Christmas Comic Covers - Part 4

The fourth blog in this series of Christmas covers begins with a Mike Western cover to Valiant from 1965. Mike was the regular cover artist on the comic for over a decade and produced some fantastic work over that time. A couple more Valiant covers will be featured in blogs to come.


The Eagle cover from 1989 is by Keith Watson, one of the Dan Dare artists of the original Eagle who returned to the character for a short while on the relaunched edition in the Eighties.


A TV Comic cover from December 1980. The cover strip is still by Bill Titcombe, who by this time had been drawing Tom and Jerry for over ten years.


The Christmas edition of Pow! hails from 1967, being the only festive issue of that short-lived comic. It spotlights that week's Pow Short Story, an irregular series of one-off strips that ran in the comic. Sometimes such Short Stories would use Marvel reprint from Tales to Astonish and suchlike but other times, as in this instance, the stories would be brand new.


The 1986 Christmas issue of Oink! is the first seasonal edition of that comic. The rather conservative news trade of the time considered it too offensive for the children's comics section and it was banished to the top shelf for most of its run.


The Christmas 1973 edition of Lion and Thunder is another lively festive cover by Geoff Campion. (The cover to the 1971 edition, also by Campion, can be seen in Part 1 of this series of blogs.)


Today's selection concludes with the 1979 Christmas Special of Viz. This was actually the very first edition of Viz comic, produced by Chris and Simon Donald long before it became the million-selling hit it evolved into years later.

More Christmas covers to come in a few days time!

Christmas Comic Covers - Coincidental

No time for a full blog today but here's an interesting item: by sheer coincidence, Jon K's superb Random Acts of Geekiness blog started running Christmas comic covers the same day I did. The difference is that Jon's blog features American comic covers, which he's updating every day. It's a great selection of varied titles from over the decades and I think our blogs compliment each other well for fans of Christmas themed comics.

Apart from that, Random Acts of Geekiness features a wealth of other material too. Fascinating visual records of cult memorabilia! Check out his blog at:
http://waffyjon.blogspot.com/

Rummaging through that blog should keep you all busy for a while. I'll post Part 4 of the UK Christmas Comic Covers selection on this blog soon!

Christmas Comic Covers - Part 3

I wasn't intending to do these blogs on a daily basis but as these covers don't take long to scan in, here's the third selection, starting off with a striking cover to Krazy for Christmas 1976. As the title suggests, Krazy was a bit more off the wall than the other IPC humour comics, but sadly its humour perhaps went over the heads of the majority of kids as the comic only lasted a couple of years. Cover artist Mike Lacey has signed this piece, which he must have been particularly pleased with as he rarely signed his other work.


Next, the cover to the very first Christmas issue of Whizzer and Chips, from December 1969. Artwork is again by Mike Lacey. As IPC rarely featured numbers on their comics you'll notice I wrote it on in felt tip!


The cover to Tiger and Jag, also from 1969, is a nice colour piece by John Vernon. Again, I've added the issue number. In this case it was the 40th merged issue of the two comic titles.


The Christmas Beezer from 1988 is a clearly composed cover by Robert Nixon, one of the finest artists of British humour comics.


The Christmas issue of Puck from 1931 is shot from a facsimile edition published several years ago. Not sure who the artist is but the attention to detail draws the reader into its world.


1971 brought us the first Christmas issue of Look-In. The wraparound cover painting is by Arnaldo Putzu featuring several top tv stars of the day including Leslie Crowther, Ed (Stewpot) Stuart, Ayshea Brough, and the cast of popular sitcoms Please Sir and On the Buses.


The cover to the bumper 48 page Buster of Christmas 1993 is a great piece by Jimmy Hansen.

Even more Christmas covers soon!

