BUDDY No.1 (1981)

It's been 37 years since D.C. Thomson launched Buddy No.1 on Friday 6th February 1981. Clearly intended to be a step away from the "grittier" style of comic such as Warlord, Bullet, and Crunch, that Thomsons had previously moved into, Buddy was a return to a more traditional type.

The cover was reassuringly friendly and non-aggressive. Even the design of the masthead looked more like that of a humour comic than the battle-damaged style that Warlord and Crunch had used. The comic's mascot and pretend-editor was Buddy himself, the toothy, blonde, freckled-faced boy shown using the free Pop Pistol. (Note to those who complain that modern UK comics value gifts over content; that first issue of Buddy is all about selling the comic on the basis of the free toy. No stories are even mentioned on the cover.)  

To put Buddy into context we must remember that by 1981, the sales of traditional weekly comics were well past their glory days. Children were becoming more attracted to brands, and even more distracted by television than ever. Comics based on licensed properties would soon become ever more dominant in newsagents. With Hornet, Bullet, Crunch, and most recently, Hostspur, having folded, it seems that Thomsons felt that the way to attract readers was to revive and revamp some of their older successful characters for a new generation, and Buddy was the vehicle in which to do it. 

Buddy's 32 pages were packed with new, updated versions of top D.C. Thomson heroes, leading with the football story Limp-Along Leslie, originally a Hotspur character, and now drawn by Neville Wilson...

The Wolf of Kabul was next. Originally a text series in The Wizard from 1922, later a picture strip in Hotspur, and now in Buddy, drawn by Mike Dorey...

Deep-Sea Danny's Iron Fish was of course a revamp of The Beano's Iron Fish. Danny Grey now replaced by Danny Boyle, and drawn by Alfredo Falugi...

Tuffy, A Boy All Alone was a revamp of The Wizard's Scrappy, A Boy All Alone. The concept of a homeless boy against all odds was always popular in Thomson comics. (Does anyone know the artist's name?)

I'm not sure if Hammer! was based on a previous strip or was all-new. Great artwork by Denis McLoughlin...

Jonah was the only reprint in the comic, but if you have to reprint something, there's no better strip. Ken Reid's classic Beano hero, reprinted from the very start...

Billy the Cat was another popular Beano hero, now updated (and slightly older) for brand new adventures for Buddy. Here's the full episode, drawn by Pete Foster...

Rounding off issue 1 was Boy on the Run, a gripping thriller drawn by Carlos Cruz. Again, I'm not sure if this was a revamp or new, but I'm betting it was an updated version of some strip...

The back page revealed the forthcoming free gifts. We don't get free whistles in comics any more (in case they're mis-used I believe) but this week's Beano does have free balloons similar to the Super Zoomer!

In later weeks, other old characters would be revived for Buddy, such as General Jumbo, Starhawk, and more. Overall, Buddy was a very good adventure comic but it didn't last. The time for such comics was sadly ending. Despite gaining a new look and new logo with issue 99, it merged into Victor in 1983 after 130 issues. 

Here's a small selection of Buddy covers. For a major part of its run it featured strips starting on the covers. While that's a technique I've always liked, it must have looked quite dated to kids of the 1980s...

...and finally, here's the advert for Buddy No.1 from The Dandy No.2046, dated Feb.7th 1981...

All artwork and characters in this post are ©D.C. Thomson & Co. Ltd.

Christmas Comics: BUSTER (1969)

This was one of my favourite Christmas covers as a child. Firstly, the logo was a different colour than the usual red-on-yellow background design, then it had a large image as opposed to just a full page strip, and thirdly all that snow! It's a simple illustration, but very effective. Artwork by Angel Nadal, who was the regular artist on Buster's Dream-World, with Buster being a sort of backstreet Little Nemo for the duration of the strip.

There were many Christmas themed strips in this issue. Here's just a few of them, starting with an episode of Crabbe's Crusaders, a sort of powerless British X-Men. Art by Carlos Cruz...

Over the page, it's The Twitopians, drawn by Gordon Hogg...

A few pages further on and here's Big Chief Pow Wow by Leo Baxendale...

I was never a fan of Tin Teacher but I know some of you liked it so here he is. Drawn by Peter Davidson...

Finally, The Astounding Adventures of Charlie Peace with art by Jack Pamby. Charlie's exploits usually backfired on him (and the character was an inspiration for my Tom Thug strip years later) but, as it's Christmas, Charlie has a happy ending this week...

I hope you're enjoying this dip into the festive archives. Another one soon! 

This week in 1971: LION AND THUNDER

  
By the time this issue of Lion and Thunder was published, exactly 41 years ago today, the two comics had been combined for seven months, and the joint title would remain right up until the final issue in 1974. 

As a solo title I thought Thunder was a bit weak. Presumably most other readers did too, as it only ran for 22 weeks before merging into Lion. However, the combined comic was pretty solid, with a good line up of stories. 

This particular issue was the second week of a mini revamp for Lion and Thunder, with a few new stories added and the second batch of collectible football cards. (A mini album to keep them in had been given away the week before.) This free gift scheme ran across several IPC comics and you can see a picture of the gifts in an earlier blog post by clicking here and scrolling down.)

One of the new strips, Dr. Mesmer's Revenge, was highlighted on the cover and inside the chilling second episode, illustrated by Carlos Cruz, saw Mesmer summon a 5,000 year old mummy to life. All dark and atmospheric stuff, although it looks as though the artwork on pages 2 and 3 was drawn to a shorter height, as some panels have been extended with extra art in places.

Another strip dealing with the supernatural was The Spellbinder, drawn by Geoff Campion, one of IPC's top artists. It really looks like Campion enjoyed indulging in a bit of horror here drawing the demon.

In fact there was quite a supernatural element running through several strips in Lion during this period. It seems the editor knew that horror was a popular theme in cinema, books and magazines and was tapping into that. The core readers of Lion may have been too young to get into the cinema to see The House that Dripped Blood or Scars of Dracula but their thirst for the weird and uncanny could be sated somewhat by the horror-lite stories in comics. 

The exploits of Black Max for example featured a giant bat...

...whist Solano Lopez' rich, dark artwork for Adam Eterno gave the strip a nicely spooky edge...

...and although The Last of the Harkers was much more lightweight fare, it regularly featured a ghost.

Even one of the two humour strips, The Spooks of St.Luke's, was comic horror...

The comic also contained several non-supernatural strips (Carson's Cubs, Steel Commando and Zip Nolan for example) but there was definitely a good dollop of the weird and fantastic in Lion at this time. 

Finally, on the back page, Reg Parlett's ever-popular Mowser rounded off the comic for light relief, with not a walking corpse or demon in sight.