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

[Malacoda]

On 2/27/2024 at 7:30 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

If the comics were never meant to be sold in the expired currency they were priced in, it hardly matters how slipshod the application was.

Indeed.  The facts that they were all over the shop, almost all of them appear to be number 5's, but the other numbers are there in seemingly random order and the 2/- price goes from being insanely expensive to not being legal tender at all would all seem to point to the stamp just being a marker.  Given that the T&P round stamps specifically indicated that the comics were returnable (SOR), it might be that the purpose of the diamond stamps was to cancel the T&P returnable stamp.  There was obviously no way to remove the you-can-return-this-to-us-for-credit stamp from the covers, so the only way to cancel it out (other than the obliterator stamp, which leaves no replacement indicator) would be to put another stamp on it, like the triangular discount stamp.   The higher price would then also differentiate these never-to-return, sold by the ton issues from the discounted sale price ones. 

The idea that these were bound for foreign shores but missed the boat is a nice thought experiment, but they go on for 10 years.  How many boats can you miss?

One thing that is intriguing to me is that the 2/- stamp goes from being a ludicrously high price in old money to a ludicrously high price in the dual currency period to being completely invalid in the new currency.  At no point is it a realistic price.  Maybe that was intentional.  Just as you say, Albert, if they failed to sell this time around, their next destination was the pulper, but if you were trying to unload them in the Last Chance Saloon, nobody would take them if they bore a stamp that said 'these are worthless, please pulp them'.  A high price stamp both makes them attractive to the last re-seller/customer, whilst at the same time ensuring that they never find their way back to Thurmaston again.  If these stamps had, at some point, been a sensible market price and then just carried on getting used, that would be one thing, but the fact that these stamps appear for fully 10 years but are never a real price must indicate a different purpose. 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 2/28/2024 at 4:39 PM, Malacoda said:

Though it does make it the cheapest comic in the spinner and you could spend the extra penny on some Fruit Salads and Blackjacks. 

Yep, remember 'em well.

Selling them these days would get you 6 months, though.

[Malacoda]

Rightly so.  Though removing the lion from Tate & Lyle seem a bit nuts.to me.  How many lions actually wrote in, do you think? 

[Albert Tatlock]

And the PC brigade decided to lean on Camp coffee, too.

Out goes the old oppressive colonial trope at top, in comes the more progressive and enlightened one at bottom.

You can be as Camp as you like these days, they can't touch you for it.

Edited February 28 by Albert Tatlock
correct typo

[Albert Tatlock]

On 2/28/2024 at 5:36 PM, Malacoda said:

Rightly so.  Though removing the lion from Tate & Lyle seem a bit nuts.to me.  How many lions actually wrote in, do you think? 

Maybe they were having a paws for thought.

[Malacoda]

On 2/28/2024 at 5:54 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

You can be as Camp as you like these days, they can't touch you for it.

Is that why Fruit Salads have kept the name? 

[themagicrobot]

In the summer of 1967 I spent a week of the summer holidays at an Aunts. The newsagents round the corner had a spinner rack crammed with the Man/Male/Magazines so popular at the time. Just the bottom two rows contained comics and I kid you not EVERY comic was a Tower comic. This was a surprise to me as up until that point I had never heard of Tower comics. The other surprising thing was that there were issues of T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents spanning many months. All pristine and newly-delivered it seemed. Somehow I found enough money to go each day to buy one or two of these mysterious exotic comics and by the end of the week I had numbers 6 to 10 and a few No Mans and Dynamos. Each issue cost a staggering 1/6. I never saw any stamped at 10d. And back home I never saw any more Tower comics for a couple of years. It's funny what you remember isn't it. It's also funny peculiar that people are currently selling (or perhaps that should be trying to sell) poor condition stuff like this for £10 - £15. I've thrown better stuff in the bin.

 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 2/28/2024 at 6:25 PM, themagicrobot said:

It's also funny peculiar that people are currently selling (or perhaps that should be trying to sell) poor condition stuff like this for £10 - £15. I've thrown better stuff in the bin.

Some people clearly live in hope.

For example, here are the current listings of a seller on ebay, 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_ssn=sher8648&store_name=cultcomicbooksinternational&_oac=1&_trksid=p4429486.m3561.l2562

202 listings, well over 100 'key issues'.

Can't spot quite as many as that, myself, though.

 

Edited February 28 by Albert Tatlock
correct typo

[themagicrobot]

I suppose they think everyone (ie: crazy people younger than ourselves) don't actually know what comics they wish to purchase but they know they must get "key issues" so that is the search term they use rather than an issue number. What about these currently for sale?!?

Edited February 28 by themagicrobot

[OtherEric]

On 2/28/2024 at 10:25 AM, themagicrobot said:

In the summer of 1967 I spent a week of the summer holidays at an Aunts. The newsagents round the corner had a spinner rack crammed with the Man/Male/Magazines so popular at the time. Just the bottom two rows contained comics and I kid you not EVERY comic was a Tower comic. This was a surprise to me as up until that point I had never heard of Tower comics. The other surprising thing was that there were issues of T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents spanning many months. All pristine and newly-delivered it seemed. Somehow I found enough money to go each day to buy one or two of these mysterious exotic comics and by the end of the week I had numbers 6 to 10 and a few No Mans and Dynamos. Each issue cost a staggering 1/6. I never saw any stamped at 10d. And back home I never saw any more Tower comics for a couple of years. It's funny what you remember isn't it. It's also funny peculiar that people are currently selling (or perhaps that should be trying to sell) poor condition stuff like this for £10 - £15. I've thrown better stuff in the bin.

