[Continuing the recounting of the route that comic fans Nigel Brown and Ian Baker took, hunting down American comics in Portsmouth & Southsea in the 1970s. Read Part One here . ]
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| baggsey's Carlton Corsa bike |
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| © Map Google. Part Two of our mad comics hunt |
Stop #8: Harmony House second-hand shop in Albert Road, near to the King’s Theatre at 66 Albert Road (1972-1978)
Like many (if not all) of the newsagents and second-hand shops that formed the weekly ports-of-call, Harmony House is no longer in operation. Now it forms one half of a restuarant.
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| © Google. Harmony House was the shop under the "Albert Road" sign |
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Heading west from Albert Rd traffic lights, we continue our journey to start at Harmony House, before doubling back to Albert Road traffic lights to head south to the Strand.
“I believe that the stock of this small second-hand shop was primarily focused on LPs by the likes of Yes and Camel, and had flower-power/alternative posters on the wall.” – Ian
“I remember there was a Superman 52-page ‘Swanderson’ in stock, Superman # 241, but the chap who owned it made a complimentary comment about my anorak, reaching out to feel it, so we made a hasty exit!” – Nigel
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| © DC Comics |
Stop #9: R.W. Kittredge, Newsagents at 9 Waverley Road, opposite Wadham Stringer Car Parts
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| © Ian Baker. 1984 |
"The area of the Strand in Southsea was blessed with a small number of shops and newsagents which provided me with comics, A&BC trading cards, paperbacks and sweets in the 1960s and 1970s.
“The newsagent R.W. Kittredge was a DC shop, and where I picked up many issues of Detective Comics in the earliest days of collecting DC comics in 1971. I have strong memories of buying Detective Comics #413-#416, #418-#424 there. I remember that my copy of Detective #413 had the '5p' printed on the cover (a "UK pence" price variant rather than a 15-cent copy with a T&P stamp), and I also remember being impressed by the fine inking of Irv Novick's pencils on the splash page of Detective #414 by Dick Giordano." - Ian
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| © DC Comics. Detective #413 with UK price-variant cover |
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| © DC Comics. Splash page of Detective #414. Fine artwork by Irv Novick & Dick Giordano |
"I also remember picking up Batman Double Double #3 there, which included World's Finest #175 "The Superman-Batman Revenge Squads" glued into the contents, which I subsequently separated from the binding and attempted to re-draw/re-construct the cover using one of those DC house ads as a guide. ” – Ian
Stop #10: The Strand Gift Shop, Southsea
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| The Strand Gift Shop. © (Katherine Donougher nee Sprackling photo) |
This shop was unique in that it was the only “seaside” gift shop that stocked comics in Portsmouth, and brought out on a seasonal basis. They did not get comics on a monthly basis, but must have got stock from some wholesaler, which also included Alan Class comics. The gentleman who owned the shop was (from memory) a medium height gentleman with glasses and a moustache. I believe he was called Mr Sprackling.
“Apart from the saucy seaside postcards, the main attraction of the shop to me was that this shop stocked both DCs and Marvels. They used to put away their stock for the winter, and I got both old Marvels and DCs there (ie. Mid 1960s) in excellent condition. I did buy 5 copies of rare Silver Surfer # 10 there, which I later sold to Alan Austin of Fantasy Unlimited for 75p each.
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| © Marvel. Silver Surfer #10. Art by John Buscema and Dan Adkins |
“They also had a tray of paperbacks outside the side door in Clarendon Road. I remember buying the Batman paperback “Batman vs. the 3 Villains of Doom” written by Winston Lyon from that tray, as well as a Man From Uncle paperback published by 4-Square “The Finger In The Sky Affair” by Peter Leslie – must have been around 1967”. Also I bought a Batman “jamboree bag” there, which included a Batman ink pen, a badge and a paper Bat-Plane." - Ian
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| © 4-Square NEL |
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| © MGM Arena |
“I remember getting some early Tales to Astonish (Sub-Mariner) issues there, and the first issue of Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, with its striking Steranko cover" – Nigel
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| © Marvel. Nick Fury #1 |
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| © Marvel. Tales To Astonish #92 |
Stop #11: Lewis A. & Co, Tobacconists & News, 61 Osbourne Road Newsagents
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| 2022 location of Osborne Rd newsagents |
Like many places we frequented, the exact location fades from memory, as shop facades change over the years beyond all recognition. Such is the case of 'Lewis A. & Co, which was primarily a tobacconist with a side business as a newsagency. However, a look at the 1971 phone directory refreshed our memory of the exact location.
