Time For A Break

 

I've decided that, barring any exception, I am going to stop buying old comics.

My family have made it clear that mosty of my archive will probably end up being thrown away or burnt. Reprinting the near impossible comics to keep their memory going has been financially crippling and there have been no sales of any of the books since 2019 ( and those sales were low).

I sent out more free copies of Comic Bits 1-4 than were purchased. It is all a lot of workand financially bad.

My plans for Comic Bits 5 and 6 are cancelled.

I've tried for over 35 years to sustain interest in the old comics and creators and I've reached a point where I realised I am knocking myself out for nothing. Everything is one way and even the blog with over 20K views gets no feed back.

Posts from now on "as and When"

It's taken almost 40 years but....

 

These were the last two GA comics I purchased. I have been looking for the origin of Jungle Lord sinbce the 1980sand a seller sent me The Comet with part 2 as a "sorry" for an error on his part.

Quite by accident I was looking up the sale involved and at the bottom of the page was 12 and 14 ....£5 so £10 and I get the origin account. I have a LOT of Comet issues that I have not listed in my book yet but happy.

THE COMET No. 12, New Series, Feb 21, 1947

THE COMET No. 14, New Series, Mar 21, 1947

Hmmm. Are These Ridiculous Prices So High For A Reason?

 I wondered: Why are Mick Anglo (and other artists) issues of Marvelman suddenly so expensive?

Then I found out. Greed.

Miracleman (aka Marvelman) is now a character (not that well written) in Marvel Comics but it is NOT the original character -not even the likeness of.

Today I saw a copy of the early 1960s Miracle Man (the name they borrowed to avoid legal action by Marvel) going for £54 and others for £60 -one seller even put "Now in Marvel Comics!".

The sheer bloody ignorance of these scalpers is amazing..

In case anyone is interested this was a black and white comic of, I believe, Spanish comics. There were 13 issues starting in 1963 and published by Thorpe and Porter and, yes, I did buy the reprint rights from them but.... that was me being ripped off (I was young!)

Let Me Take You On A Joyride ( No. 2 1946)

There were 5 issues in total and all published in 1946. Now, Bob Wilkin is only credited with issue number one -I've no idea about 2-5. The first issue is listed as "NN" -"No number". I'm guessing Wilkin must have worked on the others -the proof is here!
Never seen this particular comic before so it's a real find. By the art style I'm guessing this is Wilkin of seaside postcard fame?

I'm hoping to get more info on him as well as, I hope, a photo, for the Golden Age blog and the Archives Yahoo group.

And that's about all I know!!

An Early UK Time Traveller: Bring 'Em Back Hank! (Gerald Swan Comics)

 William A Ward

 

Jimmy Jingles Time Machine....Better Than "Jimmy Jingle Bells" I Suppose!

 

Jimmy Jingles Time Machine was another superbly drawn comic strip from Knockout -this sample from the issue dated 22ndAugust, 1942.  The artist is Eric Parker.  Now I know Parker's career spanned almost sixty years! 

I began writing up notes and I found a scribbled URL (normally I bookmark these things on the computer!) but it took me to a wonderful article on the artist by Norman Wright and David Ashford that I recommend!

http://friardale.co.uk/Ephemera/Book%20and%20Magazine%20Collector/218-Eric%20Parker-artist-May%202002.pdf

A question -Jimmy Jingles -a suitable character for "resurrection"?

Was Electroman Blond or black haired?

 

This is an interesting one. King-Ganteaume Productions was set up by two ex GIs after 1945 when the GI Bill etc helped ex servicemen retrain or set up business. The studio supplied lot6s of small British companies including Swan and Scion. This is no. 6 (only 7 issues) from 1952.

Notice something different compared to the 1st issue from 1951?

Well, the most obvious is that he has black hair in issue 1 and his costume chest emblem is of a white and a black lightning bolt crossed -youcan see this in the cover below

This may well be down to whoever was given the job of drawing the strip as it was a studio and there are a few odd stories about how it was run! Of course, you might say that his Marvelman -like change was prone to "oddities" such as his black hair going blond but then things were pretty fast and loose with these small studios. Also, the hair was black on other issues....

Maybe the artist got Marvelman and Electroman mixedup....oops. No. Marvelman did nopt appear until 1954 so this will have to remain as one of those oddities of comics before the laser-like eye of continuity crept in (almost).