Super Stuff in the Bronze Age: November 2022

Wednesday, November 30, 2022

The Legion of Super-Stories, from Bridwell to Shooter

by Nigel Brown

[SuperStuff co-editor Nigel Brown takes a nostalgic look back at his first exposure to the Legion of Super-Heroes in 1966]

Although the first DC comic I read was Superman #190 (Oct. 1966) – see SuperStuff ‘What’s in a Name? Superman’s greatest enemy we don’t hear about’ 2020 – it was my second DC comic, Adventure Comics #351 (Dec. 1966) which really kicked things off. Why? Because it introduced the concept of a whole ‘secondary fantasy world’ to immerse oneself in, much like, nowadays, there’s the world of Star Trek, Tolkien’s Middle Earth, and others.

Superman #190, as exciting as it was, featured Superman defeating the space pirate Amalak mostly against a setting one could recognise: the day-to-day Metropolis, in other words the home soil of any big American city (A bonus was Wayne Boring’s evocative background skyscrapers).

©DC. SKYSCRAPERS FROM SUPERMAN # 190

But reading Adventure #351 featuring ‘Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes’ was an entirely different experience.

©DC. Adventure Comics #351

I still remember, although I was just seven at the time, that the attraction of that comic was the intriguing Curt Swan cover. Who were all these people? I recognised a younger Superman (a boy?), but that was it. The story happened to be a part two, but in those days the editors treated their public more gently, and enough material was provided to orientate the confused reader.

DC’s Superman titles editor, Mort Weisinger, always used the inner first page as a second teaser, known as the ‘splash page’, for the tempted newsstand buyer. This issue’s splash page featured not only the Legion of Substitute-Heroes, but the Legion of Super-Pets as well!

I won’t list every super-hero who appears in this story, but there are twenty-one of them, plus four super-pets. The story begins in the 30th century, at the Legion Clubhouse on Earth, then shifts into space, then to another planet, then back in time to (then contemporary) 1966 Earth, then to the 5th dimension to confront the imp Mxyzptlk… and so on.

A sense of wonder is palpable. This breathless charge through the DC universe in the company of so many characters, each with their distinctive super-powers, from so many different planets themselves… it’s a whole world to immerse oneself in.

Crucially, you get the impression that this world carries on after the story has ended, and it’s fun to be part of that.

The discovery and experience of this new ‘secondary world’ was enough to get me hooked on American Comics.

I realised years later that I had the writer, E. Nelson Bridwell, to thank for that.

E. Nelson Bridwell, from Wikipedia

This two-part story in Adventure Comics #350 and #351 was the first Legion story he scripted. As I mentioned in 2020 (SuperStuff ‘It all began with Kryptonite…’), he was DC’s resident expert on the Superman mythos. He took this scripting opportunity to use his knowledge of DC’s stable of super-heroes and their previous adventures to full effect, weaving all these characters and worlds into one story, and I got the full dose!

E. Nelson Bridwell wasn’t above comic industry in-fighting, either. There was no love lost between DC and Marvel in those days, and he was a DC man through-and-through. In part one of the story, in Adventure Comics #350 (Nov. 1966), Chameleon Boy defeats a monster by changing into a spider-shape, then ‘breaks the fourth wall’.

©DC. Chameleon boy takes a swing at Spidey in Adventure #350

Alas, this dig at Marvel was wasted on me, as I hadn’t yet heard of Marvel’s Spider-Man!

But it was a quirk of timing that my first Legion of Super-Heroes comic was written by E.Nelson Bridwell and not Jim Shooter, who by then was the regular writer on the title, writing Adventure Comics #346 to #349, and #352 to #355, so I happened upon the gap filled by Bridwell.

Jim Shooter had begun his career in comics by writing Legion of Super-Hero stories, famously at age fourteen.

A young Jim Shooter, as seen on Pinterest.

Shooter’s intention was to write in the style of Stan Lee, whom he felt wrote far more interesting stories than the DC writers of the time. Shooter created Legion stalwarts Karate Kid, Ferro Lad and Princess Projectra in his first story in Adventure Comics #346 (July 1966).

