JAMES “JIM” CROCKER is a prolific artist whose work has appeared in many IPC funnies since the 1970s. He created among others the two neighbors ‘Smarty Pants and Tatty Ed’ for Whizzer & Chips in 1974.
Crocker has also drawn ‘Ivor Lot and Tony Broke’ (created by Reg Parlett), ‘Ad Lad’ and ‘Sweet Tooth’ (both created by Trevor Metcalfe), as well as ‘Jack Pott’ in Buster.
I’m very sorry to hear of the passing of the artist JAMES HANSEN (often known as Jimmy Hansen) who died on Tuesday 19th June 2018.
In a career spanning more than 40 years, Jimmy Hansen drew thousands of pages for British comics, working on strips such as The Bumpkin Billionaires, Ricky Rainbow, P5, a stint on Dennis the Menace, and Buster amongst others. He was the cover artist on Buster for the last several years of the comic, bringing a great sense of energy and fun to the strip, as he did with all his pages.
Some of his early work was The Winners…Crybaby Jackpot… the Skateboard squad Cheeky comic
He said his first comic work was for whizzer and chips Hot Rod the dragon…must of been for a summer special… my guess he started mid 70’s at Fleetway..
Apparently he was only in his late 60s. Gone far too soon.
Jack Clayton drew for Cheeky, Jackpot and Buster comic.
He did the wonderful joke page Hit the Jackpot!
Where so much detail was put in the backgrounds…that sometimes the backgrounds were funnier than the jokes.
He liked drawing little mice (Mickey types), cats, dogs and snails …small animals.
He was also great at drawing the over reaction the groan from a character. Almost falling backwards. Paddywack had this effect a lot.
His first work was in Cheeky late 70’s where the kids recreate a scene for there home video.
You can see how the kids did it with home made props and costumes. Again lots of funny details.
Paddywack came later in Cheeky and even became when the comics merged the cover star of Whoopee!!.
Jack Clayton is an artist from East London who has spent the last four years travelling.
His inspiration for his art work is drawn from his experiences around the world and a representation of his environment.
Jack Clayton was the artist of Paddywack. Irish cartoon character that was supposed to be drawn by Doodle Doug that use to bribe Cheeky to see his work or tell his Dad about his comics.
IAN KNOX (born 4 May 1943, Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a political cartoonist for the Irish News, and also drew cartoons for the BBC Northern Ireland political show Hearts and Minds.
Knox trained as an architect at Edinburgh College of Art (1963–67) and Heriot-Watt University (1967-68), and worked as an architect before establishing himself as a cartoonist. He worked in animation from 1970 to 1975 for Halas & Batchelor in London, Potterton Productions in Montreal, and Kotopoulis Productions in Toronto. He then joined Red Weekly and Socialist Challenge as a political cartoonist, as well as contributing to various children’s comics for IPC from 1975-88.
In the 1970s and 80s he drew various humour strips for IPC comics, including “Dreamy Den”, “Strawbelly” and “Terror TV” for Buster, “Major Jump, Horror Hunter” for Monster Fun, “The Krazy Gang” and “Pongalongapongo” for Krazy, “Funtastic Journey” and “6 Million Dollar Gran” for Cheeky, “Lucky Dick”, “Winnie the Royal Nag”, “Starr’s Wars” and “Grim Gym” for Whizzer and Chips, “Gran’s Gang” for Whoopee!, and “Exercises” and “Roger Rental” for Oink.
He signed much of his political work “Blotski”, and he and Republican News cartoonist Cormac worked together as “Kormski”, drawing the anti-clerical strip “Dog Collars” for Fortnight Magazine. Since 1989 he has been the editorial cartoonist for The Irish News, a nationalist newspaper based in Belfast. Since 1996 he has contributed the “As I See It” feature to Hearts and Minds on BBC2 Northern Ireland. From 1997-98 he was political cartoonist for Ireland on Sunday.
Knox has cited Ronald Searle, Low, John Glashan, Vicky, Steve Bell, Pat Oliphant and Charles Addams among those who have influenced him.
IAN KNOX
“If you’ve got the issue right, victims don’t generally criticise you”
For 25 years he has shown that the artist’s pen can be mightier than the sword, by challenging paramilitary and state violence, while remorselessly mocking the hypocrisy and corruption of the powerful.
While the impact of Ian Knox’s penmanship may petrify even the most hardened politician, the artist himself cuts an almost shy figure.
Born in south Belfast in 1943 he quickly immersed himself in a lifelong fascination with cartoons and later satire.
“I can never remember a time when I wasn’t obsessed with drawing, particularly comics,” he said, in an interview with The Detail.
“The Beano was the one I wanted, but my mother had come home from New York and thought Disney was better, so I was the only one person who occasionally got Mickey Mouse comics.
“Everyone else wanted to read it. I wanted to read the DC Thompson comics which were far more anarchic and far more interesting I thought.
“In comics terms I was a Brit but everyone else were Americans.”
After studying architecture in Edinburgh for five years Knox started his professional career in London in 1968.
However he quickly became frustrated with the “soul destroying” monotony of life as a draftsman and eventually sought out salvation in the unlikely location of one of the capital’s more notorious hotspots.
“I went around Soho Square which I was told was the centre of the animation industry to a pub called the Dog & Duck, which is where I heard where animators hung out.
“I saw two guys that looked in my impression what animators might be and I approached them and they were.
“They told me the animation companies to try and eventually I talked my way in.”
For the next five years he worked as an animator in London and Canada but quickly realised once again that he had not yet found his artistic niche.
Throughout the late 1970s he worked for a combination of socialist magazines and children’s comics.
Knox attributes his interest in left wing politics to a Scottish history teacher, Archie Douglas.
“He didn’t actually bother much with the teaching. He just handed us out bound volumes of Punch from the 19th Century.
“It’s easier actually to get a 19th Century volume of Punch than it is to get a 20th Century volume. They are much rarer than the 1950s when Ronald Searle, Antonia Yeoman and all those fantastic artists were drawing.
“They had marvellous pen technique; there was vibrancy and malice.
“It wasn’t as wild as James Gillray and Thomas Rowlandson from the 18th Century, but it was still great stuff.”
In 1989 the Irish News’ then acting editor Terry McLaughlin agreed to allow Knox to work as a weekly cartoonist.
“I started doing cartoons for the Irish News on Saturdays and then eventually persuaded them to let me do it for the rest of the week.”
For the next 25 years Knox, adopting the pseudonym ‘Blotski’, used the power of his cartoonist’s pen to satirise the hypocrisy and double standards of countless public figures.
Ian Knox’s take on finding a replacement for Nuala O’Loan as Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland
But how did he deal with the sensitivities of the latest atrocities and the pain of grieving families?
“It always hovering behind my shoulder. But it didn’t need to, because the kind of cartoon I did dealt with issues.
“If you’ve got the issue right, victims don’t generally criticise you. They want the truth. They did then and they still do. The truth is more important than anything else to them.
“If you’ve got it right, even if it’s horrible, the victims don’t object.
“I never shrank from any issue. The day I have to shrink from an issue I’ll pack it in.”
Through the Troubles ‘Blotski’ had one self-imposed rule which he refused to waiver or compromise on.
“The big guiding thing for me is anti-violence.
“Violence I think is the worst sin there is. I’m not religious, but nothing else comes near to violence.
“I mean fraud or anything is nothing like violence, there is no need for violence unless the only way to save your life is to use force.
“I was very suspicious of any violent action. I still am and that’s the one guiding thing for me – violence is wrong.”
He dismisses any suggestion that his role as a cartoonist was unique in that he was constantly under pressure to be topical and had to push the boundaries by challenging paramilitaries over the latest atrocity or politicians over the next political bun fight.
“Everybody in journalism was dealing with it (pressure). What I like is the realpolitik, to try and find out what is the motive of the person doing it and why are they being thoroughly dishonest and doing something atrocious for reasons which are quite false. My job is to show that up, really that’s it.”
Despite having publicly ridiculed virtually every well known Northern Ireland politician at one time or another, he says that very few of his subjects ever criticised his work.
“Hardly ever at all. I mean they may be seething quietly, but most people are far too polite to say anything, and never by victims, I’ve never been criticised by victims.
“Funnily enough all the political flack started flying after the Troubles and the atrocities stopped.
“Cartoons about financial things and such like have produced far more writs than any act of violence.”
He added: “I’ve never been to court in my life. I look forward to it when it happens.”
Knox remains his own worst critic, insisting that his early cartoons “weren’t very funny”.
“They are much better now, even if the situation is grim.
“If you can be funny about the issue the point gets over much better.
“Now, whatever the issue is, I try to make it look slightly funny.
“I think New York Jewish humour is very good like that and Glaswegian humour, grim but funny.”
Has his work become harder and issues now more difficult to find since the ceasefires and the establishment of the Stormont Assembly?
“It’s much easier, far easier. I’ve got the whole world now. I don’t have to deal with something awful. It’s 1,000 times better.
“Bread and butter politics are basically real politics.
“It’s so depressing that people, like the dissidents, want to use violence.
“They think it’s okay to use violence but inside their heads, what are they at?”
He said they should be constantly challenged: “They should be hauled before a television camera. Of course they wouldn’t come, but they should be made to justify what they’re doing or to try and explain.”
But in today’s age of wireless broadband and instant demand for news, is the cartoon still relevant in 2014?
“I think it is. It’s been going for centuries. Satire should be analytical, it’s not fiction. It should be about the truth.”
When asked if he has ever been threatened for his work he is matter of fact in his reply: “Not really.”
He remains conscious that fellow artists in other parts of the world have not been so fortunate.
“In 1993 as the Soviet Regime was collapsing in Russia, the creators of Spitting Image, Peter Fluck and Roger Law, tried to take satire to Moscow. It was all ready to be set up but one of the directors was assassinated the night before it went out. That was a warning and it never happened.
“There are Palestinian cartoonists in Israel. People who do decide to make it truth (are at risk). I am very fortunate here. I did a series recently here about the fantastic life, about Lord Castlereagh and people who were prepared to put their necks above the parapet in those days didn’t last very long. I’m living in fortunate times comparatively.”
But is the pen mightier than sword?
“I’ve never tried the sword. Certainly it’s the sword of my choice. It certainly gets to a lot more people.”
With a wistful grin Knox admits that there is an inner devil constantly striving to challenge and subvert the accepted norm.
“I love shoving my views down other people’s throats, but it’s much better if you slip it in without people realising it.
“It’s safer for me as well.”
Ian Knox
The artist GIORGIO GIORGETTI (1920-1982) who was the creator/artist of Catgirl and left some of his original Catgirl work..given to his son Riccardo Giorgetti by the then CEO of IPC following his death.
His dad was Italian, but moved to England in 1950. He had his art studio at his home in Margate, Kent.
Hopefully the above info helps…
email address is riccardogiorgetti454@btinternet.com if anyone would like further info!
So many of those old IPC pages were destroyed or sold off, so it’s good to know those Cat Girl pages are with someone who deserves them.
Scottish artist FRANK QUITELY is best known for his work on such series as ‘JLA: Earth’ and ‘Authority’. He began his career drawing for the Scottish underground magazine Electric Soup. He has worked on numerous titles since 1988, starting with the self-published ‘The Greens’.
This was followed by ‘Blackheart’, ‘Missionary Man’, ‘Shimura’, ‘Inaba’, and ‘The Kingdom: Offspring’. He drew for Judge Dredd and Fleetway since 1993, and did short stories for the ‘Big Book of…’ series of graphic novels for DC’s Paradox Press.
He illustrated the graphic novel ‘Batman: the Scottish Connection’, as well as several stories for DC’s Vertigo imprint, including Neil Gaiman’s ‘The Sandman’ and Grant Morrison’s ‘Flex Mentallo’. Marvel credits include ‘Captain America’ and ‘New X-Men’.
FRANK MINNITT (3 September 1894 – 12 May 1958) was a comic artist for the publications of D.C. Thomson and Amalgamated Press, and is best known for his work on the ‘Billly Bunter’ comic. During World War I, Minnitt served in the Coldstream Guards in France, where he suffered injuries from mustard gas. After the war, he held several jobs, before turning to an artistic profession. A completely self-taught cartoonist, Minnitt began to freelance joke drawings to newspapers. By 1927 he had successfully taken over several other artists’ strips, and his work was published in AP comics like Butterfly, Comic Life, Joker, Merry & Bright, Jolly and Sparkler.
In 1930, Minnitt tried his luck with DC Thomson, drawing ‘Peter Pranky’, ‘Smiler Smutt’ and ‘Jimmy and Jumbo’ for Adventure Comics. He also drew for the Fun Section of the Sunday Post, and The Dandy. At AP, he contributed ‘Stainless Stephen’ and ‘Will Hay’ to Pilot. He later drew among others ‘Kiddo the Boy King’, ‘Bob’s Your Uncle’ and ‘Merry Margie the Invisible Mender’.
These strips became so popular that Minnitt was asked to take over the ‘Billy Bunter’ strip the Knockout comic in 1939. This strip made Minnitt’s reputation, and was drawn by him until shortly before his death in 1958. His other serials for Knockout included ‘Merry Marjie’, ‘Kiddo the Boy King’ and ‘Ali Barber’. After World War II, he worked for several publishers on short-lived titles like Comicolour, Jingo Comic, Swell Comic and Big Laugh. In the final years of his career, several AP editors didn’t care for Minnitt’s old-fashioned style, and he found himself out of work, except for the ‘Billy Bunter’ comic.
FRANK McDIARMID was a British, originally from Glasgow, comics artist best known for his work on Roger the Dodger in the Beano and on IPC humour titles such as Whizzer and Chips, Cheeky Weekly, Krazy Comic, Whoopee!, Wow! and Monster Fun. Strips he drew include Cheeky (for which he created an extensive supporting cast including Lily Pop, Yikky Boo!, Baker’s Boy and Constable Chuckle), Kid Kong, Boy Boss, Frankie Stein and Willie Bunk. He has since moved into the field of fine art.
I worked first of Dc Thomsons, who were responsible for the Beano and Dandy, they were masive. They had some great talent working there. I spent my time from 1955-1966 working for them. The first strip of any consequence I worked on was following on from Ken Reid at the Dandy, it was a story called ‘Big Head and Thick Head’, from 1962-1966. I followed in the footsteps of many well known artists Douglas Phillips, who drew ‘I flew with Braddock’ and Fred Sturrock who was well known for his Illustrations.
At the same time as working on Comic Characters back then, I also managed to get into the straight art market, in titles such as Rover, Hotspur, Wizard and Adventure, spy stories for Thomsons then… in those days there was a block illustration followed by two or three pages of prose. I did quite a few covers in those Boys papers.
Working at Thomsons the mentality was that it a job for life, and if you stayed with them you’d never need to work for anyone else. But I had to spread my wings, I knew there was so much more I could do…
So after eleven years I got a bit restless, and asked if I could work at home, which quite a few artists did. They gave me that short shrift, and said they prefer the idea to come from them.
