7-Day 65%-80% Off ALL Comics Sale! Howdy! Chuck at Jay Hill Farm on a Sunny and Snow Day (click on image for larger view) After a tedious 10-hour flight yesterday from London, we are back home at our farm in Colorado this morning. Our quick trip to attend our daughter, Tanith's, graduation from the University of Glasgow Master's program ended on quite a high note, as we accidentally stumbled upon a rather nice comics show during our last day in London! I was already quite happy about the comics aspects of this particular journey to the UK, as I had earlier in the week scored a large stack of scarce UK comics hardback annuals while in Glasgow. I supplemented that purchase on Saturday, with 18 more choice 1960's and 1970's UK annuals that I found at the huge Portobello antiques market in London. Sunday was the real surprise, however, as we awoke at our hotel near the British Museum to find comics dealers swarming all over the courtyard below our room, wheeling long boxes into the north wing of our hotel! Waking up in a distant city just doesn't get any better than that... In case you're wondering, I concentrated my purchasing efforts at the London convention at seeking out 1970's and 1980's Marvel and DC comics with British Pence cover prices. There has long been a lot of controversy about British editions of US comics, with the traditional school of thought arguing that they are reprints, and as such should be priced significantly less than American editions. I quite beg to differ with that line of reasoning. I know for a fact that UK editions were actually printed at exactly the same time as American editions. This process was explained to me during the late-1970's when I actually went to Sparta, Illinois, home of the gigantic printing plant that was producing almost all American comics. Robert Craig, who was in charge of the presses, explained to me that the interiors of comics for US and UK distribution were printed at exactly the same time. The covers were then printed sequentially, with the US editions run first. Then the presses printing the covers were stopped for just a few minutes after the US run was finished, and an UK black plate (with the current Pence price) was substituted for the black plate that had US price. In my professional opinion, this changing of the black plate for British editions was the first concerted effort on the part of Marvel and DC to create variant editions. Print runs varied, but UK editions were clearly printed in far smaller numbers than US editions. My best guess is that UK editions may have constituted as few as 10% of the total print runs during the 1970's and 1980's. As an aside, American comics with Pence prices being shipped to the UK were often sent in the lowest cargo holds of ships returning to British ports. As a result, many UK editions have water damage. UK editions are so scarce in America, however, that I really don't care about condition. I'm just happy to find them! Our experience has been that UK editions originally sold rather slowly when we first started listing them, but are now becoming increasing popular. Especially among serious fans who have completed runs of a given title (such as the first SPIDER-MAN (1963), X-MEN (1963), or CONAN (1970) series) and are now seeking all of the variant editions. I've always know that UK editions were relatively abundant in Britain, but given that I have been trying to stock our UK variants exclusively from individual issues that I've managed to find in cities along the American east coast, I have never been able to meet our growing demand for UK editions. Knowing that I can now periodically jump across to London and restock our UK editions, makes me very happy! Over time, I also hope to be able to document which American titles actually had UK editions. There may be such a listing that already exists, but to this point in time, I have never found it. While I was spending my time in the UK locating rare comics, our last codeword sale ended with a bang! Following up such a great sale is always hard, but I'm going to give it a try. Effective immediately, you will find that all of the comics on our website have had their prices slashed by 60%, or more. In most instances, our back issue comics and magazines are now listed at for you at 65%-80% off (!) of our list prices. Calculating that massive discount in reverse, you now have your choice of great deals from our entire 8,000,000+ comics website at only 20%-40% of