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)]

© Google. Picking up the route.....

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.

© "honda1998rrw" - found on Flickr

© Google. Am pretty sure W.H. Edwards was where Mail Boxes is now

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

© Marvel. Art by John Buscema and Tony de Zuniga

“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

© Marvel. Unknown Worlds of Science Fiction #5

"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.

© Google street view

“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

© DC. Cover by Berni Wrightson

©DC. Ditko drawn - Royer inked.

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

© DC. Nigel's first view of a DC comic.

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?

© Family of A.F. Dines

“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.]