Christmas Comic Covers - Part 2

Time for the second gallery of Christmas editions, starting with the very first Christmas issue of 2000AD, from 1977. It's a great eye-catching Judge Dredd cover drawn by the never less than brilliant Kevin O'Neill.
Above is the cover to Smash! from Christmas 1967 which was also the 100th issue of the title. The U.S. Batman newspaper strip is on the cover as usual but the rest of the page is decorated in typical "Power Comic" robustness; The Blots herding The Swots to plunge bum-first towards a sharp Christmas tree held by Grimly Feendish disguised as Santa.
The oldest comic in this selection is Film Fun and Chips from 1953. Artwork on the Laurel and Hardy strip is by Terry Wakefield I believe. Although black and white comics such as this were rapidly going out of fashion by 1953 it still manages to convey a festive feel.

A trio of weeklies from Christmas 1970 next, starting above with a great Beano cover by Dave Sutherland.
The Christmas issue of Sparky from 1970 was a nice companion piece to the Beano of that week in that it also featured all its stars gathered around a lantern singing carols. It was drawn by regular Peter Piper artist Vic Neill (my thanks to his son for confirming that) and he captured all the various art styles perfectly.
Polystyle's TV Comic of Christmas 1970 features the regular Tom and Jerry strip on the cover, drawn by Bill Titcombe.
The Christmas 1985 issue of Hoot was the only time that particular comic celebrated the festivities, as it would merge into The Dandy during the following year. Here, the Cuddles cover is by Barrie Appleby from the days before Dimples joined the strip when the comics merged.
Finally in this selection, a lively Christmas Whoopee! from 1981, illustrated by Nick Baker and featuring all its characters dancing the conga!

More classic Christmas covers soon!

Christmas Comic Covers - Part 1

Merry Christmas Chums! Throughout December I will, on occasion, be posting various Christmas covers here for your perusal. The choices will be randomly selected from various years and not consecutive so I hope there will be a few surprises along the way, along with a few memories stirred. I won't be going into detail about the contents. The idea is just to present the covers for visual entertainment, with basic info on who drew them, where known.

First up, at the top of this post, is the Buster cover from Christmas 1969. Artwork by Spanish artist Nadal. A simple design but quite striking, and changing the usual logo colour (red on yellow) to yellow on blue really made the issue stand out in the shops.


Next, (above) the cover for Lion and Thunder dated 25th December 1971. Artwork by the superb Geoff Campion illustrating a traditional "slap up feed". Such scenes were common on humour comics, but not so much on adventure comics so this was quite unusual for the times. It features many of the comic's stars, brought together for the first (and only) time, even including cartoon cat Mowser and James the Butler!


The Eagle cover for 1958 has little to do with Christmas in its cover strip but the masthead is nicely decorated and it's a good excuse to show some Frank Hampson artwork. (Or would this be by Keith Watson and Desmond Walduck by this time? Let me know Eagle experts!)


The Joker from Christmas 1934 is a classic pre-war cover, full of fun and slapstick. A real "feelgood" style. The artwork is by John Jukes I think, which once again shows a big feed at the end.


Tiger and Hurricane, from 1968, has a busy logo adorned with presents, and Typhoon Tracy, strongman of the comic, dressed as Father Christmas. The Skid Solo cover strip, suitably snowy, is by John Vernon.


Also from 1968, the Christmas Beano features a nice Biffo the Bear strip by Dudley Watkins from a typically inventive script from the DC Thomson fun factory. (Update: Comment from "Jason. A. Quest" over on Heidi MacDonalds The Beat blog: "No children’s comic is complete without at least one strip in which the character dresses up as a giant erect penis. ")


The Christmas 2002 issue of The Dandy is a wonderfully festive cover by Keith Robson featuring all the Dandy stars of the period.


Finally in this selection, a fantastic TV Express cover by Mike Western from December 1961. The composition and colour of this cover is just perfect, showing what a great artist he was. Mike passed away in May of this year and the comics industry is poorer for his loss.

More Christmas Comic Covers soon! If you have any childhood memories of certain Christmas editions let me know and I'll see if I have a copy to show here.