Christmas comics: WHAM! (1967)

Here we go with this year's selection of vintage Christmas issues, kicking off with Wham! No.185, dated 30th December 1967 (published by Odhams the week before the cover date, as all British comic were of course). 

The Tiddlers cover strip is drawn by Mike Lacey, proving to not only be an excellent imitator of Leo Baxendale's style (Leo had quit Odhams the previous year) but a funny cartoonist in his own right. The strip continued onto the back page...

All of the Odhams 'Power Comics' that week featured this full page Christmas message...

The Wacks, drawn by Gordon Hogg...

The reprints of The Fantastic Four had no festive theme of course but I thought you'd like to see a page anyway. Script by Stan Lee, art by Jack Kirby...

Eagle Eye Junior Spy took up the centre pages, with artwork by Stan McMurtry...

McMurtry also got a mention in that week's letters page, beneath the Danny Dare strip by Artie Jackson...

Finally from this selection, here's a Sammy Shrink strip by Terry Bave. Sammy would be revived years later to have a long run in Whizzer and Chips and other IPC comics...

This was the final Christmas issue for Wham!, as the comic would be cancelled a few weeks later and merged into Pow! A shame, but by this stage Wham! was past its best. That said, it was still a livelier, and funnier, comic than some of its rivals. 

Another selection of pages from a Christmas comic from the archives tomorrow!

The Christmas JAG (1968)

Jag was Fleetway's attempt to mimic Odhams' Eagle with a big 12 inch x 15 inch format and a mixture of strips and features. The cover strip, Football Family Robinson, shown here was illustrated by the great Joe Colquhoun (eleven years before he'd embark on drawing Charley's War for Battle). The surprising thing about this episode is how they got away with showing the weapons of football hooligans on the front cover. 

The strip continued onto the back page, which it shared with the team of the week photo...

Inside, the editor's Christmas message is full of optimism for the future of the comic. Quite sad really, as with IPC taking over the company shortly after, Jag was to swiftly merge into Tiger at the end of March the following year.

Jag only featured one humour strip page; Ghouldilocks, drawn by Stan McMurtry. Unfortunately Stan, better known as Mac, is known more for his controversial cartoons for the Daily Mail these days. (See here.)

Apart from the cover strip, the adventure serials in this Christmas issue of Jag didn't reference the festivities but it's worth showing a few pages anyway as they're so good. First up, The Indestructible Man, drawn (and signed) by Jesus Blasco, who was also the artist on The Steel Claw in Valiant of course...

The centre pages had full colour, and the high quality web offset printing allowed Geoff Campion to do some nice colour work on Custer...

On the inside back page of this 16 page comic was Boy Bandit, superbly illustrated by Tom Kerr...

Sadly this was the only Christmas issue of Jag. Despite having some of the best artists in the industry working on the comic it only lasted for 48 weekly issues. Personally I thought it was one of the best comics Fleetway ever did, and copies are worth tracking down, although they can be expensive. You can find out more about the comic in this old post of mine from eight years ago here:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2007/09/remembering-jag.html

What year will this blog visit next for Christmas? Find out soon! 

The End of WHAM! (1968)

Launching in 1964, Wham! had been the flagship title of Odhams' 'Power Comics' but with issue No.187, dated 13th January 1968, it met its fate. Frankly, Wham! had been in decline for quite a while. Its high quality glossy Photogravure printing had long given way to cheap newsprint, more budget cuts had seen the inclusion of Marvel reprint in the form of The Fantastic Four, its main artist Leo Baxendale had left for the more lucrative options of the Fleetway comics, and even the mighty Frankie Stein by Ken Reid had disappeared from the comic long before the last issue. 

That said, Wham! was still livelier, cheekier, and more entertaining than some of its rivals. Let's take a look at a few pages from that final issue. Above is the cover by Mike Lacey, with The Tiddlers strip continuing on the back page. For cheapness, Odhams didn't use black ink on the covers of the newsprint issues of Wham!, utilising dark blue instead. (The same principle applied to companion comics Smash! and Pow!).

Art: Mike Lacey.

Wham! was fated to merge into Pow! the following week and it was announced with a full page ad...

The regular news page also made a big fuss of it...

Only a few strips from Wham! would make the transition to Pow! This issue saw the end of many long-running regulars; General Nitt and his Barmy Army, The Wacks, Glugg, Eagle-Eye, Footsie the Clown, Biff, The Humbugs, Danny Dare, and the Pest of the West. Here's a few examples of those final strips...

Art: Gordon Hogg

Art: Stan McMurtry

Art: Stan McMurtry

Art: Graham Allen

Final 'Barmy Army' strip.

Art: Artie Jackson

Artist unknown.

The strips that would survive were The Tiddlers (but only by merging with The Dolls of St.Dominics), Sammy Shrink, Georgie's Germs, and Marvel reprint The Fantastic Four. The final issue of Wham! and that week's issue of Pow! both ran the same episode of the F.F. (reprinting the start of Fantastic Four No.27) to encourage readers to buy the next issue ...

Art: Jack Kirby.

Wham! was definitely a better comic in its early days but its three and a half year run is still looked upon fondly by those of us who grew up reading comics in the sixties. Personally I think its merger with Pow! made for a stronger comic. In my next post I'll show a few pages from that first merge issue.

This wasn't exactly the final appearances of the characters as they'd return in new strips in the Wham! Annuals dated 1969 to 1971 but on a weekly frequency this was the end of Wham!

SMASH! ANNUAL cover gallery

Following my earlier posts about the Wham! and Pow! annuals, here's a look at the books for the 'Power Comic' that had the most longevity, Smash! Annual.

