Not to be confused with the Polystyle comic with the same name which came later, the 1972 weekly Target was a glossy magazine published by The New English Library Ltd.
The intention of Target, as proclaimed in the editorial of issue one, was to "incorporate all the facets of popular reading into one magazine". The reasoning being that instead of buying separate magazines on football, music and cinema etc the kids would get their fix from one mag, - and have some comic strips thrown into the mix too, presumably so they wouldn't bother with Lion or Buster.
The strip content was low; only six pages in total, but at least there was one bold idea there: Bovver Boy. In the 1970s, before punks became the new hate figures, media outrage was directed at skinheads (and the violent and racist aspect of their culture was rightly condemned). Other comics had shied away from reflecting this aspect of society but Target turned a Doc Martin-booted "bovver boy" into the lead character of his own strip. From what I've seen, the racism aspect wasn't mentioned, and the character became little more than a traditional comic bully, but even so Bovver Boy seemed very contemporary for 1972.
(A couple of people have asked me if Bovver Boy was an inspiration for my Tom Thug character. Basically no, as I only had the first two issues of Target and didn't give him any thought when I created Tom twelve years later. But maybe there was a subconscious influence all the same.)
With Bovver Boy, and articles on Hells Angels and The Who, Target was clearly trying hard to be streetwise. However, the magazine seems to have been most remembered for its free gift. It became known as "The mag that gave away those fish eggs". In issue one "The Powder of Life" was attached to the cover. This contained "microscopic eggs of a small marine animal - the Artemia". Adding these to water eventually hatched them out! (The scan above explains the full process.)
The free gift for issue two was a sachet of food for the fish. Yep, if you didn't buy Target No.2 the fish would starve to death! (Surely a sales gimmick that today would have the magazine condemned immediately.)
The fish did indeed "come to life"; the largest being about 2cm long. What I didn't know then was the Artemia were the creatures we'd seen advertised in American comics for years: Sea Monkeys! (No, unlike in the ads, they didn't have limbs or human domestic habits.)
The concept of Target as a magazine wasn't bad, and it was certainly slick, well designed, and intelligently written, but it didn't survive much longer than a year as I recall. (If anyone knows exactly how long it ran for please let me know.) Perhaps the problem was that readers preferred magazines for their specific interests rather than skipping past articles that didn't interest them? Another factor must have been the cover price. At 10p it was twice the price of Look-In, its nearest rival, which was in exactly the same format.
In a way, Target was ahead of its time, as the concept of a youth magazine with a minority of strip content is the norm today! A case of missing its target audience by thirty five years perhaps? ;-)
A curious item in the history of British comics is the weekly comic Wonder published in 1968/69. I first saw this title whilst visiting the Royal Show in 1968 as it was on sale at a stall there (presumably Esso's). Anticipating buying it from my local newsagent when I returned home, I unfortunately never saw it again! What I didn't know then was that Wonder was only available at Esso garages.
I did eventually find a copy at a comic mart several years ago, albeit only half complete with the centre eight pages (of sixteen) missing. However, what can be ascertained from those pages is that it was a high quality product.
Little seems to be known about the comic. It was published weekly on Fridays, cost 6d (2 and a half pence) carried a number but no date, and was edited by Roberta Leigh, creator of sixties puppet series Space Patrol. In fact another of Leigh's puppet creations, Wonder Boy and Tiger appeared as the cover strip. (Esso had been using imagery of a tiger for many years to denote roaring power, and the phrase "Put a tiger in your tank" was a popular slogan of the sixties.)
As these pages from Wonder (issue 13) show, the approach was very much in the Buster/ TV Comic style, along with rhyming couplets for strap lines of the kind associated with DC Thomson comics. Apparently the comic only ran for a year, although whether that was due to poor sales or the limitations of a 12 month contract is unknown. However, it remains an interesting oddity and a title well worth seeking out.
If anyone has any more info on Wonder (particularly what appeared in the centre pages which I have missing) please add a comment below.
In its continuing intention to spotlight British talent for the benefit of its American readership, the latest issue of Image Comics' Elephantmen (which came out yesterday) carries a three page colour article on the artist Mike Noble (b.1930). The feature is well illustrated with art from Noble's Fireball XL5 pages from TV Century 21 so today's blog will focus on his other work, as a companion piece to the article in Elephantmen. However, I'll be linking to other websites that feature Noble's work so click on the links for more information.
I've been an admirer of Mike Noble's artwork since I was six years old when, in 1965, he took over the art task on the Fireball XL5 strip in TV Century 21 from issue No.6. Although it's often Frank Bellamy's work that fans love most from that comic, for me the standout talent was Noble. Mike's work had a dynamic energy and excitement that made even the most ridiculous plots compelling to read. Most importantly, although he never cheated on detail, his layouts were clear and easy to follow: an essential element of any children's comic.
Mike had a long run on Fireball XL5, but he also had a stint on the Captain Scarlet strip for TV21, producing some striking covers (such as the one shown on this blog). He also illustrated most of the Zero X strips for the same comic during the same era (late sixties). One of those strips that made an impression on me was the one shown here; an implausible episode on the "Planet of Bones" featuring a living dinosaur skeleton. Again, Mike turns a daft script into a dramatic and memorable scene.