I decided to go to London with some samples in my Spring holiday, just to see what the response was. In those days, Fleetway were just taking off with a whole stable of comics, and they loved what they saw. They gave me every encouragement and they had a lots of work for me.
The fleetway comics covered all sorts of titles … Lion, Tiger, Valiant, and the funnies such as Wham, Pow, Buster and eventually Whoopee and Whizzer and Chips…
I became a freelance artist, and in 1973 did Roger the Dodger. I worked on a lot of Characters through the years. I did four years of Texas Kid in TV Comic and a year and a half on Eagle in the early 1970’s. I worked on Boy Boss, Mustapha Million, Chruncher, The Gasworks Gang, Frankie Stein, and war comics such as Battle and many others.
But I am best remembered for Cheeky. I came on the scene when Cheeky was singled out for stardom. Bob Paynter, fleetway’s Group Editor asked me to do it. Bob’s idea when Cheeky emerged was that they’d use as much as my stuff as they could, seven pages a week.
Bob said I should drop Roger and concentrate on working for them. I said no. I had worked hard and I didn’t have to put all my eggs in one basket. This overlapped the Cheeky period, and occasionally artists would stand in for me. At least two thirds of Cheeky was drawn by me.
It was hard to have a favourite character. There was Posh Claude, Lilly Pop. They were all dear to me. My favourite strip was Cheeky by a mile, we were encouraged to be anarchic and mild. I still can draw most of the characters from memory … and there was a lot of them!
There also was the Snail. That was my idea. I was given a free hand – in fact was encouraged to come up with this stuff. Those characters Bubble Gum Boy, Libby, Disco Kid, Auntie Daisy and Walter Wurx. They were all good fun!
Who came up with the Jokes? In the strips he was referred to as Willie Cook, but in fact he was a character from Thomsons – full name of Gordon Cook – he came up with all the bad bones. I was in charge of coming up with all the scenes and things that were going on, the rubbish written in between-anything that would make it look different.
The pages were one and half sizes bigger than the comic, and was mechanically reduced down in London. The strips were drawn in pencil and then inked – but given the pressure of the work I was given a free hand and to go straight ahead, there was no requirement to show them. The Captions and Speech Bubbles was done down there by whoever. I never really did find out who did them. it was weird drawing a strip without seeing the text Bubbles! But what is weirder: I only met Bob Paynter about three times in my life. And yet he was the fountain head for all this nonsense that I was producing and having a great time!
I felt gloriously happy at the time seeing my work on display in newsagents up and down the country!
Ha Ha! Cheeky was my favourite to work on – a particular pleasure to draw because of the freedom I was given, I still have a slim volume of fan mail from back then.
I had my own art gallery in Arbroath when I started to work from home until 2000.
Frank McDiarmid
FRANCISCO S0LANO LOPEZ (26th October 1928-12th August 2011) was a comics artist from Buenos Aires, Argentina, who entered the field in 1953 with the series Perico Guillerma. Acknowledged as one of the most influential Argentinian comic artists (at one point, he had to flee to Spain in order to avoid arrest, as his series El Eternauta touched on Argentina’s volatile political situation), he also worked extensively for Britain’s Fleetway comics such as Valiant, Buster, Smash!, Knockout (IPC), Score ‘n’ Roar, New Eagle and Lion, on strips including Adam Eterno, Kelly’s Eye, Janus Stark, Master of the Marsh, Nipper, Pete’s Pocket Army, Jet-Ace Logan, The Drowned World, Battler Britton and Galaxus: The Thing from Outer Space. In the 1990s he branched out into the field of erotic comics, proving that his range really was pretty much unlimited.
The great ERIC BRADBURY began his comic career at Knockout, working on such humour strips as Blossom and Our Ernie.
He moved onto the adventure western Lucky Logan, sharing art chores with Mike Western (Bradbury would go on to ink Western’s pencils on The Leopard from Lime Street).
High profile work on Mytek the Mighty (Valiant & Vulcan), the House of Dolmann (Valiant), Von Hoffman’s Invasion (Jet!), Death Squad (Battle), Hook Jaw (Action) and Doomlord (The Eagle) followed.
Bradbury has been described as an ‘unsung hero’ of 2000 AD, having contributed to many popular strips in the long-running sci-fi comic. His credits in the ‘Galaxy’s Greatest comic’ include Rogue Trooper, Tharg the Mighty, Invasion and The Mean Arena.
DUDLEY DEXTER WATKINS (27 February 1907 – 20 August 1969) was an English cartoonist and illustrator. He is best known for his characters Oor Wullie and The Broons; comic strips featuring them have appeared in Scottish newspaper The Sunday Post since 1936, along with annual compilations. Watkins also illustrated for comics such as The Beano, The Dandy, The Beezer and Topper, and provided illustrations for Christian stories.
Watkins was born in Prestwich, Lancashire, England, although the family moved to Nottingham while he was still a baby. His father was a lithographic print artist who noted the boy’s early artistic talent and ensured that he received extra art classes at the Nottingham School of Art. By the age of 10 the local newspaper declared him a “schoolboy genius.” He studied at Nottingham School of Art, and while working for Boots Pure Drug company in the early 1920s, Watkins’ first published artwork appeared in Boots’ staff magazine, The Beacon.
In 1924 Watkins entered the Glasgow School of Art. In 1925 the school principal recommended Watkins to the thriving publisher D.C. Thomson, based in Dundee. Watkins was offered a six-months employment with D. C. Thomson, so he moved to their Dundee base and began providing illustrations for Thomson’s “Big Five” story papers for boys (Adventure, Rover, Wizard, and later Skipper and Hotspur). The temporary employment turned into a full-time career; for several years he was just another illustrator, supplementing his small salary by teaching life drawing at Dundee Art School. In 1933 Watkins turned his hand to comic strip work, and soon his editor noticed that Watkins had a special talent as a cartoonist. In 1933 he drew The Rover Midget Comic and in 1934 he drew The Skipper Midget Comic. In 1935 Watkins’ first regular comic strip, Percy Vere and His Trying Tricks appeared; the titular character was an inept magician whose tricks usually backfired on him. The strip ran for nearly two years, finally being replaced with another Watkins creation, Wandering Willie The Wily Explorer (Willie’s hard-boiled characteristics would later re-appear in the form of Desperate Dan). While Percy was still appearing in Adventure, Watkins co-created, with writer/editor R. D. Low, what would become his most famous characters, Oor Wullie and The Broons. They were part of the first issue (8 March 1936) of a weekly eight-page pull-out ‘Fun Section’ of The Sunday Post. He was soon illustrating the Desperate Dan strip for The Dandy comic, launched in December 1937.
His workload was further increased when D.C. Thomson created The Beano, an eight-page comic booklet, with Watkins being responsible for drawing the Lord Snooty strip. The Beano’s first edition was dated 30 July 1938. When the Beezer and Topper were launched in the 1950s, Watkins was responsible for illustrating the Ginger strip (based largely on Oor Wullie, but unlike that strip the text was written in standard English and not in Scots vernacular) and the Mickey the Monkey strip for the two comics.
Watkins’ most enduring adventure strip was Jimmy and his Magic Patch, which debuted in the 1 January 1944 issue of The Beano and ran for 18 years.
Watkins was one of only two D. C. Thomson cartoonists who signed their work (beginning in June 1946), which was known for its intricate detail and unique style. The other brilliant cartoonist to sign his work was Allan Morley and he was the first to do so.
Watkins and his wife built a substantial house in Broughty Ferry, which he named Winsterly. He continued working with D. C. Thomson for the rest of his life. On 20 August 1969 he was found dead at his drawing board, victim of a heart attack.
It is a testament to Watkins’ work that D. C. Thomson continued to reprint Oor Wullie and Broons strips in The Sunday Post for seven years before a replacement was found. Watkins’ Desperate Dan strips were reprinted in The Dandy for fourteen years.
In a 2006 BBC documentary marking 70 years of Oor Wullie, it was claimed that, due to his frequent mocking of Axis leaders in his comics before and during World War II, Watkins’ name was on a list of enemies of the Third Reich.
DICK MILLINGTON is best known for his Fleetway comics in the 1960s and 1970s and for the comic strip ‘Mighty Moth’ in TV Comic. He attended St. Martin’s School of Art and began his career in 1947 as a letterer for the Daily Mirror. He became a freelance cartoonist for the United Feature Syndicate in the US in 1963. For Fleetway, he created many comics during the 1960s and 1970s, including ‘Ray Presto’ (for Krazy), ‘Happy Families’ (for Whizzer & Chips’), ‘Jolly Roger’ and ‘Hover Boots’.
In 1966, he became editor of children’s comics like TV Comic, Pippin and Playland. One of his best known creations is ‘Mighty Moth’, that ran in TV Comic from 1959 to 1984. He also scripted ‘The Telegoons’ (art by Bill Titcombe, 1963-67) and ‘Barney Bear’. Other comics he drew for the magazines he edited were ‘Basil Brush’ (TV Comic) and ‘The Moonbeams’ (Pippin, 1967-84). In later years, Millington has been working on ‘The Guinness Book of Records’ for the Mail on Sunday and on the ‘I Don’t Believe It’ strip cartoon in the Daily Mail. He passed away at the age of 81 at his home in Kent after an illness on 4 February 2015.
DENIS GIFFORD (26 December 1927 – 18 May 2000) was a British writer, broadcaster, journalist, comic artist and historian of film, comics, television and radio. In his lengthy career, he wrote and drew for British comics; wrote more than fifty books on the creators, performers, characters and history of popular media; devised, compiled and contributed to popular programmes for radio and television; and directed several short films. Gifford was also a major comics collector, owning what was perhaps the largest collection of British comics in the world.
Gifford’s work in the history of film and comics, particularly in Britain, provided an account of the work in those media of previously unattempted scope, discovering countless lost films and titles and identifying numerous uncredited creators. He was particularly interested in the early stages in film and comics history, for which records were scarce and unreliable, and his own vast collection was an invaluable source. Gifford produced detailed filmographies of every traceable fiction, non-fiction and animated film ever released in the UK, and of early animated films in the US.
He compiled the first comics catalogue attempting to list every comic ever published in the UK, as well as the first price guide for British comics. His research into the early development of comics and cinema laid the groundwork for their academic study, and his reference works remain key texts in the fields.
Gifford was also a cartoonist and comic artist who worked for numerous titles, mostly for British comics in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. Although these were largely humour strips, he worked in a range of genres including superhero, Western, science fiction and adventure.
Gifford was born in Forest Hill, London, the only son of William Gifford, a printer, and Amelia née Hutchings. He grew up in the prosperous South London suburb of Sydenham, but was evacuated during the war to Tonbridge, Kent.
Gifford attended the South London private school Dulwich College (1939–44), and while a pupil there was an avid comic collector and cartoonist. He produced a comic, The Junior, using heated gelatine and hectograph ink, which he sold for 1d around the school, but had published comics art by the time he was 14 (1942).
Gifford became friends with Bob Monkhouse, a Dulwich schoolmate, fellow schoolboy cartoonist and later TV comedian and presenter, who studied in the year below and also had cartoons published while at the school. Gifford and Monkhouse collaborated on comics writing and drawing, a partnership that was to continue for many years in various forms, including as radio scriptwriters. The two toured together as a comedy act in the south east of England in the late 1940s with Ernie Lower’s West Bees Concert Party, giving charity performances with Monkhouse as the ‘straight man’. Gifford continued drawing during National Service in the Royal Air Force (1946-8), in which he served in the clerical position of ‘AC1 Clerk/Pay Accounts’, and went on to draw the Telestrip cartoon for the London Evening News.
Comic art and comic writing: 1942–82
Gifford’s prolific career as a cartoonist included both newspaper strips and comics, almost entirely for British publishers. His first published work was Magical Monty for All-Fun Comics (1942) at the age of 14, with a contribution to The Dandy the same year, and briefly worked as junior cartoonist for the newspaper Reynold’s News (1944–45). He collaborated on comics writing and drawing with school friend Bob Monkhouse while they were still pupils at Dulwich College together.
After his National Service, Gifford drew the Telestrip cartoon for the London Evening News, continuing in Rex magazine (1971–72), and on bubblegum and cigarette sweet packets. Other newspaper strips were produced by Gifford for Empire State News and Sunday Dispatch.
Gifford’s early work was with D.C. Thomson and the majority of his work was for humour strips, but he went on to cover various genres and styles, including adventure, detective, science fiction, Western and superheroes.
Gifford was most productive as a comics artist in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. By the early 1970s Gifford’s writing career, mainly on the subjects of comics and film history, began to take over from his work as a cartoonist in his own right.
Gifford had a distinctive, simple drawing style with a light-heartedness evident even in more action-orientated strips. Panels were often bustling and dynamic, with individual characters vying for attention. His humours strips were dense with conspicuously labelled puns and ‘sight gags’, the “visual conventions” of comic art, informed by an intense awareness of the cultural heritage of the medium.
In the period Gifford drew for them, D.C. Thomson and most British comic publishers had a strict policy that artists could not sign their work but exceptionally, he was allowed to clearly sign his art.
Golden Age superheroes: 1945–49
Gifford created at least three of the earliest British Golden Age superheroes, Mr Muscle for Dynamic Comics (1945), Streamline, whose #1 tagline proclaimed him “The speediest fighter in the world”, co-created with Monkhouse for Streamline Comics (1947) and Tiger-Man, debuting in Ray Regan #1 (1949). Gifford himself credits “the first British superhero in the American comic book style” to Derickson Dene by Nat Brand in British anthology comic The Triumph in 1939, but both Mr Muscle and Streamline were early attempts to introduce British characters in a characteristically American genre, prompted by severely limited imports or reprints of US superhero titles due to wartime paper rationing and import restrictions. Gifford and Monkhouse set up their own publishing company, Streamline, in the early 1950s which published reprints of other Golden Age superheroes such as Captain Might and Masterman.
Only Streamline Comics #1 had story and art by Gifford, although he contributed the one-page humour strip Inky the Imp of the Inkpot and the adventure strip Search for the Secret City in #4.
Mr Muscle should not to be confused with the later DC character Mister Muscle of Hero Hotline, created by Bob Rozakis, or the Charlton Comics character Mr. Muscles, created by Jerry Siegel. Tiger-Man should not be confused with Tiger Man, the Street & Smith Golden Age hero, Tigerman, the Fiction House Golden Age hero, or Tiger-Man, the Atlas/ Seaboard character.
Gifford projects: Ray Regan, Star Comics, Panto Pranks: 1946–50s
Gifford created, wrote and edited several comics in the 1940s and 1950s. These included detective title Ray Regan (1949), with art by Ron Embleton, the pantomime-themed Panto Pranks (1949), which Gifford wrote and drew, Fizz Comics (1949) and Star Comics (1954), which he drew and edited with Monkhouse, featuring strips of contemporary entertainers Morecambe and Wise, Bob Monkhouse himself, Jill Day and movie character Tobor The Great. These titles created by Gifford often ran for just a single issue, to take advantage of a loophole in postwar paper rationing, but the succession of short projects suited Gifford’s diverse interests as it enabled him to flit from genre to genre.
