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

[Malacoda]

On 6/1/2024 at 10:39 PM, baggsey said:

Interesting that the image you provided has a "4" inside the TeePee stamp, whereas the one I posted has a "1".  Presumably they were following the same batching process they followed for DC imports in the same period.

Oh Baggsey.  You have said a mouthful there, my friend.  In the immortal words (of Bert) "That there is what you might call a doorway to a place of enchantment." 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 6/3/2024 at 3:07 PM, Malacoda said:

That's an astute and doubtless correct observation, but I'm not sure the numbers support it significantly.  If Fred were buying 10k or even 20k out of 400k leftovers, it wouldn't put much of a dent in the 'I'll just box these up neatly and put them in the trunk of my car and take them to definitely the incinerator'  pile. 

Yes, but........

 

Edited June 3 by Albert Tatlock
scan added.

[Get Marwood & I]

You won't often see a 1966 Charlton stamped with a Tee & Pee, at 10 dee, but here one be, along with a 9 dee and a 3 pee:

Whoopee!

 

[Malacoda]

On 6/4/2024 at 3:59 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

You won't often see a 1966 Charlton stamped with a Tee & Pee, at 10 dee, but here one be, along with a 9 dee and a 3 pee:

That 9d doesn't look like a discount.  It looks like it went out at 9d, came back and went round again at 10d, but this is from 1966, by which point Marvel & DC were long since at 10d.  Were Charlies priced differently? 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 6/4/2024 at 4:15 PM, Malacoda said:

That 9d doesn't look like a discount.  It looks like it went out at 9d, came back and went round again at 10d, but this is from 1966, by which point Marvel & DC were long since at 10d.  Were Charlies priced differently? 

That Tee&Pee 10d shouldn't be on there as no Charlies were T&P'd in this period by design. An anomaly, it is. The surviving copies from those in the UK that did distribute Charlies in this period - the Gold Stars, the Millers and the like - show us that they used a mixture of 9d, 10d and shilling stamps and stickers. 

[Albert Tatlock]

Here is a cents copy of ASM # 3 which managed to bypass T & P only to fall into the clutches of the PBC.

[baggsey]

At the risk of going off-topic slightly, can anyone point me to information about the ownership of Atlas Publishing Company, who latterly printed reprints of Batman, Superman, Superboy in annuals in the 1950s and 1960s, but previously was the publisher of Street & Smith's pulps from 1916 until the early 1960s, when their hardback Annual publishing seemed to dominate their output.

[Malacoda]

On 6/13/2024 at 9:23 PM, baggsey said:

At the risk of going off-topic slightly, can anyone point me to information about the ownership of Atlas Publishing Company, who latterly printed reprints of Batman, Superman, Superboy in annuals in the 1950s and 1960s, but previously was the publisher of Street & Smith's pulps from 1916 until the early 1960s, when their hardback Annual publishing seemed to dominate their output.

Good one.  They are a bit of a mystery (ironically). As with all the other companies called Atlas they are murder to track down because as soon as you type Atlas and publishers, you get a million map publishers.  They get a mention from Steve Chibnall - he says they were in the pulp business from the 1930's onwards, both importing and printing their own material, until T&P blitzed the market from 1949 - 1953 with about 50 titles and cornered the market.  Then, as you say, they got into reprinting super hero fare including hardback annuals.  They were based at 14 Bride St, London, EC4 and later at  334 Brixton Road. 

They seem to have both printed and distributed the annuals, some by arrangement with Murray's, the Aussie's we're familiar with.  As to who owned them, I've never known that.  Will require a deep dive.  They don't appear to have been a division of any larger organisation - looks more like an Alan Class type affair.  Will have a go if none of the Brains Trust has an answer. 

Some lovely covers here: 

Magazine Contents Lists: Page 921 (philsp.com)

Perhaps we can find this Terry Gibbons. 

 

[baggsey]

On 6/14/2024 at 5:46 AM, Malacoda said:

Good one.  They are a bit of a mystery (ironically). As with all the other companies called Atlas they are murder to track down because as soon as you type Atlas and publishers, you get a million map publishers.  They get a mention from Steve Chibnall - he says they were in the pulp business from the 1930's onwards, both importing and printing their own material, until T&P blitzed the market from 1949 - 1953 with about 50 titles and cornered the market.  Then, as you say, they got into reprinting super hero fare including hardback annuals.  They were based at 14 Bride St, London, EC4 and later at  334 Brixton Road. 

