Out now! Classic collection of Beano and Dandy covers!

You may remember that back in 2013, the company Phil Comics published an officially licensed book of Dandy and Beano Christmas covers? Well, now they've issued a companion book and it's equally as amazing as the first, - and has 100 more pages!

Beano and The Dandy - Classic Comic Covers 1937 to 1988 showcases a great selection of vintage covers scanned from the actual comics. Themes such as Easter, fireworks, the Coronation, Christmas, and more are represented with excellent reproduction. Truly a great book for all ages this Christmas! 

Here's the press release from Phil-Comics with details of how to buy a copy...

Hold the front page!
‘Beano and The Dandy – Classic Comic Covers 1937-1988’

We’re over the moon to say that after many months of hard work our brand new book has just been published!
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274077259164

Following the popularity of our first book in 2013, which reprinted the classic Christmas covers of the two comics from 1937-1969, this book celebrates some of the very best front covers of our two favourite British comics from 1937 to 1988, their first fifty years.

We have searched high and low in our own collection, browsed through our auction results archive and spent several months tracking down some elusive issues to showcase in the book. We’re indebted to a variety of very good people who assisted with its production, not least a handful of collectors who diligently scanned many covers of elusive comics from their collections.

The eighty Beano covers and eighty covers of The Dandy chosen are some of the most iconic and attractive front covers, made up of firework, Easter, new year, Christmas, landmark issues, birthday numbers, free gift editions and some that just tickled our fancy. There’s a four page introduction and the added bonus of four previously unseen pages of original front cover artwork, provided by the archivists at DC Thomson & Co., Ltd.

The book is hardback with a matt laminated dustjacket and 176 full colour matt pages, so it is very much a coffee table book and collectors’ item. Collectors who own a copy of our first book will be pleased to hear that this latest edition has 100 more pages and is nearly an inch thick.

It's available to buy either direct from us or at the following eBay link:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/274077259164

Please share this post, tell your collector friends and indeed anyone who may have read the comic growing up - it'll make a marvellous Christmas present!

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Easter Funday!

I just have time for a quick post today so here's a bunch of Easter covers that have graced humour comics past and present. Longtime readers of this blog will have seen most of these before but they're worth showing again in one post. 

In consecutive order, starting with Funny Wonder No.1045 from 1934. I believe this was drawn by Reg Parlett in his early days. (This is the international edition, which had an issue of Jester inside, but apart from the masthead it was the same as the UK edition.)

A few years later, in 1937, we have the Easter issue of Chips, with Weary Willie and Tired Tim drawn by Percy Cocking...

On to 1940 and it's Radio Fun with artwork by Reg Parlett...

Moving into the Sixties it's the Easter Bimbo with covers by Dudley Watkins...

Wham! from 1965 with Biff drawn by Graham Allen...

A year later, 1966, the Easter Smash! with a cover by Ron Spencer...

The Easter 1967 issue of The Beano, with Biffo by Dudley Watkins...

It's 1968 and the Easter Pow! cover is by Mike Higgs...

Journeying through time to 1989 it's Buster with art by Tom Paterson...

Finally, back in the present day it's the current issue of Beano with art by Nigel Parkinson...

...and the latest issue of The Phoenix with a cover that, unusually, is uncredited! (If you're out there, let me know who you are.)

After that brief time-trip through British comics history, I hope you all have a great break and a Happy Easter! 

FILM FUN - Easter 1953

Film Fun was a highly successful comic from the Amalgamated Press that enjoyed a long run from 17th January 1920 until 8th September 1962 when it merged into Buster. A total of 2,225 issues (according to research by the late Denis Gifford). It ran strips featuring popular movie stars of the day, imitating the slapstick comedy of the films but with a distinctly British flavour.

Here are a few pages from Film Fun No.1733, the "Grand Easter Number" dated April 4th 1953 but published on 30th March of that year. The strip on the front and back covers is Laurel and Hardy, drawn by Terry Wakefield, who had taken over the strip from his father George after he passed away in 1942. You'll notice that the boys are based in London. In the Film Fun strips, most Hollywood stars were relocated to England so that readers could relate to the surroundings easier. 

Film Fun's 16 pages featured a mixture of strips and prose stories, as did most British comics back then. Here's a Frank Randle strip, drawn by Bertie Brown I believe. I could be mistaken. Artists were instructed to draw in a house style back then and it's not always easy to tell the difference between them.

Red Skelton, which I think was usually by Terry Wakefield but this looks like Bertie Brown's work to me...

Finally, a George Formby strip, and this is a curious one. Film Fun often reprinted old strips and substituted the lead actor with a more contemporary one. A penciled note at the top of the page, written by the comic's previous owner, reads: 

"RP 1944  20.4.1957 Red Skelton".

My thanks to comics historian and author Ray Moore for solving the mystery. He informs me that the note means that this 1953 George Formby strip was doctored and reprinted as a Red Skelton strip in Film Fun No.1944, dated 20th April 1957. 

I hope you enjoyed this day trip back to 1953 to see what kids were reading over their Easter holidays that year, and may I wish you all a Happy Easter for 2018!

