Alan Class Comics

Alan Class Comics was a British comics publishing company that operated between 1959 and 1989. The company produced anthology titles, reprinting comics stories from many U.S. publishers of the 1940s to 1960s in a black and white digest size format for a UK audience. During the 1960s and 1970s, these reprints were the main medium through which British children were introduced to American monster and mystery comics, as well as most non- DC or Marvel superheroes.

The various Alan Class titles contained reprints of stories originally from such U.S. comics publishers as Timely, Atlas (and their later incarnation, Marvel Comics) American Comics Group (ACG), Charlton Comics, Archie Comics and MLJ imprints), Fawcett Comics, Lev Gleason Publications, and Sterling Comics, as well as King Features comics and newspaper strips. Included in these reprints were many early mystery, superhero, and monster stories by artists such as Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby that are now regarded as classics of the 1950s and early 1960s.

Although Alan Class put out more than 25 titles in all, the company's six core titles — ''Astounding Stories'',Cronin, Brian
"The Oddity of Astounding Stories' Marvel Reprints,"
''CBR'''s "Comic Book Legends Revealed" (SEP 01, 2019). ''Creepy Worlds'', ''Secrets of the Unknown'', ''Sinister Tales'', ''Suspense Stories'', and ''Uncanny Tales'' — lasted almost the entire publishing history of the company.

History

Alan Class (born in London, England, 21 July 1937) began as an importer of remaindered copies of American movie, romance, and detective magazines for UK distribution. (After World War II, the U.K. was intent on promoting homegrown publishers, and thus banned the ''direct'' importation of American periodicals.)Chibnall, Steve. "The Sign of the Tee Pee: The Story of Thorpe & Porter," ''Paperback, Pulp and Comic Collector'' Vol. 1: "SF Crime Horror Westerns & Comics" (Wilts, UK: Zeon Publishing / Zardoz Books, 1993), pp. 16–29
Archived
at Box.com. Retrieved Dec. 28, 2020.

To avoid the cost, supply, and importation difficulties he had encountered, in 1958 Class set up a publishing business, Alan Class and Co. Ltd, to produce his own magazines, and entered into an agreement with an American comic and comic strip syndication company for the rights to reproduce U.S. comic books and strips under their control for a U.K audience. (Coincidentally, in 1959, the U.K. lifted the previous ban on importing foreign publications.)

The company's first offering was the one-shot ''Race for the Moon'' (1959), anthologizing Harvey science fiction reprints. Other one-shots and short series followed, and in the summer of 1962, the first of the Alan Class core titles, ''Creepy Worlds'' debuted; followed shortly thereafter by the debut of another long-running title, ''Secrets of the Unknown''. Core titles ''Suspense Stories'' and ''Uncanny Tales'' debuted in 1963, ''Sinister Tales'' in 1964, and finally ''Astounding Stories'' in 1966.

In 1963, Alan Class bought the inventory of L. Miller & Son, Ltd., a UK publisher since the 1940s that had also reprinted many U.S. comics in black-and-white format. This purchase included the asbestos printing plates from which Miller had produced their comics.(French) Depelley, Jean
"Miller & Son (2ème et dernière partie),"
BDZoom.com (March 18, 2014). However, it is unclear what inventory titles this gave Alan Class. Many of the companies that Miller had published material from, such as Charlton and Fawcett, had already been reprinted by Class; and most of the Fawcett superhero material in which Miller had specialized — Captain Marvel, Captain Marvel Jr. and the rest of the Marvel Family especially — were not reprinted as a result of the long-running legal case between National/D.C. and Fawcett over Captain Marvel.

Alan Class Comics lost the right to its leased Marvel Comics characters after 1966, when Odhams Press began publishing its Power Comics line in January 1967, and licensed the Marvel Comics superheroes for their own titles. There was some overlap, with both companies reprinting Marvel superhero stories for some time. The available reprint material was reduced even further when, sometime between 1968 and 1971, King Features Syndicate sued Alan Class over publishing rights to its titles and characters, including The Phantom. As a result of this diminution of the accessible stories, by the early 1970s the Alan Class titles began to issue more and more reprints of material already printed in earlier issues.

Demise and legacy

By the late 1980s, slow sales and distribution problems, combined with the rise of the specialist comic shop and the decline of newsagent purchases, together with the easy availability of new U.S. comics and back issues, signaled the end of the line for the business. As Class himself said, "The reality was ... costs were escalating, sales were falling — Marvels were on everybody's wish-list, and my comics were at 55p which I didn’t feel could be increased — enough was enough!"

