The Christmas BOYS' WORLD (1963)
Boys' World was published by Odhams from 1963 to 1964, the company that also brought us Wham!, Smash! and Pow! I'll show some more strips from it next year, but for today let's look at the few pages it contained relative to Christmas from this festive 1963 issue.
The cover featured the regular What Would YOU Do? brain teaser, and this time it had an appropriate Christmas aspect to it. Art by Eric Kincaid.
On page two, the editor's message wished the compliments of the season to his readers, alongside a short Mini-Mystery...
On page 4, a funny festive Did You Know? by Reg Parlett...
Billy Binns and His Wonderful Specs on page 6 kicked off with a Christmas party, drawn by Bill Mainwaring. As some of you know, a Billy Binns strip also ran in Wham! comic for a while, with a different storyline to those appearing in Boys' World at the same time.
The Lucky Dip activity page packed a lot in. These days, each activity might take up a double page spread in kids' mags. Not that you'd have tricks requiring matches in comics today.
Private Proon the Barrack Square (drawn by Leslie Harding) was kind of Odhams' version of The Dandy's Corporal Clott, and also inspired by the TV series The Army Game I would imagine. The page also contains the solutions to the puzzles and mysteries shown above.
The other strips in Boys' World didn't have a Christmas theme but they're so good that I couldn't resist showing a couple of them. Here's the cenrespread strip, Wrath of the Gods, illustrated by John M. Burns...
..and this was the back page strip, The Ghost World, by Frank Bellamy! Boys' World certainly delivered a top quality comic for 6d!
There'll be another festive flashback tomorrow!
Why has no one told me about this comic before? It. Is. WONDERFUL!
ReplyDeleteWas the solution to get the boys to make a snow pile for him to land on safely..
ReplyDeleteThat's more like it.
ReplyDeleteA forgotten Power Comic? I'm presuming Boys World joined forces with Wham?
ReplyDeleteNever knew about this Bellamy strip until you highlighted it a while back - that and the Burns artwork would have made this a must-buy for me back in the day.
ReplyDeleteBoys' World started out with more features than strips and by the time they revamped it I think it was too late to attract back the readers. A shame.
ReplyDeleteAnon, Boys' World wasn't part of the Power Comics line. It merged into Eagle in 1964.
Peter, the solution is right under the Private Proon strip. You're partly right.
Amazed at how much the John Burns pages initially looked like Frank Bellamy's work - until I saw the real thing in the next spread!
ReplyDeleteAnd Leslie Harding on Private Proon!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Andy! I'll update it with that info.
ReplyDeleteWhat a coincidence. A copy of the boy's world annual for 1966 just arrived in the post today. Lovely copy for £3.20 On eBay. It looks great. That's my Xmas reading sorted !
ReplyDelete