Malacoda

LOL. superb. How did I miss that one?

This has to be a swipe surely? It's not just Spidey's fingertips scraping the wall, it's the positioning of both legs.

So, I was thinking, that Red Sonja cover where the vampires are coming out of 3 mirrors in front of her, there must be loads of covers like that. However, when I checked, they're not actually mirrors, they're tombs.... Having said that, this was is what I thought it looked like......

By the way, this FF cover is credited to Jerry Ordway, not as inker but as artist.

This is a bit off topic, but the UK covers are a happy hunting ground for oddly similar covers because they re-used artwork or bits of artwork from the originals and then used the original itself, like the Rhino on 2 consecutive MWOM covers.... in some cases, the replication was a little more obvious.... notice how it's not only the same Hulk cover, but we are threatened (again) with the end of the Fantastic Four and Daredevil is STILL facing his deadliest foe (which was presumably an artwork deadline). For those of you who won't sleep until you know, the 2nd one is actually the reprint of Hulk 160 which does feature the Tiger Shark. #154 actually reprints Hulk's startlingly brief visit to Counter-Earth from Hulk #158, with Tiger Shark nowhere to be seen. I suspect they had got the artwork for 159 ready, but got caught short with #154.

Indeed. And the most interesting thing about that is the copyright. As far as I was aware, Stan & Al Landau hired Ray Wergan to publish MWOM and the other titles from 1972 - 1979. So although we all called them 'Marvel UK', the employees in London were actually employees of Transworld. Tony Isabella's team in NY created the B&W pages and covers with such re-edits as were necessary. Then the plates were sent to London, where Transworld added the letters pages, editorial notes, adverts and so on, changed any references deemed incomprehensible to UK readers, removed editorial notes relating to US stories that had not yet been published and occasionally made scantily clad ladies less scant....... so what on earth was 'Magazine Management London Ltd.'? After Goodman's departure, Perfect Film re-structured everything under Magazine Management, so if there had been some kind of parent company overseeing the UK end, that would have been the name, but what was it? I assume it was just a company in name only so Marvel could re-register the copyrights under UK law, but I think that's the first reference I've seen to any such thing. Note how the Conan reprint above is credited to Magazine Management in the original but Marvel International in the reprint. That's because after Perfect morphed into Cadence, they subsumed everything under Marvel, not MM.

I stand chastened. Subject and object.

@Get Marwood & I I feel like Albert is trying to goad you and I into a full on nerd-off, biggest loser wins. Are we taking the bait?

Seriously?

As this is the Fly Club, we really should note that the Fly was Neal Adams first comic book art. Adventures of the Fly #4, Jan 1960. Adams did some test artwork as an audition for a job. When Kirby turned in the actual artwork, one of the pages featured a bottom wide panel where Tommy Troy transformed into the Fly. The editor preferred Adams rendition. He cut it out, replaced Kirby's version, and paid Adams, but only paid him for 1/3 of the page.

Well, you know the rules. We confidently assume it doesn't exist. And then @Garystar logs in and sends us a picture (from deep in his labyrinth) of the whole collection sitting on a shelf. And even the shelf is an autographed limited edition.

It was cancelled and re-started. Although the comic remains registered as the same title ('the Adventures of the Fly'), the masthead title changes from that to 'Fly Man' and there is break in publication. It was supposed to be published 5 times a year in Jan, April, July, Sept & Oct, after the October 1964 issue (30), it disappears for 7 months and then comes back as a bi-monthly title called Fly Man. It was a bit of hot mess before that anyway. Archie hired Simon & Kirby and they created him as a young orphan boy with only 4 powers (wall crawling, to see in all directions, to escape from any trap, presumably other than a really big venus fly trap, and acrobatic abilities). He originally transformed from a teenage boy to an adult male super hero in a Shazam stylie. S&K left with issue 4, after which the plot instantly jumps 9 years during which time he has retired from Flydom, and become an adult, now an attorney. With issue 5, he digs out his old ring and resumes super-heroing after 9 years. Thankfully, like all good attorneys, he has remembered to maintain a secret basement laboratory. After this, he begins to acquire a bewildering array of insect powers (the powers of all the world's insects possessed to the nth degree e.g. the strength of a million ants, flight as fast as a million flies, durability, the power to shatter materials by vibrating his wings like a cricket, web spinning, bio-luminescence, heat powers, resistance to radiation and the ability to mentally control insects, to name but nine). The seems reminiscent of Siegel & Shuster giving Supes the power of Super-Anything-We-Can-Think-Of. Post 31, when it gets re booted, it became more camp, probably due to the success of the Batman TV show. No idea who was distributing when it returned at 31. Wouldn't likely have been Miller as it was five-to-midnight there.

I recall there was a MAD paperback where the US edition printed something that couldn't be distributed here (something about the royal family), but it got reprinted, so they ripped out a single page from every one of 25,000 copies by hand. Logic would tell you the Playboy was a different version, but logic was so seldom in the driving seat. That said, the UK was an absolute gold mine for Playboy, so I could easily believe they fell over backwards to keep on the right side of the line here.

@themagicrobot that insert you've captured is a great find too. It illustrates how ludicrous the Obscene Publications Act was. Newsagents and wholesalers were forever asking for a list of banned publications or guidelines so they could avoid distributing them but they could never got one, so they just had to either pre-emptively guess what might qualify or wait for the raid and then go to court to argue for their stock back. T&P were doing this non stop by the mid 70's which is why Warner's wanted to get shot of them.

Those Playboy books were published by New English Library, an American owned UK book publisher who published a variety of often-sleazy paperbacks (and more respectable fare) from 1961 to 1981. They published under NEL, Signet and Mentor imprints. That being the base, I would guess that SBS is actually a retailer (Something Book Sellers).

I did...and that was when I was researching Playboy. They are a massive company but have no entry on wikipedia, nor does their owner (Frontline). I didn't pursue them at the time, but, you know, any excuse.

Indeed. I think the only way we're ever really going to crack that is by building a big old sample base of stamps on other things (other comics, books, magazines etc) and determining for sure who those ones belong to. Also, I suspect you may have just answered your previous question.

Interesting. Our old friend, Mr. Oblong Stamp, but this Gold Key is from December 1966, so did it rock up with the Marvel 66'ers from the second hiatus? Gold Key were distributed by in the US by Western, not IND, but if T&P weren't paying the bills, presumably Western stopped supplying them too leaving consignments earmarked for the UK to fall into other hands.

Brilliant. And all 8's at 9d, not reductions or re-circulations. Ethel just stamped it 5 times. I get the feeling the top right was the last one.

You say that, but do you actually feel that? We could have spent our time, energy & money becoming connoisseurs of artisanal bread, cultivating hipster beards, staying in yurts, following the Ed Sheeran tour and learning how to use the twenty-five million must have apps that we're missing out on, but we stayed in love with the thing we'd always been in love with. Actually, that's not really fair to millennials. They do seem more interested in having experiences than owning possessions, which I think is great. But nonetheless, we have found new ways to stay connected to something that meant the world to us as kids, and that's cool too.

The amount of times I try to find something out and it leads back to one of your posts is ridiculous.

I always wonder how on Earth visitors / tourists coped with old money. "It's so simple: there's two farthings in a ha'penny, two tanners in a shilling, two shillings in a florin and five shillings in a crown. " What the Hell does any of that mean? It must have been a revelation when they came back after decimalisation: "This is a ten pence piece." "How much is it worth?" "Ten pence"