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Cowboy Adventure Library

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Post by ramonschenk Fri Jul 20, 2012 3:04 pm

Gifford's guide only mentions the first issue for this 1964 series, published by Micron.

Does anyone know if there were more issues?
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Post by tony ingram Fri Jul 20, 2012 3:35 pm

According to the Comic Book Price Guide published by Titan in 1997, there were 1026 issues of Cowboy Adventure Library published by Micron between 1964 and June 1985.
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Post by ramonschenk Fri Jul 20, 2012 3:37 pm

That is just stupid on my part. I have the McAlpine price guide as well, and forgot to cross-reference it. Thanks, Tony!
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Post by tony ingram Fri Jul 20, 2012 3:46 pm

Looking through those guides, it's actually surprising how many comics publishers were still active in Britain in the mid eighties as compared to just a few years later. Crying or Very sad
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Post by ramonschenk Fri Jul 20, 2012 3:47 pm

Could that be simple demographics? Many of these seem to have been small or even one-man operations, so if they started in the 1940s-1960s, the mid-1980s would mean they were getting close to retirement and chose to pull the plug?
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Post by tony ingram Fri Jul 20, 2012 3:55 pm

I think there were other factors, the most obvious one being falling sales as other, newer entertainment mediums competed with comics for kids' pocket money. Home video and video games were both on the way up in the mid 80s, and so were toy crazes like Transformers, He-Man and Thundercats. And of course, there was also the greater availabilty of US imports from the early 80s which I think had a greater appeal to kids than the home grown, more conservative stuff. It was the increased availability of Marvel Comics which seems to have finished off Alan Class Ltd.
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Post by ramonschenk Fri Jul 20, 2012 7:34 pm

Of course I bow to your more detailed, close-up experience. But I think the printing quality and the endless repetition of 50s and 60s material did Alan Class in. In interviews, he has explained how he was unable to find new material for his books and that printing costs rose, forcing him to use cheaper paper and ink, as well as poorer binders.

And the competition with colour comics, certainly.

Great fun, this!
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Post by tony ingram Fri Jul 20, 2012 8:40 pm

I'm no expert on this side of things, but as I recall Alan Class went out of business around the same time that other publishers such as DC Thomson, Marvel UK and whoever was publishing 2000AD by then were moving into full colour with a lot of their titles, something which had previously been considered too expensive. So I still suspect that falling sales and lack of material were greater factors in Class's decline than printing costs. Where was the interview, though? I'd love to read it. Was this when Alan Class resurfaced a few years back? I seem to recall something about that in Comics International before it bit the dust...
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Post by ramonschenk Tue Oct 23, 2012 12:37 pm

There was a two (three?) part interview in the UK horror magazine, From the Tomb? I have the issues, but not at hand, so I can't look them up. Interview by Frank Motler and a friend whose name I can't recall!

I also met Alan Class when he was signing old copies he had had on file for decades in London's 30th Century Comics shop. An old man by then, of course.
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Post by tony ingram Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:32 pm

I think I may have at least a part of that From the Tomb interview somewhere! I'll have to try and find it. Is Class still alive, I wonder?
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Post by ramonschenk Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:37 pm

I am not sure, but half remember seeing his obituary in the last two years?
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Post by tony ingram Tue Oct 23, 2012 2:01 pm

I had a feeling he might have passed on, but I can't recall either.
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