5 June 2023

Comics reference books of Colin Morgan

My look at comic reference books has, to date, covered a number of authors such as...

Lofts & Adley is here
Alan Clark is here 
Dennis Gifford is here 
David Ashford is here
Ray Moore is here

Now it's the turn of Colin Morgan. Just the two books from him

First up is The Rover index. This volume covers the years 1945-73. Ray Moore said of this "...an excellent little book that inspired me to create the Dandy Monster Index three years later. Colin was a lovely man and much missed these 20 years and more". Originally published in 1982. 52 pages including covers, A5 sized, priced at £1.75. "This is a GOLDEN FUN publication" it proudly declares on the back cover. No copyright date but the introduction is dated November 1982.

Ray also said "Colin did produce a much smaller booklet Rover 1942-44 that he gave to a few friends". 

I've now acquired a copy of that booklet and in the introduction Colin says "...When compiling the introduction to the original 'Rover Index' in 1982 I wrote that a revised edition might be published at a later date if information on earlier issues became available. This is that update, taking the story back to the beginning of 1943 and re-writing the 1945 entries to fill in the omissions. This will be the last update in this form as you will now have to be patient and wait for the NEW 'Rover Index' as compiled by Colin Morgan and Derek Marsden in the series to come under the banner of 'Triple M Publications'."

The booklet is very slim - just 12 A5 pages in total (including the covers) and with the index itself only taking up 6 of those pages. On the back of the index it says...
First supplement to THE ROVER INDEX 1945-73, published by Golden Fun 1982.
(c) Colin Morgan 1994
Triple M Publications (limited edition only) 8 copies 3.4.94

So while Ray may have gotten the years covered by the index very slightly wrong he wasn't wrong when he said it was a much smaller booklet given  to a few friends! 8 copies only! Wow, that's about the smallest print run I've ever seen for anything I own.

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