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Ah - no necessary link there between ABC Warriors and President 'Bad Bob' Booth. President Booth started a nuclear war in about 2060, and built himself a domestic army of robot soldiers. There was a civil war or something, between Union and Confederate judges (?), the upshot of which was Booth and his robot army lost the Battle of Armageddon, and the judges took over, and Booth was sentenced to some sort of hellish waking suspended animation.

Your collection covers a fairly broad area, so it's hard to be very specific, especially when one factors in the condition, but I'd guess anywhere between ?500 and ?1,000 for the lot.

Fascinating. The collection sold for ?620 to a zero-rated bidder.

Don't worry if you couldn't afford this lot - it's no longer a bargain. Current high bid is ?510, which sounds about right to me. Still, the Progs 1 and 2 with gifts are a bit of a catch for the discerning collector.

I see 14's not taken yet, so I'll go with 14.

your not gonna like that anniversary thread when it comes up then...

I thought this was it?

They're all great though, aren't they? I tend to go for the bargain bucket and prefer superhero team comics. They just seem like much better value. My personal favourite though has to be Robotman from the Doom Patrol. A thoroughly decent guy.

Other favourites: Green Lantern (Kyle Raynor), Count Vertigo in Suicide Squad, and when I was a kid - The Vision, and Tigra.

Yeah, I got Jimmy Corrigan from the library too. It was recommended to me by my next-door neighbour who doesn't read comics and struggled with the Doom Patrol trade paperback I lent him.

I read all of Jimmy Corrigan, because I was sure it would eventually prove worthwhile, but it didn't.

What is it about people who don't read comics that makes them see things in obscure graphic novels that the rest of us don't see, when they wouldn't kmow a decent comic book if it bit them on the arse?

Scars of Dracula is an okay film. Stupid, but quite good fun. I know what you mean about the ending, though. By then it seems any means of destruction for the vampire would do. But I enjoyed the novelty of it.

I also liked the ending of Dracula Prince of Darkness, and the ending of Dracula Has Risen from the Grave. My memories of Taste the Blood of Dracula are a bit dim, though, apart from there are four blokes, including Peter Sallis, who get involved in a sort of Hellfire Club and bring Dracula back to life. The rest is hazy.

Dracula AD 1972 - no recollection whatsoever. And Satanic Rights of Dracula I've seen over and over again. In that one, doesn't Dracula contrive to entangle himself in a Hawthorne bush? What a twat!

What's that I hear you say?

"but there's no such thing as vampires.

... or lesbians."

I guess you just can't please everyone.

This one'll run and run, won't it?

I go to my local pub because it is a pub. No cute Irish theme, not full of kids, no really loud music and a friendly service...

Yeah, I can remember when pubs were pubs, and I generally prefer the dingy-looking ones to the brightly-lit, maximum design variety frequented by half-dressed women and lads in clean shirts. The grubby old pubs generally feel safer. It's a bit of a given that a pub with bouncers on the door must be expecting trouble. But even so, my pub of choice is generally the one where I think I stand the least chance of getting smoked on.

As for kids, God only knows who it is keeps filling up pubs with their kids, but I don't think that's a new development. When I was a lad, kids were allowed in a t.v. lounge with no bar, and nowhere else.

Trying to work out when pubs were supposed to have changed from places to drink and smoke...

Nope, doesn't ring a bell. I've never seen a licensee statement above a pub door that said the premises was licensed for the sale and consumption of alcohol and smoking in public.

Me, I'm just trying to work out when cinemas changed from being places to watch films and have a smoke, and when buses changed from being transport to work on which you could read the morning paper and have a smoke. Etc...

I know it's irritating for dyed-in-the-wool smokers that there are busybodies who want to go round sanitising everything, but smoking and drinking do not go hand in hand for everyone, and I for one would be reluctant to concede that pubs somehow 'belong' to smokers.

I have never suffered physical violence from a smoker,

Yeah, but there're some mad sods out there, aren't there? Every time someone lights up near you, ask them to kindly put their fag out. See how many times you have to do it before you get a punch in the face. I got threatened once just for opening a window on a stuffy bus!

I forgot to question the assumption that people drinking in pubs are necessarily going to be drinking alcohol. I'd say about a third of what I drink in pubs is soft drinks.

I really like the idea of a 'social smoker'. I tend to think of smokers as anti-social: I was in a pub restaurant yesterday lunchtime, and there were 20 people sitting drinking, then a group of three girls came in and all lit up fags before their lunch. They were kind enough to share their smoke with everyone else in the pub. And then there was the nice man in the street flicking hot ash out in front of him as he walked along - whoops, that bit went in my eye...

Ehhhhhnyway... all this talk of people not allowed to smoke in pubs just ending up with more money to spend on drink, it just sounds like the nanny state to me (tongue in cheek...). Are we really saying that we don't trust people not to drink to excess, so we'd rather they smoked instead, and thus keep pubs as fairly unpleasant environments, and thereby keeping all the non-smokers on the path of sobriety?