Question about British Annuals...

[clemso]

Yes that is correct, clipped means the price on the corner of the first page.

[palitoy]

At one point I must have had at least 50 of these things, now I'm down to ten or so. It was rare not to find a "Merry Christmas Timmy" type message in them.

[samurainoir]

I love those British Annuals and have quite a few of them.

Alan Moore's first professional comics work was in a BJ and the Bear Annual.

I'm wondering if perhaps they are more easily found in Canada because the WH Smith bookstore chain was so common in this country back in the day? I'm not old enough to have a firm memory of seeing the Annuals on any bookstore shelves, but they seem fairly common enough around these parts for those that love to dig around old bookstores and flea markets.

[cjefferys]

I'm wondering if perhaps they are more easily found in Canada because the WH Smith bookstore chain was so common in this country back in the day? I'm not old enough to have a firm memory of seeing the Annuals on any bookstore shelves, but they seem fairly common enough around these parts for those that love to dig around old bookstores and flea markets.

I never saw any at all when I was a kid. They did have Canadian distribution though? I'll have to keep my eyes open at flea markets, etc. I've always wanted to pick up some Marvel UK annuals.

[samurainoir]

I never saw any at all when I was a kid. They did have Canadian distribution though? I'll have to keep my eyes open at flea markets, etc. I've always wanted to pick up some Marvel UK annuals.

I tend to run across them often enough to assume that they did somehow. I've got a range of them from Harlem Globetrotters, Wacky Races, Doctor Who, Star Trek, DC superheroes, Marvel, Ghostbusters, Judge Dredd, and various TV show tie ins. I see Viz and Beano and Rupert(?) quite a bit, but never picked them up since I have no real interest in them.

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

The annuals are usually associated with a weekly; anthology comics printed on newsprint that come out every 7 days and feature several 10 page chapters from different series. A lot of 'em were reprints of American books. The annuals were normally a mix of reprints (sort of a "best of") and some new stuff.

We got tons of 'em here when I was a kid. None of the Marvel, Gold Key, or other American character ones; but tons of others. Especially the Fleetways. But we got some of the weeklies as well.

Don C.

[palitoy]

Thanks to our UK ties, British Annuals got sometimes very strong distribution here. I've run across 60s Who stuff, James Bond, Six Million Dollar Man, Action Man.

In 1983 or so Shoppers Drug Marts had huge displays of them, including Judge Dredd and other characters. A lot of UK shops (we had a bunch here growing up) would bring them in too, it's where I got my Who stuff in the 80s.