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Post by ripper on Jan 11, 2013 14:54:39 GMT
Anyone who read comics in the 1960s, 1970s or 1980s will probably have come across Alan Class comics at some time. They published a wide range of titles up until their demise in 1989, but board members will probably best remember their supernatural/sci-fi titles Astounding Stories, Creepy Worlds, Secrets of the Unknown, Sinister Tales, Suspense Stories and Uncanny Tales, most of which topped 200 issues each. These comics reprinted US strips from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, concentrating mainly on a mix of supernatural, fantasy and sci-fi stories, with occasional superhero stories added for good measure. Alan Class also published war, romance, western and sci-fi only titles, but these were more short-lived and I can only remember buying the titles listed above. Each issue had 68 pages of black and white strips with colour covers. I am not sure if the cover art was original or reprinted from US comic covers. Buying these comics were a good way of getting your hands on lots of US strips at a reasonable cost. I only bought them until the end of the 1970s. You never quite knew what kind of stories would be in a particular issue, as the source material was quite diverse, but at the time I thought they were entertaining reads and offered good value for money.
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Post by pulphack on Jan 11, 2013 16:05:01 GMT
When did these actually stop? I got them as a kid in the seventies, then came across some new ones in a newsagent in Leytonstone at the end of the eighties. I was astounded that they were still going, but I guess they had nothing other than print costs as they weren't edited in any way and were just struck from existing plates that must have been bought years before.
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Post by ripper on Jan 11, 2013 17:20:49 GMT
Pulphack, my understanding is that they ceased in 1989, though I have a feeling that a few outlets were still selling old stock a little later than that. I stopped buying them around 1978 or so. I wish that I had kept more of them as they were a good way of being able to read old strips that would not otherwise have been readily available at an affordable cost.
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Post by dem bones on Jan 11, 2013 20:06:09 GMT
They were a newsagent fixture toward the end of the 'nineties EIGHTIES but i'm not sure they survived into the next decade. Used to pick them up for long bus journey to work, before I realised that carrying a copy of Rex Miller's Slob was the better guarantee of a seat to oneself. Thought I'd charity shopped them ages ago, but bride of dem ("I am not your secretary") just turned up a bundle, so here's a mini covers gallery. I'd forgotten they ran the odd, very short text story, so might give them the once over later.
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Post by ripper on Jan 12, 2013 9:44:27 GMT
Thanks, Dem. I don't think I came across any of the text stories, or if I did then I can't remember any :-). I have a feeling that I came across some being sold around 1990 or possibly 1991 in one of those little shops on a holiday caravan site that seem to sell everything, but I am sure they were old stock.
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Post by valdemar on Jan 29, 2013 10:21:58 GMT
I always used to spend my money on these when I went on holiday, or days out to the seaside. My dad, when he worked away on some construction project or other, used to get me a load from motorway service stations - they never seemed to be available from yer average bog standard newsagent, if I remember rightly. I used to read each copy many times, and started to look out for the work of particular artists whose work always seemed better than the other strips - the artist whose characters had very squared-off finger tips - surely the great Jack Kirby. The artist whose characters had the most alive-looking faces of all? That would be the god-like Steve Ditko. I especially liked the super hero team T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, by the equally great, but underappreciated Wally Wood, whose characters were, as good, if not better than some of the more popular hero teams around. These comics were seen as the spawn of the devil by school teachers, and were ripe for confiscation. This only happened to me once, with an issue that contained a story, which on reflection could only have been gleaned from the EC back catalogue. A grim little tale entitled 'The Janitor', which ended up with the titular factotem being introduced to a furnace by his chilly tenants. A letter was written to my parents, who replied, I believe, that I was allowed to read anything I wanted. Out of all the tales in the series, two have always stuck in my mind: firstly, the man who deliberately weakens an ancient Giant Redwood, so that it will fall on his failing farm, which he has insured. The tree does fall, and the man gets his money - but the tree is intent on revenge. It has been made into many articles, each with a gestalt mind. Things fall on the man, wooden articles fail on him, and he realises that each has been sourced from the tree. He has a modern metal and plastic ocean going yacht made, to sail away and avoid wooden things harming him. He sails into a storm, and as it batters his ship, he is appalled to see the wooden deck warping and writhing into the shape of a terrible smile... The other concerns a simple-minded janitor who is injured at work, and he tells the man who finds him, that he is actually an ancient android, whose memory circuits are in his left arm, and were protected by a metal arm band, long since lost. He's dying, and reveals he's been many people in the past, including Caesar and Hitler. This is hard to believe, but on his left arm is a scar where the band was... and a photo of Hitler shows the same mark, and a statue of Caesar has the mark sculpted in the same place. The janitor dies, leaving his rescuer as baffled as before.
SFX issue 231 has a nice article on Alan Class and the history of his comics. It also contains the wince-inducing tale of what happened when a comics distributor showed him a copy of 'Fantastic Four#1'. I'll say no more.