“I think it first became an Estate Agent’s, opposite where Le Petit Escargot used to be. It was about halfway down that parade, about where the Rancho Steak House is now. I recall they not only had a rotating rack of Marvels, but also a pile of comics for sale beside it. All new comics. I remember getting early Marvel Collector’s Items and Marvel Tales from that pile.
"I can confirm that the Marvel Tales (dated Feb '67) # 7, and the Marvel Collectors Item (dated March '67) # 7 were the issues, and I bought them about 1971/72 so they may have been sitting in a warehouse for a while before then. I distinctly remember a pile of maybe 15 or 20 comics sitting on the shelf in the newsagents, alongside the usual spinner rack of comics.
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| © Marvel. Marvel Tales #7 , 1967 |
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| © Marvel. Marvel Collectors' Item #7 |
"Incidentally, I recall this was the shop that I first bought Scientific American from, in 1972. [Checking up on JSTOR] I can confirm the Scientific American was issue August 1972. Why did I notice it and buy it? (And it was relatively pricey then, but I don't recall how much). That was because - and I hadn't seen or heard of this magazine before - the title was two words I was interested in: 'Scientific' and 'American'. Also, this particular issue had an article on 'The Birth of Stars', which was also of interest to me.
"You have to remember that, back then, a lot of British publications were printed in black and white (at least most interiors) with poor quality photographs, and I was quite taken by 'The Birth of Stars' article, with its high quality images of star nebulae, their vivid colours and beauty.” – Nigel
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| © Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. |
Stop #12: Simpson of Southsea Newsagent, 37 Osbourne Road
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| © Simpsons of Southsea now a Premier Express, but still a newsagent. |
This was one of relatively few newsagents that stocked US Marvel comics.
“Round the corner from our house in Ashburton Road, this was our local newsagents, delivering every morning my parents’ Daily Express and for me, the UK comics Cor!, Joe 90, Fantastic, Terrific, Look-In and later Countdown. The first issue of Look-In was cover-dated January 8th 1971, and the first issue of Countdown came out just over a month later in February 1971. These two title debuts bracketed the February 15th 1971 change to decimal currency in the UK.
“Simpson’s displayed Marvels on a rotating rack, and sold them right up to when distribution was cut back following Amazing Spider-Man #120, being the last UK distributed issue due to Marvel’s perceived own competition from Spider-Man Comics Weekly which debuted in February 1973. I remember getting Amazing Spider-Man #s 100-120 from there as they came out. It was devastating to see adverts in later distributed US Marvels about the unattainable events happening in the newly non-available Spider-Man’s # 121 and 122 (decades-late spoiler alert (!) – they featured the death of Gwen Stacey).” – Nigel
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| © Marvel. ASM #120 - the last Spider-Man imported to the UK for quite a while |
"I also have memories of picking up a copy of Amazing Spider-Man #120 that same day with Nigel. I also have much later memories (around the end of 1980) of picking up copies of Daredevil by Frank Miller and early Moon Knights by Bill Sienkiewicz in his days of drawing in a Neal Adams pastiche." - Ian
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| © Marvel. Neal Adams pastiche by Bill Sienkiewicz |
Stop #13: 2nd Hand Shop two doors inside Kent Road from Castle Road
“This was our equivalent of the Mile High Comics discovery of the Edgar Church collection! I’ll never forget the surprise and wonder of going into this shop – a place I’d never visited before – and faced with piles and piles of DCs stacked up all around the interior, going back to the early 60s. I think they either had some comics in the window that I noticed as I sped by on my bicycle, or there were some in a box outside the shop. They’d obviously just acquired a huge collection from someone. I bought what comics in the Superman lines that I could (one was Action Comics #314 ‘The Day Superman became The Flash’) then cycled madly round to Ian to rave about the place. I recall telling Ian at his front-door, I hadn’t even waited to go inside the house.
