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Title: TALES FROM THE CRYPT No. 2 (UK Edition—"An ABC Chiller")
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Arnold Book Company. No date listed, but published in 1954. Good (2.0). Wear to spine, with nicks, tears and abrasions to square binding. 3¼" tear to front cover parallel to bottom spine, 1?" tear to back cover at top spine. Nicks, fraying and small chips to edges, large "X" in ballpoint pen on back cover crossing out Elder's ad illustration. 60% of spine and back cover parallel to spine reinforced with tape. Off-white pages. Davis cover. Reprints Tales from the Crypt #41 and Crime SuspenStories # 19 for the UK market. Contents in black and white. Uncommon in any grade.

American comics first invaded the UK during WWII, when GIs stationed in Britain brought loads of comics with them (it's said that US comics were used as ballast in ships bound for the UK, where they were then offloaded in large numbers). This development was met with a good deal of tut-tutting and tea-sputtering, as the violent content, jingoism and race-baiting featured in many American comics was considered to be in poor taste by many Brits. In 1949, a campaign was mounted in Britain to eliminate American comics, and by 1950, government restrictions on imports made it difficult to directly import U.S. comic books to the British isles.

Enterprising UK publishers soon found a way to circumvent these restrictions. According to Martin Barker's A Haunt of Fears: The Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign, "a small number of publishers started importing the printing matrices (mats), and producing the comics locally with print runs of up to 50,000 per comic," including horror mags like ABC's Tales from the Crypt and Haunt of Fear. Barker continues: "Their appearance sparked a particularly fiery public reaction, and the Conservative government, late in 1954, introduced a bill to control them. Known as the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act, it became law in 1955."

A limited edition of 100 softcover and 15 hardcover catalogues are available. Over 200 pages, fully illustrated. Fun reference, great keepsake. Softcovers $40, dust-jacketed hardcover with limitation plate $200. To order, contact ivan@pbagalleries.com or call 415-989-2665

R. Crumb says, "I found [PBA's catalogue] so interesting that I am saving it for the texts that accompany the comics which were put up for auction. This is some of the best commentary I've yet seen on the quality of the content of comic books. I especially enjoyed the reviews of the post-war horror comics. Great. Priceless."

Consignments welcome for PBA's Spring 2021 Comic Book sale. Pre-Code Horror, Golden Age and Silver Age comics, original art and ephemera sought. Send inquiries to ivan@pbagalleries.com or call 415-989-2665