Christmas Comic Covers - Part 10

Here's the final group of Christmas comic covers, and it brings this blog bang up to date with a selection of Christmas comics available right now. Firstly, this year's Christmas edition of The Beano, and it's a bumper 48 page issue packed with seasonal fun under a cover by Jimmy Hansen. Highlight is a new 16 page Bash Street Kids strip by Nigel Parkinson. There's also a two page remix of The Night Before Christmas by Laura Howell and Hunt Emerson, plus lots of other strips including the first Christmas Super School strip drawn by some bloke called Stringer.


2000AD celebrates Christmas with its now traditional 100 page special issue, on sale for three weeks. The Judge Dredd / Strontium Dog cover is by Carlos Ezquerra and the contents include festive helpings of Dredd and Sinister Dexter, plus a new strip, Marauder, by Robbie Morrison and Richard Elson.


Doctor Who Magazine will celebrate its 30th anniversary next year, but for now the Christmas edition features the start of a new comic strip by Dan McDaid, with Mike Collins returning to illustrate it.


For younger readers, the BBC's top selling Doctor Who Adventures has a busy cover as usual. In today's kids' comic world, a "competition" is now called a "win" and the contents are a mix of activity pages, pin ups, sparse features, and one comic strip. It's a world away from the days of the comparatively sophisticated TV Century 21...


Egmont's Toxic also has a lively mixture of feature content promoting the latest in films, DVDs, games and toys, but this festive edition has more comic strip pages including Rex by John Short and Alex Paterson, Robin Hoodie by John Short and Laura Howell, and four pages of Team Toxic by that Stringer bloke again.


Panini's Marvel Legends has no festive aspect to its reprint content but that hasn't prevented editor Brady Webb from adding some traditional Christmas comic snow to the logo, and a Santa hat to Captain America in the corner box. Cheer up Cap! It's Christmas and you might even be back from the dead again soon! Cover by Adi Granov.


Judge Dredd Megazine celebrates the season of goodwill by having Dredd arrest Santa on the cover, drawn by Greg Staples. One of the best British comics around at the moment, the Megazine features a good mixture of strips and comic-related articles.


Next, the ever-topical adult comic Viz reflects the financial state of the UK with its Merry Credit Crunchmas cover by the brilliant Simon Thorp. Strips by various cartoonists (including myself) are within plus the usual satirical features.


(Updated 20/12/08): Finally, the first Christmas issue of The DFC with a wraparound party cover by Dave Shelton. It's a bumper 64 page issue, no ads, packed with new comic strips oozing with today's talent. Remember this comic is subscription only, - is this the shape of British comics of the future? Time will tell. Put on your party hat and conga over to http://www.thedfc.co.uk to subscribe.

So there you have it; ten blogs of festive celebration, covering over 100 years of comics. I hope you've enjoyed this selection box of covers from Christmas past.

As you can see from today's gallery it's a pity that the traditional Christmas cover seems to be fizzling out. Unexpectedly, it's mainly the adventure comics that seem to be maintaining it, whilst, apart from The Beano and the humour/adventure anthology The DFC , children's humour comics are mostly avoiding it. (Neither Dandy Xtreme or Beano Max had festive covers this year, although their contents did reflect Christmas somewhat.) Critics may assume this is due to "political correctness gone mad" but, as is often the case, the anti-pc brigade would be wrong. Truth is such changes are inevitable as children's comics / magazines increasingly depend on reflecting the multimedia world, using their covers to promote films (as Toxic does this year) or simply because the traditional comic has more or less died out.

To end on an upbeat note, if cynical Atheists like me can still enjoy Christmas comic covers then I'm sure many others do too and that they'll continue. Come back in 12 months time for the covers of Christmas 2009! ;-)

Christmas Comic Covers - Part 5

Time for another look at Christmas comic covers from the past and this blog I'm focusing on just one title, as we look at the Twelve Dandys of Christmas, a selection of various Dandy issues from the last 70 years. Starting off above with the festive edition from 1940 as Korky the Cat makes a Hitler snowman. Artwork is by Korky's first artist James Crighton and the scan is taken from Christmas Comic Posters, a book written by the late Denis Gifford in 1991.


Next up, it's thirty years later and the cover to the Dandy from December 1970. By this time the Korky strip had been taken over by Charles Grigg who produced many splendid covers for the weekly.


Christmas 1974 brings us another Charlie Grigg cover. You'll notice from this selection how often The Dandy's logo changes over the decades!


Christmas 1981 and the cover design hasn't changed much for twenty years, but Charlie Grigg manages to pack in ten panels into a restricted space making the comic look good value for its escalating cover price.


By 1986 Desperate Dan had replaced Korky as the regular cover star. The artwork for this issue, which by now had absorbed Hoot comic, is by Ken Harrison.


Two years later, in 1988, and The Dandy had by now received a bold new look with glossy paper and yet another new logo. Artwork is again by Ken Harrison.