Alan Class Comics shut down in 1989. During 30 years of publishing, the company produced 26 black-and-white anthology reprint titles comprising 1,472 individual issues (plus four issues of the ''Ally Sloper'' comic magazine).

On 15 May 2005, 30th Century Comics in London announced that it had obtained the rights to sell Alan Class's personal collection, including the original printing plates for the comics range.

Overview

Format and price

Alan Class Comics began as 68-page titles, containing a mix of stories reproduced in black and white with colour covers, and selling for 1 shilling. Each issue measured 235mm × 185mm (9" × 7"), slightly wider than the original American versions, allowing for all of the original cover art to be seen (which was cut in the originals).

By the late 1960s, the company's standard 68-page format began to vary, with page counts ranging from 48 to 100 pages, and cover prices from 10p to 55p, with the company's six long-running titles settling for a while at 48 pages for 25p, before continuing an inexorable upward increase in price to 55p in the 1980s.

Covers

Across Alan Class Comics titles, the cover art ranged from only slightly adapted versions of the original comics from which the stories came to new covers, many produced from adapted pages or panels within the stories or pasted-up montages of various panels. Many of these covers were originally illustrated by classic comics artists of the time, especially Ditko and Kirby. Since the books were wider than the American originals, all the cover art was visible where American printings were cut-off. The reason for this was by the 1960s the width of American comics had shrunk, while artists continued to use the same size artboards. As a result, American covers from this era look cut-off while Alan Class covers didn't. Variations on these covers were often used more than once across the titles, as were the stories.

Issue dating (or lack thereof)

To complicate things further, none of the Alan Class Comics line had anything to identify their date of issue on the cover, (or inside the comic in many cases), and many were not even numbered. This was a deliberate company policy to extend the shelf life of the titles: Alan Class Comics often remained on the racks longer than dated issues from other companies. Additionally, it led Alan Class to devise a system to maximize profits: warehouse stocks of unsold comics were returned to him; these were later re-issued over a number of years' summer seasons to capture the market for reading material during the summer holidays. As Class said in an interview:

Superheroes

As well as monster, horror and mystery story reprints, many Alan Class comics featured superheroes. Early Marvel Comics tales of ''Fantastic Four'' and ''The Amazing Spider-Man'' by Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko respectively, '' Giant-Man'', '' Ant-Man and The Wasp'', the '' Human Torch'', ''S.H.I.E.L.D.'' by Jim Steranko, odd issues of ''Iron Man'', ''X-Men'', ''Captain America'' and ''Doctor Strange'' were published in random order with no regard to continuity — any references to next issue's story in the original run were often covered over before printing, and there was no guarantee that any character would appear in consecutive issues of a title, or even in the same title. (One of the few exceptions to this was when Alans Class' ''Creepy Worlds'' #32-38 reprinted nearly the first Fantastic Four stories in sequence, missing only #7).

Archie/ Radio Comics' characters ''Jaguar'', '' The Fly'' and ''Mighty Crusaders''; Charlton's '' Captain Atom'' and ''Judomaster''; ACG's ''Magicman'' and ''Nemesis''; King Features' ''Flash Gordon'' by Reed Crandall, " The Phantom" and ''Mandrake the Magician'', among others, also appeared on a random basis across many titles. Golden Age superheroes such as Novelty Press's Blue Bolt and the 1940s Timely Captain America and Human Torch tales were similarly treated. Only characters published by National Comics (now DC Comics) were unrepresented, as the syndicated merchandising deal did not include them.

The balance of each comic was made up of short stories from other comic book titles and the occasional text story. Superheroes did not necessarily get cover billing in any issue — they were treated with the same importance as any other story.

Short-run/one-off issues

A number of Alan Class titles were un-numbered short-run or one-off issues. These were experimental titles testing the market for different genres, such as romance (''My Secret Confessions'', which anthologised American Comics Group love story reprints, and ''Uncensored Love''), war titles (''Journey Into Danger'' #1-8, reprinting Atlas war stories, and two issues of ''Tales Of Action''), and westerns (three issues of ''Blazing Trails'' featuring Charlton and Fawcett western stories, and one issue of ''Hell-Fire Raiders'' (1966) reprinting Fawcett Tom Mix, Tex Ritter and Lash LaRue stories). None of these went on to become longer-running titles; Alan Class would later say of the whole line, "Only the suspense/space stories stood the test of time."''Fantasy Advertiser'' #91 (June 1985).

Class also issued several short-run titles in the humour and crime genres. There were five issues of ''Just Dennis'' (1965), with reprints of the American version of Dennis the Menace together with Atomic Mouse

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