WHAM! ANNUAL cover gallery

One of the liveliest annuals of the 1960s was the Wham! Annual. Originally published by Odhams, and later by IPC, its first few years reflected the robustness and humour of the weekly. It outlived the weekly by several years, albeit ending up considerably different to how it started. 

Here are all the covers to the annuals, starting with the first one above, the Wham! Annual 1966 (published in 1965). I'm not sure who drew the cover. Possibly Terry Willers, who did quite a bit for the weekly?

The early books had the cover scene continue over to the inside front cover, which was a great introduction to the book, making the readers feel like they were escaping into a brightly coloured world of fun and daftness. These interior pages are drawn by Gordon Hogg...

A year later, and here's the cover to Wham! Annual 1967. Artwork by the brilliant Graham Allen...

Graham Allen also drew the inside front cover strip. Again, it gives the reader a sense of entering into the book, especially with a 'hole' having been blasted open behind the logo. (Please excuse the bits of dialogue I added in biro back when I was seven!)

Another 12 months later and it's the annual for 1968. Again, Graham Allen is the artist for the cover and the interior strip that continues from it...

I always felt that the background blue for the Wham! Annual 1969 cover was too dark, but it's a good cover all the same. Again by Graham Allen, who also drew the interior strip.

The Wham! Annual 1970 had a change of artist with Mike Brown. No interior strip continued from the cover this time...

The Wham! Annual 1971 changed artists again, with Gordon Hogg providing the art. He also drew the interior spread that followed it...

By the 1970s The Wham! Annual had been living on borrowed time, with the weekly having merged into Pow! in early 1968. Perhaps that's why new publishers IPC decided to completely revamp the book with the one for 1972. Transformed into an adventure annual, its contents featured none of the familiar Wham! characters. Instead, it was mainly full of reprints from Eagle and other old Odhams comics. (That said, I have a personal fondness for this one as my grandad bought it me when we were on a day trip to Blackpool on September 23rd, 1971. I still have the receipt inside it as a bookmark!)

The following year saw another change, as two annuals merged as Wham! and Pow! Annual 1973. Although the two weeklies had joined forces in 1968, it had been Pow! which had been the dominant title, not vice-versa in the case of the annual. Again, no characters from Wham! (or Pow!) were featured in this book. Old Eagle characters such as Harris Tweed (renamed Bulldog Breed) and other Odhams material featured instead.

The final annual was the Wham! and Pow! Annual 1974. Even the old logos had been redesigned this time! However, inside, some familiar faces returned, such as The Cloak, The Two Faces of Janus, and Footsie the Clown, albeit only as reprints. The cover was by Joe Colquhoun.

So there you have it; all nine Wham! annual covers. Click on each image to see them much larger.

Sixties sparklers: POW! and BUSTER

  
Above is the cover to Pow! No.43, which would have been on sale this week in 1968. As the comic folded into Smash! in the following year, this would be Pow's only firework edition. 

Inside, sandwiched between Marvel reprints of Spider-Man and Sergeant Fury, were a number of home grown strips. Only a few had bonfire night themes, such as this Dolls of St. Dominics two pager, drawn by Ron Spencer...

As you can see, as in the issue of Wham! I showed in the previous post, Pow's depiction of fireworks was over the top and carefree. The same attitude prevailed in The Group strip by Mike Brown...

Most outrageous of all was Ken Reid (naturally) with Dare-A-Day-Davy indulging in a spot of terrorism, ending with him being being blown up by his own fireworks.

Now, compare that to this issue of Buster and Giggle. Same era, different publisher. Fleetway's comics were slicker than Odhams' Wham!, Smash! and Pow! The strips in Buster used mostly long established artists and the scripts were more polished and tended to rely on wit rather than comedy violence. The Buster's Dream World strip even ends with Buster looking directly at the readers and cautioning them to use fireworks responsibly. Personally I felt that seeing Dare-A-Day-Davy blown up carried a more memorably preventative message about the dangers of fireworks than this heavy handed patronising speech. (Buster became even more of a lecturing ninny in the 1970 issue.)

Inside this issue of Buster, things are a little more daring, but somewhat more subdued compared to Pow! This page from the Charlie Peace strip (drawn by Jack Pamby) also features someone being blown up by fireworks, but, unlike Dare-A-Day-Davy, the emphasis is on the lightshow with the person unseen once the explosions begin.

One strip that didn't sit well with me was this episode of Freddie "Parrot Face" Davies in Buster. Excellent artwork by Reg Parlett as always but the scene with jumping jacks being thrown at the cat just looks cruel rather than funny.

Buster's The Twitopians, drawn by Stan McMurtry, is very gentle compared to anything seen in Pow! or Wham! On the plus side, the script shows a bit more ingenuity than those of rival comics. 

Finally, an advertisement from that issue of Buster for Standard Fireworks, with a message that never goes out of fashion for this time of year; take care - and enjoy yourselves.  

Ken Reid, Genius

  
I'm sure that most people reading this blog will regard Ken Reid as one of the greatest comic artists that ever lived. In fact I can't imagine anyone not respecting his talents. To me, he was the best humour artist this country ever produced, and is ever likely to produce. Some people may say that today's comics aren't a patch on his work but neither was most of the material in yesterday's comics. Ken Reid was always head and shoulders above the crowd.

Although his work on Fudge, Jonah, and Faceache is rightly respected for the comic masterpieces they are I think his best strips were for Odhams in the 1960s. That's when he really let loose with his ability for comic horror. Here's just a handful of his many pages produced for the company. This is the stuff many of us grew up on, and as you can see we were really spoiled. British comic humour at its best. In a better Britain there would be volumes of Ken Reid Archives to buy. Sadly, there is nothing.

