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Friday, April 06, 2012

Ha-Ha-Happy Easter, readers!


  
For the Easter weekend here's a few fun strips from Easter comics of the past, starting with Mike Higgs' cover to Pow! and Wham! No.66 from 1968.

Want to see the second page of the story? Here you go...


 There were a number of Easter related strips in that issue including this one drawn by Mike Lacey. When Pow! and Wham! merged, two of their strips merged into one too, with The Tiddlers and The Dolls of St.Dominics becoming The Tiddlers and The Dolls... 




That same week in Smash! there was more schoolboy mischief with The Swots and the Blots. (Usually drawn by Ron Spencer or Mike Lacey but not this week. I'm not sure who drew this particular episode.)


 Page two...


Bad Penny was also up to her usual pranks in this strip by Mike Brown. Note the name on the construction site board, "A.Wallace"; a reference to editor Alf Wallace who also takes a hand at the end of the strip. 




As you might guess, Fatty was stuffing his face at Easter in The Nervs, drawn by Graham Allen. This was always my favourite strip in Smash!. Wilder and more grotesque than The Beezer's Numskulls ever was, especially in the later strips when Ken Reid took over The Nervs.




Going even further back in time here's the Easter cover to The Funny Wonder from 1934. This is the version published for export to Canada, identical to the English edition except for the masthead. (The British edition would have had a special Easter logo this week, sadly absent from this cover.) The Canadian edition also had that week's issue of The Jester inserted into it, in a kind of forerunner to Whizzer and Chips (but in this case it really was two comics in one and not a gimmick). The Pitch and Toss strip this issue was by Reg Parlett.


There was plenty of Easter merriment inside that issue. Here's one of the strips, Marmaduke and his Ma by Wally Robertson...


For those of you who celebrate it, a very Happy Easter to you. Enjoy the weekend!

8 comments:

blaing1965 said...

Best wishes to you over Easter, Lew! :)

Anonymous said...

Hi Lew,

I know nothing about comics but I'm a history-of-everything buff & I do love this blog. The mid 70's British Marvel stuff was a massive forgotten flashback too. Thanks for the posts & Happy Easter.

Tyrone

Lew Stringer said...

Thanks blaing and Tyrone! Happy Easter to you both.

John Parker said...

Nice post, Lew. Especially the Pow and Smash strips. Many fond memories of those comics. I always loved the Christmas,Easter and summer-themed issues.Happy Easter.

Peter Gray said...

Happy Easter to you too Lew and enjoy the Easter bank holiday Monday..it will probably rain:))

loads to read on your blog at the moment i can't keep up..and that is a good thing..

Lew Stringer said...

Thanks John and Peter. I'll probably cut back on the postings this month as I have a lot of work to do but I'll still do a couple a week hopefully.

George Shiers said...

Happy Easter too Lew! And make sure you post the rest of that The Cloak story one day :)

Lew Stringer said...

I can't publish full serials for copyright reasons but maybe the complete Cloak will appear on bookshelves... one day. Stay tuned.

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