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Monday, 17 July 2023
Tuesday, 12 October 2021
MY Comics are MY Comics
It seems that people are obsessed with MY comic collection.
Not sure why but someone just watched or read (it seemed a bit unclear which) something I had done about my Class collection in particular. Apparently "That makes it a key issue!" regarding the story in one edition of Suspense. No. Class Comics could be hit or miss when it came to printing quality as the intention was to get the comics printed off as cheaply as possible to make the biggest profit. I have two copies of one particular number and one is nice and crisp while the other is not so clear and has a tad of 'fading' (not actual fading but where the printer was low on ink.
A Class Comic cannot be seen as a "key issue" for the very simple reason that Alan never published original material and so everything was simply black and white reprints. I have seen reprintsm and in bad condition, Uncanny Tales 64 featuring the first appearance of the Vision going for £250 and later for £500. You can pick up good quality origanl Marvel Comics Avengers #57 in full colour for less than that -someone purchased a copy for £150 in the U. S. recently. This is not a rare or "key" issue and if I go by what comic pundits push I have a book worth around £500! Yeah, gimme that and you can have the book!
The above issue of Creepy Worlds #68 was being sold for £650 as it was "key" and featured "an early appearance by Kang" -or Kang The Conqueror as we formally address him. It does not. I have the story in Marvel Collectors Item Classics as well as the Class version. Kang does not appear in the book and the seller obviously (accidentally or deliberately) mixed up Kang's Rama Tut incarnation mixed up with a "mad pharoah"! Pay £650 if you want but try getting your money back when you find out the error -sadly, many buy these books and do not open up the bagged comic but keep them as "investments" 😂😂
Creepy Worlds #34 I saw listed a year ago as "a key issue" and it was not in good condition and had a smudgy cover -£1000.99 (that "99p" must have been added as a joke -comic vanished after four months but never sold on Ebay.
I do not put all of my comics in Mylar bags with acid free backing boards -if you can afford to do that then good luck to you. When I see and hear people hold up a comic sealed in its little Mylar tomb "I got this for $75/£75 and I think -character- appears in three panels but not sure what his connection is in the storyline" I utter certain rude words. "Not sure who the writer and artist are" -more rude words because they HAVE the book in hand but simply swapped it from one comic bag to a dearer one and never looked inside or read the book. The book is in front ofbthem and how do they check the contents and details? By fumbling for a few minutes for the Overstreet Price Guide!
This is, I know, controversial but I buy and read All my comics. I never use a price guide and I never give my own price estimate for a book because it is a waste of time. I value a title at £300 because it features a "yellow and black" costume Daredevil adventure. So someone is going to give me £300 without quibble? No.
I have a full run of the Marvel UK Avengers weekly and, again, the printing quality varies and I knew the printer involved and the print price was low and the story from one U.S. full colour Avengers comic could be split up as a b&w 3-parter. "First Dr Strange appearance!" says one seller but it's a b&w UK reprint of a comic strip published 20+ years before in the U.S.
The Avengers #5 Marvel Comics UK (1973) First UK appearance of Kang for £100 +p&p..never
sold. Wonder why?
I buy comics to read and because I like the various art styles and designs and I do not look at it after an unboxing and say
"Yeah. I'll say a good 8.9 so value probably around the £200 mark" -what crassness. My Class collection,
I just decided, is worth somewhere areound the £6000 / $6000 mark. Now, give me that amount and you can have them
(collect of course!).
The things that immediately make me stop watching a video on You Tube are "Comics predicteto rise in value this year" (because they never do unless it is the You Tuber using another name to
sell them on Ebay (they have been caught out at that game so many times) or "How I value my
comics" -which is pointless because, as noted above, you can call your own price based on YOUR own criteria but
are they going to be bought at YOUR price by someone and when the grader states "I'll never sell them" what is the point?
My comics are My comics and when I die they will probably be burnt or dumped in a bin. Fact. So just ****** enjoy your comics and let me enjoy mine
and we'll live happier lives.
Thursday, 30 September 2021
Wednesday, 19 June 2019
Sunday, 28 May 2017
On Fandom And Little Cliques..and sharing!
I know that it is a very -very- small group in the UK but why shouldn't they get a chance to see the comics I have discovered? Most of those I know who are interested cannot find or afford the price of the comics and even when fairly priced it is finding the comics. So I do the work and publish the collected Gold books or the complete collection which works out cheaper.
