Alan Class & Co Ltd

In the 1960s Alan Class was located in Shoreditch and Hampstead London. In the 1980s Alan operated from premises in Regent Street. Then he moved to Islington. Here, the three story (and basement) premises were the last building standing on the corner of a street where it would originally have been attached to a row of terraced houses. Alan used the ground floor and basement.

The Grand Comics Database

For the few people who may not be aware of it, this site is a great place to search, browse or just waste time at. Well, its slightly more interesting than looking at cat videos on YouTok or TikTube. They have a great URL too https://www.comics.org/

The Grand Comics Database (GCD) is a nonprofit, internet-based organization of international volunteers dedicated to building an open database covering all printed comics throughout the world.

More power to the elbow of whoever began the daunting task of submitting covers and info about Alan Class comics to the Grand Comics Database but there are certainly a number of discrepancies  when it comes to dates. Alan didn’t put dates on his books. It certainly helped their shelf life in the newsagents. No one knew if they were fresh this month or a year old! 

https://www.comics.org/publisher/3391/

Something isn’t right here though. I doubt Weird Planets was available in 1962/1963. I remember buying new issues in the second half of the 1960s. Whoever posted this data into the GCD has looked at the content inside the comic and assumed Alan published stuff at the exact same time it was appearing new in comics in the States. That couldn’t have happened. Alan was buying plates that were at least two, but more likely three, four or more years old. For example this issue of Suspense features a Flash Gordon story originally published in the US in 1967. So Alan’s comic was probably published in 1968 at the earliest. But I suspect 1969 or even 1970 is the correct date for it. And the back cover has an advert for Weird Planets so 1962/1963 is way out. Weird Planets 23 contains a Magicman story originally published in 1966 which makes me think Weird Planets 23 came out in 1969ish too. 

PS: You can roughly date an Alan Class book by looking at the back cover. Many back covers of Weird Planets have the last page of a story. Comics from the early 1960s have proper advertisements on the back. Then later Alan lists his 4 main titles and perhaps one or two other shortlived titles. After 1974 the back cover just lists the main 6 titles that would continue until the end (approx 1989?).

Strange Suspense Stories

Alan Class must be unique in allowing us the chance to own printing plates of comic covers. Not any old comic covers either. These things are unique and important artifacts in the history of comics. As I write this 30th Century Comics have the final set of printing plates for sale (for Suspense 29 with the third ever Thor story from Journey into Mystery 85 inside and on the cover). I haven’t kept track of how many cover plate sets Alan has sold over the last decade. Probably less than 100 and probably only a few dozen with covers featuring Marvel Comics characters. Collectors items indeed.

 

Pence Suspense

When Alan Class begaan publishing Tales of Suspense circa 1963 all his comics were 68 pages thick. A decade or so later he’d nearly used up his inventory and began reprinting his reprints. By then the prices had increased and he had also reduced the number of pages to 52.

Consequently when the contents of issue No 2 were re-issued in No 133 a couple of stories needed to be omitted. For reasons unknown he decided to omit a story that had its title featured at the bottom of the cover. No problem. He amended the cover to include the title of a story that was inside the comic.

Time moves on. Time to reprint issue No 133 once more. But Alan has either forgotten about changing the cover or possibly couldn’t find the changed plates or possibly didn’t think anyone would actually notice that issue Nos 161 and 199 featured a story title on the cover that wasn’t actually within the comic.

PS: For completeness the cover originally appeared on Astonishing No 58 cover dated February 1957. Marvel didn’t even think of reprinting old “Atlas” inventory for years. We in the UK had regular access to post-comic code 1950s weirdness like this for 30 years up to the 1980s.

More Marvel Medallion-Coins

This comic was titled Amazing Stories of Suspense from issue No 3 until the end of the run apart from the times Alan reprinted the first two issues and couldn’t be bothered to correct the logo. Perish the thought that someone might get this comic mixed up with the other pence Suspense.

