Whitsun was a bigger deal in years past than it is today, and 80 years ago the comics of the Amalgamated Press used it as the theme for that week's issues. I've previously shown the Whitsun issue of Jolly Comic for 1937 (click here) and now here are a few strips from The Funny Wonder of the same week. The comic is scanned from my collection.
Funny Wonder had 8 tabloid-sized pages, all printed in black ink on green paper for 1d. The wonderful holiday theme logo illustration and Pitch and Toss cover strip is the work of Roy Wilson I think. (Might be by one of his imitators but I'm sure it's a Wilson page.)
Inside, Merry Moments with Marmy and his Ma sees mum and son visiting a fair for the holidays. Note the "Fat Boy" attraction; a depiction of times when the "Freak Show" was a voyeuristic attraction at fairs. Art by Wally Robertson I believe.
Charlie Chaplin had appeared on the cover of the comic for years but by 1937 he was one of the centre-spread strips. Art by Bertie Brown.
Sally, the Sunshine of Our Alley, had a resourceful girl as the lead, and the title of the strip was of course inspired by the 1931 film Sally in our Alley starring Gracie Fields.
The comic included a cut-out badge for readers to become part of "The Funny Wonder Secret Society", but stipulated that only regular readers could wear it. (That excludes all of us then, unless we have a bound volume of issues to read.)
Fifty percent of the issue was taken up with prose stories and, on the back page, the only adventure strip in the comic; Tim McCoy. Those speech balloons are a bit shouty!
I hope you enjoy reading this summer issue from 80 years ago. If you have a laptop or tablet, why not sit in the sunshine and enjoy a good read? (22 degrees C here at the moment!)
Starting out as The Funny Wonder in 1914, the comic simplified its title to Wonder in 1942. That Hitler. Not content with causing paper shortages... Anyway, whatever the reason for losing its Funny, Wonder carried on until 1953.
This issue, which was published this very week in 1947, showed how Amalgamated Press were not only trying to survive post-war Britain but also trying to survive the stiff competition from Dandy and Beano. Still retaining its original 8 page format (albeit now smaller than its old tabloid size) Wonder was looking old fashioned compared to its Dundee rivals. The cover was a desperate attempt to grab attention with not one but three strips, although they were admittedly of the highest quality. The main strip looks like the work of George Parlett. Some excellent lettering as well as superb cartoon work. (The other two strips may also be his work but I think they're reprints.)
The contents were the traditional mixture of prose stories and humour strips. Here's Sonny Day and Whiskers the Wizard, drawn by Reg Parlett (George's brother)...
I'm not sure who drew this Mississippi Max and his Axe episode but it features three things that wouldn't be allowed in a children's comic today: racial stereotyping, smoking, and smacking someone in the face with an axe!
Ron Roy - The Rubber Boy had formerly been Ronnie Roy the Indiarubber Boy, but the simplified title was far better. According to one of Denis Gifford's books, this was drawn by Harry Parlett (Reg and George's father). Looks more like George's work to me but I could be mistaken as the Parlett styles are very similar...
On the back cover, the sole adventure strip. Westerns were massively popular in the late 1940s and Roy Rogers was the biggest Western movie star of the day so a comic strip starring the actor was an obvious way to attract readers.
Although not an outstanding comic by 1947, Wonder still packed some quality work into its 8 pages. Printed on cheap newsprint too, which still looks almost brand new today, 65 years later. They built things to last back in those days, even disposable comics!
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!
I trust that most of you will by now have bought your first day covers of the Royal Mail stamps featuring classic British comics? They really are excellent as is the mini-Dandy No.1 (reprinting 12 of the first issue's 28 pages) and the brief history of comics that accompanies it.
However, there is one little glitch that perpetuates a common myth of British comics. In the folder that comes with the stamps, Graham Kibble-White states "In 1937, DC Thomson launched The Dandy. This landmark title mixed rollicking adventure tales with robust comic strips that featured individual speech balloons rather than text blocks. This innovation made the stories easier to follow and prompted the launch of The Beano in 1938, as well as setting the template for future comics."
