OVALTINEY'S OWN COMIC (1937)

You've probably heard of The Ovaltineys, the children's club of the 1930s formed to promote the hot drink. It even had its own radio show and theme song. (Ask anyone over who was around back then and they'll probably sing it for you.) As an early example of a merchandise tie-in, it had a comic too. The Ovaltiney's Own Comic, published by Target Publications of London, who also published weekly comics such as Rattler and Rocket.

According to Ray Moore when this was discussed on the Comics UK Forum several years ago, "It should also be pointed out that four of the seven titles mentioned were made further value for money, namely Rattler, Dazzler, Chuckler and Rocket, by the inclusion of the free four page supplement 'The Ovaltiney's Own Comic'. A supplement that ran to 128 issues between 1935 and 1938 which is still a record run for a giveaway comic of its kind."

I recently bought an issue of Ovaltiney's Own Comic so I thought I'd show some pages here. Again, using Ray Moore's words; "On the artistic side the Target comics were pretty exclusively the work of the same five artists, Henry Louis Diamond [who was also the publisher], Harry Banger, Bert Hill, S K Perkins and G Larkman."
http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3643&start=0

Target Publications were eventually bought out by The Amalgamated Press. I'll show another of their comics here at a later date.