EXTRACTS: The Fleetway Picture Library Index Volume 2: The Thriller Libraries © The Book Palace (284 PAGES in Full edition)

42 FLEETWAY PICTURE LIBRARY INDEX VOLUME 2 The following checklist indexes the Amalgamated Press’s Australian comic books for the very first time. Undated and with no internal clues as to when they were published, the dates given here are approximate, although thought to be reasonably accurate. The early issues had a staggered release, although why this should be is unknown. The dates suggested are based on when contributors were paid, with particular note to the final stages of issue preparation, especially the colour mark-up for the covers, which usually occurred six to eight weeks before publication. Records show that regular payments were made until towards the end of 1949 when a gap of around four months occurred. It is thought that the fifth batch of titles ( Kit Carson 5, Buck Jones 5, Thunderbolt Jaxon 5, Tim Holt 3) may have been delayed a month and the sixth batch, although prepared in 1949, not released until four months later in April 1950. This latter switch in schedule is based on records of when payments were made to Magazine Enterprises for reprinting strips from their Tim Holt comic book. It was during this latter break that the decision seems to have been made to drop Thunderbolt Jaxon and Tim Holt from the line-up. However, the precise release dates of titles around this time may be a month or two out. Soaring printing costs caused a general price increase for all Australian comic reprints in March 1951 – an increase reflected in the A.P. comics with Kit Carson 16 and Buck Jones 16 when the price rose from 6d. to 8d. – and dates from this period onwards are throught to be correct. From around August 1950, all the artwork was drawn in the UK Cowboy Comics format and was resized for the Australian comic book. Some strips were unique to the Australian comic book; other stories were subsequently reprinted in various places (mostly Cowboy Comics ) and this is indicated in brackets after the title of each story.