Malacoda

Right, what's going on...?

Very interesting. When you say on holiday, is this the seaside special story we hear so often? ( I presume you weren't on holiday in downtown Basingstoke). As you know, this falls into the 7th wave of T&P importation when they had PV's and stamps. I am convinced the stamps arrived alongside the PV's and were not US returns that came later. The fact that these are PV's rocking up 5 months late certainly does nothing to mess with that theory. These may be seaside recirculations or may just be ones that sat on the shelf. There is a massive disparity in T&P's sales regions, both in terms of how they were serviced and the relative size of the patch. My favourite example is Wales, where the depot in the south was a unit in an industrial estate in Bridgend which was big enough to make the news on a few occasions and had full time staff, including being the base for a district manager and the base of operations for a sales rep. The 'depot' in North Wales was a lock up garage in Colwyn Bay which was used by a sales rep who serviced both North Wales and South Lancashire. I'd imagine building a solid collection in Bridgend was quite a different proposition to Blaenau Ffestiniog. Please keep these anecdotes coming. These stories are the reality amidst all the fun speculation.

Also, the Robot asking this question, which is one of those things that has kind of gained the status of a fact, but we really have never nailed it down. Interestingly I read a quote from a guy chatting about it on Faceache where he said (more or less quoting verbatim here) that he remembered it being a real letdown when local shops had a new delivery of American comics during what he called a 'repeat' month. On the plus side he said that this meant that there were other months when he might get three consecutive issues of a title released all in one go. This reflects pretty much what we've heard many times, but it's interesting that in some months, the newsagents in his locality got so many repeats of comics that had already been through that he actually describes it as a 'repeat month'.

.....this point from Eric which is still on my list of things to get back to, but well deserving of a

While we're having a little 200th/4000th anniversary, can I take you all on a little reminder of one of my favourite bits of this thread? (Rhetorical question, obviously). Back on page 133, I posited a theory about the summer of 71 (Bryan Adams' little known follow up single) and the DC UKPV's. The theory was actually wrong (both logically and factually), but the quality of responses from you guys was so strong that it's still one of my favourite bits of this thread even though I made a total twonk of myself. Marwood's responses to the actual post made me realise I had to dive deeper (which I've done and am about to launch round 2....probably with similar levels of success), but there are great responses from many other contributors. In particular....

Indeed. "Let's agree that even though you can't have babies, we will fight the oppressor for your right to have babies"

This is such a brilliant thread. I've read it a few times. What I love is that you say 'it's so much more fun to do everything yourself than ask other people', but what you then provide is an analysis so comprehensive (dimensions, colour separation, blemishes, paper stock...even staples) that it practically serves as a guide to anyone else trying to do the same thing. The other thing of course is that you are a total beacon (Bat signal?) for other lost souls out there. The comments on there from everyone are tremendous, with brilliantly erudite new info particularly from AJD and the Robot, but the new ones from Bobbi Betamax are really heartwarming - seems like someone joined the fold just to post on your pre-1960 thread - which is....is.. just.....[wipes away a tear]....no, seriously, it's truly cool, so let me peel you a grape. If I ever get to the point where people are joining up just to respond to something I posted, I will be calling that a good day's work.

I may take a swing at it, Albert, but we'd have to hone in. Really what we need is a microfiched & scanned archive that is searchable for key words. If you tried to get through 1945 - 1982 manually, even if you were skimming a page every 20 seconds, it would take 80 days of 8 hour days to get through it. We have to hone it down to key years.

I don't think it did. I think the incarnations continued and it's now RN magazine. It's a bit like you know Who...

Superb. Literally only just caught up to this. I was responding to the earlier posts in sequence. Which is always a really terrible idea.

It's been a TV show since 2019 would be my guess. Also featured in the Titans TV series, so they've probably had more exposure in the last 4 years than the previous 40.

Indeed. I was going to put "if there was comic about you making that joke about Chipping Norton, would it be Chipping In?" but I could see a race to the bottom. So to speak. Apropos of nothing, here's Weary Willy from Chips Illustrated.

I disagree but I totally get what you mean. In some ways, I feel like the torch has been passed and if we don't care, who will? But those older comics are indeed only intellectually interesting, they don't have same emotional tug that comics of our own youth have. I know the old Marvel UK comics are just B&W reprints of superior US originals, but something inside me jumps when I see those old covers. I feel they are "mine". That said, and just to contradict myself again, "my" era was the second half of the Bronze Age. I was only 5 when T&P handed over to World, so technically the whole Silver Age is before my era, but I will never forget the excitement of seeing (and eventually buying) those Silver Age beauties that winked at me from the walls of Dark They Were.

On Mondays, I go by 'Stephanie'.

Is it me or do you seldom see chipping that bad on DC? I have it more as a Marvel thing up to 68.

Is it true, Bambi, did you do a Disney Nasty?

[sob] I'd like to thank you all [sob] I'd like to thank the academy......

Oh. well that was a bit ironic, wasn't it?

Steve....quick......post something and you can have 4000

They have, but obviously you don't need to track down every copy of everything, just a representative sample base. I think the great thing now is that the general populace neither know nor care much about comic books, but they are aware they can be valuable. The situation where someone clears out old uncle Grenville's loft by taking everything straight to the tip surely happens a lot less. The joy for us, of course, is that we don't need to buy or own everything, just have proof it existed

I think it's also helpful in understanding 1959 onwards. We think of the lifting of the import ban as a complete sea change, which it was, but of course the companies, the structures, the businesses, the key players were all in place. 1959 is not year zero. T&P in particular transformed into an import business overnight, but operationally the actual company just became a bigger version of it's core structure.

Indeed, and this T&P themselves advertising to the trade when they will (begin to) distribute this to newsagents, so you can pretty much take it to the bank.

Ding ding. Spot on. And can I just point out that after my copy came through the letter box, my dream girl did not look like that. It was almost as disappointing as the Captain Britain mask.

Surely not. Would I do that?

Drum roll please, it's number 10, volume 64, which as you all know, was published on March 7th 1953. So these are indeed 'UK editions' i.e. T&P B&W reprints of the US originals minted off copies of the original printing matrices. These are actually pretty early as T&P had been doing a roaring trade in steamy paperbacks up to 1952, but from 1951 onwards the Home Office started confiscating them by the ton and newsagents were getting tired of the boys in blue turning the shop upside down. Fred had also been raking it in from Bible Stories Illustrated and Classics Illustrated, reprinted from the exciting glossy US originals, and unassailably wholesome, so he decided a flip to comics would get the bobbies off his back. He then of course started reprinting 'eerie' and the other horror comics and next thing you know, T&P are a by-word for torrid scandal once again, but this time practically having their own act of Parliament.