Garystar

14 hours ago, pemart1966 said:

All of the club swag showed only the super heroes.  It wouldn't do for the boys to have, for example, the MMMS badge with Spidey, the Thing, the Torch and......Millie the Model on it.

I just checked and you're right, MMMS memorabilia included super-heroines but none of the romance characters.

Patsy, Hedy and Millie did however make it on to the official Marvel stationery though.

From (cover dated) February 1971 comics... 

Fantastic Four #250 letters page. I was reading most Marvels at this time and recall FF being the title I most looked forward to reading.

On 7/6/2020 at 12:38 AM, Ken Aldred said:

Although Alex Summers appeared in X-Men 54, his first appearance as Havok was in issue 58, a comic book I bought while on holiday in the Isle of Man in 1974. You could still find a lot of Silver Age comics turning up in paper shops over here in the mid 70s. 

Distribution in UK until 1974 was all over the place. I started collecting in 1973 with a pick up of twelve "brand new/mint" Marvels all dated 1969.

The disadvantage was it was impossible to read anything in continuity, my first Daredevil pick up was #97 the next was #60. I bought FF #111 and #129 in a shop, both new, together.

The advantage was you could find the odd gem. In 1974, in a corner shop in Swindon I picked up "brand new/mint" FF#48 for 8p (regular distributed Marvels were 7p at the time, 20c cover price ). A few weeks later at the same shop I picked up Spider-man #129 again "brand new/mint" for 8p despite the fact it wasn't officially distributed in UK.

22 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

 

HELP WANTED!

To all those in the UK who read this thread, can you check your collections, records and memories and tell me whether any of you have a copy of, or can recall seeing another copy of this comic in pence:

It's the last pence cover month - December 1981 - and I have only ever seen this one copy.

I know it's a reprint title, and the numbers produced may therefore have been low, but one copy in ten years seems odd to me. 

Anyone? 

Hi Steve, Sorry I can't help, my #104 is a cents copy. My # 72 and 80 are pence but all other copies are cents.

Do you own the #104? A quick search of ebay shows #72 and 80 readily available in pence but not #104, this must be exceedingly rare or a mock up - in which case it's well done, can't see the joins. Was there a set number of titles distributed in UK each month? If so perhaps your records could calculate if this issue makes up that number (which would support it being genuine) of exceeds it (which would support it being a fraud).

(I tried to post a reply yesterday but it appears to have vanished in the ether, or its landed on some other thread).

My Alan Austin price guides. The colour one is my original from 1983 which explains why it’s falling apart. 
1975 - amazing fantasy #15 mint £15

1979 - amazing fantasy #15 mint £120

Green lantern #76 mint £18
1983 amazing fantasy #15 mint £300

On 6/2/2020 at 3:10 PM, Frisco Larson said:

This Mexican publication of Spidey #10 showed up last night, so another set of twins for this thread! 

and here's the UK reprinting of ASM#10 to make triplets. Note the art is slightly different with spacing between Ox and Fancy Dan. I think the yellow background works better also.

On 6/14/2020 at 8:30 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

US $22.38 

GSP = Gigantic Shipping Prices

$22.38 BARGAIN! I suppose it's the insurance but still......

jayhawker is showing the correct page layout. From what is shown I believe the page ripped from your copy is this one;

However it is the third wrap (4th if you include cover) and comes between story pages 4 and 5 not after story page 20 as shown on your copy. All four pages of this wrap are non-story - the reverse is an ad for grit, and the other side of the wrap is the karate ad seen in your copy backed by Stan's soap box editorial page.  Looks like your copy has this wrap tucked back in on itself I see tape there which would support this.

9 minutes ago, thunsicker said:

Really cool stuff, Gary.  Thanks for sharing.  Kind of like the UK equivalent of Marvelmania.

Marvelmania - now you are talking really cool. I’m constantly looking for more Marvelmania stuff, it costs a fortune to get it in UK with shipping and taxes but it  really is great stuff

26 minutes ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Great trip down memory lane there Gary - it's nice to see some of these old favourites again

I still remember my dad buying me Pow #1, although I could hardly be old enough to read, and the impact the Spider-man and SHIELD stories had on me - I’d never read anything like them before. 

26 minutes ago, Robot Man said:

 

Wow, these are cool. I think I have a few of those some where. A Star Wars and Judge Dredd come to mind, 

 

Stars Wars Weekly had a free cut out x wing fighter. 2000AD also had free gifts, Judge Dredd started in issue 2, I don’t think the early issues had any Dredd gifts but not sure if there were any later in series. 