©DC. Adventure Comics #346

He honed his skill under the guiding – and brutal – hand of editor Mort Weisinger. I would recommend Alter Ego magazine #137 (Jan. 2016), available from Tomorrows Publishing, for Shooter’s account of those times.

Shooter’s Legion stories that appeared in 1968 must count as some of his best work. These were often two-parters, with Neal Adams covers.

Four stories are particularly memorable; the first is the two-parter Adventure Comics #365 (Feb. 1968) and #366 (March 1968), with Curt Swan art and inks by George Klein.

©DC. Adventure Comics #365 - artwork by Neal Adams

©DC. Neal Adams' cover to Adventure Comics #366.

This story introduces a new Legionnaire, Shadow Lass, but its strength in #365 is how each Legionnaire in the team is put into a separate trap that they escape from (a plot device that Stan Lee often used with the Fantastic Four), plus I’m a sucker for maps:

©DC

In part two, the Legionnaires actually fail to defeat their enemies, who run away when the ‘mighty space armada’ of the U.P. (United Planets) arrive: “The ‘cavalry’ has come to the rescue!”. Certainly, the Legionnaires had heroically resisted the Fatal Five until then, but I think Shooter does well to rise above the temptation of allowing them to succeed completely, even at the end of a two-parter. He lets the Fatal Five escape to fight another day. The Legionnaires themselves are aware of their failure. Superboy apologises to the President of the United Planets: “We’re sorry we let them escape, sir!” but all is made good: each Legionnaire gets a medal!

The true reward is that their clubhouse has been so severely damaged that it needs to be completely rebuilt. Shooter never liked the clubhouse idea, so perhaps this was his way of updating such an iconic design without too many protestations from the readers, or the very conservative powers at DC!

©DC. Undamaged Legion clubhouse

©DC. Damaged Legion clubhouse

The second memorable story is a solo issue, following on directly from the previous story in Adventure Comics #366. For the time, this was much more in keeping with Marvel than DC, whereby the consequences of events in previous issues would naturally follow on to new adventures.

©DC. Another great cover by Neal Adams. Adventure Comics #367

Adventure Comics #367 (Apr. 1968), again with art by Curt Swan and inks by George Klein, begins quietly with the rebuilding of the Legion Clubhouse. This is renamed ‘Legion Headquarters’, a more grown-up term denoting Shooter’s awareness of the changing times and older readership he was aiming at. ‘Clubhouse’ was very 1940s. ‘Headquarters’ sounded much better to the youth of the late 1960s!

Shooter has the confidence to draw breath after the epic events of the last two issues, and takes the reader on a tour of 30th century Earth. He’s aware that familiarity can breed boredom when it comes to long-term readers of the Legion stories, so he reminds them that the setting of the stories is, in itself, of interest. Like all good science fiction writers, Shooter slips the wondrous background into the story itself. We follow Karate Kid as he takes a few weeks off, traveling to his home in Japan via a core-tube train that moves in a straight line between Metropolis and Tokyo, traveling through the Earth’s mantle.

©DC. Core-Tube train from Adventure Comics #367

The third story, another two-parter, is Adventure Comics #369 (June 1968) and #370 (July 1968). Art by Curt Swan, inks by Jack Abel. This is my overall favourite of these four stories. It raises the stakes from the beginning and doesn’t let go until almost the last page of part two. I’ve always felt that it would make an excellent Legion of Super-Heroes film, as it has everything.

©DC. Adventure Comics #369. Art - Neal Adams

©DC. Adventure Comics #370. Cover: Curt Swan and Jack Abel

How do you provide a credible threat to a team that includes members as powerful as Superboy and Mon-El (effectively ‘Superboy’ without the weakness to kryptonite)? Easy. As Shooter demonstrates, you use magic.

Mordru, of the Sorcerer’s planet, is a terrifying opponent for the Legion. They’ve held him captive but he escapes, vowing revenge. Four Legionnaires flee from his clutches via time travel, and hide in 20th century Smallville. Mordru and his army pursue them, putting the whole of Smallville, including Superboy’s foster-parents and friends, in terrible danger.

