Comics UK

It's their money , which they have won by fair means or foul, to do with as they please---but I have never really understood or sympathized with the mania of collecting especially when it spirals out of control.

I've never really been one for collectors' items: I always get this idea that what is riches to us will be worthless junk to those who are left with it, and I have heard cases of vinyl collections ammassed over decades [for example] carted away in a council skip.

I've said before but maybe worth repeating: I moved abroad and got rid of all my (well, most anyway) comics and records. My big delight now is reamassing a collection of really great stuff, rather than 'stuff wot I bought once'. So many old comics used to be in my collection because I once bought it as a boy or found one at market/2nd hand etc. Or else my weekly trip to Forbidden Planet where I noticed the interest for me taking a sharp decline once Bendis took hold and changed both Marvel and DC. But did I really love 1950s Hotspur to 1980s Sleepwalker? Or Infinite Crisis? Or Avengers Disassembled? Nah, they were just there and I bought them coz that's what I did.

My record collection is a tenth of it's size but it's all amazing stuff (to me, natch). I've managed to acquire terrific collections of my interest, no matter the (lack of) rarity: Marvel UK, Starlord/Tornado, Ghost Rider and a selection of greats (to me anyway), plus a load of entertaining reading material that I wouldn't say I collected (e.g. The Crunch, Buddy, new Eagle, Cracker etc. etc.) but enjoy.

It gives me much greater pleasure losing and re-buying them than it ever did in the box room where my comics were piled so high I couldn't read them, or records that I could neither display or play but already had on easy-to-use digital .

Not strictly comic art but still definitely sequential art, I have the storyboard for the first ever UK TV commercial coming my way. It's from ITV's launch night in 1955 and consists of 12 panels laying out how the commercial for SR Gibbs toothpaste will flow. The good thing is that the actual final commercial can be seen on YouTube.

didn't exactly buy it i got Batman arkham knight issue 0 free with the game & ps4 bundle.
also managed to get 2000ad free comic book day from forbidden planet.

Went to the Ephemera fair today but didn't get much, just two copies of Chums a Hunt Emerson book for 50p (not a fan but it was only 50p and I thought I could sell it on ebay). Also picked up these strange film strips. They don't look like comic free gifts but I'd be interested to see the apparatus on which one views them. Can anyone point me to an image of one? Does anyone know any more about these? The seller had six of them but said he had a couple of thousand altogether.

Presumably those Eagle film strips were designed for this projector.

There is a charity shop in town with a shelf in a corner loaded with 10p items and for some reason I seem to be drawn to this each time I visit.Didn't bother with the 1980s Beezer Annual but did buy---

Yogi Bear annual 1976 10p

In another charity shop at the weekend bought----

KICK-ASS a graphic novel .paid £1.99p Thought the movie version of this was also OK.

Thanks for that Phil. No doubt the projectors are advertised in Girl but I only have the very first issue. Have hundreds of TV Comics but i've probably never noticed the ad as it wasn't for sweets or other comics.

That Hunt Emerson book... There's a Kickstarter thing launching soon to do a fancy new version of it, with extra/new strips and so on. Just so you know!

secured both the free gift issues of Victor (free model plane kits in 1977) for just over £55. But they ain't nothing compared to
anyhing what I wrapped up earlier... this deserves a post of its own.

Um... don't know how to announce this without sounding: "as matter of fact" or coming across as boastful. Well... today, I secured a private deal that will promote me to that elite "30+ Action Club". Yep, the October 23rd 1976 Action will be winging its way into my arms after July 10th when I arrive back from holiday. While not breaking the record of the last auction's sale (which is never an accolade I would wish to embrace) I've probably paid the second highest amount. Still, as I've always maintained in previous posts, I don't collect for investment. This item will be the jewel in my crown as regards comic collecting. I can't see me topping this... unless someone knows of a readily available Beano issue One, heh-heh.

geoff42 wrote:Um... don't know how to announce this without sounding: "as matter of fact" or coming across as boastful. Well... today, I secured a private deal that will promote me to that elite "30+ Action Club". Yep, the October 23rd 1976 Action will be winging its way into my arms after July 10th when I arrive back from holiday. While not breaking the record of the last auction's sale (which is never an accolade I would wish to embrace) I've probably paid the second highest amount. Still, as I've always maintained in previous posts, I don't collect for investment. This item will be the jewel in my crown as regards comic collecting. I can't see me topping this... unless someone knows of a readily available Beano issue One, heh-heh.

I think bragging about buys is OK.It would be good to have a forum topic displaying photos of some of the gems of comics and annuals members have collected.I think it would interest both would be collectors and also inspire those of us who are already collecting comic memorabilia.

geoff42 wrote:Um... don't know how to announce this without sounding: "as matter of fact" or coming across as boastful. Well... today, I secured a private deal that will promote me to that elite "30+ Action Club". Yep, the October 23rd 1976 Action will be winging its way into my arms after July 10th when I arrive back from holiday. While not breaking the record of the last auction's sale (which is never an accolade I would wish to embrace) I've probably paid the second highest amount. Still, as I've always maintained in previous posts, I don't collect for investment. This item will be the jewel in my crown as regards comic collecting. I can't see me topping this... unless someone knows of a readily available Beano issue One, heh-heh.

Geoff, well done. It is outside of my affordability, but I am always glad when someone obtains a holy grail in their collecting terms.

The gem in my collection would have to be Rainbow number 1 from 1914 complete with free gift. I got it for a mere £83 on ebay several years ago. One day I'll scan the free gift onto this site.

While I don't own any pre-war copies of Dandy or Beano I just picked up the next best thing by buying Allan Morley's original Keyhole Kate strip from Dandy #36!

(I also got the 1936 Skipper Book, amongst other things, leaving me wondering yet again why so many DC Thomson publications feature giant crabs?!!! )