Western strips: Roy Rogers and others: 1946–61
Gifford drew and often wrote a number of Western comics strips in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, including ‘Ace High’ Rogers versus Redmask (1946),[16] Bill Elliott in Republic’s Old Los Angeles in The Sheriff #3 (1948) and strips for Annie Oakley (1957–58)[18] and Gunhawks Western (1960–61).
Gifford provided art for movie adaptation strip Roy Rogers in Western comic The Sheriff Comics (no date, 1950s), signing himself ‘Gus Denis Gifford’ and offering a drawing style [in which] “[h]is likenesses could approach very close to the American ones produced by Harry Parks”, consistent with Gifford’s busy, comical style in other genres.
Humour strips: Knockout, Whizzer & Chips and magazine strips: 1946–71
Gifford and Monkhouse contributed cartoon strips to various magazines in the 1940s and 1950s, including Galaxy magazine (1946) (not to be confused with Galaxy Science Fiction).
Gifford drew the cover for Classics Illustrated #146 (British series), Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1962), a more comedic and cartoon-like rendering than was conventional for the title’s covers, which tended to be classically heroic and often painted.
Gifford went on to produce several strips for the highly popular humour comic Knockout, including Our Ernie (1950), Stoneage Kit the Ancient Brit and his own creation, the gags and puzzles strip Steadfact McStaunch. He later revived Steadfast McStaunch for a run in IPC’s new title Whizzer and Chips[22] (1969), which itself merged with Knockout in 1973.
Anglo Studios: Marvelman, Captain Miracle, Super DC, TV Tornado: 1954–71
After working with Mick Anglo on the ABC science-fiction title Space Comics (1953–54), Gifford began work for Anglo Studios when it was set up in 1954, including a long stint writing and illustrating early Marvelman, the superhero reinvented in the 1980s with a darker vision by Alan Moore. Gifford worked on a number of strips in several titles in the Marvelman stable, and created the light-hearted backup features Flip and Flop and The Friendly Soul. He also wrote an editorial piece, Founding a Family, on the history of Marvelman Family for a 1988 reprint of the strip in Miracleman Family #2.
When Anglo took on US reprint series Annie Oakley, Gifford was one of the staff of British and Spanish artists used to create new strips (1957–58). Gifford went on to provide Western strips for Anglo Features title Gunhawks Western (1960–61) and humour strip Our Lad for Anglo’s Captain Miracle (1961) contributed several humour strips for Anglo’s anthology of Silver Age DC reprints, Super DC (1969–70),[23] as well as reprints of his humour strip The Friendly Soul from Marvelman in Superman Bumper Book (1970) and Super DC Bumper Book #1 (1971). Later in the 1960s, Gifford also produced the one-off News of the Universe Television Service and regular humour strips Dan Dan the TV Man and the collection of one or two-panel gags, Jester Moment for TV Tornado (1967–68) where Mick Anglo was editor.
Although Gifford did not have an academic background, he was an acknowledged authority on film history who is respected by academics in film studies, media studies and social and cultural history. Much of his reference work is recommended reading in these disciplines. Along with several other pioneering film archivists, Gifford’s ‘encyclopaedic work’ was recognised by the Institute of Historical Research as having “provided thoroughgoing maps of British film personnel and production histories”.
Gifford compiled a comprehensive reference work of British-made films, The British Film Catalogue, 1895-1970: A Reference Guide, listing every traceable film made in the UK, including short films generally omitted by film catalogues, with detailed entries including running time, certificate, reissue date, distributor, production company, producer, director, main cast, genre and plot summary. It was a labour of many years, as Gifford tracked down retired industry professionals and researched back issues of trade publications, fanzines and directories. The Catalogue’s third (1994) edition revised all entries and was published in two volumes, The Fiction Film, 1895–1994 and The Non-Fiction Film, 1888–1994. It became a seminal work for British film historians, acclaimed by The British Film Institute (BFI)’s curator of Moving Image in a Sight & Sound magazine shortlist of the best ever film books: “The nearest we have to a British national filmography was created not by any institute or university but by one man.” Gifford’s popular work A Pictorial History of Horror also made the shortlist.
All editions of the Catalogue omitted animated films, but Gifford’s British Animated Films, 1895–1985: A Filmography provided a similarly completist approach. Over 1200 films were detailed, attempting to include every British animated film of the period with a cinema release, whether full-length feature, short, public information film or advertisement. Gifford also provides an historical overview, giving particular attention to the pre-World War II era. As he was to attempt with the history of comics, Gifford sought to correct inaccuracies in cinema history that gave undue credit to the US industry, citing Dudley Buxton “who [in 1915] first animated the sinking of the Lusitania in all its terrifying drama, three years before Winsor McCay tackled the same subject in the United states. Yet according to film history, McCay’s version was the world’s first dramatic cartoon film!”
Gifford’s writing also included biographies of cinematic figures, including Karloff: The Man, The Monster, The Movies and The Movie Makers: Chaplin, with his meticulous research and detailed knowledge well suited to the form.
Gifford was a judge at the Sitges 1977 International Festival of Fantasy and Horror.
The BFI holds an extensive archive of interviews recorded by Gifford of various figures in the film, television and comics industries. The Denis Gifford Collection is held as part of the BFI National Library. The BFI ran a Denis Gifford Tribute Evening at the National Film Theatre in January 2001 to mark his work on film history.]
As well as vintage comedy, Gifford had a particular interest in genre films, favouring the origins of those genres and the lower-budget B-movie output. He had written for science fiction fanzines since the 1950s, which he regarded as the period in which the genre gained maturity in the cinema: “it was the 1950s before sci-fi really got started, first with George Pal’s astounding semi-documentary Destination Moon pipped at cinematic post by Robert L. Lipert’s B-movie Rocketship X-M. Where the cinema led, comics followed.” He had attempted to spur early science fiction ‘fandom’ with his 1952 Space Patrol Official Handbook, an introduction to science fiction that included an index of ‘films of future fantasy’ from the 1902 French ‘trick’ film A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès and the 1918 Danish A Trip to Mars up to contemporary films such as the 1951 The Day the Earth Stood Still, screen shots from recent science fiction films The Man From Planet X, Rocketship X-M, The Day the Earth Stood Still and When Worlds Collide. Astronomical facts and diagrams of imagined spacecraft and spacesuit, drawn by Gifford, were also included.
Horror held a special fascination for Gifford: he was an active figure in horror fandom of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, including the Gothique Film Society, and in the 1970s he had regular columns in Dez Skinn’s House of Hammer magazine, first a serialised Golden History of Horror and later History of Hammer. However, Gifford had been deeply critical of Hammer Studios, especially the productions of its later years, preferring the more understated examples of early British and Hollywood horror. He found Hammer’s relatively explicit use of blood-letting and sexuality to be cynically exploitative, noting in his 1973 A Pictorial History of Horror that “The new age of horror was geared to a new taste. Where the old films had quickly cut away from the sight of blood, Hammer cut in for a closeup.” A Pictorial History of Horror was an influential work for a generation of film and horror enthusiasts, described in The Paris Review by author and journalist Dave Tompkins as “the most important book of my childhood”.
Gifford was a lifelong fan of Laurel and Hardy, and founded ‘Film Funsters’, the first British branch of the Laurel & Hardy Appreciation Society, as well as writing several articles on the duo. He was also a keen Sherlock Holmes enthusiast, and was a member of the Sherlock Holmes Society and wrote various reviews and articles on films featuring the detective.
Gifford wrote numerous articles on film and popular entertainment, both professionally and for fanzines.
Although a highly respected film historian, Gifford’s professional involvement in cinema was relatively limited. However, in the 1950s and 1960s he directed and photographed a number of short films, most of which were publicity and public information films commissioned by the British Government. He also produced and directed the Pathe newsreel Highlight: The Singing Cinema (1964), a compilation of extracts from British musical films from 1929–64.
While at Pathe, Gifford married Angela Kalagias, a fellow Pathé employee. The couple, who later divorced, had one daughter, Pandora Jane, born in 1965.
Gifford scripted the Space Race spoof Carry on Spaceman in 1962, but although scheduled the film was not shot.
Gifford was regarded by many as the UK’s pre-eminent comics historian, particularly of early British comics. The British Library provides catalogues and reference works written by Gifford as assistance to researchers of its British Comics Collection, and indeed most of the reference works on the subject provided by the British Library were written by Gifford.
Comics scholarship, still relatively undeveloped in comparison to other media, was almost non-existent in 1971, when Gifford published his first book on comics history, Discovering Comics. At that time, no comprehensive archive of British comics existed, no fully researched cataloguing had been attempted, the mass pulping of comics in Britain in the 1940s meant that many issues and even titles were lost without effective records, no university courses were dedicated to the study of the medium, and serious research and debate had not taken place into the origin and development of the comic as a form. Gifford was determined that the comic should gain a credibility in mainstream culture and academia which it already possessed in continental Europe, and to a lesser extent the US: “Curiously, only Great Britain, where the comic paper was born, takes its comics for what they superficially seem – ephemera to be discarded as soon as read.”Although enthusiastic about comics of every era, Gifford had a particular passion for vintage comics, “earlier in the medium’s evolution, when it was a chaos of one-offs, irregular schedules, and a comic historian’s nightmare of inept publishers operating from the back rooms of run-down bookshops on a shoe string budget.”
Gifford provided the first reliable, detailed account of early comics in works such as Victorian Comics (1976) and The British Comics Catalogue, 1874–1974 (1974), with a detailed overview in his International Book of Comics (1984). He also advanced debate on the origins of comics, including what the first comic and comic characters were, arguing that “there is no point [in the history of comics] where we can pick up a paper and declare it Comic Number One.” He identified the first comedic narrative periodical, as an antecedent to the comic as The Comick Magazine (1796) which although all text included a single William Hogarth print per issue, which Gifford suggested when combined formed a “narrative sequence … [so that] they could be described as an early form of comic strip.” Gifford identified the significant stage of “the first continuing cartoon hero” as Rowlandson’s Dr Syntax in the serial The Schoolmaster’s Tour in The Poetical Magazine (1 May 1809). He argued that “in Europe, perhaps the world” the first caricature magazine, an important prototypical form of the comic, was Hopkirk’s The Glasgow Looking Glass (11 June 1825).
Gifford located the origin of the modern graphic narrative in the late nineteenth century, tracing development through various stages that included Judy – The London Serio-Comic Journal (1 May 1867) featuring Ally Sloper, the first recurring character in a text and picture serial. He observed in Victorian Comics that Sloper “was the first to appear in comic book format … a paperback reprint collection … the first to have his own comic paper … and was the longest lived [character] in comic history.” He suggested a key contender as the first comic as being the paper Funny Folks (12 December 1874), which had an unprecedented half-picture, half-text per page layout. Sloper’s debut was certainly a series of panels, but it lacks “interdependence as a sequential narrative strategy” with images each relaying a single joke without forming a narrative with other panels, and it lacked some key features of the form, such as the speech bubble, while it had accompanying text for each image. Debate continues, but Gifford’s research and conclusions into the origins of comics as a medium have gained considerable academic acceptance.
Ally Sloper was championed by Gifford as the world’s first ever comic character, and became a totemic figure for him, being revived and sometimes drawn by him in a number of comics and other publications that sought to ensure a modern readership had an awareness of early comic history. The Ally Sloper magazine was not a commercial success and lasted only four issues, but the innovation of Gifford’s tone in the title was acknowledged by one cultural historian as “[w]ith his accurate spoof of the style of traditional British humour comics … anticipat[ing] Viz by nearly three years.” He produced artwork for advertisements for an Ally Sloper T-shirt, which was published in several Alan Class Comics titles in 1976, to promote the Ally Sloper magazine. Gifford also initiated the Ally Sloper Awards in 1976, an annual prize for veteran comic artists.
At a summit on comics history convened by the 1989 Lucca Comics Festival in Italy, Gifford was invited to be one of the eleven ‘international specialists’ to sign a declaration that The Yellow Kid was the first comic character having been first published in 1895. Gifford signed, but pointedly did so in the name of Ally Sloper, first published in 1867.
Gifford sought to draw a distinct definition for British comics history, as the Golden Age and other historical eras of comics were first defined to describe US comics history. These eras relate to UK comics only as a result of American influence on the UK market and creators, and do not acknowledge key differences in British comics of the period, notably the preponderance in Britain of humorous anthologies rather than the genre titles, most especially superheroes, that predominated in the US. Gifford observed that the “Thirties were the Golden Age of British comics” due to the profusion of successful, high quality and specifically British humour comics beginning in the 1930s, including D.C. Thomson’s The Dandy (4 December 1937), The Beano (30 July 1938) and Magic (22 July 1939) and Amalgamated Press’s Jingles (1934), Jolly (1935), Golden (23 October 1937), Radio Fun (15 October 1938), Happy Days (8 October 1938) and Knockout (4 March 1939). The start of the Second World War in 1939, and the resulting paper shortages, marked the end of many of the titles, a definable end to the era and the beginning of what Gifford termed the “Dark Age”.
Gifford’s Ally Sloper #1, his 1976 attempt to find a modern audience for the character he argued was the world’s first in comics
Gifford’s The British Comics Catalogue, 1874–1974 (1974) was the first comprehensive index of British comics, and his later British Comics, Story Papers, Picture Libraries, Girls Papers, American Reprints, Facsmilies, Giveaways Price Guide (1982) the first attempt to offer a price guide for British comics (US comic books had been covered by The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide since 1970). It was the antecedent of works such as the Official Comic Book Price Guide for Great Britain (1989).
Gifford had a particular interest in children’s comics. Although his collection included 1960s underground comics, the alternative comics of the 1970s as well as the more experimental mainstream of comics’ Modern Age, he was not initially convinced by changing conceptions of comics as a medium suited to addressing adult themes such as sexuality, violence and storytelling techniques influenced by literary fiction, cinema and art. He recognised that the growth in adult readership of comics since the 1970s was due to nostalgia, but did not foresee the potential for a development of the medium. “And nostalgia is escape. The comics – the best of them – represent wholesome innocence, a marvelous sense of fun and a pointer to current times perhaps, the triumphant overcoming of all sorts of difficulties.” When children’s comics began to reflect changes in cinema and mass culture, he was unafraid to speak out, even where this might involve constraints on the comics industry and creators.
After media outrage at the 1976 Look Out for Lefty strip about football hooliganism in the IPC comic Action, Gifford controversially drew parallels with the Wertham censorship of the US comics industry in the 1950s, remarking that “Perhaps its time we had another outcry against products like Action. Action is a new kind of comic geared to the lowest form of behaviour in children. Just as pornography caters for a mass market for adults, stuff like this provides violence for a mass market of children. As far as the people who produce Action are concerned, the children are simply a market and moral considerations do not apply.” Despite 2000 AD (#1 published in 1977) producing iconic characters and innovative and critically acclaimed stortelling and art, Gifford had similar reservations about its violent content: “Whether children would actually enjoy living in [the future] … is another matter, for as depicted … the future is a world of unrelieved violence.” Gifford was clear that his preferences in comics writing and art were informed by his nostalgia for UK comics of the 1930s, reflecting that “I look back to the days of my youth … when comics were things of joy and pleasure, rather than blood and guts.”
