The Christmas KNOCKOUT (1950)

The original Knockout weekly ran from 1939 to 1963, and merged into Valiant, so this 1950 issue is from about halfway through its life. Published by The Amalgamated Press (who would become Fleetway, and later IPC), Knockout was conceived as a rival to Beano and Dandy and was an entertaining comic in its own right. 

By 1950 the cover strip was Mike, drawn by Eric Roberts (who would later work for The Dandy on Winker Watson and Dirty Dick, amongst other strips). I always liked Eric Roberts' bold brush strokes and clear storytelling skills and he deserved the cover position on the comic. Some of you may remember that Mike was reprinted and retitled as Smiler in Buster in the late 1960s. (Not to be confused with the Smiler character from Whoopee!)

Inside, one of the company's top adventure characters, Sexton Blake, was involved with The Hidden Enemy. I suspect this popular character may be revived now that Rebellion own the rights. Artwork by Roland Davies, who has put his initials in the last panel.

Billy Bunter was another of Knockout's favourites, lasting for the entire run of the comic and for many years afterwards in Valiant. (And originating back in The Magnet story-paper in 1908!) Bunter seems an archaic character and might be difficult to bring back for modern sensibilities, but... who knows? (Not me.) Artwork by Frank Minnitt.

Typical of British comics of the period, Knockout contained a nice variety of humour strips, adventure strips, and prose stories. Buffalo Bill was another of its regulars, with distinctive art by Eric Parker...

Our Ernie, Mrs. Entwistle's Little Lad was another long-running strip, with scripts as enjoyably barmy as the character. Each strip ended with his dad saying the punchline "Daft I call it!", a phrase that came into general use! So if you ever hear it, you'll know where it originated from. 

On the back page, - Sporty, by Reg Wooton. A newspaper cartoonist so respected he was allowed to have his name in the title. Wooton was another cartoonist whose style I really liked, and enjoyed Sporty when it was in Valiant years later. 

Had I been around back then I think Knockout would have been one I'd buy every week. A great comic! 

Coming up tomorrow: our final Christmas comic from the past, as we travel way back in time to... but wait and see on Christmas Eve! 

VALIANT celebrates the New Year (in 1965)

For my final post for this year, here are a few pages from the New Year issue of Valiant for 1965. Cover by the excellent Mike Western.

Valiant was mainly an adventure comic but it featured a healthy amount of humour strips too, and they were all celebrating the New Year. Here's Sporty by Reg Wooton (the only cartoonist at Fleetway back then to have a credit in the title box)...

The Nutts, drawn by Angel Nadal...

Billy Bunter, with art by Reg Parlett...

The Crows, also by Reg Parlett, next to one of the many ads back then trying to encourage readers to join the armed forces when they left school. Thankfully such adverts were phased out as British comics became increasingly aimed at a younger audience...

The adventure strips in this issue didn't bother shoehorning New Year into the ongoing storylines but it wouldn't be right blogging about Valiant without showing a taste of the dramatic strips. Here's that week's episode of The Steel Claw, drawn by Jesus Blasco...

Mytek the Mighty, drawn by Eric Bradbury...

Finally, the back page featured It's A Dog's Life, a European reprint of the Boulle and Bill series by Roba. You can read more about this strip in an older article I did here:
https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/boule-bill-billy-buddy-or-pete-larry.html

All that's left to say is to wish you all a Happy and Healthy New Year, and to thank you for following this blog. Here's to good things for 2017!

This week in 1952: KNOCKOUT No.690

Knockout was a popular weekly from The Amalgamated Press / Fleetway that ran from 1939 until its merger into Valiant in 1963. (See the first issue here: 

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/knockout-no1-1939-and-1971.html )

Let's take a look at a few pages from issue No.690, which went on sale on Wednesday 14th May 1952, priced 3d (1p) for 16 pages. The cover feature at this time was Mike, drawn by Eric Roberts, who would later produce Winker Watson and Dirty Dick for D.C. Thomson's The Dandy. 

On page 3, a nice busy full page illustration by Reg Parlett featuring a Scout group called The Beaver Patrol...

Knockout featured a mixture of humour strips, prose stories, and adventure strips. Here's Tod and Annie, The Runaway Orphans, by Hugh McNeill...

A prolific cartoonist of the 1950s was Denis Gifford (who was also a noted comics historian of course). Here's his Steadfast McStaunch strip years before he revived and redesigned the character for Whizzer and Chips...

Our Ernie was a long running character in Knockout, with each surreal strip ending with the catchphrase "Daft, I call it!". The dated appearance of this strip makes me wonder if it might be a reprint. Art by Hugh McNeill...

Another popular adventure character, Sexton Blake. Artwork by Graham Coton I believe...

On the back page, the ever-enjoyable Sporty by Reg Wooton, one of the few comics creators back then allowed a credit. (And quite a predominant credit too, always beside the logo.)

Knockout changed quite a bit over its 24 year run. I'll show some pages from another issue soon.

Vulcan Holiday Special 1976

As noted in the previous blog post about Vulcan weekly, it only had a relatively short run (30 issues in Scotland, then 28 nationwide). However, after its demise, IPC still felt confident enough to publish a Vulcan Holiday Special in the summer of 1976.

The thing that's immediately evident is that the design and layout of the Holiday Special is a big improvement on the weekly. It's highly likely it was packaged by a different art editor. I would venture that if the weekly had looked as dynamic and exciting as this it might have lasted a bit longer. 

THE STEEL CLAW. Artist: early Belardinelli perhaps?

Inside, the Special reprints stories of The Steel Claw, The House of Dolmann, Mytek the Mighty, Robot Archie, and Saber: King of the Jungle. All are edited versions to one degree or another of serials from Valiant, Lion, and Tiger, but again the design and any resizing is a step up on that which we'd seen in Vulcan weekly. 

MYTEK THE MIGHTY Artist: Bill Lacey.

ROBOT ARCHIE Artist: Ted Kearon.

The highlight of the issue is a brand new six page Trigan Empire prose story, accompanied by new artwork by Don Lawrence (who also illustrated the cover). Click to enlarge..

There's also a couple of Sporty humour strips by Reg Wooton. These would have originally appeared in either Knockout or Valiant. 

All in all, this one-and-only Vulcan Holiday Special is a great read and worth tracking down on eBay or wherever. Admittedly the Steel Claw story they chose to reprint isn't one of the best, and isn't by Jesus Blasco the regular artist, but the rest of the comic is good stuff. 

There was also a one-off Vulcan Annual published that year and I'll take a look at that another time.