SMASH! No.36  8th October 1966

WHAM! No.122  15th October 1966

POW! No.10  25th March 1967

SMASH! No.156  25th January 1969

  

One of Ken's funniest episodes of The Nervs.

You can see some of Ken Reid's earlier work on a thread currently running on the Comics UK forum. 

Bits 'n' bobs: Artwork, Nightmares, surveys and more

I've a lot to mention and I'm short on time so here's a quick runaround of half a dozen items packaged into one convenient post.

Art for Sale

I'm selling off a few pages of my old artwork from Viz and Buster. (No pages from Toxic, Beano or Dandy I'm afraid. I don't sell those.) Fancy an original Tom Thug page, or a Viz calendar page with a Titanic theme? Zip over to my eBay page and check out what's on offer and help pay my mortgage. Bidding ends on Sunday. Thanks in advance!

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Nightmare ends

For 45 years comic fans have wondered who the artist of Nobby's Nightmares was in Pow! comic. Some said it was Cyril Price (not even close) whilst I suggested it might be Walter Bell (miles off). This week, cartoonist supreme Nigel Parkinson (like the Dalek supreme but taller and with a sense of humour) checked out his ex-file copies of Pow! and discovered the artist's name was Lewis Williams, revealing it on the Comics UK forum. No, I'd never heard of him before either, but we have now! 

Mr.Williams also drew Georgie's Germs on occasion for Wham!, along with Mini-Maxie for Smash! (although apparently the latter was a reprint). Thanks to Nigel for clearing up the decades-old mystery! 

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Vote Toxic!

This week's issue of Toxic features a survey form for readers to vote for what they like, and dislike, about the UK's top selling boy's mag. A section spotlights my Team Toxic strip and asks readers "Do you like Team Toxic" (Yes, No, or Haven't heard of them.) With options like that I suspect some kids will tick "Haven't heard of them" just for a laugh, so if you do read Toxic and you do like my work I'd appreciate your votes. The strip is already down to being a reprint every other issue so every vote counts. 




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School's out for summer

Sadly I've heard this week that my Super School strip is being rested from The Beano. I don't know if it'll return, but it's been great fun drawing it and fulfilling a dream to work for that comic. I think I drew about 70 over the past few years and Tom Paterson filled in on a couple. They still have a couple unpublished so they may turn up as fillers in the future. Thanks to all of you who wrote to say you enjoyed the strip and to those of you who voted for it, giving it an impressive vote count on its debut according to the 2008 Beano poll.

My personal favourite Super School image

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Tripwire seeks funding

Art by Jon Haward and Nigel Dobbyn

Editor Joel Meadows is seeking crowdfunding for the publication of a special anniversary issue to mark 20 years of his comics and media magazine Tripwire. The book will feature specially commissioned artwork from people such as Howard Chaykin, Glenn Dakin, Mike Kaluta, Mike Perkins, and Jon Haward and Nigel Dobbyn amongst others. You can find out more info in John Freeman's report on Down the Tubes.   

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Variations on a small theme

  
When The Numskulls debuted in The Beezer in 1962 few could have suspected that it would inspire so many variations on its theme. The concept of microscopic sentient beings living inside our bodies and controlling our thoughts and deeds seems to fascinate comic readers. (Example above is from The Beezer No.595, June 10th 1967, drawn by Malcolm Judge.)

Two years after The Numskulls appeared, rival comic Wham! arrived with George's Germs in issue No.1 by Leo Baxendale. Other artists also drew the strip, such as this example from Wham! No.17 (10th October 1964) possibly by Lewis Williams. (Cyril Price drew a lot of G.G. strips too.)

The comedy in George's Germs was far grubbier and more brutal than The Beezer's Numskulls. (See the "nasty, grimy little smut germs" above for example.) Like the strip that inspired it, George's Germs also proved to be very popular. In 1966, when Wham's companion comic Smash! was launched it was only natural that a similar strip would appear in its pages. Thus came The Nervs, most often illistrated by Graham Allen, who drew this example from Smash! No.14, 7th May 1966...

 

The Nervs was later taken over by Ken Reid who took the strip to greater heights of lunacy and gross comedy. Here's ken's very first episode from the first combined issue of Smash! and Pow! (No.137) dated 14th September 1968...

The early issues of Smash! also featured The Tellybugs drawn by George Parlett. (This example from Smash! No.14, 7th May 1966.) This time it was a TV set rather than a human body which played host to the tiny creatures. This strip fascinated me so much as a child that I cut out the figure on the extreme left of the title banner, stuck it to card with a base, and would place it in various positions next to our television.

For me, the weirdest strip of this type was Nobby's Night Mares which appeared in the early issues of Pow! (This example below is from issue 9, 18th March 1967, drawn by Lewis Williams.) Nobby suffers from narcolepsy (although it's never actually specified as such in the strip) and while he's asleep the Night Mare creatures inside his body put on horrifying stage plays that transfer into nightmares in Nobby's mind. Strange stuff, but this is the sort of creative dark comedy that made Odhams' comics so different (and often funnier) from those produced by DC Thomson or Fleetway at the time. An ex-IPC staffer once told me that when IPC took over the Odhams comics they sent a memo to editors telling them never to reprint The Nervs as they found it too disturbing - and they never did.

Today, the variations on the theme continue. The Numskulls is still going strong, now in The Beano and drawn by Barry Glennard...

...recently, reprints of The Beano's The Germs (considerably inspired by George's Germs) have also begun to appear, drawn by Dave Sutherland...

...and in The Dandy, Nigel Auchterlounie's The Bogies continues to run every week. (The first series of The Bogies appeared in rival comic Toxic but as it's a licensed strip it was able to jump ship to The Dandy.)