Shooter ramps up reader sympathy by placing the Legionnaires into fearful situations that readers can well identify with: pursuit by the authorities, disguises being revealed, the fear of harm to one’s loved-ones. This is very much from the Stan Lee playbook, and works extremely well. Shooter even has Lee’s trademark ‘unrequited love’ going on (between Duo Damsel and Superboy), a far cry from the – by-then – cliché of Lois Lane’s obsession with Superman.

Jack Abel’s atmospheric heavy inks add to the sense of menace, especially as most of the backdrop is the down-to-earth, identifiable Smallville of small-town America, and not the distant 30th century.

©DC. JACK ABEL INKING FROM ADVENTURE COMICS #369

The second part of this story is the only comic on my list that doesn’t boast a Neal Adams cover (perhaps he missed a deadline?). Nevertheless, Swan and Abel’s cover for Adventure #370 is very effective, with its mauve background contrasting with the ‘Devil’s Jury’ shadowed in green.

I won’t spoil the denouement of this story, but I must give a (dis-) honourable mention to the final panel. Acceptable in 1968, but not today!

©DC.

The fourth story is the two-parter in Adventure Comics #371 (Aug.1968) and #372 (Sept. 1968). After the high drama of Mordru, magic and Smallville, we’re back in the 30th century. Shooter turns an interesting right-angle to focus on the agony of just one Legionnaire, Colossal Boy.

©DC. Adventure Comics #371. Art by Neal Adams

©DC. Adventure Comics #372. Art by Neal Adams

Shooter plays upon his readership’s deepest fears by using an identifiable threat – the loss of parents – to keep the reader’s attention. Again, the Swan/Abel team do an excellent job with artwork and inking, and a glimpse into a Legionnaire’s ordinary home and home-life is the kind of Stan Lee touch that enamoured so many fans to Spider-Man and many other Marvel characters.

A quirk of this particular comic is that this part one is only 11 pages, compared to the usual 22 or 24, and the bulk of the issue is taken up with a reprint Legion story from Superboy #101 (1962). Even odder, the Neal Adams cover is for the reprint, not the new story, which has no mention on the cover. So perhaps Shooter’s 11 pages – a half-story – wasn’t initially planned for this issue?

We’re back to the full 23 pages for a satisfying conclusion in Adventure #372.

In later years, the Legion of Super-Heroes feature received deserved acclaim with a run beginning in Superboy (sub-titled ‘Starring the Legion of Super-Heroes’) #197 (Sept. 1973), written by Cary Bates. Dave Cockrum’s clean artwork, with his Star Trek-like spacecraft designs, hit a chord with fans. Artist Mike Grell inked issue #202, and replaced Cockrum as artist afterwards, still maintaining Cockrum’s popular style and designs for the world of the 30th century.

Jim Shooter took over the writing from #209 (June 1975). This story is a particular favourite of mine, as success for the hero depends upon will-power, not super-power.

©DC. Superboy #209.

But for me, Shooter’s run of stories in 1968 fulfills the promise of the Legion’s ‘secondary fantasy world’, with its core-tube trains, a glimpse of 30th century home-life, and epic adventures. All written when Jim Shooter was already a comics veteran, age seventeen.

copyright. Nigel Brown

[Update: Dec 5th 2022. SPOILER!!

For those of you interested in how the three girls of the Legion defeated the evil Mordru, here is the final page.

Wednesday, November 23, 2022

Welcome to Worlds Unknown

In these pages we have previously spoken warmly about Marvel B&W “Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction”, Roy Thomas’ six issue (plus one Annual) attempt in 1975 to publish a mature Science Fiction comic magazine that broke the mould of SF in comics. It was only very recently that I came to realize that in fact the Marvel B&W comic was in its second incarnation, and in fact was the continuation of a previous Marvel colour comic Worlds Unknown, incubated and developed under the aegis of Roy Thomas in eight issues, cover dated May 1973 to August 1974.

The reason for our (i.e. British comic fans) lack of knowledge of the existence of Worlds Unknown is that it was not distributed in the UK, its publication falling into that period when the cost of paper had risen dramatically, and Marvel cut back drastically on which comics they printed and sent to the UK via World Distributors.

