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Thursday, July 17, 2014

Bangers and Bracelets, they're Free Inside!


Back in 2010 I ran a series of blog posts showing old free gifts from comics. You can find the first part by clicking here and then check out subsequent days from that period for the other parts. Today I'm showing a few classic adverts for some comic free gifts of January to March 1972.

The four page 'pink flyers' that were inserted into The Dandy and The Beano at times to promote new comics and free gift issues have become very collectible amongst fans of UK comics. However, the small ads that were printed in the comics themselves were equally as well designed and compelling. Here are a few from the early months of 1972, scanned from the pages of The Dandy, The Beano, and Sparky. Click on the images to see them larger.








4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's lacking in imagination to assume that boys were just interested in football and nothing else - I used to read The Beezer and The Topper until 1974 and then I discovered Marvel comics but I wouldn't have read Roy Of The Rovers if you'd paid me. And I still go out of my way to avoid anything to do with bloody football even now.

Anonymous said...

I had more than one of those. The Beezer banger immediately springs to mind.

Lew Stringer said...

Those bangers were given free in so many comics, with a different illustration each time, that they probably deserve a history book of their own.

Colin, I've never been interested in football either, yet oddly enough I did like the football themed free gifts such as League Ladders and stand-up footballers. By the way, publishers did use more themes than football for free gifts in boys comics but, yes, footie featured heavily. Have a look at the blog posts I did four years ago on free gifts.

paddykool said...

Hi Lew, it would be interesting to see how many comics fans were not football fans .I'm one of those rare birds too . As for the free gifts . Yes , I remember the "Bangers".Back in the 1950's and early 1960's they were giveaways. I remember making my own when the original ripped, using the old one as a template. The squirt rings , though ...they're the ones i lusted after!!!

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