I will never ever make my money back! But I never thought that I would. Unlike in, say, the United States where, were even a 350+pp b&w collection of US Golden Age available then it would sell to real fans or collectors, in the UK...obviously not. I won't even go into why as I have done so before and the lack of interest was overwhelming.
But the books are there for anyone really interested in UK comics of those periods. There was the British Golden Age and UK Golden Age Heroes & Comics blogs. The first has had 23, 834 views since it was set up in 2011. The second has had 6, 112 views since set up in 2013.
the Yahoo! British Comic Books Archives group was set up on 31st January, 2007 and has thousands of images over several album pages and a lot of interesting posts. It has 55 members -and the majority are not even in the UK.
February, 2005...38 members and the Class magazine I bought out...2 copies sold.
Sales of the Collected book, and I need to point out that not one of the slimmer volumes has ever sold...3 copies. Once you take into account what I finally receive financially, those three sales do not even pay for one of the comics I purchased to go in it.
Now, in the old fanzine days it was common to find fans sharing photocopies of old comics (none of us had scanners or internet until the 1990s!) or swapping information. Initially, fans started to do the same thing over the internet but that more or less stopped years ago now. There are books fans are looking for and we know other 'fans' have copies. Will they scan and share? No. Why? "Because no one else here has a copy so it's mine and I'm not sharing!" And that was actually said on one of my Yahoo group members. These people tend to like to steal the work I have done and add it to sites so they get credit but simply state "original scanner unknown"....I guess the scans just appeared miraculously on their computers then?
When I have used material in a book scanned and sent to me by someone I name them. But I do not credit people using silly, anonymous internet names. And I have made it clear that I cannot (there are very sounds legal reasons why no one ever should) credit "anonymous" or some internet name. Why on earth are these people scared to take credit for their scan work?
That adds something else to the mix. Groups where scanners of Silver Age UK comics go into all their scanning details (which is pointless) and call themselves "comic editors". Weird. They are scanners and not comic editors!
And...allowing 95% of members on their groups to be anonymous is fine. After all, MI5 would love to track them down -seriously, you are on a fecking comic 'fan' group so why do you need a different internet name on that and 4-5 other groups?? The world's security services are not after you for reading comics. Unless it's so there is no come back on them when they take part in petty sniping at other members? It's why I left those groups.
But, that anonymity....you offer scans over the internet on your groups but then get angry (and "angry" does not really cover it!) when someone has compiled all of those scans into a collection on CD to sell on Ebay. Screeching -"Without given credit to me!" and "Profiting from group scans and contributing nothing back!" but this is the very funny part of it: they "all" want to know who this person is (I was actually accused once but that stopped as soon as I asked them to repeat the remark and get sued, stupid little infants) but how can you when you let all these people join anonymously? Any how could this person contribute back to the group?
Financially? Oh, well, how do they know this person has NOT contributed scans (I suspect he has and I think I know who he is and it is quite obvious unless you are a "comics editor" on a Yahoo group!)? Who gets money? And best of all is the idea that, somehow, their copyright and editing work has been infringed upon. Firstly, a scanner has no copyright claim. You offer a free scan on the internet it gets used....tell me about it...sob sob...just two of my Eros books have been illegally downloaded by the millions. I don't lose sleep over it or bleat on.
And now the "elite Platinum 'comics' clique". I ask about certain characters or titles. "Oh yes. That is in the (my) collection". Any chance of a scan? "I am rather busy. Ask me in a couple months" and the one I always laugh at: "Oh, I had no idea that one had not been catalogued. I've had that for years." Seriously, this is what I call "a load of old bull crap". So you are one of this studious elite and read everything there for years but this just slipped by? You never knew? Rather, you do not have a copy because other than that line nothing else is contributed. Scan and you will solve all the problems and answer all the questions but no, just the "Oh, I had no idea that one had not been catalogued. I've had that for years." End of story.
And don't get me started on the fella (in the US) who joined my Face Book Golden Age group to find out WHO from his group was a member and banned them and very rudely told me I was banned from his group, too!
This is not fandom. It's rather like, when you were a kid and played "conkers" and there was always some lad claiming he had a "Twentier" (smashed 20 other conkers in a game) but would never produce it or bring it to a game. Or a "Hundredsy" marble -same thing. If they are true fans they share for the love of the comics medium. My collection was always open to be read (and sadly I paid the price for that) by other fans. share and you get to talk about the characters, comic or creator -it IS fun.
