SPARKY: The Early Years

This week marks the 50th anniversary of DC Thomson's Sparky weekly, which enjoyed a respectable 12 year run from January 1965 to July 1977 before merging with The Topper. I'm just going to focus on its very early days in this post.

Some of Sparky's most fondly remembered strips didn't arrive until a few years into its run. Fan favourites such as I-Spy, The Sparky People, L Cars, Puss 'n' Boots, and Spoofer McGraw were relatively late arrivals that were part of the comic's gradual evolution into a different type of comic. The Sparky that most fans remember was a wilder, wittier, comic, but when it started it was a much more conservative title and seemed to be pitched at a slightly younger readership than its sister papers Dandy and Beano. 

My copy of Sparky No.1, purchased 50 years ago, was thrown away back then, and I've misplaced the earliest issue in my collection (No.6) so these are a few pages from 1966 and 1967. 

Like Bunty, the title of the comic Sparky was also the cover star. Quite a controversial one in this case. Any article on the early days of Sparky comic can't avoid the fact that Sparky himself was an outdated racist caricature, with his distorted features and grass skirt. Indeed he was basically a revival of Sooty Snowball, an old 1930s character from the short-lived Magic Comic. (http://www.britishcomics.com/Magic/) 

If I remember correctly (and I'm thinking back 50 years here so I could be mistaken), the first strip had Sparky arrive via a flying saucer, suggesting that he was an alien, rather than an immigrant. (Can anyone verify that? Have I imagined it?) However, the physical similarity to black caricatures and to the old Sooty Snowball character would dispute that. I think what made the Sparky strips even more alarming was that although Sparky himself was a distorted caricature, most of the white characters in the strip did not have exaggerated features. Also, why was Sparky dressed that way when he lived in 1960s suburban Britain?  

Sparky occupied the cover strip for a while, then was shunted to the back page to give the presumably more popular Moonsters the cover position. A far better strip in my opinion, with nice work by Bill Ritchie.

It didn't last unfortunately. In 1967 Sparky was back on the cover again, and would remain so at least until towards the end of 1968. Thankfully by 1969 he was gone, surviving only as a head shot on the jokes page, and eventually phased out altogether.

As I said earlier, the content of the early years of Sparky was a little younger in tone than DC Thomson's other humour comics. Strips such as Cuckoo In The Clock for example, seemed to have a tone somewhere between Bimbo comic and The Beano...

Likewise, Winnie the Witch, a mostly forgotten character today...

Dreamy Dave and Dozy Dora was another whimsical strip that had almost a fairy tale aspect to it...

However, Sparky also revived some classic 1930s DC Thomson characters such as Peter Piper, Hungry Horace, Pansy Potter, and Keyhole Kate. These would prove to be more enduring than any Cuckoo In The Clock and would become the mainstays of the comic...

Sparky also featured a few adventure strips, with the robot Big Klanky being one of its best remembered characters...

I've only barely touched upon Sparky's long history of course, but if you want to find out more, Alan Smith did a very thorough research of the comic which he posted over on the Crikey! Forum a few years ago. Click here:
http://crikey.forumotion.com/t148-the-sparky-file