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I recently acquired The Amazing Spider-Man King-Size Special #6 (1969), which reprints the main tale from Spidey's first Annual published in 1964. Being the proud owner of said issue, I dug it out to compare the reprint with the original and to play spot the difference. (Nothing major, just minor amendments to footnotes.) The Annual contains several pin-ups (the reprint doesn't), as does the second Annual from the following year, 1965. Then I had one of my customary brainwaves for which I'm so justly famous: why not combine both sets of pin-ups and show them to all you cavortin' Crivvies?
No sooner said than done (that's a lie - took me ages), so paste your pulsatin' peepers 'pon Spidey's most famous foes! At least they were back in the '60s - he may have some even more famous ones by now. Sherbet Dabs all round to all those who can name them. (That's another lie - I'm incorrigible.)
Incidentally, Facsimile Editions of the first Annual and ASM #1 are due out in a month or thereabouts, so clear a space on your shelves for them. My copies are already ordered and paid for. Can't wait.
The sixth annual was my first look at that tremendous tale from ASM Annual #1. It blew me away then and still does when I see it in a collection. I will for darn sure get the facsimile, if just for the awesome full-page Ditko art featuring each of the Sinister Six.
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Even though I've got various reprints of the tale, RJ (as well as the original), I'll be getting the facsimile as well. Just a shame it'll be a spine-stapled comic instead of square-bound as it was in 1964, but it'll still be impressive.
ReplyDeleteI heard on the news this morning that Bristol Zoo is to close and move to a new location. It was during a school day-trip to Bristol Zoo in 1976 that I bought my first ever American Marvel comics which cost 10p each so I bought 10 for £1. The most recent US Marvel comic that I bought was Conan The Barbarian #25/300 which cost £4.85 - at 1976 prices I could have bought 48 comics for that much!!
ReplyDeleteAnother place from your childhood closing, eh, CJ? Hopefully the new zoo will give more space to the animals and be better for them.
ReplyDeleteAlas, with declining circulation comes increased prices. If Conan #25/300 had sold in as many numbers as a '70s issue, it would be far less than the £4.85 you paid for it. Seems like only yesterday to me that US comics were 50p - and even then I thought them expensive, 'cos I remembered when they were a shilling (5p).
Kid, I've certainly been feeling a sense of finality in the last few months with my primary school closing, my secondary school demolished, the bus station where I bought POTA #5 demolished and now Bristol Zoo closing. I didn't actually buy those ten US Marvels in Bristol Zoo itself but in a motorway service station on the way there - but obviously I wouldn't have been in that particular place if we hadn't gone to Bristol Zoo.
ReplyDeleteOooooh I didn't know there was a facsimile edition of this, very interesting . I saw these posters for the first time in MWOM and/or Spiderman Comics Weekly ( maybe even before that in Odhams Pow! etc. Great stuff.
ReplyDeleteYeah, CJ, I know what you mean. It's as if we're just one step ahead of all our childhood 'signposts' crumbling behind us - and when the last one falls, the worry is that we will also - or not long after. (Cheery thought.)
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Many of them were reprinted first in MWOM, with the later ones in SMCW - if memory serves, that is. I don't remember any of them appearing in the Pow! though, McS.
US comics were 40p when I first started properly collecting them. What was even better though was that, even if the US price increased for a double-sized issue, the UK price stayed at 40p!
ReplyDeleteI got Marvel Tales 191 (triple sized issue, complete 3 part drug abuse story) and 192 (double sized issue, complete 2 part Death of Gwen story) for 40p each when they were published in 1986! How's that for value? I'm pretty sure that the triple sized FF 25th anniversary issue shortly afterwards was only 40p too.
I remember buying those issues at the time, DS, and still have them. Was that really back in 1986? Only seems like a fart away. When I first started buying US comics, I think they were still only 10d, then a shilling. Even when they were just under a pound they were pretty good value for money. Now they seem dearer than some paperback books.
ReplyDeleteIn the gallery of Spidey's foes the only ones I've never heard of are The Living Brain and The Crime-Master. I assume "Jonah's Robot" is the first Spider-Slayer but hadn't acquired that name yet?
ReplyDeleteI guess so, CJ, though I thought it had been called the Spider-Slayer from day one. However, there was a second version, so maybe that's when the name started to be used. Surely you've heard of the Burglar? He was in Spidey's very first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15.
ReplyDeleteOops, I read 'never' as 'ever', CJ. I've got it now.
ReplyDeleteYeah, when Stan brought back Smythe and his robot back in the late sixties, Smythe-- who doesn't rate an entry here-- changed from a tweedy eccentric to an obsessed megalomaniac who was willing to kill off Spidey to save his scientific reputation. Not sure how much of a rep he'd have accrued if he'd been linked to the crime and sent to prison, of course. The Spider-Slayer name was congruent with Smythe's newfound murderous mania.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reminding us all, GP. I last read the tale back in the early or mid-'80s, so couldn't quite remember all the details. In fact, anything I do recall is based on my first reading back in the early '70s in an issue of Spider-Man Comics Weekly. I know I re-read it when it was reprinted in Marvel Tales ('80s), but my memories of that reading are even more vague.
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