 

Everyone knows the TOWER comics are worthless.  I put together a complete run of their superhero issues, and there's not a single character who has a movie.  All I got was a bunch of fun comics with art by a lot of the best artists who ever worked in the industry.  What a rip off!

 

[Albert Tatlock]

On 2/28/2024 at 7:04 PM, themagicrobot said:

I suppose they think everyone (ie: crazy people younger than ourselves) don't actually know what comics they wish to purchase but they know they must get "key issues" so that is the search term they use rather than an issue number. What about these currently for sale?!?

If they don't sell, list them again with 'HOT KEY' in the heading.

[Malacoda]

On 2/28/2024 at 6:32 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

Can't spot quite as many as that, myself, though.

And the Treasuries are described as 'special key' issues.  The joke is on him as he has just made it meaningless, but he actually does have a few keys in there (Avengers 181 & 196, FF 51, Xmen 244, X Factor 5 & 6) but after the first ten times he uses the word, you just switch off. 

[Malacoda]

And still they come....

[themagicrobot]

you missed a bit

[Albert Tatlock]

On 2/29/2024 at 2:11 PM, Malacoda said:

And still they come....

That's a good 'un!

This issue of ST was available as a UKPV, so how this copy found its way into circulation before the end of the 1960s is a Strange Tale indeed.

Possibly sold on second-hand after a n-n-n- nineteen year old servant of Uncle Sam  bought it in his PX at Lakenheath or wherever.

9d was the full shop price at the time, not a clue who applied that stamp.

But there is also what looks like a hastily scribbled 3d, possibly a market stall price as the mag sank lower in the resale chain.

Incidentally, this is one of quite a few pre-hero Marvels where it is evident that the cover artist (in this case Kirby) was not in cahoots with the illustrator of the inside pages (in this case Don Heck), as there is no resemblance between the two versions of the Thing (or the Thing On The Moon as depicted within). Others that spring to mind are Rro from JIM # 58 (Ditko/Heck),  Bombu from JIM # 60 (Kirby and Kirby, one of whom did not consult the other) and more. Someone out there with time on their hands could probably reel off a full list. From memory, the monster threatening the human race on the cover was always scarier than his counterpart within.

I got my first copy of ST #79 from a lad at the top of my street, who demanded, and got, 2 comics in exchange. 'What a mug', he must have chuckled into his sleeve, but I just had to add it to my small but treasured portfolio.

The cover story was a let-down, not so the first interior Tale, Kirby's chiller about the Shadow Creatures, selected for re-publication in Marvel's first foray into the 25 cent Annual territory, Strange Tales Annual # 1. It cost me an arm and a leg (1/6d) when I first spied it in a local newsagent, but once again, I had not the capacity to resist its allure.

 

[themagicrobot]

The thriller I never expected to see! I never expected to see Ms van Dyne fly THROUGH the zero of the 10d price stamp.

[Malacoda]

On 2/29/2024 at 3:51 PM, Albert Tatlock said:

This issue of ST was available as a UKPV, so how this copy found its way into circulation before the end of the 1960s is a Strange Tale indeed.

It's from cd Dec 60.  Comics went to 10d in Dec 64, so assuming it was current price, it's somewhere in that gap, but as you say, it was a PV, so something odd happened.  

This issue is weird in that everything says it features a Dr. Strange prototype.  There are 4 stories in this:  a SF one about shadowy aliens invading earth,  one where a practical joker tricks a guy into staying a night in a haunted house but the guy turns out to be ghost, one about a time travelling petty criminal and one where astronauts discover that Atlantis relocated to the moon.  Seriously, there is no Doc Strange prototype except that the ghost looks a bit like him because he's a Ditko character with a moustache.  

 

[themagicrobot]

I like a good mystery. Postman Pat hasn't delivered it yet though. There are three known different US cents priced versions of this comic. This is version four. Was this comic printed entirely in the UK, or, as seems more likely is it a UK variant with just a different cover around the interior pages??

 

 

Edited March 1 by themagicrobot

[OtherEric]

Quick question:  has anybody heard from @Get Marwood & I recently?  I haven't seen them online in quite a while, and I'm hoping all is well.

[Malacoda]

On 3/1/2024 at 6:42 PM, themagicrobot said:

I like a good mystery. Postman Pat hasn't delivered it yet though. There are three known different US cents priced versions of this comic. This is version four. Was this comic printed entirely in the UK, or, as seems more likely is it a UK variant with just a different cover around the interior pages??

The Indicia is intriguing.  Spire Christian Comics were published from 1971 - 1982 and the book on which this was based was published in 1973.  Oliphants were the London end of a Scottish religious book publishers, so that makes a lot of sense, but Oliphants went into liquidation in 1968, so either it's a different Oliphants or a new company was formed.