According to Duncan McAlpine in the Comic Book Price Guide for Great Britain, Worlds Unknown was : “A nice little series with the emphasis on science fiction and fantasy. #1-7 were Non Distributed in the UK at the time with only #8 being Distributed and available as a UK [price] Variant.”

In fact, only issues 1-6 contained hard Science Fiction content, with the last two issues being repurposed as an adaptation of the Sinbad movie, then in cinemas. Those UK readers exposed to the final issue would have easily assumed that Worlds Unknown was a Sword & Sorcery comic due to the blurb “In the Conan tradition” on the front page of issue #8, as well as being perplexed that issue #8 was part two of a story not to be found on spinner racks in the UK.

In fact, the same month (cover Aug 1974) that Worlds Unknown was cancelled as a colour comic, Roy Thomas announced in the lead editorial of US Marvel B&W Planet of the Apes #1 that Worlds Unknown would soon be returning as a Black & White comic. The issue contains a teaser ad for a B&W version of Worlds Unknown, before the decision was made to retitle the magazine “Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction”. (Presumably the ‘Science Fiction’ was added to distinguish the book from the ACG Horror/Mystery comic Unknown Worlds that ran from 1960-1967. ) Again, as the first issue of the US Planet of the Apes B&W was not distributed in the UK, British readers would not have been aware of Roy’s editorial and intentions.

Looking through back issues of fanzine Comic Media and Comic Reader Newsletter from this period (as hosted on David Hathaway-Prices wonderful Fanzine Archive site), there is precious little in the way of information about the intentions for the comic in the Marvel News supplied to Richard Burton by US fan Paul Levitz, which perhaps reflected the contemporary comic readers’ preference for superhero and sword & sorcery fare. Other than a few one-line items highlighting upcoming adaptations of classic SF stories, and a later mention of Worlds Unknown’s cancellation, there was no in-depth recognition of a comic that was trying to buck the trend of relegating SF comics as “50s reprints only”.

I was lucky enough to pick up a mostly-complete run of Worlds Unknown recently for around $4 per issue, so let’s take a closer look at those first six issues, starting with issue #1, where Roy Thomas lays out his reasoning for producing the comic.

"If you’re 'into' science fiction…, it will come as no real shock when I announce that WORLDS UNKNOWN is intended to be primarily a comic-magazine devoted to tales of that long-neglected genre.

"It’s been my dream for several years[…..] to put out a comic-mag in which all the stories are adaptations (not swipes)of works by the very best talents the field has to offer.

"No, we didn’t shout out on our cover, 'Hey gang! Here’s an s-f comic book!' Reason: Many incognizant souls are frightened off by the very name 'science-fiction'. They associate it with nothing but old re-runs of Space Patrol […….]Rockets and ray-guns[…..], which turn off certain segments of the comic-buying population, and thus which have notoriously failed to sell to mass market from the 1950’s onwards. So, no emblazed [sic] word 'science fiction' on our covers, gang. At least for now."

The opening story in issue #1 “The Day After The Martians Came” was (in Roy’s words) a “1967 gem from Harlan Ellison’s famed Dangerous Visions“ written by Frederick Pohl, scripted by Gerry Conway with artwork by Ralph Reese, a little-known comics artist who had been one of Wally Wood's assistants, and had also done work for Topp's trading cards. I was not familiar with Reese’s artwork, which has a rather unsettling Underground Comics vibe, totally suited to the piece.

The other new story was "He that Hath Wings", adapted by writer-penciler Gil Kane from a 1934 Edmond Hamilton story published in the pulp magazine Popular Fiction. It was refreshing to see Kane’s artwork on a lyrical piece, rather than superhero antics.

The lettercol two months later was universally full of praise for the concept of a 'Science Fiction' comic, as well as the quality of the adaptations.

Issue #2 contained two new adaptations: L. Sprague de Camp's 1956 "A Gun for Dinosaur", scripted by Roy Thomas and penciled by Val Mayerik; and “Doorstep” - a 1960 story by Keith Laumer, scripted by Gerry Conway, drawn by Gil Kane, with Tom Sutton on inks.

