The BIG ONE merges into BUSTER (1965)

The Big One was a comic published by Fleetway from 17th October 1964 to 20th February 1965. A very short run, perhaps partly due to its cumbersome size, as the comic was a huge broadsheet format, far bigger than the tabloid-sized Topper and Beezer it was competing against. Perhaps another factor in its failure was that it was almost entirely filled with reprints. Now, its target group may have been too young to have read the stories before, but they may have found them too old fashioned. 

What may have really stuck the boot in though was that, as I understand it, the popular TV news / consumer programme On The Braden Beat did an item about The Big One, exposing it as a reprint comic. Something that may have led parents to believe they were being ripped off. 

Whatever the reasons for its downfall, The Big One didn't make a big impact and merged into Buster with the issue dated 27th February 1965. The cover of that first merged issue (above) is by Angel Nadal. 

Inside, the combined forces of Buster and The Big One had the unfortunate aspect of bringing in several reprints from the failed title, but Buster's own strips were strong enough to balance things. Here's the episode of Maxwell Hawke and the Phantom Zombie from that issue, drawn by Eric Bradbury...

The Micky the Mimic strip was a reprint of Hi-Fi Sid from Radio Fun.

At this period in time, publishers were still smarting from the anti-horror comics campaign of the 1950s. They were no longer allowed to publish horror comics as such, but they knew that kids loved such stuff. It seems to me that the compromise was to have a lot of dark, spooky material tucked away inside comics such as Buster, as you saw from the Maxwell Hawke strip. This air of shadowy menace was also evident in the new series, Toys of Doom, superbly drawn by Solano Lopez...

There was lightness amongsty the gloom too of course; a balance which was Buster's strength. The centre pages featured a variety of (reprint) humour strips from The Big One, including Tough Tex, a 1950s reprint from Comet by George Parlett.

Not all the adventure strips were grim either. Sweeny's Swingsters was Fleetway's attempts to relate to the pop fans of the day. I don't think they quite got it. Art by Mario Capaldi. It only lasted until May of that year.

On the back page, Charlie Drake, based on the TV star, with art by Arthur Martin...

It's worth noting that at this time, Buster was still a large format comic. Not as huge as The Big One had been, but the same size as a tabloid newspaper such as the Daily Mirror. It would reduce in size in October 1965, but gain twice as many pages. 

T.V. Fun No.1 (1953)

T.V. Fun No.1. Cover date: September 19th 1953. 
Price: 3d (1p). Every Monday (but probably out the previous Saturday.)
Publisher: The Amalgamated Press Ltd.
Page count: 20, comprising of four full colour, four spot colour (red), 12 black and white.
Page size: 24cm wide by 32cm high. 
Print quality: newsprint.

The year 1953 was a turning point for The Amalgamated Press. In one fell swoop they axed their three longest running comics. Comic Cuts, Illustrated Chips, and Wonder (formerly The Funny Wonder) were all cancelled in the same week, and replaced the following week with a brand new comic, TV Fun.

Clearly A.P. were determined to appear up-to-date by jettisoning their oldest comics in favour of one that reflected the new television age. Comic Cuts and Chips had run for over 60 years. Would TV Fun prove to be a worthy successor? Sadly not. It survived for just six years, changing its title to TV Fan for its last few months and merging into the romance comic Valentine in 1960.

Truth be told though, TV Fun wasn't a bad comic by any means. It was perhaps just not as modern-looking as A.P. would have hoped, despite its full colour covers (which the extinguished comics had lacked). To its credit it did feature work by some of the top artists in British comics, so let's look at a few pages from issue one. 

On the cover (above), the Arthur Askey strip had sort of made the jump from A.P.'s Radio Fun to herald this new venture. The artwork is by Arthur Martin.

Turning the page, the first thing the reader would be confronted with was a two page text story As Midnight Chimes. Prose stories like these were still a common feature of comics of the 1950s. 

Panel shows have always been a staple part of the TV schedules (because they're relatively cheap to do) and TV Fun reflected that with Put Your Question. I thought this was the work of Cyril Price but I'm reliably informed by comic historian Ray Moore that it's by Alex Akerbladh, and the last series he drew for A.P.

TV Fun contained a good balance of humour strips, prose stories, and adventure strips. One of the latter being Call In The Yard...

No less than five prose stories appeared in the comic. One of them was a complete story featuring super-spy Valda...

An adventure strip was awarded the full colour centre pages, with chapter one of The House With Red Shutters illustrated by George Heath...

The excellent Roy Wilson had a place in the new comic too, with two strips on page 14: Who's Who in Our Zoo, and Hoofer the Tee Vee Gee Gee. Neither of which were actually TV characters but TV Fun seemed to be aiming for the essence of a TV show in some of its strips, rather than filling it with adaptations. 

However, a TV celebrity did appear on the facing page in the form of Jimmy Edwards. Artwork by Reg Parlett, packing a lot into the page...

Despite this being a new comic and the company's big new launch, the editorial didn't appear until the inside back page, tucked away at the bottom. There the editor welcomed the readers, told them of things to come, and recounted his week. Which is all well and good until he cracks a racist joke. 