They seem to have both printed and distributed the annuals, some by arrangement with Murray's, the Aussie's we're familiar with.  As to who owned them, I've never known that.  Will require a deep dive.  They don't appear to have been a division of any larger organisation - looks more like an Alan Class type affair.  Will have a go if none of the Brains Trust has an answer. 

Some lovely covers here: 

Magazine Contents Lists: Page 921 (philsp.com)

Perhaps we can find this Terry Gibbons. 

 

 

I’ve been researching them as a result of an article I’m writing on which Doc Savage pulps were published officially in the UK as either UK publications/paperbacks or UK price variants.
 

I've found philsp.com very useful in identifying which Doc pulps were printed by Atlas, and the covers shown are very useful.

I’ve trawled the phone directories for Atlas and tracked them from starting in 1916 through to 1970. They were initially at 21 Bride Lane, moving to 18 Bride Lane around 1923, and stayed there for most of the remainder of the period. Is your “14 Bride Street” a typo? If not, can you point me to the source?

I’m currently looking at the electoral rolls for Bride Lane to identify registered occupants at those addresses, which if a business address also points to a residential address. I’ll then cross-check the names against the1939 census for stated occupation.

Hopefully I’ll build a better picture of the growth of the company. Nothing in Companies House that I can find.

[themagicrobot]

By some synchronicity, yesterday I was reading this 1952 Superman Annual which on the back cover says: "Printed by Morrison and Gibb Ltd, Tanfield, Edinburgh 4 for K. G. Murray 56 Young Street, Sydney, Australia. Distributed by Atlas Publishing and Distributing Co Ltd 18 Bride lane, Fleet Street, London EC4."

Edited June 14 by themagicrobot

[themagicrobot]

The only other Atlas Annuals that I have easy access to are these Batmans. The 1964/1965 book has the 18 Bride Lane address. The 1967 Batman Annual (purchased new by me in the autumn of 1966) lists the 334 Brixton Road SW9 address.

[Albert Tatlock]

On 6/1/2024 at 8:55 PM, baggsey said:

Like you, I believe that the comics that turned up in the UK were not comics that had been returned after the pull date, but were comics from wholesalers warehouses more likely to have been returned unsold when the next issue of a comic was published.

In the earliest days of T & P's importation of DC titles, cover dates late 1959, one thing stands out, the extreme scarcity of stamped copies just before the avalanche that followed.

For example, Showcase # 22, Superman # 132, Flash # 108, Jimmy Olsen # 40, Action # 257, which have been reported here on these very pages, but as single spies, not whole battalions, to quote old Willie.

There would have been plenty of those examples to be found in the warehouse, so the first few tranches, at least, must have been composed of unsold remnants of stock from US retailers, with the above examples trickling in late.

Also, in this scenario, there are numerous sightings of books with the 'wrong' stamp number, delayed on their slouch to Uncle Sam's eastern shore, only to be given a fresh lease of life at Ethel's desk. She would have neither known nor cared that that particular item had arrived out of sequence, and neither would the newsagent.

In my earliest collection there were many purchases from retail outlets at full cover price that I could see were up to a year earlier by cover date than the newest ones on sale, and I was very glad to be able to fill gaps from before I stumbled upon this excellent hobby, or, if you prefer, unshakeable addiction. 

Maybe undistributed copies went into later shipments, but when and to what extent takes us on a Journey Into Mystery as far as our current knowledge is concerned.

[baggsey]

On 6/14/2024 at 11:18 AM, themagicrobot said:

By some synchronicity, yesterday I was reading this 1952 Superman Annual which on the back cover says: "Printed by Morrison and Gibb Ltd, Tanfield, Edinburgh 4 for K. G. Murray 56 Young Street, Sydney, Australia. Distributed by Atlas Publishing and Distributing Co Ltd 18 Bride lane, Fleet Street, London EC4."

