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31 March 2020

Wonder comic from Esso, covers gallery part 2 of 2

I've looked (here) at Wonder comic before but in case you missed it this rare comic was 16 pages long (4 in full colour) and was professionally produced with high quality artists on each strip. The lead strip is 'Wonder boy and tiger' and the other strip in colour is 'Hovercraft patrol' by Luis Bermejo. 

As a starter for 10 here's my guide to what Wonder looked like - I've got most of the issues up to issue 20 but not all of them so if you can help fill in any of the gaps just let me know.

I'll try and cover the contents of Wonder another day but enjoy my covers gallery for now...

Lew Stringer covered Wonder on his old blog here and here   



Wonder comic from Esso, issue 11

Wonder comic from Esso, issue 12

Wonder comic from Esso, issue 13

Wonder comic from Esso, issue 14

Wonder comic from Esso, issue 15

Wonder comic from Esso, issue 16

Wonder comic from Esso, issue 17

Wonder comic from Esso, issue 18
cover not to hand

Wonder comic from Esso, issue 19
cover not to hand

Wonder comic from Esso, issue 20

30 March 2020

Lieutenant Blueberry - Egmont/Methuen reprints

Continuing my look at the reprints here in the UK of the work of Jean Giraud / Moebius (see here and here) I should also flag up the earliest (and thinnest!) reprint volumes...

Like all other volumes highlighted so far these volumes are pretty pricey to get hold of these days.

Published in 1977 this first volume, like all the others highlighted here, look a lot like a 'normal' Asterix / Tintin volume. This has 46 pages and, again like most Asterix books, it's translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge.

This second volume was also published in 1977 (and was also translated by Anthea Bell & Derek Hockridge.




29 March 2020

Moebius - Titan Books reprints (part 2)

Continuing from my previous post (here) concerning Moebius's work being reprinted by Titan in the late 1980s - you get a lot of (just great) comics for your money in these volumes as they're pretty long, but they do seem pretty hard to get hold of, and pretty costly even when you do find them. 

I picked up 4 of the 5 volumes in this set in a comic shop in France a couple of Summer's back, I've read volume 1 (and it was just fantastic) but I'm missing volume 4 - the search continues!

Blueberry volume 1 - Chihuahua pearl (Titan books reprint volume) - published September 1989

Blueberry volume 2 - Ballad for a coffin (Titan books reprint volume) - published November 1989

Blueberry volume 3 - Angel face (Titan books reprint volume) - published January 1990

Blueberry volume 4 - The ghost tribe (Titan books reprint volume)

Blueberry volume 5 - The end of the trail (Titan books reprint volume) - published May 1990

28 March 2020

Moebius - Titan Books reprints (part 1)

A recent acquisition of a Moebius book pushed me to the internet to track down what other volumes there are in this series - subtitled 'The collections fantasies of Jean Giraud'.

I seem to recall they were advertised for years in Comics International as remaindered books - this lack of interest now means that the books seem to be very expensive - prices from £30 upwards. Yikes. Good luck getting hold of an affordable set.

Moebius, the collected fantasies of Jean Giraud volume 1 - Titan Books

Moebius, the collected fantasies of Jean Giraud volume 2 - Titan Books

Moebius, the collected fantasies of Jean Giraud volume 3 - Titan Books

Moebius, the collected fantasies of Jean Giraud volume 4 - Titan Books

Moebius, the collected fantasies of Jean Giraud volume 5 - Titan Books

Moebius, the collected fantasies of Jean Giraud volume 6 - Titan Books

There are more details on the Jean Giraud Wikipedia page here 

27 March 2020

Jeff Arnold in Italy - reprint comics (part 2)

Having looked (here) at Jeff Arnold / Riders of the Range reprints in Italian comics I've now realised there was a 2nd series - again, this is an incomplete listing as I've only looked at Google images - but anyway, it's a starter for 10 for you all...

Revolt of the Sioux reprint


Presumably a reprint of Billy the Kid

A reprint of Down Mexico way???

Sam Bass reprint


And then there's this volume as well - looks like a Spanish reprint to me...

26 March 2020

Rob van de Rovers

I've looked here and here at John Gillatt's unique covers for the Dutch reprints of Billy's Boots - a find on Twitter last night sent me off to look for Roy of the Rovers reprints in the same series...It's not a complete list but it's a good start...

Rob van de Rovers - volume 2
Rob van de Rovers - volume 4

Rob van de Rovers - volume 5 and 6

Rob van de Rovers - volume 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 & 12

Rob van de Rovers - volume 15

Rob van de Rovers - volume 17

Rob van de Rovers - volume 18


Rob van de Rovers - volume 19

Rob van de Rovers - volume 21

 Rob van de Rovers - volume 23


25 March 2020

UPDATED: Beano & Dandy character calendars

Following on from a previous post (here) about Oor Wullie calendars I realised that there must be other DC Thomson calendars out there so I set off to google Beano calendars - so here's my guide to collecting them...

Don't forget you can review Commando calendars here and Judge Dredd calendars here

New material is highlighted in red but the summary of where I'm up to now is that I have images for calendars for 1986-2019 apart from 1996, 2001 and a 'skinny' 2005 calendar (assuming it exists). Of course there could be more out there so if I missed anything just let me know.











Interestingly the 1992 edition has a reference that says "Number 7" in the top right cover - indicating that this is the 7th edition of the calendar...

...hmmm, and the 1993 calendar says "Number 8"...

...hmmm, and the 1994 calendar says "Number 9"...



...thingk the 1995 one says 'number 10' in the top right corner

There was also a combined Beano and Dandy poster calendar for 1995...(exclusive to WH Smith)




no sign of 1996 (yet!)

Here's the 1997 calendar - you'll see from the back cover picture that this is (helpfully) number as number 12 so there must have been a calendar for 1996 (to be number 11)


The 1998 calendar

The 1999 calendar (left) and the envelope it came in (right)


The 2000 calendar (right) and the envelope it came in (left)


Here's the 2002 calendar


2003 calendar


Then 2004...


No 2005 calendar (I think!) so here's the 2006 edition... 

Hmmm, so for 2004 and 2006 it seems there were 2 calendars for Beano fans...

Here's a great collection of calendars...
The top row shows (in order) 2015, 2016, 2012 and 2014.
The bottom row shows (in order) 2013, 2017, 2011 and 2010.
So that's 2010-2017 in total



The 2015 calendar...


The 2017 calendar...


...And then the 2018 calendar...



...and here we are for 2019...


calendar for 2020

In 2001 Beanobooks put out (at least) 3 calendars related to other characters...