When I posted about these here last year I wondered how I had acquired one. I would have been unlikely to send money to the States in the mid 1970s even if I could have worked out how. I think I’ve found my answer within the covers of this Alan Class comic. Tales of Suspense 133 (and presumably the other Class comics published the same month) had adverts for the Medallion-Coins on the inside front and inside rear covers.

I’m sure I would have been far happier cutting an order form out of the back cover of an Alan Class comic than defacing a Marvel comic back then.

I wonder how many readers of an Alan Class comic in the mid 1970s would or could invest £10 to get a silver Medallion-Coin??

Was this the only time Alan Class comics contained an advert? There were ads for Encyclopedias in early 1960s issues but they were being sold by Alan himself. Sometimes the inside front and rear covers contained story but more often than not they were just left blank.

Sinister Tales

This early Alan Class comic is unusual for featuring three or four 1950s Atlas war strips that have never been reprinted again by Alan or anyone else. Mostly the main six Class comics contained SF/Horror/Fantasy fare. It seems early Class comics had adverts on the inside front cover and on the back cover. Admittedly the fist ad was for other books he was selling. The back cover was an ad for stamp collecting (we did that in those days for some reason?!?). For most of the runs of Alan’s comics they contained no adverts at all apart from a list of the other comics he was selling. I wonder why? Was it too much trouble or didn’t potential advertisers think the comics were selling in sufficient numbers compared to “proper” UK comics like Lion and Valiant etc?

The Photo Journal Guide to Alan Class Comic Books

It boggles the mind that someone would spend the time collecting (almost) all of the 1472 issues produced by Alan Class but here they are. It’s far more convenient (and far more complete) than the clicking and scrolling required to reach all the images in the Grand Comic Database site.

He does however clear up the mystery of the two different issues of Suspense No 90. One issue just had a typo on the cover. It really should have been No 96.

You can find the “book” right here.

How much?

£452 and not forgetting the 64p. Well you do get free postage. Personally I think a poor condition copy of Creepy Worlds 32 is worth about 64p tops. Even less when encapsulated as you can’t read it or check how many detached pages there actually are. I doubt that it has “cream to off-white pages” either.

And then scrolling further down eBay I see the same comic for sale at a staggering $29999.95. Admittedly this one comes complete with the cover printing plates. But the seller would have purchased this package for a fraction of the current asking price from 30th Century Comics just few years ago. I own a few similar comics with plates myself purchased for approx £20/£30 each at the time. There are other Class comics complete with cover printing plates still for sale and reasonably priced at 30th Century Comics (but not Creepy Worlds 32 or any other issues with FF covers) right now.

I recall a few years ago when some chancer wanted $49999.99 for a similar comic that didn’t even have the printing plates. Interesting to note looking at the back cover, that when Creepy Worlds 32 was first published (in 1964 or perhaps 1965) Alan had yet to publish the last two of his 6 main titles. Uncanny Tales and Astounding Stories began circa 1966. I recall purchasing No1 of Astounding Stories from my local newsagent as soon as it appeared on their counter. (For some odd reason I was deluded enough to collect first issues of anything and everything at the time). Not printing months or years on the covers (or inside) did give the comics a longer shelf life than all the other weeklies then available and some Class comics sat in the newsagents for months. Most of my money went on Marvel/DC/UK “Power” comics in those days.

 

More How much?

So whilst I’m browsing the Grand Comic Database to check out Alan Class Comics covers I noticed an odd thing. At some point in 1974/1975 as inflation inflated prices increased from 6p to 8p overnight. It must have happened quickly as some issues numbers are available at both prices. The 8p issues have the 6p crossed out in a very unprofessional way. Fair enough. But then the following month(s) some titles reverted to 6p. Had Alan forgotten he’d changed the prices or were comics with higher issue numbers printed before lower ones? Or were all issues available for a period of a few months at both prices? Anything is possible. The back covers say “published monthly” but I read somewhere that Alan actually published his main 6 titles 10 times per year. There are even a few issues where he forgot to number the comics altogether.

