Giggle seems to be a comic that passed some of us by. I certainly wasn't aware of it back then, not until it had been merged into Buster for a few months. Giggle was published by Fleetway Publications Ltd and its first issue was dated 29th April 1967. Priced at 5d (2d cheaper than its Fleetway companion comics), it was evident that it was trying to directly compete with the D.C. Thomson comics. Even Giggle's logo, with the framed 'G' had similarities to the logo used by The Dandy at the time, and the character Giggle the Playful Cat (who soon became Giggle's cover star) was evidently trying to mimic the popularity of Dandy cover star Korky the Cat. Despite some nice lively art, he was no Korky...
Dim Dan, The Film Stunt Man was evidently European, and drawn in a nice style but I can't quite place the artist. It looks Spanish to me. Can anyone provide more info?
The reprints from old British comics included The Gremlins from Knockout retitled as The Chuckles (art by Fred Robinson I believe)...
Niblo Nibbs by Eric Roberts, was originally from Film Fun (I have the original art for this page from when it was renamed Nippy Nibbs for a further reprint in Cor!!)...
Castaways to Danger is a curious reprint from somewhere, but I don't know where. I'm guessing it may have originally appeared in a girls' weekly. Furthermore, I think the art has been altered to change the gender of the native who steals the necklace from a girl to a boy, perhaps to appeal more to Giggle's mixed readership. Can anyone confirm this?
I think a few of Giggle's strips were brand new. I don't know who drew The Wild Bunch but I'm positive it's written by Roy Davis, a prolific Fleetway/Odhams scriptwriter. As Roy was also a cartoonist he used to supply his "scripts" as rough penciled comic pages. He wrote many of The Vampire Brats stories I drew for Buster and I recognise the distinctive rhythm of his storytelling and style of dialogue in this page...
I think The Space Travellers was new too. The art looks a bit like Mike White's work but I don't think it is by him.
Helpful Hettie is either brand new or a reprint from a girls' comic. The art is definitely by Reg Parlett...
Giggle lasted for just 38 weeks before merging into Buster, so it wasn't a success by any means. Why did it fail? There was an increasingly crowded market for comics in the mid-sixties and inevitably not all could survive. Perhaps the mixture of European content and old-fashioned looking UK reprints didn't help, and the fact that, compared to its colourful rivals at D.C. Thomson, Giggle looked very dull with 28 pages and only the front cover in colour. I'm only judging it by my perspective as an adult, as I never read it 50 years ago, but it seemed to lack the excitement and polish of its companion comics such as Valiant and Buster. For a comic calling itself Giggle it simply wasn't a great deal of fun.
