A Good Day at The Royal National

To The Royal National for September's Mart, an event which I entered with the usual low hopes, but which I eventually left with a decent haul of tat. Here's a list of what I stuffed into the old nerd sack...

Uncanny X-Men #107: Pricey low grade copy which completes my Cockrum, Claremont, Byrne run. Paid £9.95, which was too much, but it closes a collecting chapter, so I stumped up .

The Greatest Golden Age Stories Ever Told: A nice 288 page hardback of golden age DC stories printed in 1990. Bought for £11 (bartered down from £16) from the Comicana stall of all places.

Captain America The Classic Years Slipcase: Wow! Top purchase. A rare out of print two volume hardback collection of the first 10 issues of Simon and Kirby's original wartime run on Cap. Bartered down from £30 to £25. A genuine comic treasure at a great price (£12.50 cheaper than it was when it was originally published, for crying out loud!). Cheapest I've ever seen this on ebay is £75.

Back Issue #32: 75p gets you articles on the history of Marvel's Handbook series and LLC childhood favourite, Dial H for Hero.

Speakeasy #88 + #91: Late 80s British fanzines choc full of brilliant ads for comic shops living and dead. I'll be scanning these in this week. 50p for the pair.

The Rook #2: 25p for this old Warren mag. Bought for this cover...

What If Han Solo was a weapon-wielding Chippendale?

So, all-in-all a very nice haul. I was slightly disappointed by the Heroclix Man's absence, as treating myself to a little plastic toy on the way out has become something of a tradition/unhealthy compulsion.

No matter, I put aside my sadness at the lack of Man-Toys to take a few new snaps to add to my growing archive of Mart shots...

An entire longbox of X-Men Annual #10. I think this is what an optimistic dealer would refer to as, "an impressive warehouse find". What in the name of God possesses someone to shove a whole box of this in the van when picking out the stock to take for the day?

While I was taking this pic, a very respectable looking woman wandered up to the stall-holder and asked if he had heard of a graphic novel called "Fable". He just stared at her blankly, leaving me to explain that "Fables" ran to several volumes and that if she wanted to check it out, she was best off heading over to Gosh! Christ knows how she ended up at The National.

A rather blurry snap of the pre-code horror man holding court. I like this geezer's stall, it's full of expensive rarities. He doesn't half blow on though. The punters in the picture are listening to his usual wank job over Wally Wood.

King of the Mad Stinkers! This bloke is properly crazy and properly smelly. Here he is, resplendent in his Eagle T-Shirt, boring a stallholder to tears about Blue Tack - apparently he uses it to put up all his posters. This shot was taken three minutes into a five minute list of every single poster he has ever owned.

Magic.