On the back page, a full colour strip starring Diana Decker 'The Cutie Queen of the TV Screen'. Judging from the times Ms.Decker flashes her legs in this and subsequent strips I think it's fair to say that A.P. were aiming TV Fun at an older reader than Thomson's Dandy and Beano. It looks to me that Bertie Brown was the artist of this page, and well chosen too for his ability to draw the female figure. 

Surprisingly (to me at any rate) I won this first issue on eBay last week for just £9.99. Either not many people noticed it or interest in pre-1960s British comics is waning fast. Of course, many collectors buy for nostalgia, and anyone who had this comic as a child would be in their late sixties by now and most likely to be cutting back on their collection rather than building it up. I hope showing a few pages from it here have been of interest to readers of this blog anyway. 

As always, click on each page to see it at a larger and more legible size.

This week in 1955: TV FUN No.95

This is the issue of TV Fun that was in the shops exactly 59 years ago. I've shown some issues of this comic on my blog before, but it's always worth a look at a few more strips. TV Fun was considered to be Amalgamated Press' modern comic of the time, a move away from the old style comics such as Comic Cuts and Illustrated Chips which it had replaced in 1953 a week after those titles folded.

Luckily for some of the artists of the old style comics, TV Fun had taken them on board. The cover strip shown here, Arthur Askey, was drawn by Arthur Martin. 

Jimmy Edwards was a popular star of the day, and his pompous, blustering headmaster character was perfect for a comic strip. Artwork by Reg Parlett.

A new strip starring Reg Varney ("as a boy") had begun in the previous week's issue. Here's episode two, drawn by A.P.'s top artist, Roy Wilson...

TV Fun contained a balance of humour and adventure strips. Westerns were hugely popular in the 1950s so naturally the serial Cal Conway's Son ran in the colour centre pages of the comic in 1955. I don't think this was actually based on any TV series. Artwork by George Heath.

TV Fun seems to have provided a lot of work for Reg Parlett. Deservedly so of course, as he was one of the best cartoonists to ever work for A.P./Fleetway/IPC. Here's a Sally Barnes strip from the issue by Reg...

Our 'Tec' Teaser was a precursor to Lion's Spot the Clue with Zip Nolan, and invited readers to participate in solving a crime...

The solution for the mystery appeared on the facing page, along with a Jerry Jones text story and an advert for a Whistling Yo-Yo (all the rage back then y'know).

On the back page, "The Modern Miss in Merry Moments" Shirley Eaton in full colour. A film star long before her memorable appearance in Goldfinger. Art by longtime A.P. artist John Jukes.

Like IPC in the 1970s, Amalgamated Press were never shy of reprinting material in their annuals. That same Shirley Eaton strip was reprinted just two years later in the TV Fun Annual 1958 with a bit of nifty resizing...

(For more info on that annual, see a blog post I did several years ago by clicking here.) 

At 16 pages for 3d (1p) the TV Fun of 59 years ago was a reasonable rival to The Dandy and The Beano, although I get the impression that TV Fun was aimed at a slightly older reader. Adolescents probably, who'd enjoy a glimpse of legs in the Sally Barnes and Shirley Eaton strips, and the artists readily provided such 'good girl' art. A.P. were actively trying to attract an older readership in the 1950s, with the most obvious comic being Top Spot (see blog post here). Sadly this direction didn't last, and when the Mirror Group acquired A.P. in 1959 (founding Fleetway) such 'cheesecake' was dropped, and subsequent titles such as Valiant and Buster (brilliant as they were) were firmly aimed at children. 

Christmas 1953: TV FUN

Considering this was the first Christmas issue of TV Fun it's a very low-key cover for the festive period. There's a a seasonal message in the topline and a few holly leaves in the corners of the page and that's yer lot. Artist Arthur Martin does a fine job of the Arthur Askey strip but the house is bereft of Christmas decorations. No wonder the kid looks so glum. 

This was issue No.15, dated December 26th 1953. TV Fun was the new, contemporary comic from Amalgamated Press which had been created to immediately replace Comic Cuts and Illustrated Chips. Its 20 pages featured a mixture of humour strips, adventure strips, and prose stories and, for the period, it must have looked quite modern compared to the comics it superseded. 

TV Fun was trying for a slightly more mature tone than its predecessors, which may explain the absence of snow on the logos and its limited use of Christmas decor for the strips. Only four of the strips tied in with the season. One of those was the Jimmy Edwards page. Reg Parlett drew this strip in later issues but this again looks more likely the work of Arthur Martin to me...

It's possible that Who's Who in Our Zoo may be a reprint, but I'm not certain. Apparently although Hoofer the Tee Vee Gee Gee is similar to Radio Fun's George the Jolly Gee Gee it was new material. Artwork by Roy Wilson...

On the back page, Diana Decker (The Cutie-Queen of the T.V. Screen) with art by Bertie Brown. Some cringe-worthy gags in this strip but Diana flashes her knees a couple of times for the benefit of the older reader TV Fun was trying to impress. (As always, click on the images to see them larger size.)