Thorpe & Porter and American Comics
In the 1950s and 1960s American comics typically arrived in the UK as ballast on ships. In 1959, Thorpe & Porter (widely known as 'T & P') became the sole UK distributor of Marvel comics. These were printed on Marvel's American printing presses, along with a special cover giving the British price instead of the price in cents, and shipped across the Atlantic. Inside the front cover, with the indicia, a sentence mentioned Thorpe & Porter as sole distributor in the UK market. Thus it was that brand new American-printed copies of Fantastic Four #1, Amazing Fantasy #15, The Amazing Spider-Man #1, and countless others, appeared in the UK.
Thorpe & Porter was purchased by the distribution arm of DC Comics, then known as IND., in 1964, going on to publish an official Superman/Batman reprint book, DC Special.
Read more about this topic: British Comics
Famous quotes containing the words thorpe, porter and/or american:
“Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his friends for his life.”
—Jeremy Thorpe (b. 1929)
“I’d take the bus downtown with my mother, and the big thing was to sit at the counter and get an orange drink and a tuna sandwich on toast. I thought I was living large!... When I was at the Ritz with the publisher a few months ago, I did think, “Oh my God, I’m in the Ritz tearoom.” ... The person who was so happy to sit at the Woolworths counter is now sitting at the Ritz, listening to the harp, and wondering what tea to order.... [ellipsis in source] Am I awake?”
—Connie Porter (b. 1959)
“The American struggle for the vote was much more difficult than the English for the simple reason that it was much more easy.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)