However, Gifford’s concerns were limited to comics intended for children and adolescents, and he was well aware of a development of the medium for an adult audience. He collected and was able to appreciate the content of underground and Modern Age comics, offering sophisticated and sometimes sympathetic analysis. Gifford’s own Ally Sloper comic (1976) offered a combination of vintage and alternative strips for an adult audience, although the nostalgic strips were his primary interest.
Working for the Guinness Book of Records as a comics expert, Gifford had to qualify his recommendation that The Dandy be regarded as the world’s oldest comic (first issue December 1937) after the entry was challenged in 1999. The first issue of Italian comics magazine Il Giornalino was cover dated 1 October 1924, US comic book Detective Comics (March 1937) began nine months earlier, and the Belgian comic magazine Spirou had more issues. Gifford admitted that “[i]t may be that we will have to insert the word British into the Guinness Book of Records to clarify the position.”
Gifford’s work The Golden Age of Radio was the first reference guide to programmes, broadcasters and catchphrases of radio of the 1930s and 1940s, and remains an important source for researchers in radio history.
Gifford was working on a filmography and history of 1930s British television, but died before its completion.
Gifford wrote extensively for comedy and light entertainment in both television and radio, his work often reflecting his fascinations of radio and film nostalgia and cartoon art.
Gifford wrote the first television series of comedy stars Morecambe and Wise, Running Wild (1954), having been brought in with fellow cartoonist, comic enthusiast and film buff Tony Hawes to save a series which was initially panned by critics. He also provided material for the opening night of ITV (1955) and co-wrote the first comedy show to be screened by BBC2, the TV movie Alberts’ Channel Too (1964) for the launch of the channel, although the whole evening’s broadcasting was lost due to a power blackout. He wrote for Junior Showtime (1973), devised the nostalgia panel show Looks Familiar (1970–87) for Thames TV, presented by Denis Norden, its radio counterpart Sounds Familiar and the Thames quiz show Quick on the Draw (1974–1979) featuring drawings by cartoonists and celebrities, with presenters including Bob Monkhouse, Rolf Harris and Bill Tidy. He also wrote scripts for the ITV children’s puppet shows Witches’ Brew (1973) and The Laughing Policeman (1974). Gifford also designed stunts for the popular BBC1 game show The Generation Game.
The scriptwriting partnership with Hawes began in radio, for weekly BBC concert party The Light Optimists (1953) and continued with stunt devising for the US-bought game show People Are Funny for Radio Luxembourg.
A broadcaster in his own right, Gifford featured in numerous television and radio programmes as an expert in the history of film, radio and comics, as well as appearances in a variety of documentary and news magazine programmes over several decades. Appearances included editions of BBC’s On The Braden Beat (1964) commenting on comics, Granada’s Clapperboard (1974) and a review of forthcoming horror films for BBC1’s Film 1973 (1973), Goon but not Forgotten, a radio history of the Goon Show as part of the Laughter in the Air: The Story of Radio Comedy (1979) and twice as guest panellist for Radio 4 panel show Quote… Unquote (1985).
Gifford and Monkhouse reprised their partnership with BBC radio programmes on the history of the comics, Sixpence for a Superman (1999) on British comics and the two-part A Hundred Laughs for a Ha’penny (1999), a history of comic papers.
Gifford also regularly wrote obituaries of notable figures in comics, film and entertainment history for British national newspapers The Independent and The Guardian and posthumously for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, drawing on his specialist knowledge and often personal familiarity with the subject. His output was prolific and constant, with his own obituary in The Guardian noting that “[h]is last commission was phoned in from his home in Sydenham, south London, to his editor on Thursday, May 18; it is thought he died the same day.”
Gifford’s most valuable research resource was his own collection, as in over sixty years he had accumulated what is generally recognised as the largest comic collection in the UK and the largest collection of British comics in the world, including the only known complete runs of all comics published in the UK in the 1940s. He collected the first and last issues of all comics published in the UK, as well as Christmas issues and other special editions, and also collected first issues of US comics. To a lesser extent, first issues of comics from other countries were also collected. Gifford was also a collector of other ephemera, including pulp books, popular magazines, theatrical programmes, film and comic fanzines, original film scripts and sheet music, as well as pop culture memorabilia, describing himself as “the keeper of the nation’s nostalgia” and with a collection that included periodicals not to be found in the British Library.
It was an obsession which dominated both his life and his South London home, once described in a colour supplement interview as the den of “a boy who had run away from home” and never returned. A reliable figure was never established for the size of his collection, but its scale constrained movement throughout the house and extended into every room, even the kitchen: “There are comics on the stove, on the fridge, on the floor. Denis Gifford can still use his grill, but roasts are a memory for he can no longer open his oven. The fridge filled up years ago, for Denis is fascinated by the free gifts that come with some comics … There are lollipops in the fridge now, and Desperate Dan nougat.”
Unusually for a collector, Gifford’s interests were defined by their eclecticism, including comics, radio recordings and film from throughout the world and spanning from the origins of the media up to new releases. His own ‘biog’ for a 1975 book calculates his collection “extends to some 20,000 issues” but is careful to limit the estimate to the particularly British form of ‘comic papers’ which excluded his vast collection of American comic books, and in any case accumulated many more in the next 25 years of his life. He had certain specific interests, notably British horror films of the 1930s to the 1960s, early cinema and radio, Laurel and Hardy movies and memorabilia, British comic papers of the late nineteenth century and British and US comics of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, especially those which featured personalities from contemporary radio. However, the parameters of his interests and collection broadened substantially throughout his life.
Gifford’s collection had suffered an early setback, an anecdote related by Bob Monkhouse: “You cannot begin to imagine his grief when he completed his National Service to return home to find that his mother had thrown away his huge collection of Film Fun, The Joker, Merry and Bright and a dozen other titles … Denis was to spend the rest of his life trying to replace those lost copies.” Gifford’s mother was later to express deep regret at their destruction.
Despite his hopes that his vast collection might form the basis of a national museum of comics, through an archive such as the Victoria and Albert Museum National Art Library Comics and Comic Art Collection, it was broken up and auctioned off after his death, “leaving 12 tons of paper at his home to be cleared and sorted.” Monkhouse reflected in the foreword to auction catalogue of The Denis Gifford Collection on how one “whose researches were so meticulous have allowed this vast gathering of treasures to have swollen into such unruly and uncatalogued confusion”. The sale was described in the auction pamphlet as “surely the largest private collection of annuals, books, cartoons, cinema history, comics, ephemera & original artwork ever to come on the market. The collection, housed in some 600 boxes and weighing ten tons, arrived on a groaning lorry and took five men nearly three hours to unload. We expect sales to run to some 4000 lots.”
Gifford’s collection was the product of his lifelong passion for comics and popular culture, and his highly prolific research work was an attempt to provide a comprehensive history of the ephemeral. Particularly in the early decades of his writing on the subject, pop culture drew little attention from academic research and Gifford was particularly passionate about the most obscure examples of vintage comics, film, television and radio, and determined that they should be recognised, chronicled and remembered before extant copies were lost.
Gifford was a pivotal figure in the development of comics “fandom” in the UK, first through his writing and publishing of early fanzines in the 1950s. In the 1970s he helped introduce comics conventions to the UK, events where creators and industry figures could meet and respond to comics fans. It was a significant progression of the already established comics marts where comics were simply sold, and in which Gifford was a key figure, providing the introductory presentation at the Comic Mart Summer Special 1974 and other UK events.
In 1974 he was the only comics industry guest at an early meeting of Britain’s major comics convention, Comicon 74. Gifford organised Comics 101 in 1976, the first convention dedicated to British comic creators, with guests including celebrated figures in British comics including Frank Hampson, Leo Baxendale, Frank Bellamy and Ron Embleton, Marvelman creator Mick Anglo and Garth creator Steve Dowling, Gifford conducting an on-stage interview with Dowling. The name of the convention was a reference to the 101 years since the first issue of Funny Folks (1874) which Gifford regarded as the first comic.
In 1977 Gifford co-founded the Society of Strip Illustration, a network for all those involved in any stage of the creative process of comics production which later became the Comic Creators Guild. In 1978 he established the Association of Comics Enthusiasts, whose newsletter Comic Cuts ran for 14 years proper and, as a section of UK comics fanzine The Illustrated Comics Journal, until his death. Gifford also wrote extensively for comics magazines and fanzines, particularly Comic Cuts, and it was here that he wrote some of his most specialist work on comics history and criticism.
Prizegiving of the first Ally Sloper Awards for comic creators also took place at Comics 101, with Bob Monkhouse presenting.
Gifford continued to organise, guest and attend comics conventions throughout the 1970s, 80s and 90s in the UK, USA and throughout Europe, including regular guest appearances the Lucca International Comics Festival, was an official guest at the first UK Comic Art Convention (UKCAC) in 1985 and was a guest speaker at the 1st UK Paperback and Pulp Bookfair in 1991.
Gifford created the Ally Sloper Awards, a series of awards to recognise veteran British comics artists. The award was first presented in 1976, but no longer runs.
DAVID SUTHERLAND is a prolific and longtime contributor for DC Thomson’s children’s comic The Beano. Among his early features were ‘Danny on a Dolphin’ (1960), ‘The Great Flood of London’ (1960-61), ‘The Cannonball Crackshots’ (1961) and ‘Lester’s Little Circus’ (1962-63). In 1963, Sutherland took over the ‘Bash Street Kids’ in Beano from the departing Leo Baxendale. In 1967 he additionally created the well-liked adventure strip ‘Billy the Cat’ and, following the death of Dudley D. Watkins, Sutherland took over ‘Biffo the Bear’ in 1969.
Then, in 1970, he was chosen as a permanent replacement for David Law on ‘Dennis the Menace’. He also drew the spin-off strip about Dennis’ pets Gnasher (1977-86) and Rasher (1984-95), and also from the combined strip ‘Gnasher and Gnipper’ from 1986. Sutherland retired from Dennis, after 27 years, in 1998. He continued to draw the occasional strip for the comic, as well as drawing most of Dennis’ adventures for the annuals and summer specials. Sutherland remains the main artist for the ‘Bash Street Kids’, and has worked on many more features, including ‘The Germs’ (1988-92), ‘Korky the Cat’ (1999-2000) and ‘Fred’s Bed’ (2008-2012).
DAVID LAW worked for Scottish editor D.C.Thomson since about 1945, drawing cartoons for local papers. One of these was a young version of ‘Dennis the Menace’ entitled ‘The Wee Fella’. During the mid-1950s, David Law also drew ‘Dennis the Menace’ strips for the Weekly News and the Beano. (This strip is not to be confused with the American ‘Dennis the Menace’ by Hank Ketcham, which was independently created around the same time.
The difference between the two is that the American Dennis finds himself in trouble without meaning to, while the British Dennis voluntarily seeks out mischief). Law’s other well-known creation is ‘Beryl the Peril’, whose adventures appear weekly in the Topper. Law drew ‘Dennis the Menace’ until his death in 1971.
In addition to several years as a regular cartoonist for the staggeringly sophisticated British magazines Zit Comic and Spit, CAT SULLIVAN has also provided artwork for textbooks, Internet sites, T-shirts and print advertising. Cat Sullivan also draws for VIZ and 2000 AD, where he does the comic strip called ‘Droid Life’.
At the age of sixteen, BRIAN WALKER applied for an art job at the Bristol Evening World. He drew war maps and gag cartoons. After service in the Royal Air Force from 1944 to 1947, Ward returned to the College of Art. In 1967, he illustrated the humorous book ‘How To Be A Motorist And Stay Happy’. The Scottish publishing house D.C. Thomson offered Walker trial work on several strips. He drew the popular series ‘I Spy’ in Sparky for almost three years.
A friend introduced him to the Thomson rival Amalgamated Press (IPC), for which he drew ‘Three Story Stan’ in Whizzer & Chips, ‘Fun Fear’ in Whoopee!, and ‘Plane Jane’ in Buster, among others. His most popular work was ‘Sream Inn’, which he drew in Shiver & Shake for about six years. After that, Walker produced ‘Box-a-Tricks’ in Buster and ‘Ar Little Uns’ in the Bristol Evening Post. In the 1980s, he returned to the comics of D.C. Thomson.
Cor!! was a children’s humour weekly launched by IPC (International Publishing Corporation), on 6 June 1970, their sixth new comic in just over a year. Cor!! was edited by BOB PAYNTER. It ran until 27 June 1974, when it was merged into Buster. Annuals and summer specials continued to be published intil 1986.
“Calculator Kid” was a strip that ran in Cheeky Weekly from July 1978 to February 1980 before moving to Whoopee!. It was drawn by Terry Bave.
It was originally conceived as a strip about a boy and his radio; After further consideration, this idea was changed to feature a boy and his CB radio. Fleetway’s Group Editor Bob Paynter, looked at both ideas and suggested that the strip instead showcase that quintessential seventies piece of kit: a pocket calculator.
The strip starred Charlie Counter, a boy with a talking calculator named Calc. The general formula was that Calc would make various seemingly nonsensical suggestions which would always turn out for the best – for example, throwing a pie into a man’s face, causing him to chase Charlie and thereby avoid a car that was about to hit him.
Bob Paynter, then of IPC magazines comics division, gave Nigel Parkinson his first break. So he’s the guilty man. Nigel first met him in 1978. In 1980 Bob Paynter offered him a job. After Nigel for Two years begging for work and they eventually give in.
For some reason in those days people were trying to get Nigel to do ‘adventure’ strips, or ‘half and half’, semi-straight stuff. Nigel did a couple of things for Bob but they weren’t very good.
In 1982, over lunch in the IPC canteen (it was Italian Week- they treated their staff very well at IPC in those days!) Bob Paynter eventually suggested Nigel to approach DC Thomson again, who Nigel had drawn a six week run of a girls’ comic strip for by that point.
This time, Bob Paynter said, why not try Ian Gray, who was putting together a new line, ‘Comic Libraries’, and needed ‘ghost artists’. Nigel knew what a ghost writer was – someone who did all the work and got minimal recompense and zero notice, and Nigel thought “I’m not sure I want to be that sort of artist!” But needs must, as ever, and Nigel gave it a try. Turned out that wasn’t quite how a ghost artist worked. But it was Bob who Nigel on to it.
Nigel was able to thank Bob Paynter for giving him a start when he worked with him again in 1989 on Scouse Mouse comic for Fleetway, and Bob Paynter was as enthusiastic as ever. Bob Paynter has often been maligned for ‘playing safe’ and indeed was always aware of his responsibility towards young readers, but Bob Paynter managed to produce some excellent comics anyway, originating Whizzer and Chips , Cor!!, Monster Fun, Shiver and Shake and more.
In March 1997 a company called Nexus Media ventured into the traditional British humour comics market with a fortnightly called Fun and Games. It was a twist on the ‘two-in-one’ format originated by Whizzer and Chips in that Fun and Games were separate titles. In this instance, Fun was a 24 page A4 size comic and Games was a 24 page half-size A5 mag wrapped around the parent comic.
