Preview of the first image of Alan Class & Co UNCANNY TALES, 8p Edition.

Advert Description

*!*To See My Other Ads, Please Click The Link “View All Nicci’s Ads” on this page - more than happy to combine postage where applicable*!*

PRICE FOR THIS ITEM INCLUDES POSTAGE COST VIA SECOND CLASS SIGNED FOR.





Near Mint Alan Class & Co Approved Comics copy of UNCANNY TALES.


*Please see photos for a fuller visual description of condition and content. I don't trust the grading system for comics, because it seems to me that even what they call Fine/ Very Fine/ Near Mint can all still have masses of faults, flaws or damage. So I describe comics as best I can, and take a ton of pictures so you can judge for yourself*


Alan Class Comics was a British comics publishing company between 1959 and 1989, owned by Alan Class (born in London, England, 21 July 1937).


The company produced anthology titles, reprinting comics stories from many U.S. publishers of the 1940s to 1960s in a black and white digest format for a UK audience.


Alan Class Comics began as 68 page titles, containing a mix of stories reproduced in black and white with colour covers, and selling for 1s. Each issue measured 235mm × 185mm (9 1/4" × 7 1/4"), slightly wider than the original American versions allowing for all of the original cover art to be seen which was cut in the originals.


During 30 years of publishing, Alan Class produced 26 b/w anthology reprint titles, some 1455 comics. Six of the titles - Astounding Stories, Creepy Worlds, Secrets of the Unknown, Sinister Tales, Suspense Stories and Uncanny Tales - lasted almost through the entire publishing history of the company.


Uncanny Tales issue #1 was first published in May 1963, and by c.1968-1971, the format changed from 68 pages to 48, so this issue, #92 of 187 total issues published by Class, is likely to have been published in 1971 since we hadn't gone decimal before then, the cover price is 8p, and it has 48 pages instead of 68.


Dating Alan Class comic books can be tricky; Mr. Class was a canny businessman, and deliberately didn't date a lot of his publications, demanding that any unsold be returned to him complete. The common practice at the time was to shred unsold copies, but Class re-distributed his returns during the summer period (May through September), when there were huge numbers of very bored children on family holidays with nothing to do. What better for frustrated parents than comic books on sale to shut them up with? Class tapped into this market simply by putting those undated copies back on sale again at holiday resorts.


This issue of Uncanny Tales is listed on the comic book database as being a variant of the 6p cover price edition.
But, due to the fact that the stories printed by Class were all old stories brought over from the States, reprinted anthologies, the content will of course be older.
Contains-

Trapped In The Past! Cover - First appeared as the cover of NoMan #1, Tower 1966, and all of these stories listed here also appeared in the same issue, the first ever issue of NoMan.

Cover - Pencils by Al williamson, inks by Wally Wood.

Trapped In The Past! 10 page story. Script Steve Skeates, inks and pencils Ogden Whitney.

The Warp Wizard's Master Plan! 10 pages. Script by Steve Skeates, pencils and inks by Chic Stone.

Secret In The Sky. 10 pages. Inks and pencils by John Giunta.

Fingers Of Fate! 10 pages. Pencils by Gil Kane, inks by Paul Reinman.

The Good Subterranean. 10 pages. Pencils and inks both by Ogden Whitney.

Features T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENT NoMan.
T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents are a fictional team of superheroes. T.H.U.N.D.E.R. being the acronym for "The Higher United Nations Defense Enforcement Reserves". They appeared in comic books originally published by Tower Comics in the 1960s. They were an arm of the United Nations and were notable for their depiction of the heroes as everyday people whose heroic careers were merely their day jobs.

The series was also notable for featuring some of the better artists of the day, such as Wally Wood. The team first appeared in T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents #1 (cover-dated Nov. 1965).

Tower Comics - T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents was a bimonthly comic book published by Tower Comics. It ran for 20 issues (Nov. 1965 - Nov. 1969), plus two short-lived spin-off series starring the most popular super agents (Dynamo and NoMan).

To launch the project, Wally Wood huddled with scripter Len Brown (and possibly Larry Ivie) on a superhero concept Brown had described to Wood a year earlier.
Brown recalled, "Wally had remembered my concept and asked me to write a 12-page origin story. I submitted a Captain Thunderbolt story in which he fought a villain named Dynamo."

With a few changes by Wood and a title obviously inspired by the success of the spy-fi television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the then-current James Bond film Thunderball, the series got underway.

Tower Comics went out of business in 1969, and the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents went into limbo until John Carbonaro of J.C Comics picked the rights up in 1981.
This fits in with Alan Class's reprinting anthologies of US Superheroes, and the early 70s timing fits, too.

**Condition report to follow as I don't have the comic in front of me at the moment, though you'll get a good idea of condition by looking at the photos in the meantime.**


Payment by PayPal or bank transfer, or cash on collection fine too. We’re midway between Huntingdon and Peterborough in NE Cambridgeshire.


Any questions, just ask :)


Thankyou for reading my ad, and I look forward to hearing from you soon!

Additional Information

Advert Type
Private Advert
Era
1970s