(with thanks to Eric Swainsbury for assistance)

To my knowledge The Spirit sections have been reprinted on three occasions in the United Kingdom:

The first attempt was by Boardman in 1949, where they printed two 12 page issues of Spirit sections which had new covers done by Frank McLoughlin. The two issues are numbered 12 and 17, which slots into the numbering of the "Blackhawk" reprints which Boardman were also publishing at the time.

(Shown above is the cover to the first Boardman issue)

Eric Swainsbury notes: "It is interesting to note that in all three cases a couple of the panels were not printed in order to shorten the story and in the case of Gerhard Shnobble story two panels are the wrong way around! The one with the Sprit and Gerhard in the Elevator appears before the one where the Spirit is shouting "Hold that Elevator". Also The Spirit suit is brown rather than blue in all three episodes."

Number of issues: 2

Reprints: Issue 12 - 14th March 1948 "War Brides" (#407); 5th September 1948 "The story of Gerhard Shnobble" (#432) 12th September 1948 "Cache McStash" (#433)

Issue 17 - unknown

A British fanzine called Comic Media Reprints represented two stories (in issues 10 and 11) in black and white in 1973.

Number of issues: Unknown (Spirit sections reprinted in two issues)

Reprints:

24 September 1950 -"Sounds"

3 April 1949 - "Kerrigan's Gold"

With the growth of shops carrying imported American comic books and magazines during the 1970s and 1980s it became much easier for UK fans to obtain the Warren and Kitchen Sink reprints which were being published at the time.

During the 1980s a new publisher called Titan Books had started in the UK. Mainly reprinting 2000 A.D. stories in album format as well the DC Comics line of graphic novels and collections the publisher had done well enough to expand it's output.

In 1989 it released a small paperback of The Spirit, reprinting six stories. To fit into the format of the unusual size all of the strips had to be reformatted - the six stories took 132 pages!

Unfortunately this attempt did not seem to do well for Titan as no further volumes were released.

NB Will Eisner wrote a Forward to this collection giving some background to the character - this was later reused in "The Spirit Casebook (Volume One)" published by Kitchen Sink in 1990.

The cover to the 1989 Titan reprint volume.

Number of issues: 1

Reprints:

18 May 1947 - "Saree Falls in Love"

3 October 1948 - "The Ultimate Weapon"

25 September 1949 - "Return of Vino Red"

23 October 1949 - "Fox at Bay"

27 November 1949 - "The Embezzler"

11 December 1949 - "Flaxen Weaver"