The Distribution of US Published Comics in the UK (1959~1982) 15 15

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/28/2024 at 11:12 PM, Malacoda said:

Hold the phone.  So you rented a room in this stately pile? Given the size of it, it's next to impossible it was the same room formerly used by the T&P rep, but you were in the same building.  Dude!

At the time I  moved in, the Corn Exchange was a little neglected and  in decline.

Rents, as a consequence, were remarkably low for a city centre location, which was its major attraction for me.

The neighbouring room was occupied by a translation agency, who offered me his slightly less conveniently situated room so he could have two adjacent rooms. 

Once he offered to help with moving my stock, and, crucially, cross my palm with silver, I agreed.

However, I left not long after, but it was a very convenient facility for storage at the time.

I toyed with the idea of taking a stall in the market area downstairs, but the core customers there were vinyl freaks and patchouli soaked members of alternative society, for whom my offerings would have been of little interest.

There was a comic shop on the outside at the front, below ground level, whose name escapes me. but I cannot remember making a purchase there.

Occasionally the trestle tables in the market area would throw up a few older silver age items, but nothing major that I saw.

The best sources at the time were still the local markets. In the 1960s and early 1970s there was still a chance of picking up what today would be termed a Key, or even a Grail,  terms which I believe I  have never uttered aloud, old school as  I am.

The markets had a ridiculously high churn rate, you knew that next week there would be fresh stock, which was not always the case with the second-hand shops.

Why sell off your surplus comics to  a little side street establishment when you could visit the market, which was open Saturday and at least one other weekday, and had thousands of customers, and probably had other basic items that you needed anyway.

So I kept up a routine of visiting as many markets as I could get to every Saturday, and any junk shops and so on that lay on my route.

Those days will never come again, I know, the public is too savvy, but the memories I have are seared into my brain, I can still remember where I first saw many of the additions to my early collection, at usually 6, 4, or even 3 old pence.. Later, it is a blur, when I was buying the current issues as they hit the shops at the prevailing retail rates.

When I get time,  I have promised myself that  will compile a register of the original sources of the 1960 to 1963 material that I assembled, and, in many cases, foolishly dispersed, before my fast approaching dotage overtakes me.

[Malacoda]

On 1/30/2024 at 11:35 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

patchouli soaked members of alternative society, for whom my offerings would have been of little interest.

So you didn't have any Doc Strange or Silver Surfer T shirts?

[Malacoda]

On 1/30/2024 at 11:35 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

There was a comic shop on the outside at the front, below ground level

?  You mean there were basement shops with steps leading down from the street? 

It would be interesting to know if this coincided with the T&P rep being based there.  Given that his job was to seek and supply retail outlets for comics, he would certainly have supplied an actual comic that was in the same building. 

Edited January 31 by Malacoda

[Malacoda]

On 1/30/2024 at 11:35 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

Rents, as a consequence, were remarkably low for a city centre location

This explains why T&P were in there.  Their storage seems to be a mix of large outer-city warehouses and depots with smaller units, lock ups, garages, rooms above shops etc in the inner cities where all the newsagents were.  A spacious, cheap rent, dry, easy access, inner-city storage area would have ticked every box for them. 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/31/2024 at 2:21 PM, Malacoda said:

This explains why T&P were in there.  Their storage seems to be a mix of large outer-city warehouses and depots with smaller units, lock ups, garages, rooms above shops etc in the inner cities where all the newsagents were.  A spacious, cheap rent, dry, easy access, inner-city storage area would have ticked every box for them. 

But parking was a problem. No dedicated loading bay, yellow peril on prowl, pencil poised.

You had to be quick in and quick out, not easy if you had any quantity of stock to load/unload.

I got around it by arriving at crack of dawn, before restrictions kicked in.

I think the comic shop concentrated on imports, probably from Titan. No back issues, I seem to remember, so not on my regular search list.

[Malacoda]

On 1/31/2024 at 2:47 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

I think the comic shop concentrated on imports, probably from Titan

You were saying 60's and early 70's above, but Titan would put us in the 80's? 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 1/31/2024 at 3:00 PM, Malacoda said:

You were saying 60's and early 70's above, but Titan would put us in the 80's? 

I was in the Corn Exchange in the '80s.

The chances of picking up a bargain at a street market had fizzled out by then. The reference to the 60s and 70s were when it was still possible to unearth, say FF # 1-10 and early Spider-Man, etc, but by the 80s those days were just about over, although there was still fairly recent stuff (say 5 to 10 years old) that could be sold on.

When Frank Dobson's Fantasy Advertiser started to be widely read, say 1967 onwards, the second-hand sources began to dry up, as dealers were buying up everything of value and issuing lists. Even new comics which were in short supply on the newsstands would reappear in FA at a hefty mark-up. Frank typically charged 3/6d for Marvels just a few months old.

Still, if you kept your eyes open, it was possible that a one owner collection would suddenly appear on a local market, but you had to be quick off the mark.

[Malacoda]

This is not strictly relevant (you'll be surprised to hear), but I was looking at some Alan Class comics.  As we know, Class was in one by himself when it came to publishing and we know for a fact that he scooped up all the unsold copies very meticulously to re-sell them to seaside and holiday locations. He had deals with every US publisher you can think of, including Harvey, Timely/Atlas/Marvel, DC, ACG, Charlton, Archie, Fawcett, King and some you probably can't like Gleason & Sterling.  We also know that he bought up all of Miller's plates when they wound up and continued publishing those for years.  He was famous for re-using these plates for years, but with access to so much material, I assumed that he didn't need to keep reprinting the same stories over & over again, as much as legend has it. 

