It had to happen. Thanks to the success of the movies, the Guardians of the Galaxy are getting their own hardback annual for the UK market this year, published by Panini. The description reads:
"Guardians of the Galaxy was a surprise hit in cinemas the first time around, and a smash hit for the follow-up, making it a firm favourite with young fans. This intergalactic annual doesn't fail to entertain boys aged 6-9, filled with puzzles, comic strip and factfiles."
It's a shame that the marketing dept only think boys will be interested in the book. Superhero material appeals to both boys and girls and it's time that the old notions of gender division were dropped.
Panini are also releasing the usual annuals for Marvel Heroes and Spider-Man. I'm presuming all three books will use material reprinted from Marvel's comics for younger readers.
These annuals each have a page count of just 64 pages, which is quite lightweight compared to some annuals, but they still prove popular. The books are available to pre-order now from Amazon.
Here's a couple of nice big images (if you click on them) of the upcoming Dandy and Beano Annuals. Both covers feature art by Nigel Parkinson.
The books will go on sale in a couple of months, but you can pre-order them now from the D.C. Thomson Shop here:
https://www.dcthomsonshop.co.uk
Spring is in the air and the first batch of children's annuals cover dated 2018 are ready for pre-order on Amazon. These days, annuals are mainly for the very young end of the market, with recognisable titles from film and tv. Alas, the days of adventure annuals for the 7 to 13 age group faded away decades ago so those of us of a certain age were fortunate to experience our Lion and Smash! annuals. Still, at least there'll be Rebellion's line of graphic novel reprints to cater for a similar market soon (and for nostalgists of course).
Most of these annuals will be published around August, traditionally intended for Christmas presents (or perhaps for birthdays in the latter half of the year). The Dandy and Beano Annuals are ready for pre-order too, although no cover images have been released yet. Here's a selection of covers that have been revealed. Are you feeling festive yet? :)
I've shown a couple of these things before (http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2008/11/fleetway-annuals-for-1973.html) but, if you missed those posts, this is a leaflet that was issued to newsagents and booksellers for customers to pick up at the counter. The idea being to let people know the range of annuals on offer, and for them to place an order with the shop.
And what a range it was! Back then, publishers aimed to appeal to every age group. The commonsense idea being that as readers grew older the publisher could still profit from them. Just look at the titles available 40 years ago; annuals for everyone from toddler to adult. As you can see, IPC alone published no less than 72 different annuals that year, - and then there'd also be many other titles from DC Thomson and others. An incredible amount of books.
Such excellent covers too. I don't think there's a bad design amongst them. (Although I remember thinking that the Eagle Annual's photo cover was a bit bland.) Some great annuals here, including one-off collections of Dan Dare and Trigan Empire strips, the second of the merged Wham and Pow annuals (with a smashing Joe Colquhoun cover), the second (and final) of IPC's Marvel annuals (with a Geoff Campion Spider-Man cover) and the first Shiver and Shake Annual. Curiously, there was even a Tiger Tim Annual in 1974. IPC's oldest character in that selection.
Sadly, almost all of the titles shown here are no more. I think a Shoot Annual is still published, and the magazine itself is still in business along with NME and Angler's Mail, but everything else is long gone. Many of the 1974 comic annuals had survived beyond their weekly versions anyway, so they were living on borrowed time even back then, but it's a shame the demand for annuals isn't the same today. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy this peek into the past of 40 years ago.
As a bonus, here's a full size scan of Joe Colquhoun's brilliant cover of the western character Jeff Arnold for the Wham! and Pow! Annual 1974. Unfortunately the entire content was reprint from various Odhams titles (including Eagle), but at least the reprints were good - Mike Higgs' The Cloak for one. This would be the swansong for the book, but what a great cover to go out on!
Some of you will already know of the website I'm about to plug but for those of you who haven't seen it, tonystrading.co.uk is well worth bookmarking for any fan of British comics. Every year, covers of the new annuals are uploaded to the site and with the recent addition of the 2012 editions there are now 60 years of annual covers to appreciate.
British annuals have been around longer than 60 years (see this 1935 Funny Wonder Annual for just one example) but Tony's selection begins with the 1953 dated books and still manages an impressive gallery of thousands of covers. It's interesting to see how changing tastes and fads were reflected by annuals, including Westerns, TV shows, pop stars, and video games. Comic titles thrive and die, with the only constants being The Dandy, The Beano, The Broons and Oor Wullie. Both a sad reminder of what we've lost but also a celebration of the glory days of UK comics. Not every published annual of the last 60 years is up there but the majority certainly are.
http://www.tonystrading.co.uk/galleries/index-annuals-year.htm
Don't forget to look around the site for galleries of other interesting bits and bobs as well. http://www.tonystrading.co.uk/galleries.htm
As mentioned on this blog a while back, this year the annuals are being published earlier than their usual late August / early September schedule. In fact The Dandy Annual 2012 and The Beano Annual 2012 are out now from DC Thomson.
