John Spencer

In 1947 John Spencer and Co. began publishing pulp-style magazines for the British market, before moving into paperback novels in the 1950s, concentrating on genres such as science fiction, Westerns and crime. They published under a number of imprints, but as their book sales began to drop, Badger (as they had become), approached Mick Anglo in 1966, to see about starting a comics line. Anglo, who had recently left Top Sellers, produced four horror titles, Fantasy Stories, Macabre Stories, Spectre Stories and Strange Stories, but John Spencer's comics, like their novels, suffered from low production values, and Anglo soon moved on to City Magazines. The initial four titles all cancelled within a year, but the John Spencer comics imprint made one more stab at continuing, publishing superhero titles Mark Tyme and Purple Hood in 1967, both by artist Michael Jaye. Both titles only lasted two issues, and John Spencer comics ended with their cancellation.