Tammyfan wrote:I always thought it was a pity Buster didn't make it to 2000 and celebrate his 40th.
Me too. The last issue was dated into January 2000 (the date that a new issue would've come out had the last one not been the last, if you see what I mean), but it would've had to survive to May to mark its 40th year. Egmont should've kept it going 'til then, then bowed out on a birthday ish.
Maybe it was not economic to keep Buster going until May. Perhaps he was losing money and sales, even with reprints, and they had to cut losses. At any rate, an all-reprint comic with no fresh material, and no other comic left to
merge into it and give it new blood and readers, is not a good sign.
I've tried to attach an excel sheet with what i believe to be the correct dates, issue numbers & unpublished issues, but the filetype (xlsx) is not allowed. You can get it direct from https://www.mediafire.com/?5ysyuua5dyrtcnp
Of course, if you know of any errors, please let me know so i can update, but i know i spent about 3 or 4 weeks checking various sites, & i'm 99% certain this is accurate. I know that i don't have any issues that are listed as 'no issue'.
My list differs to yours on 1971, 1980 & 1994 - i have the first 5 weeks of 1971 as having no issues, making 47 for the rest of the year. For 1980, i have 4 issues missing between 19th Jan - 9th Feb inclusive, plus another 4 between 15th May - 7th June inclusive, making 44 in 1980. In 1994, the 16th Dec is a double issue, to cover 2 weeks, making 52 issues for that year. This totals to 6 less than yours. In addition to this, i think the christmas/new year issues of 1993-94 may be 1 double issue.
So hopefully, we can work out from this, how many actual issues there were. If anyone can confirm that they don't have issues in these periods, that should be a fairly solid answer.
I also noticed an error on the list i uploaded, i had the final issue of 1998 listed as the first issue of 1999.
big bad bri wrote:i think we need someone to count their own collection if such a legend exists who owns every issue
As it is highly unlikely that any member will have bought every issue of Buster as it came out over a forty-year period, and then saved them, would it not make more sense, Bri, to ask members which full years they are pretty certain they have got, and then encourage all interested members to work together towards the actual total number of issues one year at a time?
I do have a complete set but the notes I kept during its completion are long gone and it would be quite a task to count up the individual issues as my Buster collection is stored in three separate locations in the house, two of which are not really readily accessible.
big bad bri wrote:i think we need someone to count their own collection if such a legend exists who owns every issue
As it is highly unlikely that any member will have bought every issue of Buster as it came out over a forty-year period, and then saved them, would it not make more sense, Bri, to ask members which full years they are pretty certain they have got, and then encourage all interested members to work together towards the actual total number of issues one year at a time?
That works too Phoenix i'm currently counting and sorting my full years now.so lets get this sorted once and for all members
klakadak-ploobadoof wrote:Well, I didn't buy them when they first came out, but I only need 6 more issues to complete the set...
So when you get the remaining six, KP, as you are confident that you will then have the full run, counting a double issue as two issues how many issues will you have? Your answer should put the matter to bed.