Comics UK

A fair bit over the last week or so:

-Pow! Annual 1968 - read plenty of Wham! and Smash! but this is my first bit of Pow! - liking it a lot!

-Russell: The Saga of a Peaceful Man by Pete Loveday - I found part 2 in Manchester a few weeks ago and loved it, had to hunt down this part on eBay.

-Two small press comics by Jerzey H Szostek from the 1980s - Human Soup #3 and Torn Flag.

-A1 book two, an anthology thing featuring Hunt Emerson and Jamie Hewlett, amongst others.

-Lazy Frog issue 2

-Thirteen Sparky comics - all from 1975-1976

-Twenty-one issues of the Beavis & Butt-Head comics, including a few doubles (in case anyone's interested?)

Best of Misty issue 2. Six issues down, two to go.

i got dandy beano comics that won the war and the first page is white showing lord snooty stuffing hitler in to a cannon can anyone confirm this is first page or are there any missing as the inside front cover usually matches.

Two totally random purchases today. One purchase was issues 11 & 12 of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and the other was The Preacher Special: Tall In The Saddle.

In the last two weeks or so, I have won (or bought) the final issues of Knockout (2nd series), Buzz and the first issue of Plug.

121 years away from each other! Great deliveries this morning, made more interesting in that they arrived together. First up, #70 of Chum from 1894 with 7 portraits of famous cricketers and secondly the 5th and final installment of Surface Tension by Jay Gunn. I love the picture of them together as the comparison is brilliant! I'm trying to load it here but am having problems so will try later.

They'll make interesting reading one after the other but which to start with!?

Well, I went to an auction house in the wilds of Fife today and picked up a couple of books.

One was the 1954 Billy Bunter's Own Annual by Mandeville Publications and the second was the 1950 Biggles Air Detective annual.

Went to CAPTION comics convention in Coventry yesterday with the family, picked up a few comics in Al Davison's mighty fine shop. I got: Laura Howell's "Gilbert and Sullivan" manga madness (can't remember the exact title of it but it was silly and fun!), a volume of The Unwritten for my partner, and Paul B Rainey's mighty fine "No Time Like The Present" which I am enjoying reading.

comixminx wrote:Paul B Rainey's mighty fine "No Time Like The Present" which I am enjoying reading.

Obviously not a book to be left till later.

Phoenix wrote:

comixminx wrote:Paul B Rainey's mighty fine "No Time Like The Present" which I am enjoying reading.

Obviously not a book to be left till later.

comixminx wrote:Went to CAPTION comics convention in Coventry yesterday with the family, picked up a few comics in Al Davison's mighty fine shop. I got...a volume of The Unwritten for my partner

I've just picked up Mike Carey's five Felix Castor books and his excellent 'The Girl With All The Gifts' to mitigate the withdrawal symtoms I was feeling after the conclusion of The Unwritten. Great stuff - especially the latter which is almost like a Zombie novel by John Wyndham!

Hi, Col, as regards your purchase of Preacher special - brings back memories from over a decade ago. I never bought the original issues, was only vaguely aware of them and didn't venture. Then, one day, I decided to buy the first graphic novel and find out what all the fuss was about. Then, I was bitten. I quickly amassed the following graphic novels and was delighted to read a good series. The equivalent is this: rather than watch a weekly episode of a great tv series, would you prefer to buy (or download in these modern times) a full series to gorge in one go? That's what I did with Preacher all those years ago but what about the fans during its run? In these days of impatience, were they capable of waiting a full month for the next instalment? They had no choice, obviously, back then. Would they have chosen my path: reading the graphic novels instead? Interesting situation. Back in 1983/4 when I was first introduced to "The Prisoner" on Channel 4, I watched every weekly episode with awe. Now, had someone come along at the same time and offered me a full purchase of every episode on one dvd to watch in one go (I know dvd's didn't exist then, but we are pretending) I would have bitten his hand off rather than wait for subsequent weeks for my fix.

geoff42 wrote:Hi, Col, as regards your purchase of Preacher special - brings back memories from over a decade ago. I never bought the original issues, was only vaguely aware of them and didn't venture. Then, one day, I decided to buy the first graphic novel and find out what all the fuss was about. Then, I was bitten. I quickly amassed the following graphic novels and was delighted to read a good series. The equivalent is this: rather than watch a weekly episode of a great tv series, would you prefer to buy (or download in these modern times) a full series to gorge in one go? That's what I did with Preacher all those years ago but what about the fans during its run? In these days of impatience, were they capable of waiting a full month for the next instalment? They had no choice, obviously, back then. Would they have chosen my path: reading the graphic novels instead? Interesting situation. Back in 1983/4 when I was first introduced to "The Prisoner" on Channel 4, I watched every weekly episode with awe. Now, had someone come along at the same time and offered me a full purchase of every episode on one dvd to watch in one go (I know dvd's didn't exist then, but we are pretending) I would have bitten his hand off rather than wait for subsequent weeks for my fix.

Geoff, this is a conversation that I have had with my wife and a few friends locally. Instant or extended gratification is always going to have pros and cons.

While I love immersing myself in a series or splurging my way through a season, I do enjoy stretching out the pleasure of watching or reading a series as it is released. It also protects you, as the watcher/reader from story fatigue as I have found if you read too much of the same comic or watch too much of the same series, they can merge into each other and become a conglomeration of experience rather than a distinct set of memories. Which is why I am currently enjoying my weekly fix of The Flash and Doctor Who.

However, if we go back to the 1980s, I would splurge and rent Star Trek: The Next Generation videos from my local videoshop or it was a case of waiting another year before it came on TV!

Even now, I am picking up the Preacher GNs when I see them going cheap as I read the story in the Megazine and loved it.

philcom55 wrote:

comixminx wrote:Went to CAPTION comics convention in Coventry yesterday with the family, picked up a few comics in Al Davison's mighty fine shop. I got...a volume of The Unwritten for my partner

I've just picked up Mike Carey's five Felix Castor books and his excellent 'The Girl With All The Gifts' to mitigate the withdrawal symptoms I was feeling after the conclusion of The Unwritten. Great stuff - especially the latter which is almost like a Zombie novel by John Wyndham!

I have looked through "The Girl With the Gifts" and been tempted but not yet succumbed. It's a tempting way you describe it - I love John Wyndham!

colcool007 wrote:However, if we go back to the 1980s, I would splurge and rent Star Trek: The Next Generation videos from my local videoshop or it was a case of waiting another year before it came on TV!

Wouldn't the episodes have been on TV in this country already, Col, before they were made available here on video? Furthermore, if the Wikipedia entry about the show is to be believed, the process of issuing VHS tapes of the episodes did not start until 1991.