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Alan Class Comics was a British comics publishing company between 1959 and 1989, owned by Alan Class (born in London, England, 21 July 1937). The company produced anthology titles, reprinting comics stories from many U.S. publishers of the 1940s to 1960s in a black and white digest format for a UK audience. == Background == Alan Class initially imported limited numbers of remaindered copies of American movie, romance and detective magazines for UK distribution. To avoid the cost, supply and importation difficulties he had encountered, in 1958 he set up a publishing business 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 strips and titles under their control for a U.K audience. The various Alan Class black and white anthology titles that appeared in the UK from 1959 to 1989 contained reprints of stories ranging from the 1940s to 1960s. These were from U.S. comics publishers such as Timely, Atlas - and their later incarnation, Marvel Comics - ACG, Charlton, Archie and their Red Circle and M.L.J imprints, Fawcett, King Features comics and newspaper strips, Lev Gleason and Sterling. 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. During the 1960s and 1970s these reprints were the main, if not the only, medium through which most British children were introduced to the aforementioned monster and mystery stories and most non-DC or Marvel superheroes. Across the titles, the cover art ranged from only slightly adapted versions of the original comics the stories came from 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 drawn or painted 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: By the 1960s the width of American comics shrank while artists used the same size art boards. So the American versions look cut-off while Alan Class covers don't. Variations on these covers were often used more than once across the titles, as were the stories. To complicate things further, none of the comics had anything to identify their date of issue on the cover, or inside the comic in many cases; and many were not numbered. This was a deliberate policy to extend the shelf life of the titles - the comics often remained on the racks longer than dated issues from other companies. Additionally, it helped Alan Class devise a system to maximise profits whereby 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. "Every copy was of value to me, and some wholesale houses wanted to 'shred' unsold copies. I insisted that all unsold copies were returned back to me complete … because during the summer period, May–September, a new market would become available. Beach and coastal resorts were thronged with thousands of holidaymakers with their children, who at certain times had to be kept quiet and happy, and what better way than to read a comic". As well as the 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 'Creepy Worlds' #32-38 nearly reprinted 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. Almost exclusively, 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 with 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. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Alan Class Comics」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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