Express Weekly (1956)

The other day I showed a few pages from an early issue of Junior Express from 1955, and now here's a selection from the comic it morphed into a year later. With issue 74, the title condensed to Express and the format changed from newsprint into glossy photogravure, adding full colour to some of its pages. Its similarities to Eagle are fairly blatant, and it was clearly intended to rival the famous paper.

This is issue 76, dated March 3rd, 1956, the third new look issue. Rex Keene, the Western strip on the cover and page two, was drawn by Harry Bishop. 

Page three gave us The Bold and the Brave, illustrated by the great Italian artist Gino D'Antonio, who also drew many Fleetway libraries amongst other strips. This page alone is a masterpiece of black and white comic art.

Express also featured text stories and features. Here's The Mystery of the Marching Feet, and an advert for Mars bars, then only 6d (two and a half pence in decimal currency). 

Wee Sporty was by Bill Mevin, later to draw numerous pages for TV Comic. 

The centrespread of this 20 page issue featured new Jeff Hawke stories in colour. I believe this is the work of Ferdinand Tacconi. At the foot of the spread, an advert for Murraymints. Remember those? "Too good to hurry mints". 

On page 14, the saga of Mark Fury, with wonderful art by Peter Jackson, the perfect choice to illustrate historical drama.

Bengo by Tim was still in the comic, now resized as a quarter page box. Incidentally, this situation happened with me and my old dog too many years ago, as she eagerly jumped for a biscuit, accidentally butted my nose with her snout and gave me a nose bleed. Fellow animal lovers will understand that I've always considered that a happy memory, so I was amused to see it depicted in a strip.   

Slick Nick is a curious item. I thought it might be the work of Wally Fawkes (Trog) or Peter Maddocks but I'm not sure its either of them. Can anyone identify the artist? 

Express would undergo even more changes over the next few years, ending up as TV Express before merging into TV Comic in 1962.

(Thanks to Ray Moore for identifying some of the artists in a post he submitted to Comics UK years ago.)

JUNIOR EXPRESS

I've blogged about Express Weekly here before, and its later incarnation as TV Express, but here's the comic in its original form! It wasn't even a comic back then really. Junior Express was basically a newspaper for children, - as its title implies, it was a junior version of the Daily Express. Tabloid size, and printed on cheap newsprint, it was launched in 1954 but the issue I'm showing here is No.22, dated January 29th 1955. 

(Update: I'd presumed from the cover story that this issue was the last in the newsprint format before it switched to glossy photogravure the following week. However I'm reliably informed by Jeremy Briggs and Graham Bleathman that it continued for another year in newsprint before improving to photogravure with issue 75.)

At the foot of page one you'll see Bengo, by Tim. This character later appeared in the Blue Peter Annuals. As you may know, Tim (real name William Timyn) also created and illustrated Bleep and Booster, which was a static frame cartoon story that sometimes appeared on Blue Peter in the sixties. 

Junior Express had 16 pages but comic strips only appeared on two full pages, a half pager, and a few mini strips. (It would later be practically all-strip when it became Express.) One of those strips was The Think Pistol. I'm not sure who the artist was but going by some of the techniques and the style of speech balloons I'm wondering if it might be by Chas Sinclair? 

Jeff Hawke first appeared in the Daily Express of course but new strips, not by Syd Jordan, appeared in Junior Express. Unfortunately they're uncredited, as is its companion strip Silverstone Sam. Also unfortunate is that the colour registration is off. No wonder they upgraded the printing later.

Joanna of Bitter Creek gave us a spirited heroine. (Junior Express was aimed equally at girls and boys.) Art by Jac Darrel. Its companion strip, Biddy and Butch, carries no credit but I'm sure it's the work of Cyril Price.

As previously noted, Junior Express was mainly a newspaper, and here's one of its feature pages; Junior Show Page with a few items of interest. The mini-strip, Cap and Crew, is by Roland Fiddy (1931 -1999), a very popular cartoonist of the time.

Here's a couple of adverts from this issue. Firstly, an interesting one from the days when Lucozade was considered by the medical profession to have "remarkable" health benefits. Attitudes have changed somewhat now, but all I know is that whenever I was laid up with a virus as a kid, it certainly made me feel better when my mum brought me a bottle of Lucozade. (And that plastic amber outer wrapping made it look something really special.) 