Each book has a R.R.P. of £7.99 but you'll easily find them cheaper. (Amazon currently has them at £5.49.) I know some collectors like to wait until they find unsold copies in bargain bookshops after Christmas for a pound, but that doesn't really help the industry and if we all did that the annuals would cease to be.
The Dandy Annual uses a logo from 30 years ago to reflect its content of old and new characters. Fans will be pleased to hear that Bully Beef and Chips are back, now drawn by Laura Howell, and other favourites such as Corporal Clott, Brassneck, Beryl the Peril and Winker Watson also return.
Traditionalists may not be so fond of the new styles given to some of the classic characters. I'm sure Nigel Auchterlounie's version of Puss and Boots will ruffle a few feathers with the over-thirties, but the strips are still funny, - what else does a kid's comic annual need to be?
Young fans of the current Dandy weekly may be a little disappointed to find so few of their new favourites in the annual. No Pre-Skool Prime Minister, no Postman Prat, no Harry Hill, and Nigel Parkinson draws a more traditional Desperate Dan than the revamped Jamie Smart version. However, Andy Fanton's George and Dragon are here, along with Korky, Bananaman, and Kid Cops. Then again, the kids will probably enjoy it all the same, just as I did as a child when annuals featured strips that were new to me.
The Beano Annual includes all the usual long-term favourites Dennis and Gnasher, Roger the Dodger, The Bash Street Kids and Minnie the Minx. More recent hits such as Ratz are also on board, with some nice work by Hunt Emerson.
Fans of Calamity James will be pleased to hear that he's back, drawn by the brilliant Tom Paterson.
Several of the strips feature a winter theme, which feels a bit odd with the books coming out in mid-Summer, but they'll be on sale for a good while yet. One of the winter stories is my own Super School strip, - three pages set on Christmas Eve! I designed a traditional Christmas logo with snow on it. Hope it doesn't melt.
Here's a flyer that was issued in comics in 1985 to advertise the 1986 range of IPC annuals. Recognize any that you had 25 years ago?
What a sad state of affairs that there are so few comic annuals published today, mostly replaced by merchandise-connected titles. However, the writing was on the wall 25 years ago with tv and merchandise related books such as Barbie, Grange Hill, and BMX beginning to make their presence felt and an already-dwindling number of comic annuals on the list. Even many of the books that were published that year (eg: Cor!!, Jackpot, Jinty,etc) no longer had their weekly comics. The sun was beginning to set on IPC's once mighty comics empire. For example, compare this list to the one for 1973 when IPC's comic titles dominated the market:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2008/11/fleetway-annuals-for-1973.html
On a personal note, the Jackpot Annual 1986 featured my first artwork for IPC; drawing a four page Scooper story.
Decades ago when IPC were at the forefront of comic publishing in the UK they'd publish a flyer around this time of year listing all the "Fleetway Annuals" they were publishing. These glossy full colour fold-out leaflets would be at the point of sale (on the counter) of newsagents, or sometimes distributed as loose-leaf inserts in the weekly comics themselves.
Here is the leaflet published in 1972, advertising the IPC annuals cover dated 1973. As you can see, it was aimed at the Christmas market to inspire adults to buy the books as presents for the whole family. IPC certainly had a great range of annuals that year, although the selection for adults was a bit sparse. That probably explains why Mum looks a bit blaisé in her head shot next to the Angler's Mail Annual.
Adverts such as these were picked up by kids as well of course to study those bright, exciting looking covers in anticipation of Christmas morning. Virtually every weekly comic had its own annual and you'll notice that some of the books are for comics long gone by then (Wham!, Jag, Eagle, Hurricane) whilst others are even for comics that never existed (Marvel). Look and Learn was such a major title that it had five spin-off annuals of its own!
Such was the attraction of comic annuals in the early Seventies. Sadly, today newsagents would prefer to use shelf space for higher-profit greetings cards or short term items rather than having annuals clutter up their shelves for months. You can't blame them as it's their livelihood, but leaflets like this just show how people once looked forward to "the annual treat".
