Buster Special 2009

[steelclaw]

Big bad vibes to this opportunistic tyke
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... ink:top:en

They are trying to sell them for £12 and he has 5 available.

Booooooooo

Obviously reads this forum so knows how scarce they are.

[Phoenix]

They are trying to sell them for £12 and he has 5 available.

Don't be so alarmist. They're only a tenner!!

[Digifiend]

Well they're supposed to be £3.99. Damned profiteerer! Shops should refuse to sell more than one copy at a time. Then this guy couldn't have got his five copies. Anyway, that takes the total number of sighted copies to eleven.

I noticed that several strips were drawn by Tom Paterson (must be very early in his career) and one of them (Crowjak) was even signed.

Which other strips in there are by Tom? Didn't notice any at first glance.

Lew

Clever Dick and Snooper both look like his work.

[Lew Stringer]

Well they're supposed to be £3.99. Damned profiteerer! Shops should refuse to sell more than one copy at a time. Then this guy couldn't have got his five copies. Anyway, that takes the total number of sighted copies to eleven.

I noticed that several strips were drawn by Tom Paterson (must be very early in his career) and one of them (Crowjak) was even signed.

Which other strips in there are by Tom? Didn't notice any at first glance.

Lew

Clever Dick and Snooper both look like his work.

I'm fairly sure they're by Leo Baxendale. Leo did leave IPC in 1975 (when these reprints are from) but according to his autobiography Buster reprinted his Clever Dick strips until at least 1978.

Tom ghosted that Seventies style of Leo's and mastered it as his own but the Snooper strips in the special look a bit too spot on for Tom's early work to me.

However, having said that, the caption lettering in the final panel on page 33 does look like Tom's style, and if the strip is from the New Year's issue of 1976 I guess it would be.

Lew

[intune]

Glad I got mine in Chorley, checked in my local store in Preston city centre, they didn't have any - and when I asked, said they'd never heard of Buster or Classic Comics.

There's another Smiths on a nearby retail park in Preston, will check later today or tomorrow. Will see if there's any left in Chorley on my way to work Monday.

It's pretty poor, can't see the point of the exclusive deal. Surely would have sold more if available everywhere?

(Would love to see a Classic Whizzer and Chips, anyone know of any future plans for more Classics?)

[Peter Gray]

Well none in Petersfield and none in Guildford again...

I know I just go and read one of my old 70's Buster comics...aaahh thats better..

Colin W. does a good Leo Baxendale style.it is so hard to work out Leo's work in the 70's..
I might leave it until Wednesday now..
still might try Woking on Monday..

thanks for the nice comments..

heres the type you will get to see..

[Lew Stringer]

It's pretty poor, can't see the point of the exclusive deal. Surely would have sold more if available everywhere?

The point was it was an incentive for Smiths to order more copies as collectors would have nowhere else to buy them from. Ironic really.

(Would love to see a Classic Whizzer and Chips, anyone know of any future plans for more Classics?)

I would guess it's unlikely now considering how this "deal" has turned out, but who knows?

Hopefully the Buster special will be available to buy directly from Egmont, as the previous specials are. Might be worth trying to e-mail them? (I won't put the email addy here as it might attract spam but the details are in the Misty special and on my blog.)

Lew

[steelclaw]

I've just sent Egmont a email, I will see if they get back to me Monday or Tuesday.

[Raven]

Well, the big Manchester WHSmith now has ten in. They're not being displayed with the comics but with the contemporary cult film and TV series magazines like Lost and Fangoria, which is rather peculiar.

Here's something to watch out for:

Flicking through the one at the front of the pile, I noticed that the first page of the Ski-Board Squad strip was missing - and the magazine felt very thin. Doing a rough count there seemed to be around 32 pages rather than 52, so a lot of it was missing.

There was another issue at the back which at first I thought had been stocked back to front in not untypical WHSmith style. Instead, the cover had been reversed, with the inner black and white pages on the outside and the colour front cover on page 2! In this copy I quickly spotted that, again, the start of Ski Board Squad wasn't there -and yes, this was another thin misprinted issue with lots of the pages missing. Maybe I should have bought it as a collector's item.

So don't just pick one up and pay your £3.99 without checking it if you find one; have a look through to make sure it doesn't have about twenty pages missing.

[philcom55]

They had two copies of the Buster Special in Stafford this afternoon, but none that I could see in Wolverhampton.

Incidentally, 'Blarney Bluffer' is a reprint of a reprint of a reprint as it originally appeared in Knockout (though I bet Angel Nadal only ever got paid once! ).

- Phil Rushton

[maramelia]

They are trying to sell them for £12 and he has 5 available.

Don't be so alarmist. They're only a tenner!!

£10 for the item but reading further down it appears that there is £2 postage

[Raven]

They are trying to sell them for £12 and he has 5 available.

Don't be so alarmist. They're only a tenner!!

£10 for the item but reading further down it appears that there is £2 postage

Which is against Ebay's rules. Sellers arent allowed to charge postage for comics or magazines - though the great majority of them still seem to be doing so.

[Digifiend]

Found another copy in Hull, at the Kingswood branch. Just one though, just like the one in town I bought my copy from a couple of days ago.

2 in Stafford, 10 in Manchester... that takes the total spotted now to 24 if I've counted correctly, including the 5 on ebay.

[Phoenix]

2 in Stafford, 10 in Manchester... that takes the total spotted now to 24 if I've counted correctly, including the 5 on ebay.

So I suppose that's Chorley's 15 minutes of Warholian fame done and dusted. Back then to the Lancashire sticks? Seems a sad reward for such an entrepreneurial and far-sighted newsagent. Let's give him three cheers before he passes completely into oblivion. Hip, hip,...........

[chrissmillie]

It's pretty poor, can't see the point of the exclusive deal. Surely would have sold more if available everywhere?

Probably got a better deal with WH Smiths with less risk. Maybe even direct sales instead of S-O-R. As it's pretty much a trial run, I can see why they would go for such a thing.