But I see it with comic people from Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany and even France: most have no knowledge of comics prior to the 1980s. Almost as though comics appeared in the 1980s and there was nothing before. Worse are the snooty comic 'experts' who say with 100% confidence "France has always had more eye brow comics -never super heroes!" And I, CBO, have shown that this is just an ignorant statement based on no knowledge. "Germany never had comics during World War 2 -the Nazis forbade them!" Same thing. Proven false.
We need a good fanzine in the UK -most countries do- and we also need to get real, genuine comic fans to chat. I say that with a 100% failure rate at the Golden Age blogs and on CBO comments are rare enough.
It seems to be more about snooty cliques or little cliques following bully boys in the UK. On my Yahoo! groups you can join and use a pseudonym on the group BUT I need to know who you really are because I learnt the lessons.
think about it -what has your experience as a comic fan been like and what do you miss or feel is needed?
Sales of the Collected book, and I need to point out that not one of the slimmer volumes has ever sold...3 copies. Once you take into account what I finally receive financially, those three sales do not even pay for one of the comics I purchased to go in it.
Now, in the old fanzine days it was common to find fans sharing photocopies of old comics (none of us had scanners or internet until the 1990s!) or swapping information. Initially, fans started to do the same thing over the internet but that more or less stopped years ago now. There are books fans are looking for and we know other 'fans' have copies. Will they scan and share? No. Why? "Because no one else here has a copy so it's mine and I'm not sharing!" And that was actually said on one of my Yahoo group members. These people tend to like to steal the work I have done and add it to sites so they get credit but simply state "original scanner unknown"....I guess the scans just appeared miraculously on their computers then?
When I have used material in a book scanned and sent to me by someone I name them. But I do not credit people using silly, anonymous internet names. And I have made it clear that I cannot (there are very sounds legal reasons why no one ever should) credit "anonymous" or some internet name. Why on earth are these people scared to take credit for their scan work?
That adds something else to the mix. Groups where scanners of Silver Age UK comics go into all their scanning details (which is pointless) and call themselves "comic editors". Weird. They are scanners and not comic editors!
And...allowing 95% of members on their groups to be anonymous is fine. After all, MI5 would love to track them down -seriously, you are on a fecking comic 'fan' group so why do you need a different internet name on that and 4-5 other groups?? The world's security services are not after you for reading comics. Unless it's so there is no come back on them when they take part in petty sniping at other members? It's why I left those groups.
But, that anonymity....you offer scans over the internet on your groups but then get angry (and "angry" does not really cover it!) when someone has compiled all of those scans into a collection on CD to sell on Ebay. Screeching -"Without given credit to me!" and "Profiting from group scans and contributing nothing back!" but this is the very funny part of it: they "all" want to know who this person is (I was actually accused once but that stopped as soon as I asked them to repeat the remark and get sued, stupid little infants) but how can you when you let all these people join anonymously? Any how could this person contribute back to the group?
Financially? Oh, well, how do they know this person has NOT contributed scans (I suspect he has and I think I know who he is and it is quite obvious unless you are a "comics editor" on a Yahoo group!)? Who gets money? And best of all is the idea that, somehow, their copyright and editing work has been infringed upon. Firstly, a scanner has no copyright claim. You offer a free scan on the internet it gets used....tell me about it...sob sob...just two of my Eros books have been illegally downloaded by the millions. I don't lose sleep over it or bleat on.
And now the "elite Platinum 'comics' clique". I ask about certain characters or titles. "Oh yes. That is in the (my) collection". Any chance of a scan? "I am rather busy. Ask me in a couple months" and the one I always laugh at: "Oh, I had no idea that one had not been catalogued. I've had that for years." Seriously, this is what I call "a load of old bull crap". So you are one of this studious elite and read everything there for years but this just slipped by? You never knew? Rather, you do not have a copy because other than that line nothing else is contributed. Scan and you will solve all the problems and answer all the questions but no, just the "Oh, I had no idea that one had not been catalogued. I've had that for years." End of story.
And don't get me started on the fella (in the US) who joined my Face Book Golden Age group to find out WHO from his group was a member and banned them and very rudely told me I was banned from his group, too!
This is not fandom. It's rather like, when you were a kid and played "conkers" and there was always some lad claiming he had a "Twentier" (smashed 20 other conkers in a game) but would never produce it or bring it to a game. Or a "Hundredsy" marble -same thing. If they are true fans they share for the love of the comics medium. My collection was always open to be read (and sadly I paid the price for that) by other fans. share and you get to talk about the characters, comic or creator -it IS fun.
