A Slice of Comic Life

stevezodiac · Post by **stevezodiac** » 25 Feb 2015, 21:48

Turning 50 was hard to take but to be 60 next year will be harder still. And by then Millwall will be in league 1 entertaining little clubs. On the plus side we might win a few games.

geoff42 · Post by **geoff42** » 26 Feb 2015, 01:07

I like the idea of a newsstand that features every publication that was offered at a certain time in the past: a museum could provide that... if only... we would all be salivating with nostalgia. Brilliant... maybe someday.

philcom55 · Post by **philcom55** » 26 Feb 2015, 09:49

If nothing else it should be possible to construct a virtual news-stand for a particular date. One of my favourite internet features is the 'Time Machine' function of Mike's Amazing World of Comics which allows you to view all the American comics published in any one month. Here for example are the comics that went on sale in April 1955 - the month I was born (though postwar import restrictions meant that none of them were available in the UK of course).

http://www.dcindexes.com/features/timem ... sort=alpha

philcom55 · Post by **philcom55** » 26 Feb 2015, 09:54

Wow! I just realized I was born in the same month as Ace the Bat Hound!!!

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 26 Feb 2015, 14:23

Extending this idea in a slightly different direction. As the thread started with the year 1965 I've had a look to see which 1965 annuals I've managed to accumulate over the years and the complete list, as far as I can ascertain, is as follows
Dandy, Beano, Topper, Beezer, Victor, Bunty, Judy, Bimbo, Buster, Valiant, Lion, Tiger, Roy of the Rovers, Hurricane, Boy's World, Eagle, Schoolfriend, June, and the not strictly speaking, annuals for Oor Wullie and Beryl the Peril.
I may have more annuals for other years than this but I'm sure some fellow members with a more eclectic taste in annuals will have acquired more for some years than the above.
As I remember it when it came to annuals they were available on a strictly order only basis from our local paper shop so it was no Aladdin's cave for them as it was for the weeklies and as a result you had to go into Toon (Newcastle) to one of the bigger dept stores to see the full splendour of the annuals range laid out before you.

paw broon · Post by **paw broon** » 26 Feb 2015, 16:20

What a great find, Phil. I've now used it to create the comics that were on sale in May 1949

http://www.dcindexes.com/features/timem ... sort=alpha
Hope you don't mind, but I'm going to pinch it for a new topic on CB+
Sharing your birth month with Ace, now that's something to be proud of.

Had I used my birthday as a collecting point, I'd have been a lot poorer by now. Once you get back that far, comics can cost a lot more. Although I do have that Cap. Marvel Jr #75, and I think also the Monte Hale #38.

Kashgar's point about annuals in local newsagents rings a bell. I'm also sure that wee newspaper shops such as we had in Airdrie did not stock piles of annuals, or in fact, any, in the way we see them nowadays in WHS. But I'm sure they could be ordered. I now wonder how my parents and other relations bought the annuals I received. In newsagents or Lewis's Poly in Glasgow.

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 26 Feb 2015, 17:39

Kashgar wrote:Extending this idea in a slightly different direction. As the thread started with the year 1965 I've had a look to see which 1965 annuals I've managed to accumulate over the years and the complete list, as far as I can ascertain, is as follows
Dandy, Beano, Topper, Beezer, Victor, Bunty, Judy, Bimbo, Buster, Valiant, Lion, Tiger, Roy of the Rovers, Hurricane, Boy's World, Eagle, Schoolfriend, June, and the not strictly speaking, annuals for Oor Wullie and Beryl the Peril.
I may have more annuals for other years than this but I'm sure some fellow members with a more eclectic taste in annuals will have acquired more for some years than the above.
As I remember it when it came to annuals they were available on a strictly order only basis from our local paper shop so it was no Aladdin's cave for them as it was for the weeklies and as a result you had to go into Toon (Newcastle) to one of the bigger dept stores to see the full splendour of the annuals range laid out before you.

Some of my local newsagents definitely stocked a few annuals in the 1960s and 1970s but in more recent decades, as the local head of the federation of retail newsagents told me, it became more profitable for them to use the space to stock foodstuffs and booze rather than give it to books that would occupy the shelves for several months.

Earl · Post by **Earl** » 26 Feb 2015, 18:21

Kashgar wrote:
Earl wrote:I don't have any exact stats by week but at one time I was trying to collect all comics published during 1982 and have 1,737 of them (the count includes annuals). 1,737/52 = an average of 33 comics per week although it won't be that evenly distributed in reality.

Earl.
Hi Earl. That's an interesting theme for a collection. Never heard of anyone else using that as a focus. I imagine that the idea to do this came about gradually or was it your intention from the off? What full years of titles are in that lot? It would be interesting to know.

I would have to go through to check. I am pretty sure I am complete on Tiger, Eagle, 2000AD and Warlord. They are a few others that I might be an issue or two short on. I think Roy of the Rovers fits into that category.

An American friend was collecting all the issue for the year of his birth (1960). I considered doing mine year of birth which would have been 1968 but a lot of the issues looked too expensive to get the whole year so I went for an affordable year I already had a lot of comics from as it was the peak of my childhood collecting when I was into Marvel (UK and US), DC, Fleetway and DC Thomson all at the same time. I also had a small collection of UK girls titles from that year as I enjoyed them as a boy more than many of the 'boys comics'.

