Sunday, April 16, 2017

The Easter POW! (1968)

The Cloak, by Mike Higgs, was one of my favourite strips of the 1960s so I was over the moon to find myself working as Mike's assistant for a while in the early 1980s. I'm proud that I can call Mike a friend and still see him regularly when we put the world of comics to rights over a pie and a pint. (Not necessarily a pie.) Here's Mike's brilliant Cloak strip on the cover of the Easter edition of Pow! back in 1968. 

 The strip continued inside. (The depiction of the natives wouldn't be permissible today but it has to be seen in the context of the times.)

 The rest of the issue also had an Easter theme to the humour strips. Here's Ken Reid's incredible work on Dare-A-Day Davy...

 The Tiddlers and The Dolls, drawn by Mike Lacey...


 Georgie's Germs, drawn by Cyril Price, a veteran artist who had been illustrating comics since the 1930s and was still producing great work in the 1960s...


 ...and, on the back page, Sammy Shrink by Terry Bave...

 Pow! also contained two Marvel reprints (Spider-Man and The Fantastic Four) and a few home-grown adventure strips. You'd be forgiven for thinking that the X-Men never had a strip in Pow!... except for this issue, when an edited version of a strip was used to promote that week's issue of Fantastic...
The 1960s were good days for British weekly comics. As with all things, times change, but the UK comics industry continues to evolve and survive (see my recent article on that here). Happy Easter!
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11 comments:

  1. AnonymousSunday, 16 April 2017 at 14:57:00 BST

    Happy Easter, Lew !

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  2. Lew StringerSunday, 16 April 2017 at 17:19:00 BST

    Happy Easter, Colin.

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  3. mjMonday, 17 April 2017 at 09:47:00 BST

    Lol I consumed a medium sized chocolate egg whilst perusing this, Happy Easter!

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  4. Lew StringerMonday, 17 April 2017 at 10:52:00 BST

    That's the way to do it. (Having said that, I haven't had an Easter Egg since I was a kid.)

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  5. mjMonday, 17 April 2017 at 14:53:00 BST

    Be fair, I didn't eat the bars that came with it! I do love a POW! post it's where collecting comics started for me

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  6. Lew StringerMonday, 17 April 2017 at 15:08:00 BST

    Go mad. Have the bars as well. It's Easter!

    Yes, same here with Pow! and co. The first comics I saved (this was scanned from the issue I had 50 years ago). The comics that inspired me to draw my own comics.

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  7. AnonymousMonday, 17 April 2017 at 18:00:00 BST

    Brilliant! I don't collect comics but are the pow annuals worth having

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  8. Lew StringerMonday, 17 April 2017 at 22:34:00 BST

    The annuals tended to use different artists to the ones who drew the weekly strips. The best one to get is Pow! Annual 1971 that features brand new British superheroes that never appeared anywhere again! More info here:

    https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/annuals-of-christmas-1970.html

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  9. TiniebrasTuesday, 18 April 2017 at 20:18:00 BST

    Love that big colourful Cloak cover, not seen it before. I don't suppose there's any news on the long awaited Cloak collection is there?

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  10. Lew StringerTuesday, 18 April 2017 at 21:44:00 BST

    Mike's still working on it when he has time. There's a lot of pages to scan and clean up ready for print. I'll post details here when it happens.

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  11. STEPHEN ARCHERFriday, 21 April 2017 at 15:37:00 BST

    It's almost a shame Mike Lacey's artwork 'settled down' in the next few to give us X-Ray Specs, Scared Stiff Sam etc; that Baxendale bloke's got a lot to answer for! It was him, too, who introduced kids with 'orrible round nostrils as sported by some of the lovel young ladies here ... urgh!

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