It's a mistake that James Chapman also made in his book British Comics, A Cultural History, when he wrote "While they maintained some text stories, Dandy and Beano introduced a new kind of picture strip that dispensed with text captions underneath the pictures and used speech balloons for dialogue."
It's the same myth that was in the BBC Four series Comic Britannia a few years ago. However, the fact is that in December 1937 The Dandy No.1 did not innovate speech balloons in comics, nor was it the first British comic to dispense with text under the panels. Here's a few examples to prove it...
From 1917, twenty years before Dandy No.1, the cover of Picture Fun No.428, with word balloons used in practically every panel...
From 1933, the cover of The Funny Wonder No.1,023, which not only uses speech balloons but also sound effects. (Art by Roy Wilson.)
Inside that same 1933 issue, two strips that use word balloons, dispense with the text under the panels, and even have the sort of rhyming couplets that The Dandy and other DC Thomson comics were known for.
A cover of The Sparkler from July 3rd 1937 (five months before The Dandy was launched) showing word balloons in every panel. (Art by Roy Wilson again.)
That very same week, The Butterfly featured its regular strip Perky, which although features some text it's relegated to the foot of the strip rather than appearing under each panel.
However, in the same issue, this short strip tells the story with word balloons and no text whatsoever...
So, speech balloons and textless strips had been used frequently in British comics long before The Dandy debuted. So how did this myth arise? I'm not sure, but it's one that been doing the rounds for decades and I even believed it myself at one stage. (I may have even written an article or two years ago that's guilty of the same assumption.) It seems to be an error made by some comic historians rather than originating from DC Thomson itself.
Thing is, The Dandy was innovative when it arrived but the reasons why are harder to pin down. For example The Butterfly, Funny Wonder and other comics of the time dispensed with text on some humour strips but The Dandy dispensed with text on most of them. Basically The Dandy took its inspiration from existing British comics and expanded upon it. This gave the impression that The Dandy was a more modern looking and faster paced comic. Also, the tone of The Dandy seemed brasher and not as slick as those from Amalgamated Press. It seemed to have a different attitude than its rival titles, and, yes, that new-kid-on-the-block cockiness did inspire other comics. Perhaps the myth that The Dandy introduced speech balloons to British comics just makes for a simpler soundbite... but it's still wrong.
By the way, despite that, James Chapman's British Comics, A Cultural History is still a cracking read and an absorbing study of the history and sociological significance of comics. Order your copy from Amazon here if you haven't already bought the book.
The presence of celebrity-based strips in The Dandy over the past 12 months has been a cause of controversy amongst some readers. Some people see them as intrusive, and on the Comics UK forum one pseudonymous fan went as far as to say that The Dandy is now "brainwashing our children into the facile, banal, empty celeb-worshipping modern culture".
However I think most of us see the strips for what they're intended to be; a bit of fun, and something familiar to draw in new readers. Far from being "celeb-worshipping", the strips are actually gently mocking the TV stars they caricature.
The adverse reaction is surprising really, as the inclusion of celebrities in comics isn't a new concept. From Dan Leno's Comic Journal in 1898, through comics like Film Fun (1920), to The Goodies in Cor!! in the 1970s and Big Daddy in Buster in the 1980s, British comics have long upheld such a tradition.
Here from my collection are a few examples of one of the early comic celebs; Charlie Chaplin on the cover of The Funny Wonder from way back in 1926. The strip began in the comic in 1915 and ran until 1944. The regular artist was Bertie Brown, although Freddie Adkins ghosted Bertie on occasion. Judging by the lettering it's possible that issues 652 and 653 shown here are by Adkins, although I believe 643 is by Brown.
I hope you enjoy these classics from 85 years ago!