Now here's possibly the most important advertisement of all, because it settles a debate about Wagon Wheels that's been going on for years. "They used to be as big as your hand" say people today. Well, here's the evidence that 60 years ago they were 3 1/4" in diameter. Are today's Wagon Wheels smaller, or is it simply that our hands were smaller then? Measure one and let me know! (A Wagon Wheel, not your hand.)

Some previous blog posts about Express:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2007/02/express-weekly-forgotten-treasure.html

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/this-week-in-1960-tv-express.html

This week in 1960: TV EXPRESS

  
Here's a few pages from the issue of TV Express No.310, that would have been in newsagents this week 52 years ago, in 1960. The cover strip Biggles is illustrated by the excellent Ron Embleton, a few years before he'd draw the initial Stingray strips in TV21.

The strip continued over to the back cover. (You can see more of Ron's work from this year on Steve Holland's Bear Alley blog by clicking here.)

TV Express' 16 pages gives us a good idea of who was popular in the media at the time. Green for Go, "The Amazing Life Story of Hughie Green" revealed a life full of mystery and sinister intrigue. Who'd have guessed?

The cartoons of Hanna-Barbera (or "Hannah Barbara" as I thought they were back then) were just making their mark on TV so Yogi Bear, Mr Jinks and, as we saw on the back cover, Huckleberry Hound had begun appearing in UK comics. I believe these strips were drawn specially for TV Express and are not American reprints. The Yogi strip looks like it might possibly be the work of Bill Mevin or Neville Main. 

 
TV Express featured a mixture of strips and media feature material (a format imitated by Look-In years later). Although some may consider the features to be "filler", they do help to put the comic into the context of the times, such as this Pete Murray feature on music of 1960...

 
No Hiding Place was a very popular police drama series of the period and the strip in TV Express was illustrated initially by Mike Western...

Finally, TV Express Spotlight was a behind-the-scenes feature on television of the day which included a box out highlighting some programmes of that week. (Another feature that Look-In imitated later.) Programmes such as Billy Smart's Circus, Sooty, and Billy Cotton's Band Show were must-see items of the time.

Christmas Comics: TV EXPRESS (1961)

You've seen this cover on this blog a couple of years ago but here's a better scan of it. On sale exactly 50 years ago this week, TV Express No.373 (December 23rd 1961) sported a great cover by Mike Western featuring Alfie Bass and Bill Fraser of TV's Bootsie and Snudge. (Presumably publisher Eric Bemrose Ltd didn't have permission to name the strip after the TV series.)

At this stage of its run TV Express was practically 100% adventure content so not many of the strips featured Christmas themes. Some did though, such as this two page Danger Man text story based on the secret agent series starring Patrick McGoohan...



On pages 6 and 7, the Alfie and Bill strip related to the front cover. I'm not exactly sure who the artist is. Gerry Embleton perhaps?



There's an editorial message on page 9 stating that Christmas is "one of the few times in the year when Christian people the world over forget quarrels and celebrate the memory of Jesus Christ with the giving of gifts". Surely it would have been better to advise the readers that they don't have to wait for a calendar date to tell them when to forgive?

The one humour strip in TV Express at this time was Wee Sporty, taking up less than a quarter of a page...


TV Express of 1961 ran features on TV stars of the day (just as Look-In would do a decade later). Here's a taste of what viewers could expect to see on telly that Christmas, including Billy Smart's Circus and Take Your Pick...


Due to the publication schedule that Christmas, some comics had two festive issues (as they would again in 1966) so the following week's issue also carried the same seasonal masthead. Mike Western again provided a great (but non-festive) cover image, this time featuring Wulf the Briton...


Inside, Superintendent Lockheart of No Hiding Place took a quick break from Christmas shopping to tackle a thief. That fall the crook takes looks pretty fatal to me but the Superintendent is back shopping a panel later, nonchalant about the whole thing. Just another day I guess.


Finally, here's some party games you can try this Christmas, although I'm sure you'll all find better distractions...


For more info about Danger Man and The Prisoner visit The Unmutual website:
http://www.theunmutual.co.uk/

Another classic Christmas issue soon!