Marvel UK Book Author seekes final imagery

Author Rob Kirby, who has been working on a history of Marvel UK since, well, the company folded back in the 1990s if not earlier (all right, I'm probably exaggerating but that's how it feels!), is on the hunt for some last visuals to help illustrate the book as it gets closer, at last, to being published.

"I'm having some really good success right now with my latest posts onto the usual haunts, but thought I ought to throw it open as wide as I can now that this really is all that there's left to find," he says.

There are just a few related visuals that he hasn't yet been able to locate. "You may think some of them, well, possibly a bit strange as non-Marvel items, but they all serve a purpose to support background info."

Things he's looking for are:

Introduction:
• TV Action & Countdown #82 (cover).

Chapter 1:
• Stan Lee's How to Write Comics/Secrets of Comics (The cover to the book. "I can't quite recall the name of it right now," says Rob. "It's just to illustrate Stan's early work, so it's not referenced in the text that I could check the title from").
• Fredric Wertham Seduction of the Innocent cover.
• Thorpe and Porter price stamps (isolated B&W images).
• Comics to Hold You Spellbound #1 (UK Thorpe and Porter cover).
• Stories to Hold You Spellbound #3 (USA Atlas cover).
• Mystic (early Len Miller cover).
• Frankie Stein (upright figure from an early Smash! in an uninterrupted panel not intersected by other panels).
• Smash! (early Marvel cover).
• Pow! & Wham! (cover from a merged issue).
• Smash & Pow incorporating Terrific (cover).
• Eagle - Tales of Asgard cover (No. 21, Vol. 19/25th May 1968, for which Rob needs a full size image).
• The Daily Herald (1963 newspaper cover)

Chapter 3:
• A Skywald magazine cover.
• Ray Wergan photo (early MD of Marvel UK in the 1970s)
• Evening News and Chronicle (mid-1960s newspaper cover, and a sports page that Ray Wergan wrote).

Chapter 5:
• TV Times cover, or listing for Planet of the Apes TV series from 1975.
• Look-In - Planet of the Apes cover from January 1975.

Chapter 8:
• My Love #19 (cover).

Chapter 10:
• Derinn Comicollector (cover).
• SuperDC (cover, and scan of the letters page).
• Shiver and Shake horror Special (mid-70s cover).
• MAD UK -- Dez Skinn era original UK artwork cover.
• Jim Galton - 1978 photo.
• Paul Neary - late 1970s photo.
• A Portman magazine cover - from whichever title featured Man-Thing will do nicely!

Chapter 11:
• An ND issue of the Uncanny X-Men from 1979 (cover).

Chapter 14:
• MAD UK #161 (Doctor Who cover).
• The Celestial Toyroom (up to 1983 fanzine cover, for an issue edited by Gary Russell).
• Doctor Who signing at a 1984 Westminster Mart (photos).
• The Harrison Ford Story (cover to Alan McKenzie authored book).

Chapter 15:
• Paul Neary - 1981/2 photo.

Chapter 19:
• A front and back box photo to any of the first Transformers toys from the initial range.

Chapter 20:
• A front and back box photo to any of the first Zoids toys from the initial range.
• A front and back box photo to any of the first Action Force toys from the initial range.
• Alternate Realities - USA comic suppliers advert around 1986 (and if advertising the UK Transformers and Action Force comics, then all the better).
• Combat Colin - post Marvel special.

Chapter 21:
• UKCAC '86 - Convention photos from the Marvel Ethiopian raffle.
• "Fast Forward" dummy cover (a long shot, but maybe somebody has it still).
• 'Crisis ˆ early Fleetway cover.

Chapter 22:
• David Lloyd - early 1990s photo.
• Vincent Conran - 1991 photo.

Chapter 24:
• White Dwarf - front cover and splash page to the early 1990's issue featuring Mark Harrison's "Travellers" strip.

Please send details of imagery you can help with to Rob Kirby rob_ak_38ATyahoo.co.uk