Comics UK

What is the difference between Battle...War and Commando...

Also was StarBlazer any good worth getting?

Girl comic libraries what was the best one for strange stories?

I was given a binbag full of StarBlazer a couple of years ago. Not usually into non-humour comics, but the covers are great, so they've got that going for them at least.

Starblazer was the best SF one. And the stories range from mediocre to amazing. Well worth collecting the run.

There was also the Football Picture Library that started in the late 80's and lasted until the early 2000's.

I had a few Bunty PLs a few years back and a couple were 64 pages of Bill Ritchie artwork - great.

War Picture Library was brilliant when it first started, even better than Commando! Not sure about Battle, though I doubt there was much to choose between them (when the first of the big books came out, back in about 2007, I did notice that the Battle library had slightly more variation in artwork, though. Of course, Commando never rigidly enforced a 'house' style at all). They also had chapters in the early days.
Later issues of War Picture Library are boring, though. It's like they're just going through the motions. Also the artwork all looks the same.

Hospital Nurse Picture Library was actually romantic stories with only the vaguest mention of illnesses, though in a few issues the nurse has to find the patient's "true love" to "snap him out" of a coma / depression. The artwork all looked the same in these too, but they were always about the same characters (though their hair colour sometimes changed!), so it didn't matter that much.

Valentine Library was another romantic one. A reprint book from 2007 / 8 has stories which are all named after pop songs, though I don't know if every issue was like that.

Love Story Picture Library was yet another romance one of the 60's, often with large ads for Fab 208 taking up a quarter of a page somewhere. It has slightly more artistic variation, too. The stories followed the general formula of unhappiness, suggested romance, misunderstanding and reunion.

I have slowly been collecting the full set of star blazer comics over the years much prefer the early issues ,the later issues had more fantasy / myth stores which I'm not into. Also I have also been collecting the Super detective and thriller picture library's from the 50s and early 60s some of these have fantastic art and good story's

Thanks for all the ideas...
Is the Super Detective and Thriller British comic libraries? or American..?

These were British comics but some did have reprints from American comic strips . look out for rick random issues these had some fantastic art

Starblazer was a great comic library which I started reading from the first issue and would still be getting today if it hadn't folded. However, I do agree that in general I preferred the conventional science fiction stories to the fantasy ones.

Some of the women's picture libraries - can't remember which - had reprints from American comic books. I sold all my romance PLs but kept those ones because at the time the Essentials collection had begun to be published and I realised the value of the pure black and white (ie as per the original art) reproductions. Some of the Essentials stories are reprinted from the comics as the original art is no longer available and it doesn't look as good obviously. There was one War or Battle picture library I read a few years back that actually left me with tears in my eyes. I think it was called Broken Wings. 30th Century Comics has a nice stock of various picture libraries.

So what was the first picture library comic? Where did the idea come from - was it American? Why are the Kit Carson and Thriller Picture Library series so expensive? What's the rarest title?

Answers on a postcard...

There were School Friend Libraries many years ago but they were text stories. My Weekly still publishes story libraries.

Peoples Friend also still publish story libraries.
I love pocket libraries and also collect them. The story libraries also included Schoolgirls' Own Library with lots of tales of Hooded Helpers and Phantom Watchers.
As for picture pocket libraries, there are loads, incl, Schoolgirls' Picture Library; June; Bunty; Princess; T.V. Picture Stories (titles incl. Dixon of Dock Green; Sword of Freedom; Murder Bag) ; Western Picture Library; Wild West Picture Library; Eagle; Valiant; Buster; Lion; True Life All Picture Library; Club Library; World Distributors; Sabre Library; Picture Library, which issued S.A.T.A.N. and Gemini series. But some of them e.g. Club and W.D were Italian reprints. And the pocket library size was incredibly popular in Italy with the Neri and Gialli such as Diabolik; Satanik; Kriminal; Sadik; Zakimort and quite a pile more.
Australia reprinted some Dell western titles in a pocket size and I think the most famous/popular was Gunsmoke
Also, in the U.K let's not forget Fleetway Super Library, where you could find The Steel Claw; Spider etc. and these were reprinted in France. These libraries are thicker - 132 pages. In France, pocket libraries were published featuring a mix of foreign syndicated strips and British strips such as, Captain Hornet; Janus Stark, King Cobra.
This is anything but complete and the best place to search for some of these libraries is as stevezodiac suggests, 30th Century Comics.

Picture Libraries were a British invention, though I beleive Italy and Spain also had them in the 60's and 70's.
Pocket Libraries began in the 19th century (earliest one I have is from 1895), and were text stories, like small paperbacks. The most famous ones were probably The Boys' Friend Library (1906 - 1940) and The Sexton Blake Library (1915 - 1963 as a pocket library, the later ones were paperback books). There was only slight variation in size and shape, the old one I have is tall and square bound, closer to a paperback (but closer still to the format of the current My Weekly Story Library), and the Sexton Blake library also got taller in the early 60's, up to then it had been Commando Sized.
Picture Libraries started out in 1950, when a publisher (probably Amalgamated Press / IPC) wanted to cash in on the craze for both imported American comics and Westerns, by starting an American-format western comic. But as the American size was "strange", UK print works were not set up for it, so instead the westerns were put into the longer, but smaller (so the overall story length was about the same) pocket library format. The first one was Cowboy Picture Library (it changed names a few times), followed closely by Thriller Picture Library (lots of adaptions of classic stories, as well as some new characters) and Super Detective Library (again, adaptions of famous detective stories, with a few originals).

Re. The Boys' Friend Library , during WW1, there were landscape issues, I'm sure. Never found out why the change in format. Smaller than Blake, there was the Dixon Hawke library - a size close to the later beeldromans from the Netherlands (Dick Bos, for example)
The thing about the Euro comics was the multitude of different sizes and formats. Bang on about the Italian ones in the 60's and 70's. France had pils of them also incl. Super Boy (not that one) and Tenax. Both of which racked up quite a run. There are also German ones but much thicker and difficult to get in a pocket. Krimi Comics featured translations of Sherlock Holmes.