“At that point, after I’d bought up what I wanted from that shop, I remember that was the maximum extent of the numbers of American comics I had – there was barely room in my bedroom for them. I recall my Mum made an unhappy comment about the untidy piles of comics on top of cupboards.” – Nigel
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| © DC Comics |
“I think I only bought comics there once – probably the only time they had American comics to sell. They had a big pile of second-hand DCs, 2p each. I think we bought them all between us. I got the Batmans and Detectives originally, but went back with my Dad for the Lois Lanes and Jerry Lewis’s later.” – Ian
[Well, that's it for this week. A lot more to come as we head to the areas of Portsea and Landport in subsequent installments.]
Because of my familiarity with Southsea, I almost feel I was with you on your comics rounds. I remember a 2nd-hand shop in Albert Road that had a 1930s Mickey Mouse soft doll in the window, which I first saw in 1981 when I lived there for a few months. When I was back in 1985, the doll was gone and I enquired of the woman inside what had happened to it. (I think she'd told me in '81 that it wasn't for sale.) She said an American woman came in and offered her too good a price to turn down, so she sold it. Everything has its price it seems. Apologies, nothing to do with comics, but something to do with Albert Road in Southsea. I may well have been in some of the shops you mention, but I never really paid attention to what street I was in when I saw a comics shop, so am unable to say with any certainty either way.
ReplyDeleteGlad you're enjoying the ride, Kid, and thanks for the Albert Rd memories. From my childhood memories it was a respectable place - not exactly upmarket, but had quality butchers and grocers and clothes shops and nice cake shops (The French Bakery was a favourite) and good toy shops and confectioners and 3 different banks. These days it is all charity shops, cafes and cheap convenience stores. The pubs are still there, I suppose, but generally a shadow of its former glory. I sound like an old codger, so I'd better stop...
DeleteActually, there's a possibility I first saw the Mickey doll in 1978 when I was in Southsea for a few days, and saw it again in 1981. That's why I was disappointed not to see it in 1985 - it had seemed like a permanent fixture up 'til then.
DeleteWas the shop with the Mickey doll just along a couple of blocks to the right of where Boulton Road met Albert Rd? I seem to remember that there was a place on a corner that may have had a Mickey doll in it. My mind may be playing tricks, of course.
DeleteIt wasn't a corner shop, it was further up. You know where the library was/is, not too far from the opening to St. Andrews Road? If you turned the corner into Albert Road and walked down a bit, it was on the left-hand side. On the other side of the road from where the police station was, but can't remember at exactly which point. I'd have to see the street again.
DeleteAh, Kid, now I can visualise where the shop was, along that parade of shops, half way between The Fat Fox pub and the Wine Vaults. Interestingly, there is now a comic shop along there called "Room 237" (do a google street view).
DeleteFun post baggsey, even although I don't know the Portsmouth area the similarity to your trips to newsagents etc echos mine in Glasgow and Lanarkshire areas right down to some of the very same comics purchased. Although I don't recall "Double Double" comics.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty sure that Kid has run a post on Double Double comics over at his blog in the past. They were issued by Thorpe & Porter by removing the covers of returned comics and combining 4 issues into one comic, wrapped in a new cover, with the edges trimmed down. No one issue had the same contents! I think I had a few issues ; of course, they are now in big demand at UK marts.
DeleteAnd ridiculous prices are being asked for them, B. You're right, though it was a few posts I did on the DD Comics, not just one.
DeleteI think I've read about those DD comics at some point but I ust don't remember ever seeing them baggsey, if I did I have sadly totally forgotten about them .
ReplyDelete