I have lost focus over the years and don't buy many comics anymore due to storage space and finances so I doubt I will add many more issues but you never know. Quite a few titles like Star Love, Kim, Scooby Doo, Blue Jeans Photo novels and the like were hard to track down lots of issues of. I never tried much on the 80's nursery titles but I think I have a few of the Buttons issues if I am remembering the right year for those.

Earl.

Earl · Post by **Earl** » 26 Feb 2015, 18:43

Earl wrote:
Kashgar wrote:
Earl wrote:I don't have any exact stats by week but at one time I was trying to collect all comics published during 1982 and have 1,737 of them (the count includes annuals). 1,737/52 = an average of 33 comics per week although it won't be that evenly distributed in reality.

Earl.
Hi Earl. That's an interesting theme for a collection. Never heard of anyone else using that as a focus. I imagine that the idea to do this came about gradually or was it your intention from the off? What full years of titles are in that lot? It would be interesting to know.
I would have to go through to check. I am pretty sure I am complete on Tiger, Eagle, 2000AD and Warlord. They are a few others that I might be an issue or two short on. I think Roy of the Rovers fits into that category.

An American friend was collecting all the issue for the year of his birth (1960). I considered doing mine year of birth which would have been 1968 but a lot of the issues looked too expensive to get the whole year so I went for an affordable year I already had a lot of comics from as it was the peak of my childhood collecting when I was into Marvel (UK and US), DC, Fleetway and DC Thomson all at the same time. I also had a small collection of UK girls titles from that year as I enjoyed them as a boy more than many of the 'boys comics'.

I have lost focus over the years and don't buy many comics anymore due to storage space and finances so I doubt I will add many more issues but you never know. Quite a few titles like Star Love, Kim, Scooby Doo, Blue Jeans Photo novels and the like were hard to track down lots of issues of. I never tried much on the 80's nursery titles but I think I have a few of the Buttons issues if I am remembering the right year for those.

Earl.

Just checked another couple of runs. I was wrong about Roy of the Rovers, I do have all of 1982 for them. I also checked Look-In and Beezer and am complete on those as well.

suebutcher · Post by **suebutcher** » 02 Mar 2015, 02:16

I'd probably pick the day in 1967 when I first visited London and saw a really big news-stand at a railway station.

(If you took a train from Southend to London, which London station would you arrive at? I've forgotten.)

Bethanys grandad · Post by **Bethanys grandad** » 02 Mar 2015, 11:13

Re: A Slice of Comic Life
I'd probably pick the day in 1967 when I first visited London and saw a really big news-stand at a railway station.

(If you took a train from Southend to London, which London station would you arrive at? I've forgotten.)

Southend has two railway lines one goes to Liverpool street and the other line goes to fenchchurch street

geoff42 · Post by **geoff42** » 03 Mar 2015, 01:31

when my younger sibling and I persuaded my parents to increase our weekly comic intake from 2 (Beano and Monster Fun) to 4 (Action and Bullet). The most we were allowed eventually rose to 6 titles. But then, my parents and younger brother lost interest and, with a paper round to subsidize my obsession, I ventured out alone with around 8 titles any given week. Those three years or so when I was alone with the option to buy what I want were great. To a degree, I can buy most things I want now... but I have far more money than I did as a kid with a paper round. Luckily, at the time, there was a market stall in Dewsbury that sold unsold newsagent stock from 2 months previous (5 comics for 10p!) that kept me in touch with all the other titles I couldn't afford. Happy times. I would walk back home every Saturday morning (after I had been paid) with around 12 different titles...half of which were behind the present... but I could live with that.

stevezodiac · Post by **stevezodiac** » 04 Mar 2015, 10:46

In the early seventies I got just about every juvenile title so have two to three year runs of about eight titles from 1970 to 1972. They all have my address on the top border as the newsagent reserved them for me.

From memory they were Beano, Dandy, Topper, Beezer, TV 21, TV Comic, Whizzer & Chips, Buster, Smash (Later Valiant & Smash and Valiant & TV21), Countdown and Look-In. I no longer have the Look-Ins though.

suebutcher · Post by **suebutcher** » 05 Mar 2015, 02:52

My core of comics collection is based on specific issues I remember reading at the time. When I started school, I was allowed a comic a week, anything that caught my eye, but I didn't have a subscription to any of them. I mostly bought the funnies and avoided serials, but random secondhand adventure and soap serial comics arrived via Grandpa. Finding these issues is an interesting puzzle, and I also learn a bit of comics history while I'm at it. So I have a "slice" of my own reading history, though it's biased towards memorably strange comic strips. (Although, among other titles, I read Princess Tina, Playhour, and Dandy, TV21s are much easier to identify. "Beware fibrous tissue! Beware! Beware!")

philcom55 · Post by **philcom55** » 05 Mar 2015, 09:20

Though I usually had one or two comics on regular order with the local newsagent throughout my childhood years they tended to be supplemented by one-off purchases - more often than not tied to free gifts. What's more, the fact that those free gift issues often inspired me to change my regular order shows how effective they could be as a marketing ploy.

Funnily enough Dandy, Beano, Topper and Beezer belonged in a different category for me in that, even though I never bought any of them on a weekly basis, I could always be sure that they'd contain enough self-contained strips to be enjoyed like a lucky bag or a sherbet dip!