It may come as no surprise that the editor of Fun and Games was Bob Paynter, who had been the original editor of Whizzer and Chips (and the group editor of the IPC humour comics).
BILL LACEY was with the RAF during World War II, and after the War he became a technical artist at the Ministry of Aircraft. He did his first comics work in 1951, taking over the ‘Robin Alone’ story in Mickey Mouse Weekly. While continuing this comic until 1956, he also began to work for Cowboy Comics Library and Super Detective Library. In the latter, he took over the ‘Blackshirt’ comic in 1957, followed by ‘Rick Random’, ‘Inspector Chafik’ and ‘John Steel’. He also did illustrations in Express Weekly and Valiant, as well as comics with ‘Bill Hanley and Rick Slade’ in Lion.
From 1966 to 1970, he drew ‘Mytek the Mighty’ in Valiant. Afterwards, he took on comics in Look and Learn, such as ‘Jason January, Space Cadet’, ‘The Maze Master’ and ‘Space Ranger’. His most notable work for this magazine was ‘Eagles Over the Western Front’, ‘Man Who Searched for Fear’ and ‘No. 13 Marvel Street’. In 1975 he joined Battle Picture Weekly, where he did ‘Y for Yellow Squadron’, ‘The Eagle Flies Fast’, ‘Rat Pack’ and ‘The Black Crow’. Three years later, he joined DC Thompson, illustrating the ‘Tasker’ comic in Bullet. He did his final comics work in Buddy in 1981, including ‘The Wilde Boys’ and ‘The Q-Bikes’. His son Mike is also a comic artist.
BARRY APPLEBY (30 August 1909 – 11 March 1996) was a British cartoonist famous for creating The Gambols for the Daily Express. The strip premiered on 16 March 1950. The script was written by his wife Dobs, and was based on their own lives.
Appleby’s father, E J. Appleby, was in the 1940s the editor of Autocar, a leading British motor magazine, and one to which Appleby himself contributed his first illustration in 1931. Later Appleby also wrote for the magazine edited by his father, using the alias “Helix”.
BARRIE MITCHELL is an artist of UK action, sports and adventure comics. He drew for romance titles like Bunty, Mandy and Diana, as well as action titles as Pow, Wham, Sparky and 2000 AD. He was the final artist of the soccer comic ‘Roy of the Rovers’. He drew the strip from October 1992 until its cancelalion in March 1993. Mitchell then went to work for Marvel UK. In 1997, he returned to the revived ‘Roy of the Rovers’ series. Mitchell also cooperated on the The Mirror’s ‘Scorer’ strip in 1989-1990. In the early 1990s, he was also the artist of ‘Playmaker’, another comic in the Roy of the Rovers comic book.
Suffolk-based artist BARRIE APPLEBY has been working for British comic books the 1970s. Coming from Barnsley, Yorkshire, he began his career at age 17, working as an art assistant for the Walt Disney Company in London. He later spent a couple of years in Canada, where he served as art director with a Toronto-based book publisher. He eventually returned to the UK and started working for comic books published by IPC Magazines, Marvel UK and especially DC Thomson.
Among his 1970s features are ‘Terror TV’, ‘Teddy Scare’ and ‘Starr Tour’ in IPC’s Monster Fun and Buster (1976-79). He is probably best-known for creating the two toddler brothers ‘Cuddles and Dimples’ in DC Thomson’s The Dandy from 1986 to 2004. The characters originated in two separate strips, with ‘Cuddles’ appearing in Nutty, Hoot and Dandy (1981-86), and ‘Dimples’ in The Dandy (1984).
He has been a regular in The Beano since the 1970s as one of the artists of ‘Dennis the Menace’ and ‘Roger the Dodger’ (both with intervals), and also with ‘Pirates of the Caribeano’ (2006), ‘London B412’ (2007), ‘Gnasher and Gnipper’ (2014) and ‘Fun Kids’ (2014). Appleby has additionally drawn several strips for Marvel’s ‘The Get Along Gang’ starting in 1985, and the ‘Bananaman’ feature in both the BEEB comic and The Dandy, succeeding John Geering. This is not the Barry Appleby who drew ‘The Gambols’ in the Daily Express.
ALLAN MORLEY (Scarborough, North Yorkshire, Great Britain, 29 April 1895 – Thanet, Kent 5 September 1960) was a British comic artist. He first worked for DC Thomson in 1925, drawing a number of comic strips for the Sunday Post and for DC Thomson’s story papers including The Wizard, where he drew Nero and Zero. He also drew a number of strips for both The Beano and The Dandy from the late thirties until the early fifties. He drew Keyhole Kate, Hungry Horace and Freddie the Fearless Fly, three long-running strips which first appeared in the first issue of The Dandy. He also drew a number of strips for The Beano, including Big Fat Joe, which appeared in the comic’s very first issue. The last time he drew for The Beano was the last strip of The Magic Lollipops in issue 475 (25 August 1951). Allan Morley died in Kent on 5 September 1960.
Allan Morley was held in such high regard by DC Thomson that they said the comics might close without him. Along with Dudley D. Watkins, Allan Morley was one of the first artists allowed to sign his work, which he did from January 1947. His strips even survived after his death with reprints of Waggy the Shaggy Doggy continuing in the Dandy until the 1970s.
ALAN McKENZIE is a British comics writer and editor known for his work at 2000 AD.
McKenzie worked for Marvel UK during the early 1980s, editing Starburst, Cinema and Doctor Who Monthly magazines. After leaving the Marvel staff in 1985, he wrote several Doctor Who comic stories for the Monthly under the pseudonym Max Stockbridge. He then wrote three non-fiction books, The Harrison Ford Story (1985), Hollywood Tricks of the Trade (1986) and How to Draw and Sell Comic Strips (1987) before contributing comic scripts to IPC’s Battle Action and later 2000AD.
In 1987, he joined the editorial team of 2000 AD as a freelancer, and from 1987–1994 he created a number of stories including Bradley, Brigand Doom and Journal of Luke Kirby. He also served in 1994 as the comic’s editor.
ALAN FENNELL (10 December 1936 – 10 December 2001 was a British writer and editor best known for work on series produced by Gerry Anderson, and for having created the magazines TV Century 21 and Look-in.
Fennell wrote episodes of Fireball XL5 and Stingray and more than ten episodes of Thunderbirds including “30 Minutes After Noon”. He also wrote for many comic strip adaptations and was the first editor of TV Century 21. Between himself and Dennis Spooner they wrote 36 episodes of Stingray.
He also wrote a number of books, including novelisations of the TV series Freewheelers, and of the film Digby, the Biggest Dog in the World.
In 1972 he wrote two original novels based on the TV series Freewheelers, published by Piccolo/TV Times, entitled “Freewheelers – Sign Of The Beaver” and “Freewheelers – The Spy Game”.
ALAN DAVIS (born 18 June) is an English writer and artist of comic books, known for his work on titles such as Captain Britain, The Uncanny X-Men, ClanDestine, Excalibur, JLA: The Nail and JLA: Another Nail.
Davis began his career in comics on an English fanzine. His first professional work was a strip called The Crusader in Frantic Magazine for Dez Skinn’s revamped Marvel UK line.
Davis’s big break was drawing the revamped Captain Britain story in The Mighty World of Marvel. Due to his inexperience, Davis did not leave enough room for word balloons in the five-page first installment, so it had to be recut to six pages. Afterwards, Alan Moore took over writing duties on Captain Britain. He drew 14 issues of the monthly Captain Britain title, which was later reprinted in trade paperback. Davis and Moore formed a close working partnership as creators; they also created D.R. and Quinch for 2000AD. Later, Davis replaced Garry Leach on Marvelman in Warrior and yet again worked with Moore. He also drew the story “Harry Twenty on the High Rock” in 2000AD.
In 1985 Davis received his big break in the United States when he was hired by DC Comics to draw Batman and the Outsiders, written by Mike W. Barr. Davis took over from Jim Aparo, who launch the direct market version of the title. His work proved popular enough for him to be assigned artistic duties on DC’s flagship title Detective Comics in 1986, again with Barr writing. During the “Batman: Year Two” storyline, however, Davis encountered difficulties with his editor and left after the first issue of the four-issue storyline. The remaining three issues were illustrated by Todd McFarlane. In the story, which featured Joe Chill, the murderer of Batman’s parents, Barr wanted Chill to have a large gun. He asked Davis to draw him with a Mauser with an extended barrel, similar to the one used by the Paul Kirk version of Manhunter. However, after Davis rendered Chill with this firearm throughout Detective Comics #575 and on its cover, he obtained copies of the pages for Batman #404 by Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli, which was scheduled to be released months before the “Year Two” storyline, and saw that Chill was depicted using a smaller handgun without the extended barrel. When asked by editorial to redraw the gun in his artwork, Davis refused. Dick Giordano redrew the gun in the artwork.
Davis accepted an offer by Uncanny X-Men writer Chris Claremont to work on Marvel Comics’ X-Men books. With Claremont, Davis drew two New Mutants Annuals and three issues for Uncanny X-Men. In 1987 the duo launched the monthly series Excalibur, which featured a team consisting of Captain Britain and Meggan together with former X-Men members Kitty Pryde, Nightcrawler and Rachel Summers. The stories, set in England, saw appearances by many characters from Moore’s and Davis’ Captain Britain stories of the early 1980s, including the Crazy Gang and the Technet. Davis’ pencils were inked by Paul Neary and, later, Mark Farmer. Davis left with issue 24 due to deadline pressures, but returned with issue 42, this time also as writer. During this second run, according to Davis, “[Editor] Terry Kavanagh spoiled me, gave me near total freedom, and encouraged me to experiment.” Among the new characters he created for his second run on the title were Feron, Cerise, Micromax and Kylun.
In 1994 Davis created a new series of original characters called the ClanDestine, which featured the Destines, a family of long-lived, magically-powered British superhumans. Davis wrote and penciled the title for the first eight issues. He departed after issue 8, and the series was canceled with issue 12. In 1996 Davis wrote and drew the two issue crossover miniseries X-Men and The ClanDestine.
In 1991, Davis reunited with writer Barr to draw the sequel to “Year Two”, the one-shot Batman: Full Circle. During much of the 1990s Davis drew many of Marvel and DC Comics major characters and titles, including JLA: The Nail and The Avengers. He was also commissioned to write both main X-Men series in 1999 (providing art for X-Men as well), but he left the following year.
Starting in October 2002 he wrote and drew for Marvel Killraven, a six-issues miniseries revamping the title character of the 1970s. After a return to Uncanny X-Men, working again with Claremont, Davis wrote and drew in 2006–2007 a six-issue Fantastic Four: The End limited series for Marvel (not to be confused with a similar one-shot written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Romita Jr). In February 2008, Davis wrote and pencilled a five-part ClanDestine miniseries and the one-shot Thor: Truth of History for Marvel.
AL EWING (born 12 August 1977) is a British comics writer who has mainly worked in the small press and for 2000 AD and Marvel Comics.
Al Ewing began his career writing stories in the five-page Future Shocks format for 2000 AD and eventually moved on to regular stints on Judge Dredd where he wrote a story, “Doctor What?” that marked Brendan McCarthy’s return to 2000 AD and the two would go on to work together on a new series The Zaucer of Zilk. Recent work includes Damnation Station and Zombo, illustrated by Henry Flint, which was collected in trade paperback in 2010.
He has also contributed to Solar Wind, FutureQuake, The End Is Nigh. Ewing is responsible for the mobile comic Murderdrome with P. J. Holden.
In May 2007, Ewing created the comedic blog The Diary of Ralph Dibney, in which he writes as the superhero Elongated Man, his therapist, or Richard Dragon, reacting to the events of each week’s issue of the comic book 52.
Breaking into American comic books, Ewing was also picked by Garth Ennis to provide a six-issue arc on Jennifer Blood, a comic published by Dynamite Entertainment, and a spin-off series The Ninjettes.
Ewing’s debut novel was published in 2007 by Abaddon Books. Pax Britannia: El Sombra features a mysterious Mexican hero fighting back against the menace of steam-powered Nazis. It is set in the same Steampunk alternate history as the other novels from the Pax Britannia series. Three other novels have been published since, with a fifth on the way.
He wrote Mighty Avengers and Loki: Agent of Asgard for Marvel Comics and co-wrote the first year of the Eleventh Doctor Doctor Who title with Rob Williams for Titan Comics.
He has since written New Avengers, U.S.Avengers, The Ultimates, Rocket, Royals, and The Immortal Hulk, all for Marvel.
The World Of Horror Magazine was launched in 1974 by the Dalruth Publishing Group / Gresham Publishing.
‘An Anthology of the Macabre from Film and Fiction’, this British bi-monthly mag covered the world of horror and sci-fi movies and TV from the classic Hollywood horrors to Hammer and Dr. Who.
The mag featured interior color and horror fiction, as well as the usual film news and reviews and was editoed by Gent Shaw.
The World Of Horror Magazine came and went in less than a year as it folded after 9 issues in 1975.
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4-6
7-9
Publisher: IPC
Publication Dates: 1974 – 1975
Number of Issues Published: 87 (#1 – #87)
Publishing Format: Was ongoing
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Merged with Look and Learn 29 November 1975.
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16-20
21,25-28
29-33
34-36,38,39
40-44
68,71,74-76
77-81
82-86
87, Christmas Special 1974
Publisher: Alan Class
Publication Dates: 1960 – ?
Number of Issues Published: 10 (#1 – #10)
Color: Colour Front Cover; Black & White Interior
Dimensions: Standard Golden Age U.S.
Binding: Squarebound
Publishing Format: Was ongoing series
Publication Type: magazine
Dates of publication are a guess since the comics did not have a date in them.
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Tales of the Underworld 1-5
Tales of the Underworld 6-10
Some content on this page was disabled on October 24, 2024 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Rebellion Comics. You can learn more about the DMCA here:
Publication Dates: 26 March 1988 – september 1992
Number of Issues Published: 193 (#1 – #193)
Color: Four Colour Dimensions: 8.25 x 11
Paper Stock: Newsprint
Binding: Saddle-stitched
Publishing Format: Was Ongoing Series
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
The Real Ghostbusters Marvel UK is the UK published comic series. It was based on The Real Ghostbusters Animated TV Show. Published by Marvel Comics Ltd.
It was more like the Now comics Slimer! with the multiple stories and different small segments, and aimed very specifically at younger children. It was also fortnightly (bi-weekly) to begin with, before going weekly for most of its run. The series ended it’s last few issues in monthly format, and was by then only reprints of older stories. The comics generally consisted of three comic strips, a text story (usually Winston’s Diary), a Spengler’s Spirit Guide Page, and half-page Slimer strip. Some of the stories made in the comic series also got reprinted by NOW Comics.
