Albert Tatlock

On 9/6/2023 at 9:05 PM, Yorick said:

Sorry, not as cool as the "British Edition",

Nope! Original better by a country mile.

And the UK reprint is only B & W inside.

Probably far scarcer, though.

Just try to find Tales From The Crypt, etc in this series.

I have a book somewhere which references these rarities, which were the gateway drug to the motherlode of EC et al, will try to unearth it again.

The 1950s UK comic scene had many worthy pretenders to the throne, but the Messiah only arrived in late 1959, courtesy of Fred and the anonymous, presumably non-existent, Mr Porter.

Thanks to them, US cargo ships laden with a four colour assault on juvenile British morals could once again sail the ocean blue, bound for the dockside of just about the most landlocked of British cities, Leicester.

On 9/6/2023 at 4:51 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Clear as mud, isn't it. Have a read of the Wiki page, Albert:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Book_Company

In 1953, Thorpe & Porter seems to have acquired the Arnold Book Company as a separate line

So does that mean that T & P fearlessly produced the first few issues of Black Magic close to home in Oadby, then took fright and put Arnold's name on the later issues, so that if something hit the fan, the good name of T & P would not be sullied?

Here is a puzzle to which I readily admit no solution presents itself to me.

Below are the front and back covers to Black Magic # 9 and # 11.

The former was produced, according to the information on the back cover, in Oadby, the home turf of T & P, whereas the latter originated in London, the stamping ground of Miller.

I am presuming the Arnold mentioned refers to the forename of Arnold of A & M Miller.

I had always been under the impression that these two firms were deadly rivals, on worse terms than Rangers and Celtic, or Pepsi and Coke.

Here, though, it seems, they changed horses midstream.

I also have a few issues prior to # 9 and after # 11, and they all line up neatly with the Oadby/London watershed.

No # 10 to hand, unfortunately.

Can anyone enlighten me, please?

And here are a couple from Forbidden Planet in Nottingham.

One on the cover, daring you to peel it off, and one thoughtfully applied to the bag.

I remember an early comic sales pitch, not a shop, but a stall or barrow, on the corner of Earlham Street near Cambridge Circus.

I bought some Atlas horror titles there, will try to dig out chapter and verse.

On 9/3/2023 at 7:37 PM, Garystar said:

I always thought those Marvel/Curtis mags with the orange stickers were distributed by Gold. 

So, true to the decadent bourgeois capitalist principles that DTW adhered by, they snapped up the 30p copies from the newsagent on the corner, removed the stickers and repriced them with a profiteering price label.

Come the revolution, comrades, we will reset the clock, and all these will be available at their original, correct prices.

I can dream, can't I?

On 9/3/2023 at 7:37 PM, Garystar said:

I always thought those Marvel/Curtis mags with the orange stickers were distributed by Gold. 

Quite probable. The absence of DTW's ID is telling, they were not otherwise shy of revealing their handiwork to the world.

On 8/15/2023 at 10:54 AM, Malacoda said:

Funny to think that DTW was literally unique at that point.

Here is a DTW stickered item, along with a few from the same period with anonymous price labels that might be the work of DTW or one of their competitors.

Another blotted out price.

Wonder if it was worth paying Ethel for her labour on these, as there was no guarantee it would sell the second time around.

It obviously did, though and has been treasured ever since, until its new owner has cast this tiny fish into the vast ocean of ebay.

On 8/16/2023 at 5:40 AM, OtherEric said:

Had to post this here, there are some pence variants in the mix.  More than I can pay for the collection, but I've got to admit I would love the provenance on these:

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2023/freddie-mercury-a-world-of-his-own-crazy-little-things-2/comic-books-the-fantastic-four-x-men-and-booster?locale=en

And does # 95 have a 20p stamp, possibly from the PBC?

Anyone remember seeing Freddie rummaging through their stock back in the day?

With his cape and crown?

On 8/16/2023 at 12:01 PM, Kevin.J said:

Seems like a crazy price already for what is there in book terms, I suppose they still missed a trick as if they could have got a deal with CGC to slab them "from the collection of Freddie Mercury" then who knows 

I reckon this guy is going to buy them, then burn them, out of spite.

On 8/3/2023 at 6:18 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Where's Mollie!

Mollie Sugden tired of playing sitcom characters, and reinvented herself as the proprietress of Mollie's Books & Comics, where she lived out her dream.

Notice she also had a sideline producing rubber stamps.

She is possibly responsible for all the defaced output of the PBC, Millers of Bratfud and the others.

