We've been in London for a long weekend and of course that involved me sloping off to some comic shops. I can't recommend highly enough the folk at 30th Century Comics at Putney. And before anyone suggests this is just blatant advertising for them, please don't as they are the best for back issues - British, American and lots more. There are other comic shops worth visiting incl. Gosh and Orbital, it's simply that at Putney, they have the best back issue selection and their knowledge is excellent.
I spent ages in their basement digging in their pocket library boxes and found some lovely Super Detective Libraries which filled gaps in my collection. Incl. 5 Lesley Shane adventures; a Blackshirt I'd been looking for; an issue of an obscure Picture Library series, "Scotland Yard"; another obscure series, "Private Eye"; a text Silent Three issue and a Schoolgirls' Picture Library issue - The Silent Three Fight Back.
Upstairs again, The Phantom label on a box attracted me like a magnet. What a pile of Australian Frew Phantoms. Spent rather a lot and bought quite a pile incl. the Lee Falk tribute issue and 2 of the 300 page Annuals, 1999 and 2000. What a day. I could have lived there. If they provided pizza and coffee, I'd happily camp out in their basement.
Not only that but, before we left for London, I visited a couple of pals and one of them was getting boxes ready for the upcoming mart and I found British pocket libraries that he had for sale, and, he let me have my choice dirt cheap. They were all westerns, apart from one and I took a selection, some of which were from lesser known publisher and were reprints of Spanish stories. One oddity was a reprint of the Bonelli comic, "Tex Willer, translated from the Italian original. Something I never knew had been published in the U.K. The non-western comic was a Miller b&w reprint in pocket book size, Marvel Tales #3, which reprints Atlas stories, incl. The Menace of the Mole Men.