So prices went up from 6p to 8p and would continue to rise throughout the 1970s and 1980s. There are various Alan Class Comics in the Grand Comic Database showing 6p or 8p prices. Why then does my copy of Creepy Worlds 140 clearly show a 7p price??? I’ve perused the GCD once more but can’t see any other issues of his comics, whatever the title,  bearing that particular price point. How odd!

Variant covers

According to Wikipedia and most places on the Interweb the first comic to be printed with two completely different covers (as opposed to covers with the same artwork but different prices) was DC’s Man of Steel No1 of 1986.

Alan Class beat them to it by a decade and a half with Amazing stories of Suspense 90!

Coming around again

The first 4 issues of Alan Class’ Creepy Worlds and Secrets of the Unknown displayed comic code stamps in the top right corner as did the original comic covers when they were first published in the US in the late 1950s. This was probably a mistake as the 8 issues may have contained the story featured on the covers but all other contents were random often containing one or two pre-code stories as well. So from issues 5 onwards Alan invented his own code (?!?).

Approx 700 comics later across 6 titles and it seemed that Alan had exhausted his inventory and material started appearing again, but for Creepy Worlds 147 he forgot to modify the cover so for one final time a comic code stamp appeared on a Class comic, This was rectified for later reprints of reprints when the material came around again.

Patsy and Lois comics

A few days ago I awoke with an image of the cover of “Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane” No 50 in my mind even though I probably haven’t owned a copy since 1973! Memory seems to work along similar lines to a tape recorder. The majority of mundane memories get overwritten by new ones. However, with important/traumatic happenings in your life the brain must put a “do not delete” marker so that you can forever recall them for good or bad. Yet some mundane memories of various days have stayed with me with startling clarity. These memories haven’t been overwritten and I can still vividly picture the scenes after many decades whilst more recent events are forgotten.

For example I still recall random events that took place on a holiday in 1965, although I can’t recall the resort. In the 1960s family summer holidays were usually a week at the coast in a static caravan. For some reason in 1965 the accommodation was at a boarding house/small hotel. As we arrived at the hotel I noticed a shop further down the road with a comic spinner rack outside amidst the usual seaside sales tat. It didn’t take long before I’d blagged a two shilling coin from my father and set off to investigate. The comics on the spinner were an immediate disappointment. No superheroes at all. Some of the comics looked quite tatty as if they’d been there for years exposed to the salt air. Apart from a few Dell comics featuring long-forgotten western heroes, the rest were all GIRLS comics. I picked up a DC love comic and checked the small print on page three. It said 1963!! Still I went carefully through all the comics until I found two Lois Lane comics. Hooray! They weren’t too girly for me. They had Superman on the cover!

Inside the shop I proffered my two shillings and was surprised to get a shilling change. I was expecting to be charged 10d for each comic. I still had funds for two more comics! I carefully went through all the comics on the spinner rack once more. I found a Dobie Gillis comic. I assumed Dobie was a girl’s name (and I didn’t notice the full title was “The many loves of Dobie Gillis”) but the cover showing a spaceship looked interesting. Then finally I noticed a lone Patsy and Hedy comic amongst all the DCs. This really did look far too girly for me but it surprisingly had a Marvel comics logo top left so why not take a chance if it was only 6d? I was quite pleased to have added four more issues to my small but growing collection of “American” comics for the princely sum of two shillings.

I can even recall the four issues I bought that day. In fact I still own that Lois Lane number 54 fifty two years later.

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It’s funny what things stick in your mind. I still can’t recall the resort but I vividly remember the next day of the holiday when right by the beach I found a kiosk selling icecreams etc and ALAN CLASS COMICS. I’d never seen these before but immediately realised they contained black and white reprints of REALLY OLD comics. Over the course of the week I purchased at least half a dozen which were read cover-to-cover sitting in a deckchair during one of those perfect summer days that only existed when you were young.

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