The Dolls of St. Dominics

The latest Comic Scene magazine (No.7) is out now and features an article I wrote about Pow! comic of the 1960s. Unfortunately there wasn't room to use all the images I supplied to illustrate the feature so I thought I'd show one of them here. 

The Dolls of St. Dominic's was heavily inspired by the St.Trinians books and films, but done in a traditional British comic style. This busy full-page illustration from 1967 is by Ron Spencer, showing the Dolls at their wildest. As I said in the Comic Scene article, this series is probably too rude to be published in a children's comic today. (It would be good to see the Dolls revived and updated one day though.)

BEANO fireworks fun in 1964

Years ago, comics would celebrate Bonfire Night by giving many of their strips a fireworks theme. Visually, they livened up the pages, although some stories had a naive recklessness about the use of fireworks. Such strips are a thing of the past now of course, replaced by Halloween (an equally visual theme). 

Here are a few pages from The Beano dated November 7th, 1964 (which went on sale Nov.4th 1964), starting with a Biffo the Bear cover by Dudley Watkins. (Remember to click on the image to see them full size. I know it might be obvious to most of you, but new visitors sometimes complain that images are too small to read.)

Not every strip in this issue carried a fireworks theme, but here's Little Plum, drawn by Ron Spencer. Why would Native Americans be celebrating Bonfire Night? Anything can happen in comics...

The Bash Street Kids compete with other schools to win best Guy Fawkes. Whatever happened to Blob Street and Plonk Street? Art by David Sutherland...

On the back page, Dennis the Menace, in those pre-Gnasher days, drawn by David Law...

Wishing you (and your pets, if you have any) a safe and happy November 5th.

Christmas comics: THE BEANO (1970)

Featuring one of its most fondly remembered covers, this Christmas issue of The Beano was published this week in 1970. Cover art by Dave Sutherland.

Here's a small sample of its 16 page content. The Nibblers haven't been around for a long time now but the strip was very popular back then. Art by Ron Spencer...

The Bash Street Kids in a nice festive story by Dave Sutherland...

Here's a character some of you have asked to see again. Billy the Cat, with art by Sandy Calder. This is an example of Billy wearing his special all-white winter costume, as opposed to the black one he usually wore...

Roger the Dodger, with great art by Bob Nixon...

...and on the back page, Dennis the Menace and Gnasher, drawn by Dave Sutherland, doing an excellent job of ghosting the style of Davy Law...

Another festive time-trip to another year tomorrow!

POW! No.1 (1967)

I've blogged about the first issue of Pow! before, years ago, but I didn't show too many pages from it. As some people said it was a favourite comic of theirs I thought I'd look at it in more depth. 

With its first issue published on Saturday 14th January 1967 Pow! was the third title of what had become known as the 'Power Comics' imprint published by Odhams Press Ltd. It followed Wham! (1964) and Smash! (1966). Comprising 28 pages, Pow! contained a mixture of Marvel reprint and originated UK humour and adventure strips. Here's a selection of pages from issue one...

Interestingly, the reprints of Spider-Man began with strips from Amazing Spider-Man No.1 and not his full origin from Amazing Fantasy. Story: Stan Lee, Art: Steve Ditko. 

The Dolls of St.Dominics was a traditional British school humour strip in the vein of The Beano's Bash Street Kids featuring anarchic schoolkids. In this case, set in a girls school. Superb artwork by Ron Spencer imitating Leo Baxendale (who never worked for Pow!) but Ron was clearly an accomplished humourist in his own right.

The Python was an adventure serial that ran in the early issues of Pow! Compared to comics published by Fleetway and D.C. Thomson, the adventure strips in Odhams comics could sometimes have a rough and ready feel about them, as this does, but that energy added to their appeal I think. 

Full page ad for the next issue...

News page introducing Pow! This regular news feature ran in all the 'Power Comics'. 

The Group, with art by Mike Brown. Similar in many ways to The Beezer's Banana Bunch but with its own vitality.

Jack Magic, another strip that only ran in the early issues (so probably wasn't too popular with the readers). 

The second Marvel series in the issue was Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD, reprinting the first episode from Strange Tales. Story: Stan Lee. Art: Jack Kirby.

Every Power Comic had a spy spoof and Pow's was Wee Willie Haggis, The Spy from Skye. Not a very remarkable character. Mike Higgs' The Cloak, which started in Pow! No.18, would prove to be a more popular parody of the spy genre. 

On the back page was one of the highlights of the comic; Dare-A-Day Davy by the fantastic Ken Reid. 

Like most British comics, Pow's contents shifted and changed a bit as the weeks passed. I felt it was constantly improving but sadly it only lasted for 86 issues, absorbing Wham! along the way and merging into Smash! in late 1968.  Nevertheless it remains a favourite of many of us who grew up on comics of that period. As the strapline on the first cover said, it was "The brand new comic for the new breed of comic fans". That was the thing about the Power Comics; they felt modern and young, and of the moment, unlike some of the the slicker, sometimes stuffier, rival comics from Fleetway and Thomsons. 