Thanks @themagicrobot and @Malacoda . I wonder if that Superman annual actually made its way to Australia from the printers in Edinburgh, only to find its way back to the UK? Atlas publishing were certainly an interesting company. In the 1940s they made a concerted effort to be a publisher of original material, but the type of book was a bit down-market "Dog Racing & Betting" was an original self-help book in 1946, followed up by "An Indiscreet Guide to Soho" for the discerning punter.

In 1949 they were served an injunction by William Heinemann Ltd for copyright infringement when Atlas imported an original book "The First Lady Chatterley" from Australia. 

I think once the original publishing failed they fell back on the Annuals and pulp reprints as the core business.

[Malacoda]

On 6/14/2024 at 2:57 PM, baggsey said:

I’ve trawled the phone directories for Atlas and tracked them from starting in 1916 through to 1970. They were initially at 21 Bride Lane, moving to 18 Bride Lane around 1923, and stayed there for most of the remainder of the period. Is your “14 Bride Street” a typo? If not, can you point me to the source?

Apologies, typo.  I like to see places when poss.  Obviously Google maps is the first port of call, but another good source can be adjacent / nearby properties which have been sold (hence the 14).  However, in this case it looks like 18 and 21 are no more.   18 - 20 are a block of flats and 21 is whatever is behind the mystery door, which looks like a continuation of the flats (though oddly the windows look more like a shop front).  Will need to be historic photos!

 

 

Edited June 14 by Malacoda

[Malacoda]

On 6/14/2024 at 10:11 PM, baggsey said:

I wonder if that Superman annual actually made its way to Australia from the printers in Edinburgh, only to find its way back to the UK?

This one definitely went on an odyssey.  The original material came from DC in New York, it was published by Atlas in London, in association with Murray's in Sydney Australia, the cover was printed by Oval in London, and then the innards were printed and bound by Morrison & Gibb in Edinburgh,  it was distributed jointly by Atlas in London and T&P in Leicester and is currently for sale in California. 

The inner cover was signed by the original owner in Hampshire, UK.  

1967 Superman Annual - The World's Greatest Adventure Character | eBay

[themagicrobot]

Well I found these so far and have the rest somewhere in unlabelled boxes. Never sure if it was "Super Adventure" or "Superadventure". If Atlas no longer were doing pulps they certainly were involved in comics in the 1950s as well as the Annuals. In the great British tradition the Annuals continued for many years after the comics had been discontinued. I always found it interesting that the Atlas comics stopped (1960) at pretty much the same time that T&P began importing DCs. Was it a co-incidence or connected? Did K. G. Murray's licence to produce Superman/Batman fare in the UK expire/was brought to an end as National wanted to use the UK as a dumping ground for their surplus. The K. G. Murray Supermans etc continued in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s.  

Edited June 15 by themagicrobot

[baggsey]

On 6/14/2024 at 5:46 AM, Malacoda said:

[Atlas]  get a mention from Steve Chibnall - he says they were in the pulp business from the 1930's onwards, both importing and printing their own material, until T&P blitzed the market from 1949 - 1953 with about 50 titles and cornered the market. 

 

I presume you're referencing Steve Chibnall's book "The Sign of the Tee Pee: The Story of Thorpe & Porter," ?   Any idea where I can find a copy?

[Albert Tatlock]

On 6/15/2024 at 5:02 PM, baggsey said:

I presume you're referencing Steve Chibnall's book "The Sign of the Tee Pee: The Story of Thorpe & Porter," ?   Any idea where I can find a copy?

Possibly an article in this magazine:

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31282975786&searchurl=ds%3D30%26kn%3Dsteve%2Bchibnall%26rollup%3Don%26sortby%3D17&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp0-_-title9

[baggsey]

On 6/15/2024 at 11:22 AM, Albert Tatlock said:

Possibly an article in this magazine:

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31282975786&searchurl=ds%3D30%26kn%3Dsteve%2Bchibnall%26rollup%3Don%26sortby%3D17&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp0-_-title9

Thanks @Albert Tatlock - you've put me on the right track. I've determined from Wikipedia that it's an article in Vol 1 of that series Paperback, Pulp and Comic Collector.  However, I've ordered the one you pointed me to, as Vol 1 does not appear to have a Chibnall article. Thanks again.

 

 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 6/15/2024 at 6:14 PM, baggsey said:

I've determined from Wikipedia 

There's Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, they all admit that they would have been lost without Wikipedia.