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1988 1988 1988 1988 1988
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Real Ghostbusters 001-003
Real Ghostbusters 004-006
Real Ghostbusters 007-009
Real Ghostbusters 010-012
Real Ghostbusters 013-015
Real Ghostbusters 016-018
Real Ghostbusters 019-021
Real Ghostbusters 022-024
Real Ghostbusters 025-027
Real Ghostbusters 028,029
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1989 1989 1989 1989 1989
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Real Ghostbusters 030-032
Real Ghostbusters 033-035
Real Ghostbusters 036-038
Real Ghostbusters 039-041
Real Ghostbusters 042-044
Real Ghostbusters 045-047
Real Ghostbusters 048-050
Real Ghostbusters 051-054
Real Ghostbusters 055-057
Real Ghostbusters 058-060
Real Ghostbusters 061-063
Real Ghostbusters 064-066
Real Ghostbusters 067-069
Real Ghostbusters 070-072
Real Ghostbusters 073-075
Real Ghostbusters 076-078
Real Ghostbusters 079-081
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1990 1990 1990 1990 1990
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Real Ghostbusters 082-084
Real Ghostbusters 085-087
Real Ghostbusters 088-090
Real Ghostbusters 091-093
Real Ghostbusters 094-096
Real Ghostbusters 097-099
Real Ghostbusters 100-102
Real Ghostbusters 103-105
Real Ghostbusters 106-108
Real Ghostbusters 109-111
Real Ghostbusters 112-114
Real Ghostbusters 115-117
Real Ghostbusters 118-120
Real Ghostbusters 121-123
Real Ghostbusters 124-126
Real Ghostbusters 127-129
Real Ghostbusters 130-133
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1991 1991 1991 1991 1991
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Real Ghostbusters 134-142
Real Ghostbusters 143-148
Real Ghostbusters 149-157
Real Ghostbusters 158-164
Real Ghostbusters 165-176
Real Ghostbusters 177-193
Real Ghostbusters Annual 1989
Real Ghostbusters Annual 1990
Real Ghostbusters Annual 1991
Publisher: Egmont UK
Publication Dates: 1987 – 1987
Number of Issues Published: 10 (#1 – #10)
Color: Colour Dimensions: 21 cm x 29.5 cm
Paper Stock: Glossy
Binding: Saddle-stitched
Publishing Format: Was ongoing
Publication Type: magazine
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Centurions PowerXtreme was a monthly title published by London Editions Magazines in 1987. It was based on the American animated series produced by Ruby-Spears in 1986, and concerned the ongoing attempts by the evil cyborg Doc Terror to conquer the Earth, opposed by the heroic Centurions. The series was one of many largely forgettable eighties creations designed principally to sell a line of toys. The comic, however, wasdistinguished by the inclusion (from issue #7) of a number of unrelated American science fiction strips reprinted from DC Comics, including material by Brian Bolland (the story “Certified Safe” written by Arnold Drake, originally presented in Mystery in Space #115 in 1981, and reprinted in Centurions PowerXtreme #7) and Joe Kubert, amongst others.
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Some content on this page was disabled on October 24, 2024 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Rebellion Comics. You can learn more about the DMCA here:
Some content on this page was disabled on October 24, 2024 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Rebellion Comics. You can learn more about the DMCA here:
Some content on this page was disabled on October 24, 2024 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Rebellion Comics. You can learn more about the DMCA here:
Some content on this page was disabled on October 24, 2024 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Rebellion Comics. You can learn more about the DMCA here:
Some content on this page was disabled on October 24, 2024 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Rebellion Comics. You can learn more about the DMCA here:
Some content on this page was disabled on October 24, 2024 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Rebellion Comics. You can learn more about the DMCA here:
Publisher: Esso
Publication Dates: 1968 – 1969
Number of Issues Published: 52 (#1 – #52)
Color: Colour cover; colour and black and white interior
Binding: Saddle-stitched
Publishing Format: Promotionals; Was ongoing
Publication Type: magazine
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Wonder Weekly 02
3,5,7,8,11
Publisher: Fleetway Publications
Publication Dates: 29th May 1993 – 2002
Number of Issues Published: 184 (#1 – #184)
Color: Colour
Dimensions: Magazine-size
Paper Stock: Glossy
Binding: Saddle-stitched
Publishing Format: Was ongoing
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
The original price for Sonic the Comic was 95 pence, increasing to £1.35 by the final issue. The comic generally contained four comic strip stories, each usually following different storylines and being written and drawn by different writers and artists. The first was always a seven-page story about Sonic himself (except for #148 which began with the Tails strip), and in the earliest issues, the remaining three would involve a different Sega game character (see list below). Later, the Sega backup strips were supplanted by stories focusing on supporting Sonic characters such as Tails, Knuckles, Amy and Chaotix. The anthology “Sonic’s World” featured a variety of events in the STC world not covered by the main character strips.
The different strips could at times contrast heavily with each other, with different strips aimed at different age groups or with a different balance between comedy and drama: the humour-based Decap Attack strip could appear alongside the darker and more violent Streets of Rage strip. Lew Stringer has stated that majority of readers were aged between five and ten and many strips were written with this in mind: “That doesn’t mean that older readers can’t appreciate the stories and artwork of course but it’s worth bearing in mind that if the stories sometimes seem juvenile, it’s because they are. Having said that, it doesn’t mean we can be sloppy because we’re ‘just’ writing for kids”.
Aside from the comic strips, for its first few years STC regularly featured content related to Sega videogaming. Fitting in with the Sonic convention of calling levels “Zones”, these sections were given such titles as the “Q-Zone” (which featured videogame tips and cheats), the “News Zone” and the “Review Zone”. Readers’ artwork was printed in the “Graphic Zone”, and letters were featured in “Speedlines”.
Sonic the Comic, known to its many readers as STC, was a British children’s comic published fortnightly by Fleetway Editions (the merged companies Fleetway and London Editions, which progressively became integrated with its parent company Egmont until it became known as Egmont Magazines) between 1993 and 2002. It was the UK’s official Sega comic, featuring stories about its mascot Sonic the Hedgehog and related characters, as well as comic strips based on other Sega video games.
The dates sometimes are a bit out of line, i used the dates on the covers
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1993 1993 1993 1993 1993
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Sonic the Comic 1993-05-29
Sonic the Comic 1993-06-12
Sonic the Comic 1993-06-26
Sonic the Comic 1993-07-10
Sonic the Comic 1993-07-24
Sonic the Comic 1993-08-07
Sonic the Comic 1993-08-21
Sonic the Comic 1993-09-04
Sonic the Comic 1993-09-18
Sonic the Comic 1993-10-02
Sonic the Comic 1993-10-16
Sonic the Comic 1993-10-30
Sonic the Comic 1993-11-13
Sonic the Comic 1993-11-27
Sonic the Comic 1993-12-11
Sonic the Comic 1993-12-25
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1994 1994 1994 1994 1994
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Sonic the Comic 1994-01-21
Sonic the Comic 1994-02-04
Sonic the Comic 1994-02-18
Sonic the Comic 1994-03-04
Sonic the Comic 1994-03-18
Sonic the Comic 1994-04-01
Sonic the Comic 1994-04-15
Sonic the Comic 1994-04-29
Sonic the Comic 1994-05-13
Sonic the Comic 1994-05-27
Sonic the Comic 1994-06-10
Sonic the Comic 1994-06-24
Sonic the Comic 1994-07-08
Sonic the Comic 1994-07-22
Sonic the Comic 1994-08-05
Sonic the Comic 1994-08-19
Sonic the Comic 1994-09-02
Sonic the Comic 1994-09-16
Sonic the Comic 1994-09-30
Sonic the Comic 1994-10-14
Sonic the Comic 1994-10-28
Sonic the Comic 1994-11-11
Sonic the Comic 1994-11-25
Sonic the Comic 1994-12-09
Sonic the Comic 1994-12-23
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1995 1995 1995 1995 1995
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Sonic the Comic 1995-01-06
Sonic the Comic 1995-01-20
Sonic the Comic 1995-02-03
Sonic the Comic 1995-02-17
Sonic the Comic 1995-03-03
Sonic the Comic 1995-03-17
Sonic the Comic 1995-03-31
Sonic the Comic 1995-04-14
Sonic the Comic 1995-04-28
Sonic the Comic 1995-05-12
Sonic the Comic 1995-05-26
Sonic the Comic 1995-06-09
Sonic the Comic 1995-06-23
Sonic the Comic 1995-07-07
Sonic the Comic 1995-07-21
Sonic the Comic 1995-08-04
Sonic the Comic 1995-08-18
Sonic the Comic 1995-09-01
Sonic the Comic 1995-09-15
Sonic the Comic 1995-09-29
Sonic the Comic 1995-10-13
Sonic the Comic 1995-10-27
Sonic the Comic 1995-11-10
Sonic the Comic 1995-11-24
Sonic the Comic 1995-12-08
Sonic the Comic 1995-12-22
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1996 1996 1996 1996 1996
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Sonic the Comic 1996-01-05
Sonic the Comic 1996-01-19
Sonic the Comic 1996-02-02
Sonic the Comic 1996-02-16
Sonic the Comic 1996-03-01
Sonic the Comic 1996-03-15
Sonic the Comic 1996-03-29
Sonic the Comic 1996-04-12
Sonic the Comic 1996-04-26
Sonic the Comic 1996-05-10
Sonic the Comic 1996-05-24
Sonic the Comic 1996-06-07
Sonic the Comic 1996-06-21
Sonic the Comic 1996-07-05
Sonic the Comic 1996-07-19
Sonic the Comic 1996-08-02
Sonic the Comic 1996-08-16
Sonic the Comic 1996-08-30
Sonic the Comic 1996-09-17
Sonic the Comic 1996-10-01
Sonic the Comic 1996-10-15
Sonic the Comic 1996-10-29
Sonic the Comic 1996-11-12
Sonic the Comic 1996-11-26
Sonic the Comic 1996-12-10
Sonic the Comic 1996-12-24
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1997 1997 1997 1997 1997
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Sonic the Comic 1997-01-06
Sonic the Comic 1997-01-21
Sonic the Comic 1997-02-04
Sonic the Comic 1997-02-18
Sonic the Comic 1997-03-04
Sonic the Comic 1997-03-18
Sonic the Comic 1997-04-01
Sonic the Comic 1997-04-15
Sonic the Comic 1997-04-29
Sonic the Comic 1997-05-13
Sonic the Comic 1997-05-27
Sonic the Comic 1997-06-10
Sonic the Comic 1997-06-24
Sonic the Comic 1997-07-08
Sonic the Comic 1997-07-22
Sonic the Comic 1997-08-05
Sonic the Comic 1997-08-19
Sonic the Comic 1997-09-02
Sonic the Comic 1997-09-16
Sonic the Comic 1997-09-30
Sonic the Comic 1997-10-14
Sonic the Comic 1997-10-28
Sonic the Comic 1997-11-11
Sonic the Comic 1997-11-25
Sonic the Comic 1997-12-16
Sonic the Comic 1997-12-30
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1998 1998 1998 1998 1998
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Sonic the Comic 1998-01-13
Sonic the Comic 1998-01-27
Sonic the Comic 1998-02-10
Sonic the Comic 1998-02-24
Sonic the Comic 1998-02-25
Sonic the Comic 1998-03-11
Sonic the Comic 1998-03-25
Sonic the Comic 1998-04-08
Sonic the Comic 1998-04-22
Sonic the Comic 1998-05-06
Sonic the Comic 1998-05-20
Sonic the Comic 1998-06-03
Sonic the Comic 1998-06-17
Sonic the Comic 1998-07-01
Sonic the Comic 1998-07-15
Sonic the Comic 1998-07-29
Sonic the Comic 1998-08-12
Sonic the Comic 1998-08-26
Sonic the Comic 1998-09-09
Sonic the Comic 1998-09-23
Sonic the Comic 1998-10-07
Sonic the Comic 1998-10-21
Sonic the Comic 1998-11-04
Sonic the Comic 1998-11-18
Sonic the Comic 1998-12-02
Sonic the Comic 1998-12-16
Sonic the Comic 1998-12-30
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1999 1999 1999 1999 1999
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Sonic the Comic 1999-01-13
Sonic the Comic 1999-01-27
Sonic the Comic 1999-02-10
Sonic the Comic 1999-02-24
Sonic the Comic 1999-03-10
Sonic the Comic 1999-03-24
Sonic the Comic 1999-04-07
Sonic the Comic 1999-04-21
Sonic the Comic 1999-05-05
Sonic the Comic 1999-05-19
Sonic the Comic 1999-06-02
Sonic the Comic 1999-06-16
Sonic the Comic 1999-06-30
Sonic the Comic 1999-07-14
Sonic the Comic 1999-07-28
Sonic the Comic 1999-08-11
Sonic the Comic 1999-08-25
Sonic the Comic 1999-09-08
Sonic the Comic 1999-09-22
Sonic the Comic 1999-10-06
Sonic the Comic 1999-10-20
Sonic the Comic 1999-11-03
Sonic the Comic 1999-11-17
Sonic the Comic 1999-12-01
Sonic the Comic 1999-12-15
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VARIOUS VARIOUS VARIOUS
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Sonic the Comic – Holiday Special – Summer 1994
Sonic the Comic – Holiday Special – Summer 1995
Sonic the Comic – Holiday Special – Summer 1996
Sonic the Comic – Knuckles Knock-Out Special
Sonic the Comic – Launch Advertisment – 06-1993
Sonic the Comic – Yearbook 1991
Sonic the Comic – Yearbook 1992
Publisher: Polystyle Publications
Publication Dates: 1966 – 1975
Number of Issues Published: 459 (#1 – #459)
Color: Colour
Publishing Format: Was ongoing
Publication Type: magazine
Numbering continues with Pippin in Playland (Polystyle Publications, 1975 series) #460
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Pippin was a UK children’s comic, published by Polystyle Publications between 1966 and 1986, featuring characters from British pre-school television programmes. Stories were generally of four or eight numbered panels, with a short sentence below each illustration (similar to Rupert), although some stories did appear in prose form.
Regular stories included The Pogles (whose Pippin character gave the comic its name), Bizzy Lizzy, Joe, The Woodentops, Andy Pandy, Bill and Ben, Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley, Titch and Quackers, Toytown, Mary Mungo & Midge, The Moonbeans, Tales of the Riverbank, The Herbs, Mr Benn, Teddy Edward, Barnaby the Bear, Ivor the Engine, Rubovia and Sooty and Sweep. Andy Pandy and Bill and Ben also appeared regularly in Robin.
Each issue was around 16 pages in colour and black and white, and also featured a puzzle page, readers letters and photographs, and a Bible story.
Each year a hardback annual was published, containing new stories and puzzles, and regular holiday specials. Around 1983 a special winter holiday edition reprinted some old strips from the past 15 years (“ask your older brothers or sisters”).
A companion comic, Playland, was launched in 1968 and ran alongside Pippin until 1975 when the two titles were merged under the title Pippin in Playland – although each continued to issue separate annuals at Christmas. Several strips, such as Sooty, Andy Pandy, The Herbs and Camberwick Green, appeared in both comics at one time or another.
First published 24 September 1966, the final edition appeared on 26 September 1986 (absorbed into Buttons). Artists included Neville Main and Bill Melvin.
Pippin ran for 1044 issues.