“A Gun for Dinosaur” is a solid, involving story with some interesting time-travel considerations. “Doorstep” is also solidly told, but ends with a twist that is reminiscent of lesser horror comic tropes - I suspect the kind of thing that Roy Thomas was hoping to avoid. There is no editorial commentary in this issue on the rationale for the choices of story for adaptation.

Issue #3 (Cover date Sept 1973) contains arguably the best adaptation in the series - “Farewell to the Master”, adapting the story by Harry Bates, the creator and first editor of Astounding, the seminal pulp magazine.

[Updated Nov 29 2022: The issue has a powerful cover, credited to Rich Buckler with inks by Wayne Howard. However, a posting over the original artwork over at the Comicartfans site shows that John Romita Sr also had a hand in the artwork, correcting a number of items, as you can see below].

Anticipation for this story had been teased in Comic Media and Comic Reader Newsletter #5 in April of that year. Scripted by Roy Thomas, and drawn by Ross Andru and Wayne Howard, the story had formed the basis of the 1950s film “The Day The Earth Stood Still”. This was the first that the original story was followed, differing in many respects from both versions of the cinema film.

Issue #4 adapts the Frederic Brown story “Arena”, which had already been adapted for television as an episode of Star Trek in 1967. Gerry Conway (himself a science fiction writer of some success) scripted this adaptation, with artwork chores falling to John Buscema, inked by Dick Giordano.

Dick Giordano’s inking style so dominates the artwork that for me, the delicate pencils of Buscema are lost. As Giordano was generally so sympathetic to whose art he was inking, I wonder if Buscema did little more than layouts. The story was reprinted in B&W in the Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction Giant Size Special at the start of 1976.

©Marvel. Sample page of Arena from Worlds Unknown #4

©Marvel. Page from Arena as re-printed in Unknown Worlds of SF Special

A comparison of the colour story and the B&W reprint shows a couple of changes to make the story conform more to the format established for the B&W magazine format:

The artwork has been treated with a grey wash in place of the original colour
The hand-drawn speech bubbles have been replaced by a computer font within square boxes.

Issue #5 adapts A.E. Van Vogt’s “Black Destroyer” his first published SF story in 1939. Scripted by Thomas and penciled by Dan Adkins, completed by Jim Mooney. The production of the story had been complicated by Adkins’ unavailability part way through the co-creation of the story with Thomas, resulting in a confused ending that Thomas regarded as unsatisfactory, but had no time to rework before the issue went to print. The letters page is given over to an essay by Don & Maggie Thompson explaining the science behind the ending of the story, and clarifying the denouement.

Interestingly, Van Vogt later sued the makers of "Alien" for plagiarizing this story, settling out of court.

Issue #5 also teases that Gerry Conway is working on an adaptation of John Wyndham’s “Day of the Triffids”, which would finally see publication in 1975 within the pages of “Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction”.

Issue #6 adapts “Killdozer” by Theodore Sturgeon. Ted Sturgeon's 1944 "Killdozer" was adapted by Conway and penciler Dick Ayers. This story was thought to be a popular choice, as the story was in process of being adapted as a TV Movie, which premiered Feb 9th 1974.

Sturgeon had already had success on television with his story "Amok Time" on Star Trek.

With issue #7, the magazine was abruptly given over to part one of an adaptation of the Sinbad movie, with no editorial explanation. The letters page is truncated, giving over half the space to explain the straits of publishing comics considering escalating costs and prices.

Similarly, issue #8 runs letters about Killdozer, but there is no indication of the comic-book’s imminent cancellation, which had already been reported in Comic Media News in March 1974.

And so the experiment of an adult-oriented SF 4-colour comic was put to bed for a while, only to be resurrected by Roy Thomas in the Marvel B&W magazine “Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction” in January 1975.

In his editorial for Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #1, Thomas clarified what had happened.

“Marvel Comics nearly made it….with a 36-page color comic-book titled WORLDS UNKNOWN. Some issues of the title sold well; some didn’t. We all felt constricted by the size, though. For, with so few pages, we could only concentrate on a story or two, per issue - and, if the casual reader didn’t happen to like that particular theme, it was a no go for the entire package - and no sale on the next ish, in all probability.

"We knew that, for us at least, the real answer lay in a 75c of $1 black-and-white magazine which could spotlight a number of stories, reaching out in a multiplicity of directions”.

Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction lasted a further year, never picking up the broad readership that Thomas believed it deserved. As Thomas commented many years later in Comic Book Artist #13:

"The only trouble is, Marvel can't reprint any of it, because nobody knows where the little contracts we had people sign are, so nobody could ever be sure if we could reprint any of the stories! Those are always wonderful stories from that period, like "It" and so forth, and they couldn't be reprinted even if there was a market for it, because they wouldn't know if they had the rights!"

Roy's comments not withstanding, Marvel UK had no qualms about reprinting the run of stories from Worlds Unknown as backup tales in the UK Planet of the Apes weekly in early 1975. According to the Marvel fandom database, these stories can be found as follows:

"Arena" - Planet of the Apes Weekly #14
"Farewell To The Master" - Planet of the Apes Weekly #18 - Feb 22 75
"The day after the martians came" - Planet of the Apes Weekly #16
"He That Hath Wings" - Planet of the Apes Weekly #unknown
"Black Destroyer" - Planet of the Apes Weekly #20 - March 8 1975
"Killdozer" - Planet of the Apes Weekly #21 - March 15 1975
"A Gun for Dinosaur" - Planet of the Apes Weekly #26 and #29

I haven't been able to do a direct comparison between the UK printings of these stories and the Worlds Unknown versions - it would be interesting to identify any differences.

Note: For those interested, blog Dark Worlds Quarterly examines the contents of the run of Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction in some detail.

Friday, November 11, 2022

Searching for comics in Portsmouth, 1970s style - Part Four

[You can read the previous three parts of this blog reminiscence of cycling around Portsmouth in the early to mid-1970s in search of American comics, Part One here, Part Two here and Part Three here. - Ian (baggsey)]

When we last left our heroes, we had just left a convenience store in the St Paul's Road area. Our next stop on the weekly comic hunt is at one of the most iconic buildings in Portsmouth - Charter House - built in the late 1800's, and still very much in use today.

The newsagents in question was...

Stop #18. W.H. Edwards, Charter House, Cambridge Rd.

Although we stopped by here on our Saturday comic hunts in the early 70s, it really came into its own in the period 1975-76, when we would also make a weekly Friday visit during school lunch break on our walk from Portsmouth Grammar School in the old High Street up to W H Smiths in Commercial Rd to pick up a weekly copy of Look-In, which I got primarily for TV news of Bionic Woman, Six-Million Dollar Man and Batman, as well as the comic strips of The Tomorrow People (hoping to see the artwork of Mike Noble) and Six Million Dollar Man (drawn by Martin Astbury).

However, with every trip for Look-In, we stopped at W.H. Edwards in Charter House which was the prime hub for obtaining Marvel Black & White magazines in Portsmouth; the biggest selection and the most reliable source.

"I'm pretty sure that I collected every Marvel B&W that was on offer, but the titles that stick in my mind are Doc Savage, Deadly Hands of Kung Fu, Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction and Savage Sword of Conan. I really gravitated towards the Marvel B&W magazines – I liked the whole concept of a magazine that incorporated interesting articles with a different style of artwork. One major gripe at the time was that the US Planet of the Apes magazine was unavailable on the spinner racks in the UK, to avoid competition with the UK Planet of the Apes weekly comic.

"I thought that the Doc Savage B&W magazine was the best rendition of Doc and his crew that I'd seen in a comic book, and the stories went some way towards capturing Doc's 'Apocalyptic Life" as Philip Jose Farmer coined it. The artwork by John Buscema and Tony de Zuniga was excellent and Doug Moench had obviously read Lester Dent's story outline Bible for the Doc pulps. If Buscema did not exactly capture the Doc in my mind's eye, it came pretty close. Ken Barr's art on the covers were closest to Bama that I'd seen on comic covers - I loved the whole package, but it only lasted 8 issues.” – Ian

“Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction # 5 (Sept. 1975) was a landmark issue for me as it featured an interview with one of my favourite SF writers, Larry Niven. At that time I had been hugely impressed by his collection ‘Neutron Star’.” - Nigel

"Deadly Hands of Kung Fu was also a must-buy - as much for the wonderful Neal Adams covers as the Shang-Chi stories within. So many great Adams covers to choose from, but #4 really sticks in my mind. I liked the way he drew Caine's face as a cross between David Carradine and Bruce Lee." - Ian

Stop #19. Convenience store, just inside College Street, on the Hard opposite the Harbour Station

The next stop on our route took us half a mile south-west to Portsmouth Harbour, to a small convenience store/newsagents, next to The Victory restaurant. The photo from Google shows the part of the building now painted grey - not much to look at - but a source of comics all the same, back in the mid 70s.

