We start our Market Report with a record price for a piece of 2000AD artwork. This seminal piece by Mick McMahon with Judge Dredd astride the Mega City throne was finally knocked down for a staggering £9,600.

A Very Fine graded copy of Beano No 4 was one of only a handful known to exist and it tipped the scales at £3300

The Beano No 9 was in the same high grade and a winning bid of £2800 was tendered by same determined bidder.

Here was a lower grade copy of the first Dandy comic which was accompanied by its original 4-page flyer. It sold at £3550

A complete 1946 Dandy year in a bound volume included the added bonus of a second No 321 with unprinted top cover margin. £1060 took the 27 issues away.

The first 24 Lilliput magazines were here in fresh condition, this hard to find run selling for just under £10 each.

Sexton Blake Libraries are almost impossible to find without those tell-tale rust spots on their covers but this complete year for 1939 showed none of these aberrations and the 48 booklets made a strong £620

A scarce small collection of Marvel Family and Whiz comics included some low distribution ‘pilot’ issues and our canny bidders were not slow to spot this and a winning bid of £340 won the day.

This scarce group of booklets included some TV Boardman Pocket Readers illustrated by Denis McCloughlin and were snaffled away for £105

All 303 issues of Express Weekly/TV Express were offered here in seven bound volumes and Wulf the Briton, Jet Morgan, The Lone Ranger and Biggles took to the skies with £1280.

Steve Samson’s 12 issues delivered a Herculean £290

We had not sold a board of Frank Bellamy’s Fraser of Africa artwork before, this piece a gem from the Bob Monkhouse archive. Estimated at £800-1000 it rose above all expectations to a magnificent £5,800

Another star in Uncle Bob’s collection was a Heros the Spartan double page board from the Eagle comic, also by Bellamy, which went even further to £7,300.

The provenance of a highly perceptive, celebrity collector coupled with an artist’s work of the highest quality is always going to test previous records.

The first OZ issue is scarce and our successful winning bidder tuned in, turned on and dropped out with £740

The Monkhouse/Bellamy connection was here again with 3 Daily Mirror Garth boards selling for £1,140

A good run of 1970s-80s first issue Girls’ comics had all of their free gifts and the 24 examples took just over £10 each. As well as a jolly good read, a first-class investment as well.

In this four page complete story artwork we are introduced to Blue, a French Foreign Legionnaire who recounts the horrors of the front line at Verdun. Joe Colquhoun’s atmospheric WWI pieces sold for £1520

The complete run of 53 mid-eighties Hoot comics with free gifts went for a strong £580

A good collection of 1980s first issues, all with their free gifts, was snapped up for £420

 

 

Our US section started with some pulps from the 1940s and 16 Astonishing Stories went for over £10 apiece.

A complete 65 issue run of Startling Stories featured the brilliant cover art of Earle Bergey along with Alex Schomburg’s first Science Fiction cover so it was no surprise that a full bid of £740 won the day.

 

Magazine Enterprises’ Tim Holt #11-25 included the first appearance of Ghost Rider by Dick Ayers, the 1st Black Phantom, the origin of Red Mask and three Frazetta covers. A run of quality for £230

This copy of Amazing Spider-Man 3 had some Marvel edge chipping with corner creases, and graded at [vg+] it garnered a healthy £940

This pence copy of Spidey 14 copy was CGCd at 9.2 and made its lower estimate of £3000 but still well above guide.

Here are Fantastic Four 6 and 10, both CGC 6.5 the former selling at £340, the latter at £310

This low grade run of 12 Tales of Suspense issues included #49 the 1st X-Men cross-over and #52 the first Black Widow and resulted in a winning bid of £420

John Bolton’s original artwork for the back cover of Classic X-Men #14 drew strong interest and was finally knocked down for £1420

 

 

Published in 1964 by Bill (Billjo) White in Columbia, Missouri, BATMANIA was produced for ‘Batmanians’ as the unofficial fanzine for Batman fans. He sent his first issue to DC editor, Julius Schwartz, who adopted it and publicized the fanzine in Batman Comics #169.

 

White’s detailed knowledge of the Caped Crusader included articles entitled ‘Batman before Robin’ and ‘The Evolution of the Batmobile’ and his print run soon swelled to over a thousand copies per issue. No mean artist himself, Billy J White became an important part of the ongoing Batman legend.

 

One of our regular Dynamic Duo collectors was absolutely delighted to buy this  eighteen issue run for £520