Christmas 1994 and the artwork this time is, I think, by David Parkin.


A nicely decorated 1998 cover by Keith Robson.


The Christmas 2000 cover looks familiar as it's a reprint of the one from 1988! As consolation the interior Desperate Dan reprint, in black and white on its first printing, was coloured for this version.


The Dandy from Christmas 2001 is a busy Ken Harrison production featuring as many of the comic's stars as he could fit in.


By Christmas 2005 The Dandy had undergone a well-publicized revamp with Desperate Dan shunted inside. The Bananaman cover for this issue is by Steve Bright.


Although there was the usual Christmas edition of The Dandy in 2006 (not pictured) D.C. Thomson also produced a Dandy Christmas Special for that year. The cover here features the revamped Desperate Dan, literally square-jawed, by Ken Harrison using a slightly different style.

More Christmas covers soon!

Christmas Comic Covers - Part 9

For the penultimate blog in this theme let's kick off with a rarely seen Marvelman cover from Christmas 1954. As most comic fans know, Marvelman was created by Mick Anglo after the UK Captain Marvel reprint comic had to cease because the American original had been canceled. Marvelman was more or less a carbon copy of Captain Marvel, but nevertheless had a loyal following. My thanks to reader Dave Whitwell for sending me this scan.


Dave also sent me the scan above; the festive edition of Ally Sloper's Half Holiday from 1890, making it the oldest comic in this series of blogs. From what I've seen, this comic paper always had an edge to its humour, something British comics later lost somewhat. Artwork is by W.F. Thomas and you can read more about Ally Sloper here:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2007/03/115-year-flashback-ally-sloper.html


Over 100 years later, licensed comics were the norm. Egmont's very popular Sonic the Comic always had a bit more depth to its stories than most merchandise-inspired comics though, and a good selection of artists for its 100% British content. This dynamic Christmas 1998 cover is by Richard Elson.


Whist Sonic the Comic was the licensed comic hit of the Nineties, Marvel UK's Transformers was the big seller of the Eighties. This festive 1989 wraparound cover is by Andrew Wildman, just one of the many artists to provide brand new UK content to this title.


For the first five years of publication, Fleetway's Buster was a tabloid sized comic. This issue from 1964 was the last Christmas edition in that large size, and features a lively cover by Nadal.


This Christmas 1972 issue of Valiant is fantastic, summing up Dickens' A Christmas Carol in just four panels! Marvelous artwork as always by Mike Western.


Above, the Christmas Wham! for 1966, with artwork on The Tiddlers strip by Mike Lacey.


The early 21st Century saw Pete Nash use modern technology to the advantage of creating the independent computer generated comic Striker. Sadly, outside of Roy of the Rovers football comics have never had much longevity and Striker was no exception. This issue is from Christmas 2004.


Oink! had a relatively short lifespan too, but still managed to be one of the most memorable and inventive British comics published. This Ian Jackson cover is from Christmas 1987.


As a special Christmas bonus, here's a page that appeared inside that issue of Oink! designed by me. Yes, after 21 years it's your chance to once again cut out and make your very own Skinhead Fairy! Perfect for the top of your tree.

That's all the classic Christmas covers for now. Sorry if your own favourites haven't been included but I hope the diversity and age of the selections have proven popular. This theme isn't quite finished yet though. In Part 10: Christmas covers of today!

Christmas Comic Covers - Part 1

Merry Christmas Chums! Throughout December I will, on occasion, be posting various Christmas covers here for your perusal. The choices will be randomly selected from various years and not consecutive so I hope there will be a few surprises along the way, along with a few memories stirred. I won't be going into detail about the contents. The idea is just to present the covers for visual entertainment, with basic info on who drew them, where known.

First up, at the top of this post, is the Buster cover from Christmas 1969. Artwork by Spanish artist Nadal. A simple design but quite striking, and changing the usual logo colour (red on yellow) to yellow on blue really made the issue stand out in the shops.


Next, (above) the cover for Lion and Thunder dated 25th December 1971. Artwork by the superb Geoff Campion illustrating a traditional "slap up feed". Such scenes were common on humour comics, but not so much on adventure comics so this was quite unusual for the times. It features many of the comic's stars, brought together for the first (and only) time, even including cartoon cat Mowser and James the Butler!


The Eagle cover for 1958 has little to do with Christmas in its cover strip but the masthead is nicely decorated and it's a good excuse to show some Frank Hampson artwork. (Or would this be by Keith Watson and Desmond Walduck by this time? Let me know Eagle experts!)


The Joker from Christmas 1934 is a classic pre-war cover, full of fun and slapstick. A real "feelgood" style. The artwork is by John Jukes I think, which once again shows a big feed at the end.


Tiger and Hurricane, from 1968, has a busy logo adorned with presents, and Typhoon Tracy, strongman of the comic, dressed as Father Christmas. The Skid Solo cover strip, suitably snowy, is by John Vernon.


