Marvelman Annual 1960 (p.1959)

Marvelman was probably the UK's most popular superhero, as not only did he have a weekly comic in the 1950s to early 1960s he also had several hardback annuals. (As did his companion crime-fighter Young Marvelman.) I recently bought a copy of the Marvelman Annual that was published in 1959 and thought I'd show a few pages here.

This 96 page hardback was published by Len Miller and claims the illustrations are all by Mick Anglo, although that wasn't the case. I suspect that some of the strips are the early work of Don Lawrence, who drew a lot of the Marvelman strips back then.

The book has a good mixture of strips, text stories, puzzles, and a four page Flip and Flop humour strip by Denis Gifford...

There's also a Doc Holliday strip reprinted (and translated) from a European western comic. It's illustrated by the Spanish artrist José Gonzalez, who a few years later would produce fantastic work on the Vampirella comic.

It has to be said that the Marvelman stories were notably daft, and often contrived. Sometimes due to tight deadlines no doubt, but sometimes deliberately so. For example, in the 10 page story Pipe Dream, Marvelman's arch enemy Gargunza invents a method of time travel... using a bong pipe! 

It's hard to imagine the creators of the strip were innocent as to what bong pipes were used for, and Gargunza certainly goes on a 'trip'. Even more amusing is that when Marvelman discovers the pipe he wastes no time in trying it out himself! 

Anyway, here's the full story for your entertainment. Due to the printing limitations of the time, the strip switches from colour to black and white throughout, which is pretty trippy in itself. Don't do drugs, kids! 

The endpapers also highlight this story, with a crazed looking Gargunza inhaling from the pipe. I can't help wondering what, if any, reactions there were at the time. Just a few short years after that ridiculous outrage over horror comics, and there's a story with children's favourite Marvelman using a hookah pipe. However, I guess if it was okay for the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland then it was considered okay for a Marvelman Annual. It still seems strange to modern eyes though, and I doubt any such scene would appear in an annual today.