I can't actually remember if the summer of '69 was grey or blue (a bit of both as usual I suppose) but the title of this post refers to the rather drab advert for the IPC Holiday Specials that appeared that summer.
As promotions go, it's not that exciting is it? Rather dull layout, dry text, and printed in monochrome, and yet...
...it worked! The announcement did excite us, and we did seek out those wonderful 96 page specials, and they provided us with some great reading over the summer holidays! The advertisement raised our curiosity to find out more, and in that regard it succeeded perfectly.
Here's the actual covers of three of those Holiday Specials from my collection for you to see them in their full colour glory.
I didn't have the Valiant Summer Special that year but you can see that cover (and more) here:
13 comments:
It was a beautiful sunny Summer, Lew! I remember it well! Especially the music, - the free concerts in Hyde Park, etc. Of course, there was civil unrest going on as well, but I didn't really get what all of that was about at the time?
We always remember the sunnier days of our youth but I'll take your word for it. I know the day we arrived on our summer holiday in Blackpool it was raining but the weather improved later that week. Can't remember much about the rest of that summer.
My abiding memories of 1969 was writing the date in the margins of my school books and realising that the next year would be 1970 , which seemed so futuristic then and playing football as my pals and myself joined a local under 11 year olds football team “Rutherglen Torpedo” that lasted only 8 weeks over the summer holidays. I only had the Valiant summer Special (that I can remember) that year as I wasn’t a big fan of them and preferred to buy weekly comics (US or UK) with my money, saying that now I would love to pick up some of these specials they look great.
Here's a few pages from the Buster special for that year. (In the comments on that post you said you liked the IPC specials, so perhaps you've forgotten you had them?)
https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/buster-holiday-fun-special-1969.html
Thanks for article, Lew. Prompted me to start looking for Smash! Summer Specials.
There's not many, Sid, so good luck!
SMASH! POW! IT'S FANTASTIC SUMMER SPECIAL (1968)
SMASH! HOLIDAY SPECIAL (1969)
SMASH! HOLIDAY SPECIAL (1970)
VALIANT AND SMASH! HOLIDAY SPECIAL (1971)
I certainly enjoyed and liked the IPC specials Lew (and Odhams) and liked most of the ones I got at the time, but they were too expensive for me at the time and usually my mum or dad bought them for me when we were on holiday so they were a treat for me. I have a few specials (SMASH, Buster and Lion) at home I will need to look out again.
You'd think Dan Dare in that Lion one would be more of a selling point. Mentioned in the ad, but not the actual cover.
Dan Dare wasn't that popular by 1969, James. Poorly reproduced reprints in Lion weekly and just a text story in that special.
Wasn't there something about landing on another planet around that time? OK...not exactly a planet...but 'off world' for sure!
There certainly was, which was about the time that sci-fi comics/tv seemed to decline in popularity. Perhaps we felt that the big build up during the space race had reached its conclusion? After the Moon landing British comics and TV seemed to become less space-focused and more Earthbound, - even Doctor Who! A few years later we had the "grittier" comics such as Warlord, Battle, Action, Bullet, etc, and TV shows like The Sweeny, Professionals, etc. A definite change from the optimistic, space-obsessed sixties.
After the Tory landslide the summer of 2017 will feel rather grey too :(
Seems we're heading that way, Colin. :(
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