UPDATe 2023-10
Pippin 198
Pippin 208
Pippin 209
Pippin 211
Pippin 212
Pippin 220
Pippin Holiday Special 1969
Pippin Holiday Special 1970
Pippin Holiday Special 1978
UPDATE 2022-04-05
Pippin 1966-09-24
Pippin 1966-11-05
Pippin 1966-11-12
Pippin 1966-11-19
Pippin 1966-11-26
Pippin 1966-12-10
Pippin 1968-01-08
Pippin 1968-03-02
Pippin 1968-09-14
Pippin 1968-11-16
Pippin 1969-05-31
Pippin 1969-10-25
Pippin 1969-10-26
Pippin 1969-11-01
Pippin 1972-10-29
==============================================
081,108,115,123,132,139,144,158,159,165
2,5,43,169,173,175,270
89,94,95
Pippin 230
Pippin 231
Pippin 477
Publisher: World Distributors
Publication Dates: 1975 – 1979
Number of Issues Published: 5 (#1975 – #1979)
Color: colour
Dimensions: 20 cm x 27 cm
Paper Stock: bond
Binding: hardcover
Publishing Format: annual
Space: 1999 is a British science-fiction television programme that ran for two series and originally aired from 1975 to 1977. In the opening episode, set in the year 1999, nuclear waste stored on the Moon’s far side explodes, knocking the Moon out of orbit and sending it, as well as the 311 inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha, hurtling uncontrollably into space. Space: 1999 was the last production by the partnership of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and was the most expensive series produced for British television up to that time. The first series was co-produced by ITC Entertainment and Italian broadcaster RAI, while the second series was produced solely by ITC.
Annual 1976,1977,1978
Annual 1979,1980
Rampage Weekly
Publisher: Marvel UK
Publication Dates: 1977 – June 7, 1978
Number of Issues Published: 34 (#1 – #34)
Color: Colour
Dimensions: Magazine Size
Binding: Saddle-Stitched
Rampage Monthly
Publisher: Marvel UK
Publication Dates: 1978 – December 1982
Number of Issues Published: 54 (#1 – #54)
Color: Colour cover; Black and White interior
Dimensions: Magazine
Paper Stock: Glossy cover; newsprint interior
Binding: Saddle-stitched
Publishing Format: Was Ongoing Series
Publication Type: magazine
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Rampage Weekly was launched by Marvel UK as a weekly title on 19th October 1977, featuring reprints of the American Marvel titles ‘The Defenders’ and ‘The Man Called Nova’. In common with other newly launched titles of the era (such as Complete Fantastic Four), the first two issues contained free gifts, small plastic model aeroplane kits (a concorde in issue #1, a ‘Stratocruiser’ in #2). The weekly lasted 34 issues until the end of May 1978, and it was relaunched as Rampage Monthly in July of the same year.
Rampage Monthly initially featured reprints from the US black & white magazine ‘Rampaging Hulk’ (starring the Hulk, initially backed up by The Defenders and Nova (continued from the weekly, obviously), then Dr Strange (replacing Nova), and later (from issue #8) the ‘All-New, All different X-Men’ (until then, British Marvel readers had not yet seen the ‘new’ X-Men, who had actually debuted in 1975 in the US). The X-Men eventually became the magazine’s lead strip, while the Hulk (who effectively had star billing in many of the early issues, his logo being bigger than the actual magazine logo!) was dropped once the magazine reprints dried up, and replaced by other features including Luke Cage: Hero for Hire, Iron Fist and The Thing (the latter starring in team-up strips reprinted from ‘Marvel Two-in-One’). The title was revamped slightly when the Hulk strips were dropped, becoming ‘Rampage Magazine’ from issue #28.
============================
RAMPAGE WEEKLY
============================
01-03
04-06
07-09
10-12
13-15
16-18
19-21
22-24
25-27
28-30
31-34
============================
RAMPAGE MONTHLY
============================
01-03
04-06
07-09
Rampage Monthly 12
11,14,15
Rampage Monthly 13
Rampage Monthly 18
Rampage Monthly 19
Rampage Monthly 21
Rampage Monthly 22
Rampage Monthly 23
Rampage Monthly 24
Rampage Monthly 25
20,26,27,28
Rampage Monthly 29
Rampage Monthly 30
Rampage Monthly 31
Rampage Monthly 32
Rampage Monthly 33
Rampage Monthly 34
Rampage Monthly 35
Rampage Monthly 46
Rampage Monthly 53
40-42
43-45,50,51
Publisher: Marvel UK
Publication Dates: 1983 – 1983
Number of Issues Published: 17 (#1 – #17)
Color: Colour
Dimensions: Tabloid Binding: Saddle-Stitched
Publishing Format: Was Ongoing Series
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
UPDATE 2023-05
X-Men Pocket Book 25
X-Men Pocket Book 26
UPDATE 2023-04
Uncanny X-Men Winter Special 1982
X-Men Pocket Book 22
X-Men Pocket Book 23
UPDATE 2023-03
Original X-Men
Original X-Men 09
Original X-Men 10
Original X-Men 11
Original X-Men 12
Original X-Men 13
Original X-Men 14
Original X-Men 15
Original X-Men 16
Original X-Men 17
X-Men Pocket Book 19
X-Men Winter Special 1981
UPDATE 2023-02
Original X-Men 07
Original X-Men 08
X-Men Pocket Book 28
Original X-Men 03
Original X-Men 04
Original X-Men 05
Original X-Men 01
Original X-Men 02
Original X-Men 06
X-Men Collectors Edition 1981
X-Men Collector’s Edition 1982
X-Men Pocket Book 13
X-Men Pocket Book 14
X-Men Pocket Book 15
X-Men Pocket Book 16
X-men Pocket Book 24
X-Men Pocket Book 27
X-Men Pocket Book 17
Publisher: Marvel UK
Publication Dates: January 24, 1979 – July 25, 1979
Number of Issues Published: 23 (#330 – #352)
Color: Colour cover; Black-and-white interior
Dimensions: Magazine-size
Paper Stock: Newsprint Binding: Saddle-stitched
Publishing Format: Was ongoing
Publication Type: magazine
Numbering continues from The Mighty World of Marvel (Marvel UK, 1972 series) #329
Merged into The Spectacular Spider-Man Weekly (Marvel UK, 1979 series) #334Note:logo continues in Spider-Man, numbering continues in Marvel Superheroes
Numbering continues with Marvel Superheroes [Marvel Super-Heroes] (Marvel UK, 1979 series) #353
Cover often reads “The New Marvel Comic.
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Marvel Comic 349
Marvel Comic 339
Marvel Comic 351
Marvel Comic 330 Upgrade
Marvel Comic 331
Marvel Comic 332
Marvel Comic 333
Marvel Comic 334
Marvel Comic 346
Marvel Comic 330
Marvel Comic 336
Marvel Comic 342
Marvel Comic 343
Marvel Comic 352
Marvel Comic 335
Marvel Comic 337
Marvel Comic 350
Marvel Comic Annual 1969
Marvel Comic Annual 1970
Publisher: Alan Class
Publication Dates: August 1962 – [circa 1976 – 1977]
Number of Issues Published: 250 (#1 – #S)
Color: Colour cover; Black and White interior
Dimensions: 7.25″ x 9.25″
Paper Stock: Glossy cover Newsprint interior
Binding: Perfect Bound
Publishing Format: Was Ongoing Series
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Creepy Worlds 1-7
Creepy Worlds 8-15
Creepy Worlds 16-22
Creepy Worlds 23-29
Creepy Worlds 30-36
Creepy Worlds 37-43
Creepy Worlds 44-50
Creepy Worlds 51-57
Creepy Worlds 58-64
Creepy Worlds 65-71
Creepy Worlds 72-78
Creepy Worlds 79-85
Creepy Worlds 86-92
Creepy Worlds 93-33
Creepy Worlds 100-106
Creepy Worlds 107-113
Creepy Worlds 114-120
Creepy Worlds 121-127
Creepy Worlds 128-134
Creepy Worlds 135-141
Creepy Worlds 142-148
Creepy Worlds 149-155
Creepy Worlds 156-162
Creepy Worlds 163-169
Creepy Worlds 170-176
Creepy Worlds 177-183
Creepy Worlds 184-190
Creepy Worlds 191-197
Creepy Worlds 198-204
Creepy Worlds 205-211
Creepy Worlds 212-218
Creepy Worlds 219-225
Creepy Worlds 226-235
Creepy Worlds 236-240
Creepy Worlds 241-245
Creepy Worlds 246-249
Creepy Worlds S1
Creepy Worlds S2,S3
Publisher: Marvel UK
Publication Dates: June 1981 – February 1981
Number of Issues Published: 9 (#1 – #9)
Color: Colour cover; Black and White interior
Dimensions: Magazine size
Publishing Format: Was Ongoing Series
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Blockbuster 1,2
Blockbuster 3
Blockbuster 4-6
Blockbuster 7-9
Blockbuster Winter Special 1980
BEEB was a weekly, children’s magazine centred on the BBC’s most popular programmes at the time of its publication. It was published by Polystyle Publications and was created as a competitor to ITV’s Look-in magazine. It lasted 20 issues between 29 January 1985 and 11 June 1985. There was no announcement in the last issue, or any resolution to the ongoing comic serials.
Typical contents
1.One By One. This followed the popular zoo vet series, based on the David Taylor books.
2.Grange Hill. These were specially written stories. Each issue’s Grange Hill comic was 3 pages long.
3.The Tripods. These were very well drawn stories, partly in colour on three pages. Drawn by John M. Burns. As the series progressed an attempt was made to appeal to female readers by introducing the young woman character of Fizzio.
4.Bananaman, in colour, on a single page. These have recently been reprinted in The Dandy, the third comic that Bananaman appeared in, after Nutty and BEEB, and before The Funday Times.
5.The Family-Ness, in colour, on a single page.
6.General articles about BBC programmes, usually children’s shows, with frequent references to Blue Peter, Doctor Who and Grange Hill.
7.Pin-ups of pop stars and other celebrities.
8.Competitions and letters from the readers.
BEEB 1985-04-23 Upgrade
BEEB 1985-06-04 Upgrade
BEEB 1985-01-29
BEEB 1985-02-12
BEEB 1985-02-05
BEEB 1985-02-26
BEEB 1985-04-30
BEEB 1985-02-19
BEEB 1985-03-05
BEEB 1985-03-12
BEEB 1985-03-19
BEEB 1985-03-26
BEEB 1985-04-02
BEEB 1985-04-09
BEEB 1985-04-16
BEEB 1985-04-23
BEEB 1985-05-07
BEEB 1985-05-14
BEEB 1985-05-21
BEEB 1985-05-28
BEEB 1985-06-06
BEEB 1985-06-11
==================================================
UPDATE 12-01-2019
Original artwork by Tom Paterson
Andy Cap original artwork
Original artwork Frankie by Ken Reid
==================================================
==================================================
UPDATE 02-06-2018
MORPH TV Related Original Childrens Comic Art By Mevin
Original art- Jack Edward Oliver’s Cliff Hanger Star (Wars) Warts! [1]
Original art- Jack Edward Oliver’s Cliff Hanger Star (Wars) Warts! [2]
Original artwork Cover Shiver and Shake 76
Original Artwork From Buster Comic
==================================================
Original art – Cliff Hanger – Jack Edward Oliver [Buster Comic]
Original Art of Tom Thug from Buster Comic – Artist – Lew Stringer
from the Dandy No 4 Christmas issue 1937 – Dan’s first use of the famous blow-torch for shaving!
Its A Nice Life from Jackpot Comic Original Artwork
Jane Bond Original Artwork by Mike Hubbard [69 Pieces] [In Order]
Original Artwork Dracula Dobbs from Buster Comic [Year 1988]
Original Artwork from Buster Comic
Original Artwork of Tiger and Hurricane Cover [1966-07-09]
Roy Of The Rovers original artwork (1993) drawn and signed by Barrie Mitchell
Some content on this page was disabled on October 24, 2024 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Rebellion Comics. You can learn more about the DMCA here:
Some content on this page was disabled on October 24, 2024 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Rebellion Comics. You can learn more about the DMCA here:
Publisher: Alan Class
Publication Dates: 1963 – [circa 1988 – 1989]
Number of Issues Published: 188 (#[nn] – #187)
Color: Full Color Cover; Black & White Interior
Dimensions: 7.25″ x 9.25″
Paper Stock: Glossy cover newsprint interior
Binding: Squarebound
Publishing Format: Was Ongoing
Publication Type: magazine
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Alan Class title that began publication in May 1963, reprinting stories from several U.S. companies including Marvel, Charlton and Tower. There was no particular order to the reprints, which skipped from company to company and title to title, and, since Alan Class assumed a turnover of readers as the grew up, he would recycle some covers and stories every few years, resulting in identical covers on different issues interspersed throughout the run of the title
Uncanny Tales 1,2,3,54,95
Uncanny Tales 074
Uncanny Tales 075
Uncanny Tales 130,135,137,141,142
Uncanny Tales 144,146,150,156,169
Publisher: Alan Class
Publication Dates: 1964 – [circa 1988 – 1989]
Number of Issues Published: 228 (#1 – #227)
Color: Colour Cover; Black & White Interior
Dimensions: 7.25″ x 9.25″
Paper Stock: Glossy cover newsprint interior
Binding: Perfect Bound
Publishing Format: Was Ongoing Series
Publication Type: magazine
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
One of Alan Class’ many titles reprinting American comics for the British market, and one of their most enduring, published between January 1964 and January 1989, for a total of 227 issues. As with most Alan Class titles, there was little pattern to what stories were reprinted, and it was common for characters from one company to appear one issue, and characters from an entirely different company to appear the next.
UPDATE 2024-10
Sinister Tales 071
Sinister Tales 072
Sinister Tales 073
Sinister Tales 074
Sinister Tales 075
====================================
Sinister Tales 001
Sinister Tales 002
Sinister Tales 003
Sinister Tales 004
Sinister Tales 005
Sinister Tales 006
Sinister Tales 007
Sinister Tales 008
Sinister Tales 009
Sinister Tales 010
Sinister Tales 011
Sinister Tales 012
Sinister Tales 013
Sinister Tales 014
Sinister Tales 015
Sinister Tales 016
Sinister Tales 018
Sinister Tales 020
Sinister Tales 021
Sinister Tales 023
Sinister Tales 024
Sinister Tales 025
Sinister Tales 026
Sinister Tales 027
Sinister Tales 028
Sinister Tales 029
Sinister Tales 030
Sinister Tales 031
Sinister Tales 032
Sinister Tales 033
Sinister Tales 034
Sinister Tales 035
Sinister Tales 036
Sinister Tales 037
Sinister Tales 038
Sinister Tales 039
Sinister Tales 040
Sinister Tales 041
Sinister Tales 042
Sinister Tales 043
Sinister Tales 044
Sinister Tales 045
Sinister Tales 046
Sinister Tales 047
Sinister Tales 048
Sinister Tales 050
Sinister Tales 051
Sinister Tales 052
Sinister Tales 053
Sinister Tales 054
Sinister Tales 056
Sinister Tales 057
Sinister Tales 058
Sinister Tales 060
Sinister Tales 061
Sinister Tales 062
Sinister Tales 063
Sinister Tales 064
Sinister Tales 065
Sinister Tales 17,19,22,49,55,59,84
Sinister Tales 105
Sinister Tales 130
Sinister Tales 98,134,139,145,148,149,154
Sinister Tales 166,176,178,181,183,186,187
Sinister Tales 188,190,191,192,193,194,195,205
Sinister Tales 197
Publisher: Ravette Books
Publication Dates: 1989 – ?
