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| Copyright DC COMICS |
Remember when DC Comics upped the price of all their mags to 25 cents and increased the page count to 52? They weren't exactly a success with readers and were purportedly part of the reason for DC being overtaken by Marvel when it came to sales. I thought they were great though, and superb value for money (even more so in the UK, where we got them for 7 and a half pence) considering all the back-up stories (new and reprint) that we got for our dosh. If not for the short-lived 52 page line, I might never have got to read some old strips and learn of characters from the '30s, '40s, and '50s that were previously unknown to me.
There were 11 issues in all of 52 page Action Comics, of which I had only 7 in my current collection until I recently tracked down the missing 4 to complete the set. "This calls for a celebration!" I thought, and decided to present you Crivvies with a cover gallery of the full run. The 7 I already had I've owned for decades and were replacements for my originals bought back in the day (early '70s), so I don't know why it's taken me so long to get around to buying the rest of them. However, I've finally accomplished it and can now share the covers with you here. Remember any of them? Tell us about it in the comments section.
Note that the old 'attention grabber' of featuring Clark and Superman as separate individuals has been utilised on 2 covers out of the 11. This was a popular sales ploy by DC at the time, which presumably increased sales of such issues, hence it being repeated every now and again.
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| This ish and the next one say 48 pages - obviously not counting the covers |
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| Now we have 52 - well it sounds better value for money than 48, doesn't it? |
5 comments:
Ever one of 'em a winner, Kid! I've been working for some time now to build a complete collection (reading copies mostly) of the 25-centers from mid '71 to mid '72. It was the peak era of collecting for me, although I was still collecting up until the early 80s.
I personally loved that era of DC which delivered more entertainment for the money. They did even better with the 100-pagers which started at fifty cents. Probably because they felt the pressure of becoming number two, DC always seemed more interested in finding a better package.
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I don't think I'll ever have a complete collection of every 52 page comic, B, 'cos I didn't buy every title back then. However, with the few that I did, there's only one 52 page comic I need to complete the set.
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I've got several 100-pagers, RJ, but I didn't think they were quite so attractive at the time. Perhaps the reprint quotient was just a bit too high for me? The 52-pagers were just the right mix of the new and the old.
The 52 pagers were brilliant and like baggsey I am also trying to track a lot of these down ( reading copies as well). I had everyone of the comics noted here at the time, except 405 which I aim to pick up on my next trip to Brighton at the end of the month which means I'll have them all. Issues 406 and 413 are my favourites.
I always try pick up titles I couldn't buy first time around that I wanted but missed do you just repurchase ones you had Kid?. Incidentally I was just getting started on my blog showing these Action comics covers- gutted 😶
I do the same as you, McS - buy comics that I missed first time around, whether I knew about them or not, although obviously my priority is ones I actually had. I'm the same with toys; if it was one I'd have liked at the time but didn't have (like Captain Action for example), I'll aim to add it to my collection - either an original or a faithful reissue.
As for your proposed post - do it anyway, and you can save yourself some trouble by using the scans on this blog. It would be interesting to read your views on them.
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