But I see it with comic people from Singapore, Hong Kong, Germany and even France: most have no knowledge of comics prior to the 1980s. Almost as though comics appeared in the 1980s and there was nothing before. Worse are the snooty comic 'experts' who say with 100% confidence "France has always had more eye brow comics -never super heroes!" And I, CBO, have shown that this is just an ignorant statement based on no knowledge. "Germany never had comics during World War 2 -the Nazis forbade them!" Same thing. Proven false.
We need a good fanzine in the UK -most countries do- and we also need to get real, genuine comic fans to chat. I say that with a 100% failure rate at the Golden Age blogs and on CBO comments are rare enough.
It seems to be more about snooty cliques or little cliques following bully boys in the UK. On my Yahoo! groups you can join and use a pseudonym on the group BUT I need to know who you really are because I learnt the lessons.
think about it -what has your experience as a comic fan been like and what do you miss or feel is needed?
Wednesday, 12 October 2016
Thursday, 21 April 2016
The Phantom & Mandrake At Class Comics
The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician are amongst the legends of comic characters. Whereas the Phantom was published for a long time as a title by Charlton Comics, King Comics and in the UK by Top Sellers -two colour comic albums and one(?) hardback annual- and in the 1990s, briefly, by Wolf Publishing his adventures are mainly known, again, through Class Comics.
Mandrake, on the other hand, has not, as far as I can remember, had a comic presence in the UK other than in Class Comics. I'm sure someone can correct me if I am wrong!
THE following is for those seeking Mandrake and/or Phantom
stories published by Class. Info from
the Phantom Deepwoods site at:~
Issue
|
Price
|
Pages
|
Cover
|
Phantom Story
|
Reprint of
|
Creepy Worlds
|
|||||
86
|
1'-
|
68
|
Mandrake #3
|
The Magic Ivory Cage
|
|
87
|
1'-
|
68
|
Mandrake #4
|
The Girl Phantom
|
|
89
|
1'-
|
68
|
King #25
|
The Cold Fire Worshippers
|
|
94
|
1'-
|
68
|
King #23 Les Gray
|
Delilah
|
|
98
|
1'-
|
68
|
King #27
|
The Story of Hero
|
|
160
|
15p
|
68
|
Mandrake #4
|
The Girl Phantom
|
87
|
193
|
20p
|
50
|
Mandrake #4
|
The Girl Phantom
|
87
|
197
|
20p
|
48
|
Mandrake #3
|
The Magic Ivory Cage
|
86
|
231
|
25p
|
48
|
King #25
|
The Cold Fire Worshippers
|
89
|
234
|
30p
|
44
|
King #23
|
Delilah
|
94
|
Secrets of the Unknown
|
|||||
85
|
1'-
|
68
|
King #19
|
The Astronaut and the Pirates
The Masked Emissary |
|
86
|
1'-
|
68
|
King #20
|
The Adventures of the Girl
Phantom
The Invisible Demon |
|
88
|
1'-
|
68
|
King #24
|
Riddle of the Witch (Girl
Phantom)
|
|
237
|
30p
|
48
|
King #19
|
The Astronaut and the Pirates
The Masked Emissary |
237
|
244
|
30p
|
68
|
King #20
|
The Adventures of the Girl Phantom
The Invisible Demon |
86
|
Sinister Tales
|
|||||
69
|
1'-
|
68
|
Mandrake #1
|
SOS Phantom
|
|
71
|
1'-
|
68
|
King #22
|
The Secret of Magic Mountain
|
|
74
|
1'-
|
68
|
Mandrake #2
|
The Pirate Raiders
|
|
142
|
10p
|
50
|
Mandrake #2
|
The Pirate Raiders
|
74
|
173
|
20p
|
50
|
Mandrake #2
|
The Pirate Raiders
|
74
|
177
|
20p
|
50
|
Mandrake #1
|
SOS Phantom
|
69
|
Suspense
|
|||||
80
|
1'-
|
68
|
King #18
|
The Treasure of the Skull Cave
|
|
87
|
1'-
|
68
|
King #26
|
The Lost City of Yiango
The Pearl Raiders |
|
230
|
55p
|
100
|
King #26
|
The Lost City of Yiango
The Pearl Raiders |
87
|
234
|
55p
|
100
|
King #18
|
The Treasure of the Skull Cave
|
80
|
Uncanny Tales
|
|||||
181
|
55p
|
100
|
King #21
|
The Terror Tiger
The Treasure of Bengali Bay |
|
But now, of course, the cover gallery of some of those issues!
Enjoy.
Wednesday, 20 April 2016
Make Mine Marvel...uh, Class!