Wow, was I wrong. I just looked through all the covers of Secrets of the Unknown.  Out of 252 issues, there is almost nothing that is used only once.  I am assuming that the re-use of the covers is indicative of the re-use of the interior material.  Some of these stories are reprinted anything up to 4 times in the same series.  This is SOTU 68, 137, 167 and 205.  

This appears to be a cover-to-cover reprint x 4 of Strange Suspense Stories #75 from Charlton from 1965. 

There are many others that are reprinted multiple times.   I particularly like number 14 which comes back as number 145.  You would imagine, if it weren't for the changed price, that that was a misprint with an extra digit.  But no. 

 

SOTU had 252 issues over 26 years so it must have been monthly (at least) for most of that time. If he was printing these titles right through the year, then collecting them back up to redistribute the following summer, and some of these were being reprinted every 6 or 7 months, it follows that when he printed a comic in October and then reprinted it in April, by the time he was sending the returns off to Scarborough, Skegness and St Ives the following August, he may have been sending two or more differently numbered but identical comics in the same batches, possibly with different cover prices. 

Having said that, he was probably sending God knows how many overlapping versions of God knows what.  It was Alan Class, after all.  Gotta love him. 

 

 

Edited February 4 by Malacoda

[Malacoda]

[themagicrobot]

In the news this week there is talk of withdrawing 1p (and 2p?) coins from circulation. Until 1984 we had a halfpence coin. In the 1960s you could still buy a lollipop or bubblegum for a halfpence coin (which was bigger in size than a 10p coin is now!) so selling a second hand comic for 3 and a half pence happened.

 

Regarding Class Comics there are dozens of interesting anomalies to look to look out for. Alan re-used covers and content but also reduced the page count over the years from 68 to 52. (Yes I know there were a few 100 pagers produced for reasons unknown). Have a look at Tales of Suspense 2 (he would shortly change the title to ensure he wasn't sued by the House of ideas) and 133, 161, and 199. A story featured on the cover of No 2 was omitted in No 133. So the cover was altered accordingly. But he had forgotten by the time he came to Nos 161 and 199 which advertised a story that wasn't inside (as well as still having the old "wrong" title for the comic when the first four issues were reprinted). Bonkers!?!

Edited February 3 by themagicrobot

[David Buck]

If you didn't watch the BBC4 repeat last week it's worth catching this on iplayer - Arena - Byrne About Byrne,at c. 24 minutes in  it features a Scottish shop called Yankee Mags - that supposedly started up in 1940 - it seems the artist bought US comics from there in the late 40's early '50's - There's next to nothing online about the shop - it apparently closed in the 80's (this arena episode is from 1988) if the interior isn't entiely a studio set then it is at least to some degree staged with vintage comics on the back wall that may well have been John Byrne's own copies, whille the table in the foreground is haphazardly piled up with more modern fare like hulk - almost the only references online are from when the BBC tried to do a documentayr on it in 2010 that seems to have gone nowhere 

The Jungle Girl comic is from 1942

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001vvvj/arena-byrne-about-byrne

Edited February 3 by David Buck

[themagicrobot]

Someone has recently been selling a stack (nine?) of these classed as "New Old Stock" but not mint as they suffer from rusty staple syndrome.

[Yorick]

On 2/5/2024 at 11:08 AM, themagicrobot said:

Someone has recently been selling a stack (nine?) of these classed as "New Old Stock" but not mint as they suffer from rusty staple syndrome.

Get one for @Get Marwood & I.  They love those Mandrakes!! 

That's a nice Miller logo. 

[themagicrobot]

There are currently still two available on the Bay

 

[Get Marwood & I]

I've always liked the look of those Miller Mandrakes but have never collected any. As Robot says, they are often blighted by staple rust. Yoz, that's the same seller who had the romance books. I remember all the electrical parts and stuff.

[Redshade]

On 2/5/2024 at 7:16 PM, themagicrobot said:

There are currently still two available on the Bay

over

 

Those pages look to be very white for a seventy (?) year old book. Rather too white imho. Could they be some of the "facsimiles" of 1950s comics that were produced in the !980s?
(Being over forty years old if kept in the wrong conditions could cause the rusty staples).

[themagicrobot]

1962 so 62 years young. I think they are original and genuine. I will know for sure when mine arrives 😊 

I thought the only 1980s facsimiles were Marvelman family stuff?

[Redshade]

On 2/5/2024 at 9:08 PM, themagicrobot said:

 

I thought the only 1980s facsimiles were Marvelman family stuff?

No, the Whitworth *ahem* facsimiles comprised of dozens of 50s titles. I have one of their old catalogues somewhere, I'll dig it out sometime (it's too late now).

[Redshade]

On 2/5/2024 at 9:08 PM, themagicrobot said:

1962 so 62 years young. I think they are original and genuine. I will know for sure when mine arrives 😊 

I thought the only 1980s facsimiles were Marvelman family stuff?

Unnaturally white pages and better paper quality is easily discernible, especially when held side by side with an original.

[Get Marwood & I]

You'd have to be a Magician to work out where those bars have gone...

...not to mention the upwardly dematerialising pane of glass....

 

 

 

"What the focaccia's happened there, boss?"

"Difficult to say, Lothar...difficult to say..."