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Tuesday, February 24, 2015

DC Comics UK

On sale 12th March.
Like Marvel, the association with DC Comics and the UK has been going on for decades. In the 1950s there were British (and imported Australian) editions of DC (National) Comics on sale in British newsagents as import restrictions remaining from WW2 were still in place. (The original American DC comics didn't resume proper distribution in the UK until 1959.)

In 1969 Top Sellers launched Super DC as a monthly which ran for 14 issues and an annual. (See here.) In the 1980s there was The Super-Heroes monthly, and various UK editions of Batman, Superman and others. 

These days it's Titan Comics who have the license to publish British editions of DC material, and they currently have four titles: Batman, Batman: Arkham (both published every four weeks), Batman/Superman and DC Universe Presents/Justice League Trinity, which appear every 8 weeks. These comics follow the Panini format of US-sized comics with 76 pages (occasionally 100 pages), full colour throughout, with card covers. Each issue reprints three American comics for £3.50.
On sale now.

On sale 26th February.

On sale now.

You'll find the comics in WH Smith and selected newsagents but subscriptions are also available directly from Titan. Follow this link to find out more:
http://titan.subscribeonline.co.uk/subscriptions

My thanks to Titan Magazines for sending the cover images.

5 comments:

Colin Brown said...

Titan only sent you the cover images? For the free publicity, you'd think they'd send you some complimentary copies...

Lew Stringer said...

Welcome to the world of British comics PR departments.

Anonymous said...
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John Pitt said...

A while ago I was going to request some posts about DC UK. I would really like an in-depth history, like your excellent "Road To Marvel UK" series, covering everything from the 50's annuals, through the T&P comicbooks, the London editions pocketbooks & magazines, etc., etc.
It wouldn't matter if you haven't got images of EVERYTHING, - I KNOW you could do a thorough job documenting the history.
Anyway, just a suggestion.

Lew Stringer said...

I've never been a big fan of DC reprints John so I'm afraid the only ones I have are Super DC, and I've already covered that. I know there were various Superman and Batman reprints in the 1980s/90s, and one called DC Action, plus lots of others but I didn't follow them.

Colin, as Panini give WH Smith a plug on every 'Next Issue' ad I would guess they have some special arrangement with them. Also, as retail giants charge tens of thousands of pounds just to stock each comic it's perhaps not economically feasible to get them in Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda etc.

Regarding 2000AD, I'm not sure if Tesco sell it but it comes out on Wednesday so perhaps your local branch had sold out by Monday?

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