The Christmas BEEZER (1989)

In 1981, The Beezer had shrunk from a 16 page tabloid to a 24 page A4 comic (same size as The Beano) and in doing so had lost some of its charm. Nevertheless, it was still a good comic, as this Christmas issue from 1989 demonstrates.

The cover is by Robert Nixon, an excellent artist who had worked for DC Thomson in the 1960s, jumped over to IPC in the 1970s, and returned to Thomsons again in the 1980s. It was a time when some much sought-after artists such as Bob Nixon would work exclusively for one comics company or another.

Here's a handful of festive strips from inside. Firstly, Colonel Blink, drawn by the often under-rated George Martin...

A nicely designed Baby Crockett spread by Bill Ritchie...

Another Bill Ritchie page, Pam and Scratcher...

A wonderfully seasonal Pop, Dick, and Harry page by Brian Walker...

The bizarre Phoot and Mouse by Tom Paterson...

...and on the back page, Sting by Bob Dewar...

Another Christmas comic soon! Which year will the Blimey-Timey Machine end up in next? Hang on for the ride and find out!

Happy Birthday, Leo Baxendale!

BEANO No.852, Nov.15th 1958.

The great Leo Baxendale is 85 today! The history of British comics would have been completely different (and poorer) without his input and massive influence. Let's all wish Leo good health and happiness as we take a look at just a handful of his marvelous pages... 

BEEZER. © D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd.

EAGLE EYE from WHAM! (1964)

Leo took over the Swots and Blots in SMASH! in 1969.

More Baxendale Beezer Brilliance

Following on from the previous post about The Banana Bunch, here are a few more pages by Leo Baxendale that appeared in the (undated) Beezer Book that was published in 1963. Above are the superb endpapers from the book, with the characters creating chaos in the Beezer office. It's interesting to see Leo's versions of other artist's characters here.

The Gobbles is an often forgotten strip that Leo drew for the weekly Beezer from 1962 to 1964. Here are the two strips that appeared in The Beezer Book published in 1963...

Leo Baxendale's 'The Banana Bunch'

The Banana Bunch began in The Beezer No.1 way back in 1956 and proved popular enough to continue throughout the comic's run until 1993. The strip has been revived a few times since by various artists and was last seen in The Dandy in 2012 drawn by Nigel Parkinson.

Most of us will probably have grown up with the version drawn by the excellent Bert Hill, but the original artist was Leo Baxendale, who drew it from issue 1 in 1956 until No.438 in 1964. Here's a few examples of Leo's brilliance with the huge full page above from The Beezer No.295 (September 9th 1961).

Now the one from the following week, September 16th 1961...

Finally a couple of full colour pages from The Beezer Book 1964 (published in 1963). 

Truly funny stuff and some of the best material to have appeared in British humour comics. As always, click on the pages to see them much larger.

An early BEEZER (1956)

Most of us will have grown up with The Beezer comic of the 1960s to 1980s but in its early days it was quite different to the later issues. Here are a few pages from the year of its launch, 1956. Issue No.37, dated September 29th.

Although Ginger was the cover star for the first 33 issues (and would be again later), Pop, Dick and Harry had proven popular enough to be given the treasured cover position every week until 1962. The strip above is by Tom Bannister displaying his excellent skills in depicting physical comedy.

In its early days The Beezer had a good proportion of adventure strips. One of them being The Voyage of The Bushwhacker on page 2. According to Ray Moore's indispensable Beezer index (The Book of The Beezer) the artist was Bill Holroyd. This surprised me as there's barely any similarity to Holroyd's later work for The Dandy on Brassneck, Jack Silver, and Spunky and his Spider etc, but closer inspection does reveal that style emerging.

Fans of Leo Baxendale will know that his style kept developing throughout his career. In this 1956 Banana Bunch page there is very little resemblance to his Badtime Bedtime material of 18 years later but his style evolved gradually.

Westerns were big in the 1950s and The Beezer got in on the act with Lone Wolfe with artwork by Ron Smith. This is the second episode of the series. It's interesting to see a few silent action scenes. Very unusual for a British comic.

Although he was off the cover for a while, Ginger still had a full page inside. Drawn by the late Dudley Watkins with very contemporary images for the fifties, with its wind-up record player, door-to-door brush salesman, and old-style telephone, kettle and lawn mower. For a youngster Ginger was being a bit conservative in his music tastes for 1956 though, preferring Hillbilly music to rock 'n' roll!