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P.S: I understand some of you may be having problems posting comments, so I've changed this blog's settings again to allow comments from people who don't have a Google etc account. I'd prohibited this a while ago to stop spamming and trolling, so I hope everyone plays nice now the restraints are off!

ILLUSTRATED CHIPS of Easter 1937

Let's go back in time 80 years, to Easter 1937, when this issue of Illustrated Chips was on sale. Despite its limitations of only being printed in black ink on pink paper, the strips are bursting with fun and joy. The Holiday Antics of Weary Willie and Tired Tim is drawn by the ever-reliable Percy Cocking, the strip's regular artist. 

As with most comics of the period, the centre pages featured a busy mixture of short strips and cartoons. Here's a selection, starting with Ivor Klue, drawn by Albert Pease...

Again, as was the format of the times, only half of the comic featured strips. The other 50% being taken up by text stories. This page managed to fit in a prose story, the fictional office boy's weekly column, and two adverts...

The back page of this 8 page tabloid featured two very popular features; Casey Court, and Laurie and Trailer, both drawn by Albert Pease...

I hope you've enjoyed this Easter holiday trip back to 1937. Have a good weekend wherever and whenever you go! (Don't forget that the new series of Doctor Who starts on Saturday at 7.20pm.)

(This week's 2000AD preview will appear on Monday.)

Have an Eggs-cellent Easter!

No time to research old comics for an Easter theme this weekend I'm afraid but here's a few links to blog posts I did a few years ago, all of which contain lots of Easter strips from the pages of Smash!, Pow!, Radio Fun and more! A trip down memory lane for regular readers of Blimey! and a treat for those of you who are new to this blog. Happy Easter!

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/easter-comics-of-past.html?showComment=1270499838812

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/ha-ha-happy-easter-readers.html

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/easter-funday.html

Easter Funday

  
Here's another Easter classic for you to enjoy. It's Bimbo No.59 from 50 years ago with Tom Thumb drawn by Dudley D. Watkins. 

The skill of Dudley Watkins was astonishing, particularly when you consider how prolific he was at this time. As well as producing two pages of Tom Thumb every week, his other weekly output was Desperate Dan, Lord Snooty, Ginger, Mickey the Monkey, The Broons, Oor Wullie, plus numerous pages he contributed to annuals. Over eight pages a week on a regular basis! I really find it incredible that he could manage such an output and maintain such high quality. What a remarkable artist he was.

 Bimbo was a 20 page glossy comic for very young children, published by DC Thomson. This was a time way before "activity magazines" replaced comics for pre-schoolers and the main activity encouraged was the art of reading. How depressing that such wonderfully crafted comics as Bimbo (and others such as Jack and Jill and Playhour) that introduced children to the pleasures of reading for fun have been supplanted by cheap magazines with pages to colour or simple puzzles. It's no wonder that less 7 to 10 year olds are buying comics today, because they haven't already developed the skill of reading comics from titles such as Bimbo.

Bimbo also featured one of The Beezer's stars, Baby Crockett, in brand new strips drawn by his regular artist Bill Ritchie...

This issue was full of Easter themed strips but I won't feature them all. Here's one more though; The Teddy Bears. Interestingly, although all the other strips in Bimbo had the dialogue as part of the text beneath the panels, The Teddy Bears used the standard convention of word balloons. The final panel of every episode was a full page splash which served as an activity page. See if you can find all the hidden objects. Go on. You know you want to.

For more Easter comic fun pick up the latest issue of The Beano. Out now with 44 pages and a cover mounted catapult for £2.50.  

 

Ha-Ha-Happy Easter, readers!

  
For the Easter weekend here's a few fun strips from Easter comics of the past, starting with Mike Higgs' cover to Pow! and Wham! No.66 from 1968.

Want to see the second page of the story? Here you go...

 There were a number of Easter related strips in that issue including this one drawn by Mike Lacey. When Pow! and Wham! merged, two of their strips merged into one too, with The Tiddlers and The Dolls of St.Dominics becoming The Tiddlers and The Dolls... 

That same week in Smash! there was more schoolboy mischief with The Swots and the Blots. (Usually drawn by Ron Spencer or Mike Lacey but not this week. I'm not sure who drew this particular episode.)

 Page two...

Bad Penny was also up to her usual pranks in this strip by Mike Brown. Note the name on the construction site board, "A.Wallace"; a reference to editor Alf Wallace who also takes a hand at the end of the strip. 

As you might guess, Fatty was stuffing his face at Easter in The Nervs, drawn by Graham Allen. This was always my favourite strip in Smash!. Wilder and more grotesque than The Beezer's Numskulls ever was, especially in the later strips when Ken Reid took over The Nervs.

Going even further back in time here's the Easter cover to The Funny Wonder from 1934. This is the version published for export to Canada, identical to the English edition except for the masthead. (The British edition would have had a special Easter logo this week, sadly absent from this cover.) The Canadian edition also had that week's issue of The Jester inserted into it, in a kind of forerunner to Whizzer and Chips (but in this case it really was two comics in one and not a gimmick). The Pitch and Toss strip this issue was by Reg Parlett.

There was plenty of Easter merriment inside that issue. Here's one of the strips, Marmaduke and his Ma by Wally Robertson...

For those of you who celebrate it, a very Happy Easter to you. Enjoy the weekend!