This is the extent of my UK gifts, although I am on the look out for Avengers Weekly #1 which had a set of transfers (the type you could put on your skin) and #2 which had a gun similar to the Spider-man one in POW#1. There are plenty of gifts in later UK Marvels but after Avengers Weekly they tended to be a centrefold glossy poster or some stickers, if there's any interest perhaps others could post their comic free gifts, I recall Secret Wars had a cool rub-down transfer set. 

In 1972 Marvel decided to publish comics specifically for the UK in-house (by what became to be known as Marvel UK). First up was The Mighty World of Marvelwhich reprinted The Hulk, Spider-man and Fantastic Four with some new editorial along the lines of Stan's Soapbox and letters pages;

Previous transfers must have been popular (or cheap) as MWOM #1 came with a free Green-skinned monster iron-on transfer. Presumably Marvel thought the Hulk would not be a house-hold name in the UK hence the transfer being touted as "Green-skinned monster" but it was in fact the Hulk;

MWOM sold well (print run 325,000) so these transfers are not uncommon still in the UK and pop up for sale fairly regularly despite a lot ending up on t-shirts and being very fragile. #2 came with a Spider-man iron on transfer;

After great transfers of two of it's features MWOM #3 free gift wasn't a fantastic Four transfer but a set of stickers, the art isn't great and we can only wonder what a Fantastic Four transfer would have been like;

Terrific, similar to Fantastic, was also virtually all Marvel reprints - Sub-mariner, The Avengers and Doctor Strange;

#1 included a free gift of an Iron-man transfer again to be ironed onto fabric (I need to get a better example but I did pay less than £1 for it);

Oldhams, or Power comics as they published their Marvel comics under, next gave us UK readers Fantastic. This was different to POW in that it contained little to no UK material but was nearly all Marvel reprints - Thor, X-Men and Iron-man.

The free gift here was a plastic pennant/wallet. The comic provided several uses for the pennant/wallet and suggestions where you could put it. The power comics for that week all had a back-page of Marvel pennants you could cut out and store in your wallets;

I believe Rob Kirby has been working on “from cents to pence” the history of Marvel USA to UK for something like 20 years. There are several extracts on the net and if it ever comes out should be a cracking read/resource. 

21 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

Some of the later ones were T&P's:

Just looked through about 100 of my stamped Marvels. Just as you said they are mostly T number P, I couldn't see any pattern although I had no #1's and only one #5. I started collecting in 1973 so all my stamped comics were bought second hand and could have come from anywhere in the UK. I did notice that all the ones with a number were pre-decimal and all the decimal ones were T&P, appears the change over is cover dated September 1970. There also appears to be a one month, cover dated August 1970, when the stamp showed 5p at the top and 1/- at the bottom. 

Had never noticed T&P stamp was actually T number P. I’ll have a closer look at some of mine. Perhaps a distribution centre as you suggest. 

Should read T & P Thorpe and Porter not T2 P - either poor inking or misprint. 1/- is one shilling. Pre decimalisation (1971) there were 12 pennies in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. Today’s exchange rate with current strong dollar 1/- equates to about 6 cents. 

Great seeing all these actual comics at both ends of the grading spectrum; the well loved ones (which most of mine are) which were once some ones prized possession and the high grades, its jaw dropping to think comics 40 - 50 - 60 years old even exist in these grades. Anyway to lower the tone a little I'll post some UK reprints some people might not have seen. 

To kick-off, FF Full Colour Comic Album from 1969; Reprints FF 51, 53 and 60

UK comics were generally in B&W so given this chance the colourist seems to have gone overboard;

FF Comic Annual from 1969; Reprints FF 23, 22, 81, 24 (who cares what order they're in, at least the colours were correct)

Next up FF Television Annual also 1969: reprints FF 54, 56 and 59

and our friend the mad colourist makes a return with FF in pink pants (apart from Ben's which are green) ,a blond Reed Richards and first appearance of the Blue Surfer;

FF Comic Annual from 1970: reprints FF 84, 85, 86 and 87

I think Jack Kirby could have sneezed a better cover than that but at least the colourist gave us a nice understated Doc Doom;

and finally from 1975 (My comic shop states this as 1969 but its decimal 15p which clearly puts it post Feb 1971 and copyright shows 1975). Quite sensibly we'd given up on colour by then and left it to the reader to colour: reprints FF 91 and 94;

Wishing you all the best in these troubling times.

I'm a fan of Elvis and Morrisey however I prefer my music a bit rougher round the edges. Caught the fantastic Irish punk rockers Stiff Little Fingers for the 53rd time shortly before the great lockdown, they only played three gigs before having to abandon tour. I first saw them in 1978 at Rock against Racism gig in Brixton which Elvis Costello headlined.

There's a comic book theme going on with the backdrop