Treasury of British Comics

Treasury of British Comics is a line of comic book collections published by Rebellion Developments, collecting British comics stories from the libraries of Amalgamated Press/Fleetway Publications/IPC Magazines.

History
Rebellion Developments had purchased 2000 AD and Judge Dredd Megazine from Fleetway Publications in 2000. At the time, ownership of the library of material the later had published in its various incarnations was split, with characters who had appeared before 1 January 1970 sold to Danish publisher Egmont as part of TI Media (the latest incarnation of IPC Magazines, who made short-lived licensing deals for the characters with WildStorm (via Time Warner) and Titan Books in 2006. Dan Dare meanwhile was sold off separately to the Dan Dare Corporation, while the fact-based contents of Look and Learn and Ranger were purchased by Look and Learn Magazines Ltd. Fleetway meanwhile licensed occasional reprint collections of the post-1970 material they still owned, notably to small Irish publisher Hibernia Comics.

In 2016, Rebellion purchased the material still owned by Fleetway (then known as the Fleetway/IPC Youth Group), and announced they would be beginning reprints shortly afterwards. The Treasury of British Comics series began later that year, with the collection of "Monster" from the pages of Scream!. Due to the masters being lost, the comic had to be remastered from scans of original issues. Keith Richardson was editor for the range.

In 2018, Rebellion purchased the pre-1970 material from TI Media, and began adding it to the Treasury of British Comics reprint series. In 2019, the first of a series of books reprinting Hugo Pratt's British work was announced. The same year a Funny Pages special was produced for Free Comic Book Day.

In 2020, Rebellion editor Oliver Pickles described the "mission statement" of the imprint as "bringing these ignored masterpieces back to the forefront of the public’s consciousness" when referring to the company's schedule for the year, which included collections of strips including "Third World War", "Billy's Boots", "The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire" and "The Thirteenth Floor".

In May 2023 a revival of the traditional British annual with the Treasury of British Comics Annual, which included new material based on vintage properties such as the Spider, the Leopard from Lime Street and Black Beth, backed with reprints of classic material.