What comics did you buy today?

[felneymike]

Today I got all four Commando's (only got one from the previous batch! I didn't buy any on the way to the MCM expo, and they'd sold out in Smith's by the next weekend. Why no, Britain's oldest still-running adventure comic was not being sold at Britain's biggest comic convention...), Classics Illustrated and also two "DK Graphic Readers" books. They were being sold off cheap in The Works, I'd never heard of them before, but there seems to have only been four.

[tony ingram]

He could mean either, since 1969 was the relaunch year.

Yes, these are IPC issues. Contents include Janus Stark, His Sporting Lordship, Master of the Marsh, Rebbels on the Run and The World Wide Wanderers, amongst others, though The Swots & the Blots are still in residence too. Was Patchman from Master of the Marsh yet another of those pesky immortal types, like William Wilson? I'm unfamiliar with him...

[Phoenix]

I have mentioned previously that Wilson was not immortal.

[Captain Storm]

Can you elaborate Phoenix? Did he die? And if so when and in what paper.


respectfully,

The Cap.

[Peter Gray]

Got a Black Bob book the last one..not the rectangle one But the portrait annual..just really enjoying it..now reading when Bob lost his eye sight.paid £7..Gloucester Antiques at the Docks..

Musyt get some more..nearly finished reading it already

[Phoenix]

Can you elaborate Phoenix? Did he die? And if so when and in what paper.

No, Cap, he didn't, but I explained in my June 12 2009 post on page 12 of the Looking for Judy comics from the early 80s thread, that we could infer from the eventual deaths of Wilson's teacher, Matthew the hermit, and Valda's teacher, Dorcas, that the elixir of life in Wilson's case, and the fire of life in Valda's, extended their lifespan well beyond that of ordinary mortals, effectively giving them in excess of 150 years of life, but not much more. It should be remembered that when Valda needed to immerse herself in the fire of life she looked like the old woman she actually was. Wilson was constantly falling into a type of coma after his athletics successes, after which he eventually recovered, but also he often had to return to his cave base in Stayling to imbibe some more elixir. It is reasonable to assume, I think, that these recoveries would be progressively more enervating. The elixir and the fire were not of themselves limited in scope, but the secrets always needed to be passed on to a new generation if the knowledge about them was not to be lost.

[felneymike]

The mechanics of the Elixir of life in the AP/IPC/Fleetway universe were explained in the early Union Jack issue "The Magic Island"
How anybody got hold of it after 1894, when the island exploded, I don't know...
Mark Hodder later wrote a Sexton Blake story in which it was said that he was aging a lot more slowly than normal, but would still die one day. Though it was not explained exactly how Sexton Blake (and Tinker, Mrs Bardell, George Marsden Plummer and some others) had attained "immortality", only that it happened around 1908

[Phoenix]

Mark Hodder later wrote a Sexton Blake story in which it was said that he was aging a lot more slowly than normal, but would still die one day.

I think he must be dead now, Mike, because I've got a bust of him staring down his aquiline nose at me, Mozart-like, from one of my bookshelves.

[Jon]

Today I got a Beanobooks joke book - one of the large format ones with about a million pages. It's called "10,001 Of The World's Worst Jokes". What's interesting about this one is despite being published under the "Beanobooks" name, it doesn't actually feature any Beano characters or even references to the Beano on the cover. Inside, however, it has pictures of Beano, Dandy, Beezer, etc characters, just like all the other joke books in this series.

I've tried to find a picture of it on the internet but all I could find is this:



...which is NOT the edition I purchased today. My one has an entirely different cover.

Very strange!

[Jon]

Managed to scan the cover of the above.



I just find it very strange that a "Beanobooks" item would not actually have any Beano references whatsoever on the cover! Especially when there's clearly another edition (the one I found a picture of) which does have Beano references!

On the inside, it's the usual sort of thing though...



(apologies, poor scan).

P.S. Is it just me who doesn't get the first joke on that page?!

[philcom55]

Sounds as though it's a play on 'boogeyman' - though in my experience that's an Americanism with the more common term for the UK being 'bogeyman'.

- Phil Rushton

[-MikeD-]

Or...it's a 'ghost goes boo!' thing. Very Beano...

[Digifiend]

Foreign edition? That would explain why Geddes & Grosset is the main brand with Beano Books as the sub-brand, when it's normally the other way around. And it would also explain why the characters were removed from the cover - they're only well known in the UK.

[Jon]

VERY well spotted Digifiend! I would not have noticed the two brands being the other way around. It's certainly not the first edition as it says published 2001, reprinted 2002. Definitely could be a foreign edition.

[big bad bri]

Today i bought the Phoenix issues 15-21 but i haven't read it since iss 4 i have loads to catch up on but i always read beano & dandy as soon as i get them.Also Viz 216 & avengers V x-men 4 & this weeks beano & dandy.