Spot the Difference
Aug 1, 2026
In 1973 Marvel decided to experiment with the house ads within their comics. For a while different titles would contain different ads. This was taken to a new level in the case of the pence Daredevil 101, Fantastic Four 136, Hulk 165 and Thor 213. These comics contained ads for the two then fairly recently introduced Marvel UK weeklies. The US comics of course didn’t. So the pence priced Fantastic Four 136 missed out the letter page and Zombie advert to advertise The Mighty World of Marvel and Spider-Man Comics Weekly. The cents Fantastic Four 136 contained a half-page letters page and an ad for the first issue of the forthcoming Tales of the Zombie black and white magazine. Clearly someone wasn’t paying attention as the same comic already contained a full page advert for that particular magazine.
.
.
.
.
.
View
Aug 1, 2026
This is the view from my kitchen window. Forty years ago there were cows in the field behind my house but the farm has long gone. In my youth I would watch the farmer bring the cows out of the field and across the road to the farm for milking. He would just hold up his hand, the traffic would stop, and the cows would slowly make their way on their own. They knew the way just like they knew when it was time for the farmer to come and open the gate.
That road was busy then but it is even busier now. Plans have been submitted for 120 houses to be built on that field. Protests are under way. But I suspect that sooner or later my pretty view will be gone.
Three
Aug 1, 2026
.
Most “Comic Collectors” are weird people who no longer read the comics they collect/buy to speculate with. Ever since the CGC began slabbing comics, making them basically cover artwork in a frame, the contents of a comic has become unimportant. All that matters is the condition of the cover; Is it an “iconic” cover with the first appearance of some hero or villain?; Has it got a “Good Girl” image?; Is it a Number One? We have reached the point of 4,000 slabbed Amazing Fantasy 15s and it is still considered “rare” as well as valuable. Collectors speculate on “grails”. No one reads the comics. I am not that interested in just owning a comic because it has an “iconic” cover image. I am more interested in comics that contain good stories. I read them now in the same way I did when I was ten years old.
Published in 2007, Helmet of Fate is a five-part anthology miniseries about Dr. Fate’s lost helmet traveling across the DC Universe. It passes sequentially to Detective Chimp, Ibis the Invincible, Sargon the Sorcerer, Black Alice, and Zauriel. None of these characters become the new Dr. Fate; the story continues in the Countdown to Mystery series.
.
.
.
Four of the comics in this short series of five are unreadable. However the Detective Chimp issue is everything a comic should be. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. I like the Brian Bolland cover. Bill Willingham tells a story which also re-caps Bobo’s history. The artwork by Shawn McManus is great too. This is consequently in third place of My Greatest Comics Of All Time.
Two
Aug 1, 2026
Can I have a whole series as my second most favourite comic? No? Well in that case if I had to choose a single issue out of all the 12 issues produced quarterly between 1999 and 2002 I would choose No 2. The first story “How Things Work Out” is 8 pages covering life and death with a clever triple timeline unfolding. Bonkers Jack B. Quick, Cobweb and First American stories all written by Alan Moore just ensure every page of this issue is a delight. My second most favourite comic I own.
One
Aug 1, 2026
If I had to choose my favourite comic it would be this one entitled “Ladies night” from 2010.
In this issue Zatanna has a premonition that something bad is going to happen to Batgirl within the next day or so.
Zatanna and Diana convince Barbara that she needs a break from crimefighting for a few hours.
They convince her to join them in a Girls-Night-Out.
This story really ought to be taking place in 1988. These scenes look more contemporary.
A few hours/days later Zatanna’s premonition inevitably comes to pass.
Brave and the Bold 33 doesn’t go into such graphic detail as the Moore/Bolland original below.
The comic ends on a more positive note.
Barbara, still alive although now paralysed, recalls that brief happy time when she danced.
The Sunshine Murders
Aug 1, 2026
.
This brand new quirky TV show could do with a more catchy title I think. An odd New Zealand and Greek hybrid devised by Emily Corcoran who also has a major role. She is a NZ female sheep farmer who travels to Greece to find her real father. The first thing she finds is a half-sister police detective played by Dora Chrysikou. Supporting roles are played by Peter Andre and Marina Sirtis. Both were born in London to Greek parents and prove quite adept at speaking the language. Highly recommended.
Most viewers won’t realise that the whole plot and premise is taken from a film entitled Sisterhood Emily wrote and co-starred in way back in 2008. Then the plot revolved around a New Zealand girl who comes to London looking for her father only to find she has a half-sister there.
.
Free Bagde
Aug 1, 2026
.
I still have my free bagde!
.
Riot Squad
Aug 1, 2026
The British mod group the Riot Squad were around for a few years in the mid 1960s and for just a few days/weeks/months? in 1967 they were fronted by David Bowie. They recorded this cover of The Velvet Underground’s “I’m Waiting for the Man” on April 5, 1967 with Bowie on vocals (and harmonica?). The session took place late at night at Decca Studios in West Hampstead London, and was produced by Gus Dudgeon. Unbelievably, the recording remained unreleased for decades, finally appearing in 2013.
PS: A couple of years later in 1969 Gus Dudgeon would set Bowie on his way to long-awaited stardom by producing the single Space Oddity (although not the album).
.
GT
Aug 1, 2026
.
GT4S
Aug 1, 2026
.
Bond Cars
Aug 1, 2026
Here is the not huge manufacturing facility in Preston where it all happened. Somehow 4389 cars came out of here (perhaps at the rate of approx. 12 completed cars per week) between 1963 and 1970. The very last car was a bodyshell which was never finished. It was a design prototype proposed to be an Equipe Mk 3. That is currently being assembled by a long-time Equipe enthusiast/expert.
Size matters
Aug 1, 2026
There was an adjustment from the Golden Age to the Silver Age and again from the Silver Age to the Modern Age but for the most part US comics have stayed the same recognisable familiar size for decades whatever company published any particular title. I think this continued uniformity has helped massively with their long term collectability. Issues whether they were published in 1980 or 2026 can be stored neatly in the same standard-sized boxes.
In the UK over the last 125 years comics have been produced in a bewildering number of different shapes and sizes. Every publisher had their own preferred size(s). Sometimes comics from the same publisher would be printed in a variety of sizes. This lack of uniformity hindered their collectability. You just couldn’t store titles from a variety of publishers neatly.
Marvel UK was one of the worst offenders, constantly experimenting with different formats, page counts. and price points.
The people running Marvel UK didn’t have a plan. Random titles. Different size comics. Different shaped comics. Glossy covers. Newsprint covers. Umpteen different price points. Weeklies. Monthlies. Fortnightlies. Specials. One-offs. Licensed characters. Star Wars. You name it. Everything was flung at the wall to see if anything would stick.
They published dozens of different nursery age comics through the 1980s and 1990s. Few titles survived longer than six months. This Marvel UK comic reprinted DC material. Unsurprisingly, this title didn’t find an audience either.
Panini for the most part did publish their comics in the more recognisable US shape and size.
Here is an odd sized Spawn from Titan. At first glance it is “magazine” sized but it is one ich taller than all the regular magazines on my shelves such as Warrens or Mads. This Marvel UK X-Men is as tall as the Spawn but even wider. Consequently it doesn’t sit neatly with all my other magazines. Titan were still using the same stupid format in 2013 for this Batman.
.
.
.
The Magic Robot 