The key lot from The Woodard Archive of British Comics was a bound volume of the first fifty Topper comics introducing Mickey the Monkey and Beryl the Peril with Treasure Island and Kidnapped back page adventure strips by Dudley Watkins. Treasure Island indeed with a winning bid of £1420.

The Archive’s Knock-Out No 1 from 1939 was accompanied by two Knock-Out Fun Books for £270.

Also from the Woodard Archive was this near complete run of Beanos from 1960. Although missing its all-important Christmas issue, the run still went for an impressive £920.

Again, The Woodard Archive offered Victor comics Nos 1-45 with free gifts and they certainly Flew with Braddock to £480.

Frank Bellamy’s original artwork is always in high demand and this signed Dan Dare/Eagle board from 1959 had Dan desperately taking on the ‘Nagrebs’, giant, man-eating ants. £1700 topped the ant hill.

Designed by Almalgamated Press in 1949, This full set of 36 Buck Jones Cowboy Comics was originally printed by Land Newspapers in Australia in full-size format and they became the template for the hugely successful Cowboy Comics/Cowboy Picture Library digest size series that was published in the UK from 1952 once paper stocks became more widely available in post-war Europe. This complete run is extremely rare and its £450 hammer price a coup for the winning bidder who could not quite believe his luck.

Here were the first 50 Lion issues with all their free gifts selling at £390. Quite a few collectors are put off by the rusty staples on these issues which often migrated on to the surrounding paper with ungainly staining. Back in the early Fifties when the runaway success of Eagle comics was selling a million copies a week, Amalgamated Press attempted to produce a rival. So the king of the skies was challenged by the king of the jungle. To gain a financial edge, Lion was priced at 3d a copy undercutting The Eagle by a penny. But to do this AP used low grade paper stocks, their porousness showing poor print quality as even the cover’s Captain Condor (another Eagle snipe) could not stop his spaceship from eventually rusting up.

The eponymous son of Andy Capp did not disappoint his father with 1962’s complete year and their highly collectable free gifts.  These were the highest grade issues ever offered at auction and £760 took them away.

We offered 6 T V Comics with front cover episodes of Doctor Who from 1967 and they went for a dalektable £160.

Our selection of Charley’s War artwork continues to attract new winning bidders.
This run of 3 consecutive artworks from Battle-Action 279 also included the front cover printer’s paste-up of the comic.
‘February 1917. An armada of German naval zeppelins set out on a huge bombing raid to Britain. As they reached the Belgian coast they were intercepted by French fighter planes…’

The winning bid was £1020.

2000AD prog 2 included the first appearance of Judge Dredd and this [fn] grade copy arrested £220.

The first lot of our U S section was a 1940 original artwork page by Mac Raboy from Whiz Comics #11 where Dr Voodoo and Maxinya, mysterious white girl of the jungle explored £1620.

Here we featured Vault of Horror #22 [fn+] and #28 [vfn]. Early 50s EC’s are really difficult to find in higher grades and this was reflected in winning bids of £320 and £410.

 

Voodoo Comics #2 is a rare bird and its [vg] average grade did not stop the highest individual price of our horror comics section at £680.

The Marvel highest price of the day was for The Punisher’s first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man #129. This cents copy in the wonderfully high grade of [vfn+] rocketed to £1540.

Avengers #3 and Fantastic Four #4 were both cents copies, both Very Good grades with £460 and £920 (and Invisible Girl) being carried away.

Our copy of Fantastic Four #48 was missing its lower staple in the printer’s binding process but this is not considered a grading fault and in [fn] grade it made £780. Hulk #5 did have minor edge chips but we were always told to eat our greens and £490 was duly digested.

 

 

Seeing this original Cisco Kid artwork by Walt Howarth in our auction reminded me of my early teens when the greatest fun of the week-end was to visit the Gaumont State cinema in London’s Kilburn High Road for Saturday Morning Pictures.

Along with Loony Tunes and the black and white adventures of Hopalong Cassidy and The Lone Ranger, ‘The Cisco Kid’ featured regularly. Cisco and his portly side kick, Pancho would usually round up the bank robbers and shoot guns straight out of bandits’ hands but whilst ‘Hoppy’ the Lone Ranger and Tonto would ride into the sunset, Cisco always ended up with a beautiful senorita cradled in his arms, his sombrero placed artfully over a deep full kiss. But before diving into his embrace Cisco would look over to the watchful Pancho exclaiming in a deep Mexican accent: ‘Oooh Pancho…’ to which Pancho, and the all of us kids sitting in the one and nines would reply as one: ‘Oooh Cisco…’ the screen reducing to an ever contracting dot.

A bag of chips with lashings of salt and vinegar on the way home made the morning complete. Simple pleasures.