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
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