Smash! the weekly comic debuted in early 1966 and September of that year saw the publication of the first Smash! Annual, cover dated 1967 of course. The cover artwork was by Graham Allen, showing the main humour characters of the comic, although the main point seemed to be an excuse to repeat the word 'smash!' as much as possible. There's nothing like repetition to cement the name of a product in the customer's mind.

The situation continued on the inside front covers, with the characters discovering the Smash! Annual for themselves. Note the name on the Ironmonger's shop window: L.Lilley & Co. - a reference to comic strip writer Les Lilley who was no doubt responsible for writing a good proportion of this book.

The following year, Smash! Annual 1968 took the unusual step of featuring a comic strip on its front and back covers. The Dandy Book had used similar techniques previously, but it wasn't a common sight on annual covers. Artwork again by Graham Allen.

The inside front cover strip didn't continue from the cover on this occasion but as it features all the characters I thought I'd include it here anyway. Notice the price in the corner. The actual price of the book was 8/6d (42 and a half pence) but 10/6d had been printed by mistake. All the books hurriedly had an 8/6d sticker added by the publishers to try and remedy the error. 

The Smash! Annual 1969 featured a cover by Stan McMurtry, who also drew the strip that followed on from it inside...

The cover of Smash! Annual 1970 looks like the work of Mike Brown. This striking image made a change from the busy group shots. No strip continued from the cover this time. 

For the 1971 book it was all change. IPC had taken over the weekly Smash! in 1969 and turned it into an adventure comic. Unusually, they made the decision to publish two Smash! books for 1971, firstly with an all-humour softback called Smash! Fun Book (cover by Mike Lacey)...

...and the first new-look Smash! Annual 1971 with a dynamic cover by Geoff Campion featuring the short-lived British superhero Tri-Man...

The Fun Book idea was abandoned after that one and only edition, but the Smash! Annual continued, now very much in the style of other IPC boys annuals. Geoff Campion, one of IPC's top artists, became the regular cover artist, and His Sporting Lordship (one of Smash's most popular strips) became the regular cover star.

Popular as His Sporting Lordship must have been, it's a shame none of the other long running adventure characters had a chance to shine on the cover. A Janus Stark cover could have provided much excitement with his various escapology situations, but IPC played it safe with a sporting theme for four consecutive years instead. 

Smash! Annual 1976 was to be the title's final edition. Produced on a smaller budget, it was a softback and contained no full colour inside. At least His Sporting Lordship was finally off the cover, replaced by an illustration by Geoff Campion related to an article on kung fu inside. (Kung Fu was very popular at the time.) 

Smash! the weekly comic had merged into Valiant in early 1971 so the annual must have sold well to survive a few years on its own. IPC had continued quite a few titles like this after the demise of their weekly editions, but by the mid to late seventies it was time for change. Tougher comics such as Battle, Action, and 2000AD were arriving, and it was time for the old titles to make way for the new.

POW! ANNUAL Cover gallery

As I did the Wham! Annual cover gallery the other day I thought I'd run one on Pow! annuals too, as they dovetail into each other at the end. 

Pow! was launched as a weekly comic in January 1967 and production must have started on an annual very early as the Pow! Annual 1968 was published in September '67. The cover above is by Graham Allen. Contents included various funnies from Pow! plus a complete one-off adventure strip and reprints from Amazing Spider-Man No.1 and the first Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD story from Strange Tales. As those Marvel strips had already been reprinted in the weekly a few months before, it seemed an odd choice. I must admit it put me off wanting the book, but I finally bought it on eBay a few years ago. 

Opening the book presented us with a nice spread drawn by Stan McMurtry. Unlike the Wham! Annual spreads, it didn't continue from the cover but I thought it was worthy of inclusion here anyway. 

A year later, the Pow! Annual 1969 displayed a cover by Gordon Hogg, plus a Spider-Man in an awkward pose because it had been taken out of context (and redrawn) and a Sgt.Fury vignette by Jack Kirby.

The battle that had begun on the cover continued inside, also by Gordon Hogg. Despite the appearance of The Cloak here, the strips in the annuals featuring the super-spy were not by his creator Mike Higgs. Instead, they were quite poor efforts, and Mike wasn't even asked to contribute.

With the Pow! Annual 1970 the humour aspect had gone from the cover, replaced by a copy of a Steve Ditko Spider-Man pose. Curiously, many of the interior strips featured characters from Smash!, presumably because Pow! had merged into Smash! in late 1968. (The Cloak strips this year were slightly improved ghostings of Mike Higgs' style but it would still have been far better to have Mike contribute.) There was clearly a budget cut though, with just over 50% of the content being Marvel reprint.

An unexpected revamp with Pow! Annual 1971 bringing all-new, all-different content with brand new British superheroes! Even stranger, they've never appeared anywhere since! (You can read more about that in a previous post here.)

The Pow! Annual 1972 was the book's final solo title and a bit of a mixed bag. I've no idea who did the seemingly rushed cover with the neanderthal and his oddly placed head, but it relates to the Appointment with F.E.A.R. story inside which featured Doctor Morg (last seen in the weekly Pow! serial Experiment X). The rest of the book was a mixture of reprints from old Odhams comics such as Boys World and a few new strips.

A year later, Pow! Annual merged into the Wham! Annual to produce Wham! and Pow! Annual 1973. I've already covered this the other day in my Wham! Annual post but here's the cover again for continuity with the other books in this posting...

...and also the cover once more to the Wham! and Pow! Annual 1974 by Joe Colquhoun...

So there you have it. The book changed completely within just a few years, but it outlived the 86 weekly issues and managed to be a very entertaining read.