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Post by ripper on Jan 29, 2013 11:16:02 GMT
Those comics did seem to be more widely available at seaside shops than from standard newsagents for some odd reason. I remember in the mid 1970s walking over a bridge nearly every day to a little shop outside a holiday site where my family were staying to pick up some issues of Creepy Worlds, Sinister Tales etc.
I can't remember the T.H.U.D.E.R. Agents, but I came across some issues featuring The Human Torch.
One particular story that I remember was about a scientist who finds a box containing parts for an alien machine of some kind with very complicated instructions for assembling it. The scientist spends months, possibly years, trying to assemble the machine and eventually succeeds. When he switches on the machine, an alien appears and the scientist asks the alien to take him to his world as by assembling the machine he has shown himself worthy of receiving their advanced knowledge. The alien explains that the machine was sent to Earth by mistake and it is not an advanced piece of technology, just a simple toy to amuse their toddlers.
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Post by valdemar on Jan 29, 2013 12:42:22 GMT
The story you mention is almost the same as the plot of the first part of the 1955 film 'This Island Earth', where the hero [chisel-jawed scientist and pilot, naturally], assembles a machine called an 'Interociter', that he has purchased from a very odd catalogue he's received. On completing it, an alien scientist uses it to request his help. The hero is later told that any child on the alien's planet could have built the 'Interociter'. Comic first? or movie? And that was an odd thing about these comics - you could never just buy one, could you? Despite all your best intentions, you'd walk out of the shop with three or four under your arm.
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Post by ripper on Jan 29, 2013 14:17:32 GMT
I hadn't thought about it, but the plot is, indeed, very similar to that of the first part of This Island Earth. In the film, the aliens had high foreheads, but in the comic they looked like the typical "nordic" type, beloved of UFO contactees of the 1950s e.g. George Adamski. I'm afraid that I have no idea what the title of the story was, nor which Alan Class comic re-printed it :-).
Another story which I have recalled was about an alien spaceship that lands on Earth and announces that it will return in 10 or 20 years or something like that and destroy the planet. This panics the nations of Earth into putting away their rivalries and collaborating on building a spaceship to travel to the aliens' planet to persuade them to leave Earth alone. When the crew arrive on the alien world, they are greeted by the aliens who announce that they were peaceful and had no intention of destroying Earth and just said that to help Earth's nations to stop squabbling and see that they can live and work together in peace and harmony.
It was, indeed, difficult to buy just one Alan Class comic. Their covers were very striking and colourful, and at 68 pages they were good value for money when deciding how to spend your pocket or holiday money. Another reason I liked them was that you could never tell what kind of stories would be lurking inside the covers; there could be horror, SF, fantasy, superhero or jungle stories awaiting you.
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junkmonkey
Crab On The Rampage
Shhhhh! I'm Hiding....
Posts: 98
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Post by junkmonkey on Jan 31, 2013 13:59:37 GMT
I especially liked the super hero team T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, by the equally great, but underappreciated Wally Wood, whose characters were, as good, if not better than some of the more popular hero teams around. Is Wally Wood Under-appreciated? I think he's great, so there's at least two of us. I much prefer his art to Ditko's.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 21, 2013 7:08:48 GMT
It's taken a while, but finally got around to reading some of the anonymous short fiction included as filler in the Class comics. Perfectly adequate for purpose, seems to me they are nowhere near as indispensable as the often terrific short stories to be found in magical Misty. Here's a sample; The Haunted Lagoon: ( Creepy Worlds, #237). Salem, 1700s. Elias Stone, suspected witch drowns while fleeing a vengeful mob. With his dying gurgle, Stone lays a curse on the Lagoon. Henceforth, anyone who dares cross it will suffer the same fate as he. Present day. Laird Craig, greedy, corrupt Real Estate dealer, sets to draining the shunned Lagoon to erect another housing development. Old Elias, still waiting in the depths, has other ideas. The Journey: ( Sinister Tales, #222). Harry has no friends on account of he inexplicably turns a livid shade of blue at the most inopportune moments. His Doctor advises he take up Astronomy, which he does, and immediately discovers a new planet circling the Earth. But what chance does a blue man have of convincing the Astronomy Club of his find? They will think him raving mad! Undeterred. Harry builds the first man-made space rocket and blasts off for the new planet (via the Sun). A friendly reception party await him. He is home at last! New Spectacles: Herbert visits Blooper's Optical Services in desperate need of a new pair of sunglasses. He's just landed a job as caddy at the Idlewild Golf course, but his eyes are too rubbish to see very far. The kindly Optician, rushed off his feet, agrees to provide a pair in double quick time. Herbert picks up the wrong prescription, shrinks and travels back in time. The Sorcerer: Little Johnny wills his favourite toy train to follow him wherever he goes. A much travelled Uncle, who thinks he's seen every marvel in the world, demands to know what the trick is, for such a feat is impossible, even for the most advanced Sorcerer. There's no trick. The boy has incredible powers of belief is all, but now Uncle's ruined everything, he's condemned to as joyless an existence as the rest of mankind.
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