More Thorpe and Porter

This article found inside an old copy of “Paperbacks Pulp & Comic Collector” magazine sheds some more light onto the beginning, middle and end of this Leicester based publisher and distributor. Most of the article refers to paperbacks rather than comics. However the Grand Comic Database has recently begun to expand it’s listings (and sometimes cover images) of these increasingly forgotten UK comics.

Thorpe and Porter

PS: As well as producing their own comics, and tearing off thousands of comic covers to create the “Double Double” publications, Thorpe and Porter are most well known as the people who imported and distributed Marvel/DC/Dell/Charlton/ACG (and others?) comics to British newsagents in the 1960s and early 1970s. Marvel had the foresight to print covers with British prices already on. DC and the rest made Thorpe and Porter work. I wonder how many (or how few) people Thorpe and Porter employed to stamp the prices onto the covers of (predominately) DC comics back then. First it was 9d, then 10d, 1/-, 5p, 6p, 7½p etc.  That must have been a mind-numbingly thankless task. It was evidently done manually, rather than by machine as each cover would have the price in a different place. Mostly a light-coloured area was chosen, which usually meant the hero’s face! Can YOU spot the Thorpe and Porter British price stamp on these covers?

Here it is enlarged…..

And enlarged again………..