list price! Aside from a few new comics, and our Dallas Stephens consignment issues, ALL of our comics are included in this tremendous sale. Simply put, I know darn good and well that everyone is operating on a tight budget these days, so I am bending over backwards to try and make certain that we do everything that we can to keep comics reading and collecting affordable for everyone, including you. By the way, if you're feeling financially constrained these days, you shouldn't feel alone. In all of my recent travels, I have not run into a single person on either side of the Atlantic who wasn't feeling some measure of trepidation over the present financial difficulties. All of us are being much more conservative these days than we once were, and I've yet to meet anyone who wasn't concerned about the future. That having been said, I firmly believe that there is also simply no reason to allow all joy to go out of life. While they can definitely be onerous at the time, my experience has been that recessions come, and recessions eventually go away. It is all just a big series of cycles in the financial universe. Regardless of what is happening in the rest of the world, however, comics are still great fun to both read, and to collect. My job is to also keep comics affordable for you, and to that end I am being very careful with our costs these days. That frugality is allowing me to (barely...) keep our operating costs covered, while still being able to offer you nearly insane discounts on our best back issue comics and magazines. Simply put, we're not going to earn a dime selling comics at 20%-40% of our list prices, but if temporarily slashing our prices keeps you reading and collecting comics during these difficult times, then sacrificing some of our comics is well worth it! Please do enjoy this great new sale with my very best wishes for you, and yours, during this holiday season. And, please, try and also have yourself a little bit of fun! Happy collecting! Chuck Rozanski, President - Mile High Comics, Inc. Advance Previews of next weeks comics from Archie Comics PS: As crazy as it may sound, even our most popular comics are also included in this 20%-40% sale. The quick links that I'm having included for you at the end of this newsletter will take you instantly into the listings of our most popular back issue genres. Check any of them out, and I think that you will be amazed at just how startlingly low our prices on our website are right now! Quick Links to Popular Marvel Titles Amazing Adventures (1970) Amazing Spider-man (1999) Avengers (1963) Avengers (1997) Black Panther (2005) Captain America (1968) Captain America (2004) Captain Britain and MI 13 (2008) Classic X-Men (1986) Conan (1970) Daredevil (1964) Daredevil (1998) Deadpool (1997) Defenders (1972) Doctor Strange (1966) Doctor Strange (1974) Fantastic Four (1961) Ghost Rider (1973) GI Joe Hulk (2008) Invaders (1975) Iron Fist (1975) Iron Man (1968) Journey Into Mystery (1972) Marvel Team-Up (1972) Marvel Two-In-One (1974) Master of Kung Fu (1974) Mighty Avengers (2007) Ms. Marvel (2006) New Avengers (2004) New Mutants NYX (2003) Peter Parker (1976) Powerman/Iron Fist (1972) Punisher Max (2004) Runaways (2005) Secret Invasion (2008) Sgt Fury She-Hulk 2 (2005) Silver Surfer (1968) Silver Surfer (1987) Spider-Man (1963) Spider-Woman (1978) Strange Tales (1951) Sub-Mariner (1968) Tales of Suspense (1959) Tales to Astonish (1959) Thor (1962) Thor (1962) Thunderbolts (1997) Tomb of Dracula (1972) Ultimate Fantastic Four (2003) Ultimate Spider-Man (2000) Ultimate X-Men (2000) Ultimates (2002) Ultimates 2 (2004) Ultimates 3 (2007) Web of Spider-Man (1985) Werewolf By Night (1972) What If... (1977) Wolverine (1988) Wolverine (2003) Wolverine: Origins (2006) X-Factor (1988) X-Force (2008) X-Men (1963) Quick Links to Popular DC Comics Action Comics Adventure Comics Adventures of Superman All Star (1976) Batman (1940) Batman Family Brave and the Bold (1955) Detective Comics Flash (1959) Green Lantern (1960) Jimmy Olsen (1954) Justice League of America (1960) Legion Of Super-Heroes (1980) Lois Lane (1958) Mad Magazine Our Fighting Forces (1954) Phantom Stranger (1969) Plop (1973) Secret Society Of Super-Villains Sgt. Rock Showcase (1956) Super-Team Family Superboy (1949) Superman Superman Family (1974) Tarzan (1972) Teen Titans (1966) Warlord (1976) Weird War Tales (1971) Witching Hour (1969) Wonder Woman (1942) World's Finest (1941) Current Newsletter