The free cardboard gun and ammo.

The Christmas BEANO (1967)

Published on the same day as the Christmas issue of The Topper I showed here the other day this festive 1967 edition of The Beano was packed with seasonal stories. The cover by Dudley Watkins is superbly designed, incorporating a 'Merry Christmas' message in the centre of the page whilst still being part of the strip.

Inside, Billy the Cat showed off his all-white 'snow-cat suit' for the first time. Usually of course Billy was dressed all in black. Art by Dave Sutherland.

Here's Little Plum! Art by Ron Spencer.

The Beano featured two adventure strips every week at this time, with the other being The Q-Bikes. Art by Andy Hutton.

On the back page, Dennis the Menace in his regular slot. Art by Davy Law.   

SMASH! The first 20 covers

When one thinks of the first series of Smash! comic (1966 to 1969) it may be the Batman strip of the covers that comes to mind. However, the comic's front page shifted and changed a bit before the Caped Crusader took up his position. Here's a look at all the issues leading up to that point. 

On February 2nd 1966 Smash! No.1 (above) debuted with a great Leo Baxendale cover promoting the free cardboard gun. The influence of Carl Giles was always evident in Baxendale's work of this period but Leo went in his own direction with it, enhancing his own style and bringing his creativity to every job. And it's incredibly funny too of course. 

Leo Baxendale was called upon to produce similarly manic covers to promote the free gifts in issues 2 and 3...

Issue 4 saw the arrival of The Man From B.U.N.G.L.E. (inspired by TV's Man From U.N.C.L.E.) and another cracking cover by Leo...

The cover to issue 5 was also by Leo Baxendale. Incidentally, the villainous 'Doctor Doom' was suddenly renamed 'Doctor Goole' in later issues to avoid confusion when Odhams started reprinting Marvel material. 

With issue 6, Ron Spencer became the new artist on The Man From B.U.N.G.L.E. doing a pretty good ghosting of Leo's style...

Issue 7, again by Ron Spencer. 

Issue 8, and a slight change, with B.U.N.G.L.E. as two panels this week. More great monsters drawn by Ron Spencer...

Uh-oh, here come the Chinese racial stereotypes on the cover of issue 9...

Issue 10, and an unusual Easter cover, again by Spencer...

Issue 11, again by Spencer...

Issue 12 saw a refreshing change with a split cover between The Man From B.U.N.G.L.E. (drawn by Ron Spencer) and a panel taken from The Legend Testers strip from inside by Jordi Bernet. Note the huge name check for Legend Tester 'Rollo Stones' in an attempt to get fans of The Rolling Stones to pick up the comic...

Issue 13 had a full cover B.U.N.G.L.E. illustration by Spencer again...

...as did issue 14...

Then with issue 15 a drastic change with a striking cover by Jordi Bernet for the latest Legend Testers adventure which was re-named The Trolls of the Under-Earth for that week. (You never knew what to expect in Smash!)

Issue 16 and The Man From B.U.N.G.L.E. was back, but this time drawn by Brian Lewis for one week only. Note that topline, - this key issue is when reprints of The Hulk started and Odhams relationship with Marvel Comics began...

Issue 17 proudly devoted its cover to The Incredible Hulk, reprinting Jack Kirby's cover from Marvel's Incredible Hulk No.1 (even though the story inside reprinted Hulk No.2). Marvel had supplied Odhams with black and white artwork but seem to have forgotten to tell them that the Hulk should have green skin...

Issue 18 saw the final Man From B.U.N.G.L.E. cover. A nice job by Ron Spencer. The character would later return as a comic strip serial inside the comic. 

Issue 19 and Smash! had abandoned its plan to pull in U.N.C.L.E. fans with a spoof, and instead went for the real thing by having an artist draw likenesses of Robert Vaughan and David McCallum on the cover. And why not throw in a likeness of Mick Jagger too, just to attract the pop fans? It was a plug for the Charlie's Choice strip inside but I don't know who drew the cover.

With issue 20 Smash! finally settled on a new cover star who would remain in place for the next couple of years. In a great coup for the comic, Batman had arrived, with Odhams gaining permission to reprint the strip from the American Sunday papers. Inside the comic, the contents had been steadily improving and adding new characters too over the first 20 weeks and now Smash! entered its golden age with a great mixture of home-grown humour and adventure strips plus reprints of Batman and the Hulk! Truly a comic to look forward to every week!

Batman ran on the cover every week (with one exception on No.34) until issue 114 when The Swots and the Blots took over for the rest of the run of the first series of Smash! I'm not going to show the rest of the covers as it'd soon become very tedious but I hope you've enjoyed looking through this selection of the early issues. Click each image to see it in more detail.