As TV21 began to wind down, Mike did less for the title, but did have a respectable run on the Star Trek strip, producing some eye-catching covers such as the one I've scanned here. In 1971 he moved over to the new Look-In comic (edited by ex-TV21 editor Alan Fennell) to produce fantastic work on the two page Timeslip strip. (Samples of which can be found at this site.) The strip offered Noble an opportunity to move away from futuristic settings and illustrate various periods in history. His next strip for Look-In, Follyfoot, was set firmly in the present day with no sci-fi whatsoever. I'm showing a centrespread from that series here. Unfortunately this page was printed slightly off-register but it's a great example to show how busy yet easy-on-the-eye Noble's layouts were, and how he was able to expertly draw any environment, from inter-planetary action to domestic adventure.
As can be seen from these few examples, Mike was a master of colour art, and in the days when most British comics were in black and white he was rightly given the opportunity to shine on the few colour pages they had. However he did produce black and white too, notably on the Robin of Sherwood and Worzel Gummidge serials for Look-In and also on a mostly-forgotten strip for Cor!! (Four Alone on The Abandoned Island was one of Cor's rare adventure strips and I think Mike only drew the first three chapters or so. The example above is from Cor!! No.1)
Mike Noble is mostly retired now although he did return to the world of Gerry Anderson in the 1990s drawing covers and colour pin ups for Fleetway's Thunderbirds comic (and their companion comics Captain Scarlet and Stingray). The pages were as vigorous as ever. In November 2004 he was one of the guests at the Bristol Comic Expo, (incredibly his first comic convention) and in his interview he came across as a true professional. Afterwards it was an honour to meet and shake the hand of someone that I (and I'm sure many others) consider to be one of the most talented and versatile comic strip artists of any generation.
As I said at the top of this item, I've been a fan of Mike Noble's work since 1965, but he's been in the business for longer than that. For a great interview with the man visit the excellent Technodelic website here.
Update: 3/2/2007: Due to it being such a memorable scene for old readers of TV Century 21 I've uploaded a scan of the "ring of snowmen" page from the Fireball XL5 strip from 1965. One of Mike Noble's greatest!
Which decade should this blog visit next? Do you have a favourite comic, artist, or memory of a strip you'd like to see covered? Or any comic over the last 100 years you're curious to see? Let me know by clicking on the comment option below and leaving a note and I'll see if I can plunge into the Comics Time Vortex (located in my spare room) and drag it through the time barrier into the cyber-age! Any year, any comic, any country considered!
I always felt the term "Graphic Novelist" was a bit too pompous for someone who produced funnybooks, and assumed it was a relatively new term until I took a journey into the Comics Time Vortex to 105 years ago. There, in a copy of The Strand Magazine dated January 1902 (the same edition which featured Chapter 10 of The Hound of the Baskervilles in its first printing) was a 13 page feature entitled Our Graphic Humourists.
Perhaps for a magazine such as The Strand the term "cartoonists" was considered too lowly back then, or more likely it simply hadn't become adopted into our language. Whatever the case, "Graphic Humourists" seems an appropriately dignified appellation for the well turned out gentlemen featured in the article. Accompanied by photographs of each artist alongside their personal favourite cartoon, it's a fascinating insight into the lives of a few of the people who were there at the genesis of British comics.
Two of the artists have a particular importance. Phil May (1864 - 1903) endured early years of poverty and hardship but used these experiences as an insight into his sketches of street traders in the poorest parts of London. Eventually obtaining a job as an illustrator on the St. Stephen's Review he later left London to find work in Australia on The Sydney Bulletin. There he developed an economy of line, necessitated by the printing machines that were unable to cope with fine and delicate work. Returning to London to work on Punch, it was this style that gained him a reputation as a master cartoonist (earning in the region of £10,000 a year, - a massive sum for the times) and would be a strong influence on the work of British comic strip artists. As can be seen from the page scanned here, he was a distinctive figure, described at the time as looking like "a monk who had set up as a bookmaker". (Info from an article by Ernest Biddle in The Sunday Mercury, 1984.)
Tom Browne (1872 - 1910), another artist featured in the article, had much closer connections to comics of course. Although the feature dismisses his impact in comics by saying he drew at night for "obscure comic papers", Browne was the artist of Weary Willie and Tired Tim for Illustrated Chips as well as illustrating the first British comic based on an entertainer, Dan Leno's Comic Journal. His style in comics became a template for many more to follow and develop. An ever bigger impact was the rumoured influence his work had on Charlie Chaplin, who apparently said he based his famous "Tramp" on the look of Weary Willie and Tired Tim. (Later, comic artists would base their characters on The Tramp's body language; art perpetuating itself.)
In fact Weary Willie seems to be one of the first comic characters adapted into film according the Screenonline website. As the article says, the term became integrated into popular usage, as did Casey Court, and is even heard as a gentle insult today, although the people saying it would never have known its origin. There were also a series of Weary Willie and Tired Tim movies produced at the start of the 20th Century, which Browne either wrote or were adapted from the comics. Unfortunately none of the films have survived to the present day.
Both Tom Browne and Phil May had another part in the history of comics. They were both founder members of The London Sketch Club. In the 1980's this was the venue for meetings of the Society Of Strip Illustration (S.S.I.) where many comic creators first met and new concepts were hatched and developed. I remember attending a few of those meetings and noticing that there, on the walls, were silhouette caricatures of those founders, and feeling proud that their memory and intentions were still being honoured.