“This convenience store/newsagents became a semi regular haunt around May/June 1976, when they started stocking DCs at the point when T&P started re-distribution of old stock after a period of no imports. Each comic had been issued a “5p” price sticker to overlap the existing 10p T&P stamp, but in many cases the newsagent had peeled off the 5p sticker to reveal the old price instead.

The only comics I can recall buying here were House of Secrets issues that I had somehow missed. I had been a great DC House of Mystery fan, but expanded the collection to HoS somewhat later. I'm pretty sure that I picked up House of Secrets #139 (Berni Wrightson cover) with a rather disappointing spooky tale by Jack Oleck, illustrated by Steve Ditko, inked by Mike Royer. I suppose I was expecting a more Kirby-esque version of Ditko when inked by Royer, but it just seemed lacklustre ” - Ian

Stop #20. J.W. August. 65 Charlotte Street (on the corner of Charlotte Street and Meadow Street).

Cycling a mile from the Harbour towards Commercial Road brought us to Charlotte Street, the famed market street of Portsmouth, now long gone, subsumed by the Cascades shopping mall. But in the 60s and 70s.it was the hub of commerce. Half-way along Charlotte Street was newsagents J.W. August, which had achieved some notoriety as far back as 1952, involved in a case of selling unsuitable magazines. (See blog "American Comics in Austerity Britain") . But we knew none of this; as far as we were concerned it was a prime comics haunt.

J.W. August not long prior to demolition

“[J.W. August was...] Where I first saw DC comics, with their distinctive checkerboard black and white top strip, on a Thorpe & Porter wire rack in 1966. It was the shop opposite my father’s market stall, so I was bound to see the comic rack eventually…

“I remember looking at the cover of World’s Finest # 160 in 1966, thinking ‘Who are these colourful characters swooping down to confront this villain?’ They were Superman, Batman and Robin.

“Soon after that, I acquired my first American comic, Superman # 190, and so for me this newsagent was where it all began! For a more detailed account, see SuperStuff previous post in July 2020: What’s in a name? Superman’s greatest enemy we don’t hear about. ” – Nigel

Stop #21. A.F. Dines - barrow in Charlotte Street (on the corner of Charlotte St and Commercial Road)

The final stop in Charlotte St was at A.F. Dines' barrow, where recent back issues of UK magazines and comics could be had at reduced prices. Can anyone zoom in on the photo and definitely identify any of the magazines and comics on sale?

“Back in the late 60s I remember it had recent back issues of Smash, Pow, TV21 and Joe 90. Presumably the owner got remainder-returned comics from the wholesalers.” – Ian

Stops #22, #23, #24. Newsie outside General Post Office ; Post Office in Arundel Street ; 2nd hand shop in Arundel Street, close to Fratton Road

The memory gets hazy at this point, and we include these three stops for the sake of completeness. Our pal Geoff Cousins remembers clearly that there was a street newsie who used to sell newspapers and comics outside the General Post Office, opposite the Town Station (stop #22 in map). Stop #23 was the local Post Office in Arundel Street, where they stocked a few Marvels in the summer of 1975, and finally stop #24, which was probably the scruffiest second-hand shop in Pompey.

“I have a vague recollection of a comic shop there.” – Nigel

“I remember a scruffy shop on the South side of Arundel Street, half a dozen shops West of Fratton Road. My overriding memory is that it was smelly, very dark and uninviting - intimidating, even” – Ian

[This about wraps it up for this blog. Only one more stage to go, as we subsequently head north to the wilds of Buckland and Stamshaw, and the two key second-hand shops for back issues.]