our two lovers then? Is the cover an indication that all is not well in the Krueger household? Can their love survive the new paint job? It seems it can: And look, it wasn’t a Time Lord after all – two hearts – two people – one love. And one big envy inducing snog. What a great ending So, a beautiful, beautiful cover on a beautiful, beautiful comic book. Thank you Joe, for making this book. And thank you, dear reader, if you’ve stuck with me. I hope ‘Just Married’ #28 has done enough to whet your appetite, and that you’ll keep watching. There are hundreds more lovely Charlton books to come…..

I got this in a charity shop recently and did it last night. I had it when it first came out 100 years ago. It was narf hard.

I agree, likely a short window of pence printed copies. I feel a chart coming on Redshade.... I quote Jon McClure's Overstreet article in one of my Charlton posts. He has clearly done extensive research but perhaps spread himself too thin to catch everything? No mention of Miller Marvels either. Let's face it, he failed Ta. It was the cheapest one I could find in the name of research

Have I posted these already? Who cares!

Regarding Archie, I ordered this book which came today: He looks a bit fed up doesn't he? Probably trying to work out why Miller Marvel Indicia books exist Archie is not my territory, so I'm learning with the rest of you. It certainly looks like a first printing pence variant of the US original, rather than a reprint. If we compare it to a cents copy from eBay... ...the only difference is the 9d price: The indicia is as you would expect, the US version stating 10c / printed in the USA etc: The date is interesting - April 1960. Marvels first printed pence priced book is May 1960, Charltons is April so we can see a pattern. All titles seem to have Thorpe & Porter stamped copies for 1959 through to early 1960 then pence printed prices begin. Not sure who the importer is here - there is no additional indicia data to show whether it's T&P, L Miller or someone else. I've seen a good few examples on eBay so, probably, I'll begin documenting them as I have done for Marvel, DC and Charlton. So do post any examples you find so I can add them to the list. Cost might be a barrier here - they seem quite expensive. I think there is so much we still don't know here. I'd love a historian to pick up the 1959/1960 period and plot who imported what under what terms. The Charlton thread is coming tomorrow guys, all being well, so keep em peeled. I think you're going to like it

Still no new Miller indicia first print Marvel finds to report So while we wait, what's this?

How badly they were being paid, probably

Oor Wullie... Your Wullie... A'body's Wullie!

I got this in the post today - a nice surprise after a long day on the road: It's the first pence copy I've ever seen, and the first book on the missing list I've ticked off since the middle of last year. So we now have 3,008 confirmed pence books I know some of you think I only post westerns here. That's because a lot of the titles on the missing list are westerns! This is what it looks like now: I think the remaining three Gunsmokes exist (69, 71 and 73): Two appear on this old list for a UK comic shop: So I hope they turn up one day. Here's the inside with the T&P addition: I love the pence books from this age - they have the three differences - the T&P indicia wording, the price and the missing cover month: Choice!

They're all good looking gadzukes

Hulk like!

Hello @colossus is awesome! - cool thread my man I'm on the road today, struggling on my phone. Have a look at my pence threads if you get time. We talk about this in them. Links in the 'about me' page of my profile. I'll chip in more tomorrow

I've been looking at Archies and will post my thoughts over the weekend, hopefully after the postman has brought me a few

Maybe the '26 confirmed of a theoretical 40' position will never change.... @RockMyAmadeus would you stop mucking about and come and tell us what you think man!

Stoppit Stephen, you're making me blush! Here she be: Glorious leader?

Before I disappear again - sorry, flying visit - here's a Marvel you don't see often: First one I've held in my hands. Gloriously tatty, but aren't they all? I've got a book from the missing list coming in the post so, all being well, my next post here should be to confirm we're up to 3,008 See ya!

Thanks for the kind words OC - it's nice to get some feedback once in a while, You're welcome back any time! Welcome Rakehell! Thanks for dropping by and welcome to the boards. Sorry I haven't been attending to my thread and your posts - I've got some stuff going on which is taking up most of my time but I can see light at the end of the tunnel. I've created a new thread for pence priced variants for other publishers (i.e. not Marvel, DC or Charlton) and have invited you to it. By all means post away there and I promise to join in very soon See above! Excellent book! Pretty much all pence printed variants started around May 1960. I'm doing a piece on it in my forthcoming Charlton thread so keep watching. I won't be away too much longer hopefully.

Some posts from my Marvel thread, which we can debate here: @Redshade @rakehell - Dive in guys! I'll be joining you shortly....

Hello everyone We have a home for Marvel and DC pence priced variants, and I will be starting a Charlton one very soon. This thread is for discussions about all other publishers pence copies - Dell, Gold Key, Kings, Archie etc. I'll be posting some examples soon, and will direct the guys who've recently posted in my Marvel thread here. Cheers! 10/09/19 - Update - I have re-titled this thread as the home for King Comics UK Price Variants. Each of the seven known publishers with pence priced variants now has it's own discussion thread

Of course not, don't be silly. One is a sad, miserable conspiracy theorising cretin who doesn't know when to use one word when fifteen will do, and the other is RMA.