Christmas comics: COMIC CUTS (1947)

Our final destination in the Blimey-Timey-Tour through the Christmas comics of the past sees us land in the year 1947 and the issue of Comic Cuts that was on sale this time back then. It was a time of post-war rationing, and this was reflected both in the flimsy 8 page format and in the strips themselves. There's something very appealing about the orange and black cover though, which makes a change from the more commonly used red spot colour of other comics of the time. The cover strip, Sammy and Shrimpy, was originally by Arthur Martin according to Denis Gifford's reference books, but I'm convinced this one is by Albert Pease.

As always, the centre pages really packed in the laughs with a variety of strips. I usually select a few samples from spreads like this but as it's Christmas I thought I'd show the centre pages in their entirety. (In case you didn't already know, click on the pages, and click again to see them at full size.) I'm not sure who to credit for all of the strips but Big Ben and Little Len is definitely the distinctive work of Bertie Brown...

Here's one of the four text stories from this issue, along with an advert for Mars bars, then promoted as a healthy food! 

On the back page, Pinhead and Pete, and I must warn you that, typical of the era, it's quite racist. The two characters are shown as equals, and as friends, but... aagh, that caricature and the racist language mars an otherwise nice strip. Art by Bertie Brown. The mini-strip at the foot of the page looks like Cyril Price's work to me.

...and that's it for this Christmas! I hope you're enjoyed all of the classic festive strips I've shown you this year. By the way, today (23rd December) is the 10th anniversary of this blog! Yes, on this day back in 2006 I decided to start blogging and you can read that first post at this link:
https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2006/12/blogs-are-for-egotists.html

Over the past ten years I've written over 2,000 posts, shown thousands of vintage pages, previewed hundreds of new comics. I've also encountered a handful of trolls and sociopaths before realising they were best avoided, but the thousands of comments from decent folk have made blogging worthwhile. My thanks to everyone who has supported Blimey!, including readers, publishers, and fellow creators. 

Where does this blog go next? Well, I never planned to be blogging forever, so I'm taking a few days off to think about it. My main intention for Blimey! was to focus on old comics (and creators) to help prevent them falling into obscurity. Hopefully I've achieved that in some small way. It's likely I'll be blogging less in 2017. I'll still be showing previews of new comics but the vintage stuff may be scaled down a bit in the future as I focus on work and other matters. Don't be too disheartened though. With over 2,000 posts over the past ten years it's likely there's some you've never read (or may have forgotten about) so use the search facility to see if your favourite UK comic or creator has been covered.

I'll be back before the end of the year with previews of my new Beano strips and more, but until then, I wish you a very Merry Christmas!