The Dandy Comic year of 1952 is difficult to put together. Key issues include Keyhole Kate’s scarce front cover outing and Korky enlisting Desperate Dan’s help on the front of No. 558. Also there was industrial action that year so July and August issues had low distribution. With the bound volume’s grades ranging from Fine and Very Fine to Near Mint it was no real surprise that £1540 topped the bidding. That’s thirty quid each in old money.

A bound volume of The Beano from 1945 contained some scarce propaganda war issues and the 26 fortnightly comics raised £1160.

This was the first time we had offered a board of Dr Who artwork by Gerry Haylock. The page from TV Action No 60 showed Jon Pertwee’s Dr Who, the Tardis and several angry Daleks but our extensive research did not unearth any previous price points so our discussions with the vendor established an estimate of £350-450 which he said he would be more than happy with. In the event the alcawholics turned up in droves and a whopping £2150 took the board into another dimension.

As many of our customers know, Denis Gifford was a comics collector of legendary status and he had bound together a volume of Paget Productions titles including Comic Wonder, Meteor, Oh Boy! and Wonderman, most in complete issue runs along with many one-shot scarce issues comprising 85 titles in all from 1948-49. In fresh condition the volume soared to £1320.

Gamers of Fortnite will know that Black Knight is the last skin earned in 2020’s Season Two. It’s rare. Comic collectors know that Black Knight was a 1955 Marvel comic scripted by Stan Lee, drawn by Joe Maneely and UK reproduced by L Miller in the same year. Our L Miller copy of No 1 had defects that placed it in a lowly [gd] grade but worlds collided when this secondary title that might have been worth a fiver reached a stalwart £85.

We teamed Roxy No1 wfg Tommy Steele’s Lucky Guitar Pin and Marilyn No 2 wfg Gypsy Zena’s Magic Hand of Destiny. Crossed our palm with £165.

There were only three back cover Pennant cut-outs and the Pennant Wallet in Fantastic No 1 so our patient vendor had bought a second No 1 to cut out the three and collected the other five from editions of Wham!, Smash!, and Pow! to complete the set of eight. £150 was his Super-Heroic reward.

Here was the full 1-63 run of Hurricane with No 2’s free gift Hurricane Howler and No 31’s Football Collector cards complete. Blown away with £280.

JOE 90 Nos 1-3 with TV 21 And JOE 90 No 1 had all their free gifts included but the bonus had to be the set of 6 W.I.N. Badges that only came, one at a time, with Kellogg’s Sugar Smacks along with the packet card to put them on. A delicious £330 breakfast.

D C Thomson’s Sparky No 1 included its rare free gift the Flying Snorter (a rather tired balloon, its flying days somewhat past) and a 4-page Flyer for No 1. £220 restored its airworthiness.

Frank Bellamy’s signed double page Thunderbirds artwork had suffered some minor fading to its Pelikan inks but still reached £2250 to enhance his status as one of the foremost artist of his generation.

You will have noticed that we offered a good selection of comics with their free gifts in this auction but nothing surpassed the winning bid for TV Century 21 No. 218 and its ‘Ready To Fly’ free gift Strato Streak. It reached £400 - stratospheric.

Tell Me Why and World Of Wonder from the late Sixties are more informative magazines than comics but here were issues 1 and 2 of each title with their free gifts - snaffled away for a winning bid of £1. Brilliant.

 

Frank Bellamy was commissioned to illustrate a Sunday Times Magazine article about creditworthiness. You couldn’t conceive of a duller subject but Frank’s brilliant artistry and imagination resulted in an episode worthy of Ian Fleming and this bright double-page board from the Bob Monkhouse Archive achieved £1900.

Two Garth Bellamy boards from the Beast of Ultor series, published in the Daily Mirror in 1974, were taken away for £640.

A huge price was realised for a 1962-3 bound volume of Knockout Comics running up to the final issue. Starring Billy Bunter, Battler Britton and Strongbow (the Indian chief not the lager) the bidding went the distance to £1120. Knockout.

Put together by this vendor a few years ago, Scream 1-15, published in the mid- Eighties, was complete with its first four Holiday Specials. Normally priced around £15-20 each this run realised a staggering £720. Our vendor didn’t scream, but he certainly raised his voice.

Our Edgar Church / Mile High copy of Marvel Mystery 74 sold at just below its lower estimate for £1120.

Canadian ‘white’ issues have been gaining traction recently, especially with Canadian buyers and this group of 12 Double ‘A’ Comics went for just under £27 each.

6 issues of Millie The Model returned to the US for £60 apeice.

 

A S-M #2 is getting harder to find and this [vg] pence copy realised a firm £720, just below its Overstreet Guide cents value.

This mid-grade copy of Hulk #6 tipped the scales at £260

Our copy of Batman #181 had a detached centre fold and, as such, only grades at [gd+] although the rest of the book looked pretty fresh. One of our US buyers thought so too and it was repatriated for £200

Our new US artwork section started off with a bang as Sgt Fury #2 page 16 by Jack Kirby realised £2450

Jim Lee’s Punisher sketch, drawn in 1989 sold strongly at £360

The final 2 pages of artwork from Archer and Armstrong #8, both initialled by Barry Windsor-Smith, totalled a heady £2250.

John Byrne’s early 90s sketch of Puck from Alpha Flight cartwheeled to £660.

Joe Quesada’s first promotional artwork of Ninjak flew to £2100

Daredevil:Yellow #6 page 22 artwork showed Matt Murdoch’s tiny figure disappearing into the distance with £1020.

Sketched at the London Comics Convention in 2014, Frank Cho’s Lobo wolfed down £340.

Even though this ‘dummy’ issue of Viz was a photocopy, it was accompanied by several letters from co-founder Chris Donald who irreverently complained about the hard time a major publisher was giving him to edit the ‘racy’ content before entry into volume production and distribution (How else was Viz going to get onto the shelves of WH Smith?).
Eventually rejected by IPC, WH Smith became WH Myth and Virgin Books took up the challenge where Billy was finally Fished from the stream into the mainstream. This seminal (Chris D would hopefully appreciate both meanings of the adjective) group of letters was hotly contested by our bidders and, from a £70-100 estimate, finally shot to £820.

 

In the late 70s a friend of mine from Whitley Bay sent me a well-thumbed copy of Viz No 1 which he’d bought from a bloke in a pub in Newcastle. I remember reading it, laughing out loud at its ribald antics and giving it to my girl-friend at the time who snootily asked ‘Why are you reading that filth?’

All these years later, I realised that the question should have been ‘Why aren’t you keeping that filth?’