On 8/12/2023 at 12:02 AM, Malacoda said:

Good memory. To be honest I was always so excited that I'd bought a comic in DTW, I left the stickers on as a point of pride. LTS stickers were another matter. I think I only tried to peel one or two off and it left a sticky residue that stuck the cover to the back of the next comic.  

There are specialised materials available to solve this problem.

One was marketed under the name 'Label Lifter', but I think it is no longer in production.

However, Mr Google should be aware of others in this field.

If you have managed to peel off a label to find sticky residue underneath, talcum powder will deal with it efficiently.

Do not be tempted to use petrol, especially if you have a cig dangling from the corner of your mouth.

'Cig' in my original posting (redacted, of course) was another 3 letter abbreviation for cigarette, also ending in G, and formerly used in our great British education system to denote a junior schoolboy who was required to carry out menial chores on behalf of the more senior pupils. That system has now ended, so I wonder, like George V, how is the Empire? Can it long survive?

Or, if you believe the alternative version, he had no earnest wish to revisit Bognor and said as much in emphatic terms..

On 8/9/2023 at 9:18 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

this seems to be extraordinarily late for a 'Gold Star' shilling stamp:

A puzzle.

If it is the only one to be found, it would be stranger than if there were a few.

A few might indicate that they were, like T & P's merchandise, sent out on a SOR basis.

Let the hunt begin.

On 8/3/2023 at 5:57 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

got points and a warning for that once 

What? For looking after cute little Tiddles?

On 8/3/2023 at 11:52 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Mrs Slocombe worked at Charlton!? 

She only took the job after being assured that management would attend to all the needs of her Tiddles.

(they redacted the original word)

Purple one worth 50% more according to comicspriceguide.com.

I picked these up at the time, just thought one of them was a printing fault, kept both of them just out of curiosity.

On 7/27/2023 at 7:26 PM, themagicrobot said:

The Westerns have Len Miller 6d ink stamps which would have been correct for when those comics rocked up in the UK in the late 1950s/early 1960s. But Jungle Comics published in the  same period appears to have a 1/- stamp bottom right putting it into circulation here years after it was printed.

 

 

While we are on an IW kick, although I am sure I have posted this before somewhere, I make no apologies as it is such a stunning cover, and as if that were not enough, it is enhanced by the application of a Miller stamp.

On 7/27/2023 at 1:21 PM, Malacoda said:

I miss all those shops too. It's amazing how many of them it's impossible to even find a photo of or reference to (because who went around photographing junk shops?).

The comic goldmine of my youth (the best, but not the only one) was Salford Market, now long since entombed beneath the concrete of a redevelopment scheme, or, as I prefer to think of it, a heinous act of cultural vandalism, imposed upon the local community against their will by here today gone tomorrow petty apparatchiks.

I have tried in vain to find a clip or photo of the bookstall there (there were three, but only one could be counted upon to bestow gems upon us).

This You Tube clip references the close environs, the material of interest to us comes in at between 2 and 4 minutes.

On 7/25/2023 at 8:59 PM, themagicrobot said:

And did you know that hurrah is french for hooray?

I did, Hurrah Henri told me so at one of their toff's clubs.

On 7/25/2023 at 8:37 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

That is the place where all the footie fans sport Harry Potter scarves.

Here are a few of 'em off to watch a Quidditch semi-final.

On 7/25/2023 at 8:33 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

Going to Brick Bradford anytime soon?

I believe the correct spelling is Bratfud.

That is the place where all the footie fans sport Harry Potter scarves.

On 7/15/2023 at 1:12 AM, Malacoda said:

However, the gap between this issue rolling off the press at ECP with 9d printed on it and the restamping at 10d was at the very least 9 months, so this must have been on some sort of adventure.  You'd therefore think it was a one off that fell behind the radiator or a return that was cunningly re-stamped and sent to a more high-selling region, however......have a look at friend Duncan's recollections....

My recollection is that TTA # 55 was neither more nor less common than the surrounding issues.

This 9d UKPV was probably routinely returned unsold by a retailer, and languished in T & P's warehouse until someone decided to send out a batch for a second bite at the cherry.

On 7/14/2023 at 9:31 AM, themagicrobot said:

That was where I purchased X-Men No 1 and early Fantastic Fours.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven!

On 7/13/2023 at 9:47 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

And I think the little sign on the door reads 'back in 6 months, or 4 with good behaviour'.

 

Just noticed, shop to left has decimal prices, so could be 1972-ish.

Amazed I never noticed the place at the time.