According to the Marvel data base, which should know -right?
"Alan Class Publishing was a small British publishing company owned by Alan Class (obviously) which between 1959 and 1989 published approximately 1455 comics under 26 different titles, most of them squarebound anthologies reprinting material from numerous American publishers including Timely Comics, Atlas Comics (1950s), Charlton Comics, Red Circle, Fawcett, Archie, King Features, ACG and Marvel.
A huge amount of material by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and countless pre-Marvel short stories by Stan Lee were reprinted (some of them several times over in different books), notably in six long running core titles: Astounding Stories, Sinister Tales, Suspense, Creepy Worlds, Uncanny Tales and Secrets of the Unknown, but also in shorter lived titles including Blazing Trails, Journey into Danger, Secrets of the Underworld and the somewhat misleadingly titled Uncensored Love(!) None of the books were dated (a deliberate ploy to extend their shelf life), and unsolds were returned to Class only to be reissued a few months later, typically in the school holidays.
Most issues featured a more or less random selection of material, often including stories from several different publishers in one book (issues of Suspense, for instance, featuring both Spider-Man and Archie's Fly-Man) though short, one-off science fiction or horror stories tended to be the preferred fare, and where characters such as Nick Fury, Thor, the Jaguar or Captain Atom appeared, it was invariably in single stories, no storylines being continued from one issue to the next.
In 1963, Class bought the rights to the back catalogue of L. Miller & Son, publishers of Marvelman, but by the late sixties they had lost the rights to reprint material from most of the larger publishers (including Marvel) and were sued by King Features for reprinting their copyrighted material without permission.
Unlicensed reprints continued to appear however, including Marvel material, since the company was so small (and, of course, not based in the US) that they pretty much went unnoticed most of the time, eventually ceasing to trade in 1989 purely because Class could not compete with the rising number of specialist comic shops."
Now, if you've read my Alan Class interview you will note that this Marvel data base, shall we say "borrows"?, information that only came tolight in that interview. Since it is known Marvel (via Marvel UK) got heavy handed and after the rights were withdrawn, because Marvel was now publishing in the UK, there were no illegal reprints.
But Marvel is Marvel. Or, rather, Di$ney is Marvel so they can re-write any history.
And, we've discussed before how "fools and their money" are regularly tricked by Ebay dealers into buying "First Edition" Fantastic Four and "First Silver Age Iron Man appearance". Lies. Let me also point out that I have three UK comic titles in which both those stories feature. Spend your money on the Masterworks or if you really want a black and white version the Essentials books.
Now, I really should know but I only have a passing knowledge on the Timely/Atlas/Marvel monster books. So, please forgive me if I've added a monster reprint here that is not from that company. Ditko and Kirby worked for so many -especially Kirby- it gets hard trying to keep track.
The Avengers reprints ran up to, at least, as far as I am aware, around Avengers #77. Certainly you will find "The Coming Of The Vision" with that iconic cover -I have that one, too. These Class titles were great value for money because, unlike UK weeklies such as Pow!, Fantastic, Terrific and others where a single US issue could be split up into 3-4 parts, in a Class book you got the whole issue!
POW! was 7d and there were 12d to 1/- so two weekly issues was 1/- 2d and as you might have to get four issues that was 2/- 4d against Class' 1/- for the full story! And Fantastic and Terrific were 9d each so you work that out! Class won pennies down!
Your parents/'grand parents taking you on holiday or for a day at the beach saw the slim 7d comic and the 1/- thick comic and they knew, too, which would keep you occupied more!
These Class books were completely different than a weekly from Thomson or Fleetway. Talking to Fleetway/IPC management who were about at this time they all say that they "never got" why kids would bother with a "cheap reprint" over their titles. They had, of course, British heroes and even super heroes but the lack of understanding what kids wanted meant they treated Class and the comics as a passing fad or something to be ignored.
But Class outlasted them to an extent!
Look at these covers. Don't get me wrong because I know there were many great British comic covers, but look at these! I mean -Titano! And -WHAT??!- The Avengers fighting the X-Men! (this was back when the X-Men and Avengers meant something even to British kids).
As I've written before, the UK had no real comic shops so the local tobacconist-newsagent was the main source of any US comics if you could find them. Those and junk shops because somnewhere amongst the old crockery, three piece suites and paperbacks you knew there would be a tatty box with comics in. At 2d or 3d a time who was going to argue?
There are many other Marvel reprints the covers of which are not here -I have some of them but both my A4 and A3 scanners are not working. So apologies but maybe, one day, and up-date?
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