Sunday, November 05, 2017

BEANO fireworks fun in 1964

Years ago, comics would celebrate Bonfire Night by giving many of their strips a fireworks theme. Visually, they livened up the pages, although some stories had a naive recklessness about the use of fireworks. Such strips are a thing of the past now of course, replaced by Halloween (an equally visual theme). 

 Here are a few pages from The Beano dated November 7th, 1964 (which went on sale Nov.4th 1964), starting with a Biffo the Bear cover by Dudley Watkins. (Remember to click on the image to see them full size. I know it might be obvious to most of you, but new visitors sometimes complain that images are too small to read.)

 Not every strip in this issue carried a fireworks theme, but here's Little Plum, drawn by Ron Spencer. Why would Native Americans be celebrating Bonfire Night? Anything can happen in comics...

The Bash Street Kids compete with other schools to win best Guy Fawkes. Whatever happened to Blob Street and Plonk Street? Art by David Sutherland...

On the back page, Dennis the Menace, in those pre-Gnasher days, drawn by David Law...


 Wishing you (and your pets, if you have any) a safe and happy November 5th.
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6 comments:

  1. Traveller28Sunday, 5 November 2017 at 13:40:00 GMT

    Cheers Lew! Our three cats made it safely :)


    Funnily, I always harken back to firework safety videos every year - Public Information Films from back in the day always give me the heebie jeebies!

    http://youtu.be/NGiIjP2szkw

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  2. Lew StringerSunday, 5 November 2017 at 16:54:00 GMT

    I was saying to some friends last night that I don't think they have those films on TV now, do they? A nurse told me that firework-related injuries are far less than they used to be, in my area anyway.

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  3. Manic ManSunday, 5 November 2017 at 20:01:00 GMT

    Being heavily involved with the fireworks side, things are a bit better because people are doing LESS home displays and going to more public display which can offer a much better display for less (in fact, people would have been happy to pay £50+ for a home garden display of little stuff, but don't want to spend even 50p to donate to a big public display.. odd at times that).

    Oh and personally, I loved the Hale and Pace fireworks adverts
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrllYDyRYLQ

    that said, there are still a lot of.. erm.. more minor accidents like minor burns, smoke, the odd minor house fire.. much less then some of the problems of the past as people start to figured out that 'yes, they are dangerous and no, you know nothing'.

    and I'm pretty sure they don't do anything on tv any more..

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  4. Peter GraySunday, 5 November 2017 at 23:57:00 GMT

    The Bash Street kids one was fab! Has they say in the 60's..
    Thanks for your post..

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  5. AnonymousTuesday, 7 November 2017 at 14:20:00 GMT

    Yesterday I bought the Beano Christmas special from Tesco - I haven't seen it mentioned on your blog, Lew (or did I miss it ?)

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  6. Lew StringerTuesday, 7 November 2017 at 15:03:00 GMT

    I haven't received any PR material for it, and I'm not a contributor, so I didn't know about it Colin.

    ReplyDelete

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