The back cover went for an educational theme back then, with a wildlife feature and a cutaway. Presumably this was Thomson's attempt to rival similar features in Hulton's Eagle. 

The early Beezer only had 12 pages but its huge A3 size and bright colour on every page (8 full colour, 4 in red spot colour) still made it look good value for money. It's no wonder it endured a long run of many years!

DC Thomson revive old titles

Just time for a quick news item. Thanks to members on Comics UK for spotting this. Comic titles we thought we'd never see again have been revived by DC Thomson in the form of four hardback annuals. The Best of The Hotspur, The Best of Bunty, The Best of The Topper and The Best of The Beezer are now available (in 'limited copies') from the DC Thomson shop:
https://www.dcthomsonshop.co.uk/our-brands/annuals-calendars/annuals.html?p=1

'Best of' no doubt means they'll be all-reprint, (even the covers are from old annuals) but this is still exciting news for collectors of British comics. Let's hope they sell well so more may follow next year! 

Bangers and Bracelets, they're Free Inside!

Back in 2010 I ran a series of blog posts showing old free gifts from comics. You can find the first part by clicking here and then check out subsequent days from that period for the other parts. Today I'm showing a few classic adverts for some comic free gifts of January to March 1972.

The four page 'pink flyers' that were inserted into The Dandy and The Beano at times to promote new comics and free gift issues have become very collectible amongst fans of UK comics. However, the small ads that were printed in the comics themselves were equally as well designed and compelling. Here are a few from the early months of 1972, scanned from the pages of The Dandy, The Beano, and Sparky. Click on the images to see them larger.

Variations on a small theme

  
When The Numskulls debuted in The Beezer in 1962 few could have suspected that it would inspire so many variations on its theme. The concept of microscopic sentient beings living inside our bodies and controlling our thoughts and deeds seems to fascinate comic readers. (Example above is from The Beezer No.595, June 10th 1967, drawn by Malcolm Judge.)

Two years after The Numskulls appeared, rival comic Wham! arrived with George's Germs in issue No.1 by Leo Baxendale. Other artists also drew the strip, such as this example from Wham! No.17 (10th October 1964) possibly by Lewis Williams. (Cyril Price drew a lot of G.G. strips too.)

The comedy in George's Germs was far grubbier and more brutal than The Beezer's Numskulls. (See the "nasty, grimy little smut germs" above for example.) Like the strip that inspired it, George's Germs also proved to be very popular. In 1966, when Wham's companion comic Smash! was launched it was only natural that a similar strip would appear in its pages. Thus came The Nervs, most often illistrated by Graham Allen, who drew this example from Smash! No.14, 7th May 1966...

 

The Nervs was later taken over by Ken Reid who took the strip to greater heights of lunacy and gross comedy. Here's ken's very first episode from the first combined issue of Smash! and Pow! (No.137) dated 14th September 1968...

The early issues of Smash! also featured The Tellybugs drawn by George Parlett. (This example from Smash! No.14, 7th May 1966.) This time it was a TV set rather than a human body which played host to the tiny creatures. This strip fascinated me so much as a child that I cut out the figure on the extreme left of the title banner, stuck it to card with a base, and would place it in various positions next to our television.

For me, the weirdest strip of this type was Nobby's Night Mares which appeared in the early issues of Pow! (This example below is from issue 9, 18th March 1967, drawn by Lewis Williams.) Nobby suffers from narcolepsy (although it's never actually specified as such in the strip) and while he's asleep the Night Mare creatures inside his body put on horrifying stage plays that transfer into nightmares in Nobby's mind. Strange stuff, but this is the sort of creative dark comedy that made Odhams' comics so different (and often funnier) from those produced by DC Thomson or Fleetway at the time. An ex-IPC staffer once told me that when IPC took over the Odhams comics they sent a memo to editors telling them never to reprint The Nervs as they found it too disturbing - and they never did.

Today, the variations on the theme continue. The Numskulls is still going strong, now in The Beano and drawn by Barry Glennard...

...recently, reprints of The Beano's The Germs (considerably inspired by George's Germs) have also begun to appear, drawn by Dave Sutherland...

...and in The Dandy, Nigel Auchterlounie's The Bogies continues to run every week. (The first series of The Bogies appeared in rival comic Toxic but as it's a licensed strip it was able to jump ship to The Dandy.)