Also from 1968, the Christmas Beano features a nice Biffo the Bear strip by Dudley Watkins from a typically inventive script from the DC Thomson fun factory. (Update: Comment from "Jason. A. Quest" over on Heidi MacDonalds The Beat blog: "No children’s comic is complete without at least one strip in which the character dresses up as a giant erect penis. ")


The Christmas 2002 issue of The Dandy is a wonderfully festive cover by Keith Robson featuring all the Dandy stars of the period.


Finally in this selection, a fantastic TV Express cover by Mike Western from December 1961. The composition and colour of this cover is just perfect, showing what a great artist he was. Mike passed away in May of this year and the comics industry is poorer for his loss.

More Christmas Comic Covers soon! If you have any childhood memories of certain Christmas editions let me know and I'll see if I have a copy to show here.

Christmas Comic Covers - Coincidental

No time for a full blog today but here's an interesting item: by sheer coincidence, Jon K's superb Random Acts of Geekiness blog started running Christmas comic covers the same day I did. The difference is that Jon's blog features American comic covers, which he's updating every day. It's a great selection of varied titles from over the decades and I think our blogs compliment each other well for fans of Christmas themed comics.

Apart from that, Random Acts of Geekiness features a wealth of other material too. Fascinating visual records of cult memorabilia! Check out his blog at:
http://waffyjon.blogspot.com/

Rummaging through that blog should keep you all busy for a while. I'll post Part 4 of the UK Christmas Comic Covers selection on this blog soon!

Christmas comes early

I posted a few weeks ago about how Phil-Comics were venturing into publishing with a book on classic Christmas comic covers. Well the book is now out and a very impressive volume it is. The Dandy and The Beano 1937 - 1969 Classic Christmas Comic Covers is a beautifully produced hardback showing all the covers in their original published size.

It's a very professional looking product and Phil mentions he had the assistance of DC Thomson's Gordon Tait with the digital design aspect. The book is printed on quality matt stock and the reproduction of the covers is perfect. The vibrancy of the colours adds a warmth to the winter themes of the strips and captures the spirit of Christmases of long ago.

Every page is a delight to read. The artwork is of course top notch with artists James Crichton and later Charlie Grigg on The Dandy covers and Reg Carter and Dudley Watkins on the Beano covers. There also appears to be a couple of panels by Leo Baxendale on the 1959 Christmas Beano cover.

Something I didn't know before reading this volume was that between 1938 and 1940 there were two Christmas issues for each comic. This book features them all. 

I know some UK comic fans prefer to wait to see if books like this turn up remaindered in discount stores but the success of this volume will determine whether there are any future collections of DCT material. Such a quality item deserves your support so I hope that (as I did) you'll order a copy directly from the publisher at http://www.phil-comics.com/christmas.php

Out now! Classic collection of Beano and Dandy covers!

You may remember that back in 2013, the company Phil Comics published an officially licensed book of Dandy and Beano Christmas covers? Well, now they've issued a companion book and it's equally as amazing as the first, - and has 100 more pages!

Beano and The Dandy - Classic Comic Covers 1937 to 1988 showcases a great selection of vintage covers scanned from the actual comics. Themes such as Easter, fireworks, the Coronation, Christmas, and more are represented with excellent reproduction. Truly a great book for all ages this Christmas! 

Here's the press release from Phil-Comics with details of how to buy a copy...

Hold the front page!
‘Beano and The Dandy – Classic Comic Covers 1937-1988’

We’re over the moon to say that after many months of hard work our brand new book has just been published!
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274077259164

Following the popularity of our first book in 2013, which reprinted the classic Christmas covers of the two comics from 1937-1969, this book celebrates some of the very best front covers of our two favourite British comics from 1937 to 1988, their first fifty years.

We have searched high and low in our own collection, browsed through our auction results archive and spent several months tracking down some elusive issues to showcase in the book. We’re indebted to a variety of very good people who assisted with its production, not least a handful of collectors who diligently scanned many covers of elusive comics from their collections.

The eighty Beano covers and eighty covers of The Dandy chosen are some of the most iconic and attractive front covers, made up of firework, Easter, new year, Christmas, landmark issues, birthday numbers, free gift editions and some that just tickled our fancy. There’s a four page introduction and the added bonus of four previously unseen pages of original front cover artwork, provided by the archivists at DC Thomson & Co., Ltd.

The book is hardback with a matt laminated dustjacket and 176 full colour matt pages, so it is very much a coffee table book and collectors’ item. Collectors who own a copy of our first book will be pleased to hear that this latest edition has 100 more pages and is nearly an inch thick.

It's available to buy either direct from us or at the following eBay link:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274077259164

Please share this post, tell your collector friends and indeed anyone who may have read the comic growing up - it'll make a marvellous Christmas present!

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