The US stuff was distributed by a company called Comag, who annoyingly put a big white sticker with their name on it, on each and every comic.

As long as you were satisfied with DC, you could largely get each month's issue but Marvel was much more patchy. Also, having gone around to several locations for a few months it soon became apparent that Comag dropped off essentially the same bundle to each shop.

I was pretty content buying comics this way but I was aware through in-house ads that there were books coming out that I never saw on the shelves. It was a friend's older brother who told me about an actual comic shop (I'd never heard of such a thing), so I was soon making the 30 minute trip by train once a week and discovered some Dark Horse offerings from our host.

Treasury editions and tabloid-sized comics always felt special, like an "Xmas version" of normal comics (if that makes sense).

I remember in the late '60s our local newsagent kept UK comics on the counter but there was a spinner-rack for US comics. A few doors down was a second-hand bookshop which I used to haunt on a regular basis in the 70s looking for early issues of the UK weeklies, older US comics (I was a confirmed Marvelite by now) and Famous Five books!

One memory that sticks in my mind (circa 1976) is my Dad taking me to an Everton match where we got beaten. On the way home we popped into a newsagent that had all the latest US issues that had just come out. My pocket money was only sufficient for a few issues so he bought me the lot!

Comics came twice a week (Tue and Thurs) in the late 70s and early 80s.  I spent many a sitting on the old horizontal Coke coolers with their interiors made of galvanized steel waiting for the City News employee to unpack the comics from all the other magazines.  All the super-hero books were place on the bottom tier of the three tier display.  Archies and Harveys were place in the spinner in the front window.  Charlton and Gold Key were few and far between.

I'm pleased to hear that bus and train stations over there were also getting comics!

I discovered the 1980s EAGLE in such places. I don't recall seeing it in a newsagents, but it was there at one of the main railway stations. I became hooked. I doubt I got every issue, but I got most of them until it ended in 1994 (at which point it had become a reprint title, anyway).

This is a guess, but I would say 1995-96 was the last time I saw comics in railway stations, newsagents, post offices, etc. I liked buying them, but after that time, it was either specialist comic stores or subscriptions.

Mom or Dad would give me buck and send me off to purchase comics. Twelve or thirteen or fifteen cents apiece... and if I were smart enough, I kept an extra nickle on me so that I could get the best bargain for fifteen centers. Yes, I had enough for tax, too...

I recall getting comics from three types of outlets. One was vertical spinner racks, quite useful because that was a lot of display for a little space investment. Oh, by the way... don't bend the books to see the ones behind them. Take 'em out, look through them individually, and put 'em back. A little respect for the property, eh? I heard about that at a store once, and learned my lesson. These spinners were all over at retails stores of all types, when they could afford them.

There were comic vending machines... each device had maybe six levels of books, showing the covers (sideways), and to purchase, one would insert the coins in the handle, push it in, and pull it out. On rare occasions, it was new comic day, and the stocker - having no least idea - would simply fill it as high as it seemed. Which would often result in TWO comics being distributed. And since the stockers were at the stores, they didn't CARE what books went where, so it was possibly two (once three) new and different comics for thirteen cents. I didn't know if I felt guilty or clever... but I kept 'em all. These devices were at the big department stores, mostly ... again, maximum exposure for minimum space investment.

But my amusement park was most drugstores and pharmacies, which had a magazine section... including a comic book section. Oh, I'd plant in front of those, and just look and look and look. I didn't read 'em there ("Hey, kid, pick your books an' buy 'em! This ain't a liberry!") because then, I didn't get to read them at home.

I even picked up the occasional Mad or Cracked magazine (usually during fifth week when - what the hell? NO NEW COMICS?!?!? Poor li'l Eric...)

My mom didn't really care what I read, but my dad would occasionally check. "What the hell, Eric? TWENTY-FIVE CENTS for a COMIC BOOK?" Yes, well... look how thick. Look how many stories.

And then came the week... I saw IT sitting there:

It looked about that big to me, too. Superman! Batman! Wonder Woman! The Justice League! The Justice Society! And, although I didn't know it at the time... art by NEAL ADAMS!!! I would have traded blood for that book. Luckily, they just took $1.06 for it.

Turned out there were no issues 1, 2, or 3, and I eventually found the very first published issue, #4 - Weird Mystery Tales. (To ten year old Eric, it scared the crap out of me. Didn't think Mom or Dad would appreciate it.) I never found #5, "Love Stories", so if anyone of y'all has a spare that you don't need... I'd be glad to take it off your hands.

Things changed after that, of course. But that's where I started my affair with the love that dare not publish its name... :)