Fool's Fate by Robin Hobb

Just finished this 800 page book this afternoon.

I found it a very satisfying conclusion to the latest trilogy and the 6 Assassin books.

NEXT: A couple of Marvel annuals which are being currently reviewd on Bonze Age babies and then I've 4 Iron Man hardcovers to get in to.

New Purchases...Thor and Iron Man

Two new collections arrived in the post yesterday.

Iron Man Vol 9 by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca brings me up-to-date with these collections. I've about 4 to read now. :-)

The big purchase at £29.25 is Thor Masterworks vol 11 by Gerry Conway and John Buscema. This reprints issues 195-205 and will do for me regarding Thor reprints. As mentioned in this previous post, I wanted to get some reprints of the Thor issues I read when I first started buying and reading comics myself and those British reprints came from these issues.

This looks a nice collection and I'm excited at the prospect of reading these. I did notice from a quick read of the introduction that Gerry Conway was only 19 when he wrote these issues! Amazing!

Trade Bargain: Tomb of Dracula Vol1

I picked this up today in a brief visit to Nostalgia and Comics in Birmingham. I was just about to leave when I noticed this trade in a sale for £10. Nice!

It was on my ebay watch list for £14.50 with postage and was approx £17.50 on Amazon so this was the cheapest I've seen. I'd decided to get this trade which collects issues 1-12 as the early issues especially No. 10 (1st Blade) are too expensive to pick up the originals. Some of the originals I do have are low grade but I'm hoping to sell No. 3 for a few £££ to go towards this purchase.

Pretty happy with this addition!

Thor Masterworks

Wow. This is a bit of a first for me. A Thor Masterworks! Volume 10 to be exact which reprints issues 184 - 194. Most by Stan Lee and two by Gerry Conway and all illustrated by John Buscema.

These particular issues reprint the Thor stories which were included in Super Spider-man and the Super Heroes # 190 which was the first comic I ever bought and which reprinted various strips. The Thor strip was not an immediate favourite but I did grow to like it escpecially Big John's pencilling. I've long desired to have at least full colour reprints of the original US Marvel comics SSMATSH contained but trying to identify which issues they come from was a challenge! A nice one though. Thanks goodness for the Grand Comics Database which makes things much easier these days.!

This is the cover to the comic cover dated Sept 29 1976. Purchased a WH Smiths by me aged 9.

So far I have identified and purchased

Amazing Spider-man 140
Marvel Team-Up 2
Thor 191

I need

Iron Man 19
Invaders 1