1958

When an import ban was lifted in the autumn of 1959 Thorpe and Porter immediately began importing DC, Charlton, ACG etc comics from the States to distribute to UK newsagents in quantity in late 1959/early 1960. From surviving issues bearing those “much loved” 9d ink stamps it appears that the earliest DC comics distributed here had October and November 1959 cover dates. However there exist Archie and Charlton comics with Thorpe and Porter ink stamps in circulation in the UK showing publication dates from earlier in 1959 and even from 1958 but there’s no way of knowing if they were actually distributed here nearer their publication date as a trial run before the bulk of comics shipped or just happened to get mixed up with the main late 1959 consignment. The oldest comic I have ever come across that sports a Thorpe and Porter ink stamp is this Charlton Romantic Story No 40 as the indicea on the inside cover shows a September 1958 date.

PS: Oddly this was a 25c comic but with a 9d stamp. Thorpe and Porter would go on to price comics with more than 36 pages at 1/3d. This particular title most usually cost 10c in its country of origin. Oddly just the previous issue had contained 68 pages for 15c. It seems Charlton didn’t continue with this experiment. All issues in the series apart from No 39 and No 40 were standard 36 page comics.

PPS: Disclaimer: More detailed details can be found elsewhere on the Interweb but briefly….Charlton comics were distributed in the UK by Thorpe and Porter initially in 1959/1960 but circa 1961 that changed with L Miller taking over (and even getting UK prices printed on the covers for a couple of years). Once Len died his company began to be wound down from 1964 and briefly RV and then Thorpe and Porter once more took over the distribution of all the bonkers Charlton comics that came to the UK.

Mysteries of (the) Unexplored (Worlds)

Another UK reprint “album” that is misleading. The (Ditko) cover is from a 1958 Charlton comic but the interior contains no Charlton material at all. The reasons why they decided to add a “the” and remove the “worlds” we’ll never know.

It is full of Captain Future and similar stuff set in far flung (well it was in 1959) 2028. The team of The Buccaneers of Space consist of Slim and Tubby and Jock and the Prof etc. How original!

You have to admire G.T. Ltd’s audacity of inventing a ficticious seal of approval for their “albums”.

Published every six weeks

I’ve been reading comics for what seems like forever (since 1963) and I never noticed this until today. I’ve just looked at some other comics from the period and it seems Charlton issued many of their titles in 1973 every six weeks rather their more usual bi-monthly frequency.

Here in the UK most comics were either weekly or monthly. In the States anything seemed to go. Many Dell comics were only published four times a year. DCs were often published eight times a year with the indicia listing the months when there wasn’t an issue of your favourite comic. A few Archie comics had really odd publishing schedules. Six comics of a title published in the Summer over two months and then no more for months after that. Smaller publishers were just as random.

This particular Charlton comic featured the annual “Statement of Ownership”. Of the earlier comic used for the statement it seems that 213658 issues were printed. 121232 reached newsstands and were presumably sold. 91815 reached newsstands and weren’t sold. The figures were all quite similar in the following years too. Having those figures in front of them why on earth did they continue to print so many more copies than they knew they could actually sell? It doesn’t make financial sense (unless by having their own printing presses it actually only cost them 1cent per issue to produce?). I’ve often wondered if some of those “unsold” issues weren’t just destroyed but were the ones that ended up here in the UK. I particularly recall buying Charlton comics in the Autumn of 1974 that had newly appeared on the spinner racks yet displayed 1973 dates.

So I went through some more of my Charlton Ghostly Haunts and found these circulation figures:

YEAR   PRINTED   SOLD   UNSOLD

1972   213658   121232   91815

1973   240400   153600   88665

1974   220000   126800   90784

1975   210000   107946   84672

1976   230000   110000   114340

The differences between the totals of sold/unsold and printed are made up by subscription issues (a mere 50 or 60 each month) and spoiled copies that for whatever reason didn’t print right and weren’t a good enough quality to sell. In 1975 there were 17000 spoiled copies of one issue!!

PS: The host of the comic was Ms Winifred Witcherly (Winnie the Witch). Her looks changed dramatically from issue to issue depending on who was doing the artwork. She varied from looking quite sexy to looking downright bizarre (if Ditko was doing a rush-job).

PPS: This Charlton comic, like all the others they published from the 1940s/50s to the 1980s suffers from diabolical printing, blurred text, terrible colouring and even the pages are poorly trimmed. I think the comics got worse as the years went by as the printing presses (originally used to print Cornflakes boxes?!?) began to wear out.

Our Atomic Future

Charlton Comics Mysteries of Unexplored Worlds 5 from 1957. The future then was expected to be an improvement on the past. Now we’re not so sure.

Lets just have a closer look at the last two panels.

In the year 2008 our electricity costs are at an all-time high. Fifty years on and many power stations still use gas or coal. Older nuclear power stations are due to be de-commissioned and our government is dragging its feet as regards decisions on replacements. The set-up costs for nuclear power stations are enormous. What do you do with the waste? There are numerous issues of safety and financing to consider.

I’m not sure if I’d be happy with a mini nuclear reactor under my bonnet. Although with petrol at £6 per gallon…………………….

Charlton’s Go-Go

Most of the remaining issues in the UK seem to be owned by Silveracre.com !!