Number of Issues Published: 70 (#1 – #12/1994)
Color: Color
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Garfield is a comic created by Jim Davis. Published since 1978, it chronicles the life of the title character, the cat Garfield, the human Jon Arbuckle, and the dog Odie. As of 2013, it was syndicated in roughly 2,580 newspapers and journals, and held the Guinness World Record for being the world’s most widely syndicated comic strip.
Though this is rarely mentioned in print, Garfield is set in Muncie, Indiana, the home of Jim Davis, according to the television special Happy Birthday, Garfield. Common themes in the strip include Garfield’s laziness, obsessive eating, coffee, and disdain of Mondays and diets. The strip’s focus is mostly on the interactions among Garfield, Jon, and Odie, but other recurring minor characters appear as well. Originally created with the intentions to “come up with a good, marketable character”, Garfield has spawned merchandise earning $750 million to $1 billion annually. In addition to the various merchandise and commercial tie-ins, the strip has spawned several animated television specials, two animated television series, two theatrical feature-length live-action/CGI animated films, and three fully CGI animated direct-to-video movies.
1989 1-3
1989 4-6
1989 7-9
1989 10,11
1990 1-3
1990 4,5, 1994 8
Summer Special 1990,1991
Annual 1990
Publisher: Amalgamated Press
Publication Dates: 17 May 1890 – 1953
Number of Issues Published: 3006 (#v1#1 – #3006)
Color: Black and white and duotone cover; Black and white interiors
Paper Stock: Newsprint
Binding: Saddle-stitched
Publishing Format: Was ongoing
Publication Type: magazine
Merged into Knockout (Amalgamated Press, 1939 series)
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Comic Cuts was a British comic book magazine. It was created by the reporter Alfred Harmsworth through his company Amalgamated Press (AP). It was published from 1890 to 1953, lasting 3006 issues, and in its early days inspired other publishers to produce rival comics. Its first issue was an assortment of reprints from American publications. During its lifetime, the comic merged with many others including Golden Penny (1928), Jolly Comic (1939) and Larks (1940). Comic Cuts finally disappeared in September 1953 when it was merged with Knockout. Comic Cuts held the record for the most issues of a British weekly comic for 46 years, until The Dandy overtook it in 1999.
The comic is mentioned in G. K. Chesterton’s 1905 book Heretics and 1910 book Alarms and Discursions, and in a line of Cyril Tawney’s song Chicken on a Raft – “He’s looking at me Comic Cuts again”. It was also mentioned in Clive Dunn’s 1971 hit record “Grandad” – “Comic Cuts, all different things.” The character Annie Twohig refers to it in Lennox Robinson’s play “Drama at Inish” (“Annie: I’ll stay at home and read a magazine.” “Constance: Which magazine?” “Annie: Comic Cuts.”).
UPDATE 2024-09
Comic Cuts 1944-12-30
UPDATE 2024-05
Comic Cuts 2335 1935-02-16
Comic Cuts 2371 1935-10-26
Comic Cuts 2462 1937-07-24
Comic Cuts 2805 1946-11-02
Comic Cuts 2865 1949-02-12
===========================================================
Update 20-03-2024
Comic Cuts 1922-08-12 1683
Comic Cuts 2371 1935-10-26
Comic Cuts 2805 1946-11-02
Comic Cuts 2865 1949-02-12
=============================================
Comic Cuts 0402 1898-01-22
Comic Cuts 2824 1947-07-19
Comic Cuts 0001 1890-05-17
Comic Cuts 2164 1931-11-07
Comic Cuts 2224 1932-12-31
Comic Cuts 2685 1942-03-28
Comic Cuts 2686 1942-04-11
Comic Cuts 2687 1942-04-25
Comic Cuts 2688 1942-05-09
Comic Cuts 2689 1942-05-23
Comic Cuts 2690 1942-06-06
Comic Cuts 2691 1942-06-20
Comic Cuts 2721 1943-08-14
Comic Cuts 2722 1943-08-28
Comic Cuts 2750 1944-09-23
Comic Cuts 2753 1994-11-04
Comic Cuts 2754 1944-11-18
Comic Cuts 2755 1944-12-02
Comic Cuts 2799 1946-08-10
Comic Cuts 2816 1947-03-29
Comic Cuts 2823 1947-07-05
Comic Cuts 2825 1947-08-02
Comic Cuts 2851 1948-07-31
Comic Cuts 2875 1949-07-02
Comic Cuts 2886 1949-12-03
Comic Cuts 2889 1950-01-14
Comic Cuts 2904 1950-08-12
Comic Cuts 2931 1951-08-25
Comic Cuts 2983 1953-04-04
Comic Cuts 3003 1953-08-22
Publisher: Williams Publishing
Publication Dates: 1972 – 1972
Number of Issues Published: 35 (#1 – #35)
Color: Colour
Publishing Format: Was ongoing
Numbering continues in Hanna-Barbera’s Fun Time (Williams Publishing, 1972 series).
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
And His Toy 1,2,4,5,6
And His Toy 7,8,11,12
And His Toy 14,15,23,27
Yogi Bear Annual 1980
PDF File
Comic Album 1-3
Summer Time Fun Special 1972
BATMAN
Publisher: World Distributors
Publication Dates: 1966 – ?
Number of Issues Published: 11 (#1 – #11)
Color: Colour cover with black and white interior
Dimensions: Digest Size
Paper Stock: Newsprint
Publishing Format: Was Ongoing Series
FLASH GORDON
Publisher: World Distributors
Publication Dates: 1967 – 1967
Number of Issues Published: 8 (#1 – #8)
MAN FROM UNCLE
Publisher: World Distributors
Publication Dates: 1966 – ?
Number of Issues Published: 14 (#1 – #14)
MANDRAKE
Publisher: World Distributors
Publication Dates: 1967 – 1967
Number of Issues Published: 8 (#1 – #8)
Color: Colour Cover; Black and White Interior
Dimensions: Digest-size
Paper Stock: Glossy cover; Newsprint interior
Publishing Format: Was ongoing
SUPERMAN
Publisher: World Distributors
Publication Dates: 1967 – ?
Number of Issues Published: 4 (#1 – #4)
Color: Colour cover with black and white interior
Dimensions: Digest Size
Publishing Format: Was Ongoing
TARZAN
Publisher: World Distributors
Publication Dates: May 1, 1967 – August 4, 1967
Number of Issues Published: 4 (#1 – #4)
Color: Colour Cover; Black & White Interior
Dimensions: 124 mm x 179 mm
Binding: Perfect Bound
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
UPDATE 2023-09
World Adventure Library – Flash Gordon 02
World Adventure Library – Man From U.N.C.L.E. 04
======================================
Batman 01 And The Ringer
Batman 03 Meets Dr. No-Face
Flash Gordon 01 Adrift In Space
Flash Gordon 03 The War World
Flash Gordon 05 The Asteroid Mill
Man From U.N.C.L.E. 03 The Pixilated Puzzle Affair
Man From UNCLE 01 The Ten Little Uncle’s Affair
Man From UNCLE 02 The Three Blind Mice Affair
Man From UNCLE 05 The Target Blue Affair
Man From UNCLE 06 The Hong Kong Affair
Man From UNCLE 07 The Shufti Peanuts Affair
Man From UNCLE 08 The Assassins Affair
Man From UNCLE 09 The Magic carpet Affair
Man From UNCLE 10 The Mad, Mad, Mad Affair
Mandrake 01 The Aftermath
Superman 02 The Green Goblins Of Brainiac
Tarzan 01
Some content on this page was disabled on October 24, 2024 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Rebellion Comics. You can learn more about the DMCA here:
Some content on this page was disabled on October 24, 2024 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Rebellion Comics. You can learn more about the DMCA here:
Publisher: IPC
Publication Dates: 4 March 1972 – 1975
Number of Issues Published: 181 (#1 – #181)
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
IPC Magazines had an equal amount of hits and misses when they set out to dominate the UK comics market in the 1970s. One of the successes was Donald and Mickey, a 24 page weekly based around the famous Walt Disney characters.
The characters were no strangers to British comics of course, with Mickey Mouse Weekly (1936 to 1957) having the most longevity. Therefore IPC decided that a new generation might be receptive to a Disney comic and in late February 1972 Donald and Mickey No.1 was launched. (With a catchy/annoying theme song in the TV ads if I recall correctly.)
Unusually for a British comic of the time, every page was in colour. 16 in full colour, and 8 with blue ink on salmon-pink paper. This in itself gave the comic a feeling of vitality. The contents were mainly reprints from the American Disney titles produced by Gold Key comics, but the artwork on some covers and editorial pages were often new, – illustrated by Colin Wyatt, a superb artist with a clean style.
UPDATE 2024-09
Donald and Mickey 1973-09-29
Donald and Mickey 1974-08-17
============================
1972 1972 1972 1972 1972
============================
Donald and Mickey 1972-04-01
Donald and Mickey 1972-04-22
Donald and Mickey 1972-04-29
Donald and Mickey 1972-05-06
============================
1973 1973 1973 1973 1973
============================
Donald and Mickey 1973-05-19
============================
1974 1974 1974 1974 1974
============================
Donald and Mickey 1974-01-05
Donald and Mickey 1974-01-12
Donald and Mickey 1974-01-19
Donald and Mickey 1974-01-26
Donald and Mickey 1974-02-02
Donald and Mickey 1974-02-09
Donald and Mickey 1974-02-16
Donald and Mickey 1974-02-23
Donald and Mickey 1974-03-02
Donald and Mickey 1974-03-09
Donald and Mickey 1974-03-16
Donald and Mickey 1974-03-23
Donald and Mickey 1974-03-30
Donald and Mickey 1974-04-06
Donald and Mickey 1974-04-13
Donald and Mickey 1974-04-20
Donald and Mickey 1974-05-18
Donald and Mickey 1974-05-25
Donald and Mickey 1974-11-16
============================
1975 1975 1975 1975 1975
============================
Donald and Mickey 1975-01-04
Donald and Mickey 1975-01-11
Donald and Mickey 1975-01-18
Donald and Mickey 1975-01-25
Donald and Mickey 1975-02-01
Donald and Mickey 1975-02-08
Donald and Mickey 1975-02-15
Donald and Mickey 1975-02-22
Donald and Mickey 1975-03-01
Donald and Mickey 1975-03-08
Donald and Mickey 1975-03-15
Donald and Mickey 1975-03-22
Donald and Mickey 1975-03-29
Donald and Mickey 1975-04-05
Donald and Mickey 1975-04-12
Donald and Mickey 1975-04-19
Donald and Mickey 1975-04-26
Donald and Mickey 1975-05-03
Donald and Mickey 1975-05-10
Donald and Mickey 1975-05-17
Donald and Mickey 1975-05-24
Donald and Mickey 1975-05-31
Donald and Mickey 1975-06-07
Donald and Mickey 1975-06-14
Donald and Mickey 1975-06-21
Donald and Mickey 1975-06-28
Donald and Mickey 1975-07-05
Donald and Mickey 1975-07-12
Donald and Mickey 1975-07-19
Donald and Mickey 1975-07-26
Donald and Mickey 1975-08-02
Donald and Mickey 1975-08-09
Donald and Mickey 1975-08-16
Donald and Mickey 1975-08-23
Donald and Mickey 1975-08-30
Donald and Mickey 1975-09-06
Donald and Mickey 1975-09-13
Donald and Mickey 1975-09-20
Donald and Mickey 1975-09-27
Donald and Mickey 1975-10-04
Donald and Mickey 1975-10-11
Donald and Mickey 1975-10-18
============================
ANNUAL AND SPECIALS
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Donald And Mickey Annual 1974
Donald and Mickey Holiday Special 1973
Donald and Mickey Holiday Special 1975
Publisher: Alan Class
Publication Dates: October 1976 – January 1977
Number of Issues Published: 4 (#1 – #4)
Color: Colour cover; Black and White interior
Dimensions: Standard Golden Age U. S.
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Ally Sloper was created by C. H. Ross and first appeared in Judy, or the London Serio-Comic Journal in 1867 in a strip called “Some of the Mysteries of Loan and Discount” and featured Alexander “Ally” Sloper and his friend Ikey Mo, a pair of working-class ne’er-do-wells. The characters soon became regulars, and were joined by Ally’s wife, Mrs Sloper, his son, The Boy Sloper, and his daughter Tootsie Sloper, and friends including the Hon. Billy, Lord Bobs, Dook Snook, Uncle Boffin, Aunt Geeser, Lardi Longsox and Nellie Hickiks.
After two years, Ross was made editor of the magazine, and he handed over drawing Ally Sloper to Emilie de Tessier, who signed her work Marie Duval. Judy was taken over by Gilbert Dalziel in 1872. A 216-page paperback collection of Sloper strips from Judy, Ally Sloper: A Moral Lesson, was published in 1873, and further collections – including Ally Sloper’s Book of Beauty (1877), Ally Sloper’s Guide to the Paris Exhibition (1878) and The Ups and Downs of Ally Sloper (1882) – followed.
Ross sold Dalziel the rights to Sloper in 1883, and Dalziel launched a new weekly, Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday, in 1884, without Ross or de Tessier’s involvement. W. G. Baxter drew the character from issue 13, and W. F. Thomas took over after Baxter’s death in 1888. The Sloper of the Half Holiday was gentrified, although still retained traces of his working-class rogue past, and gained the soubriquet “F.O.M” (“Friend of Man”). The magazine also featured prose stories, cartoons, and other strips. a double-sized Christmas special, Ally Sloper’s Christmas Holidays, was published every year. The Half Holiday ceased publication in 1916 after 1,679 issues. It was later revived between 5 November 1922 and 14 April 1923, again from 1948 to 1949, and finally from 1976 to 1977, each attempt failing to capture the imagination of the British public as the original once had.
Denis Gifford published a fanzine entitled Ally Sloper in 1976-77, reprinting early comics combined with new material, seeking to ensure a modern readership had an awareness of early comic history, which only lasted four issues. He also initiated the Ally Sloper Prize in 1976.
Ally Sloper 1-4
Ally Sloper – A Moral Lesson 1873
Ally Slopers Half Holiday 1 1949
Ally Slopers Summer 1886
Ally Slopers Christmas Holidays 1888
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Publisher: Polystyle Publications
Publication Dates: 1978 – 1978
Number of Issues Published: 19 (#1 – #19)
Color: Colour Cover
Dimensions: Magazine Size
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
1-5,19
Space Precinct is a British-American television series that was broadcast from 1994 to 1995 on Sky One and later on BBC Two in the UK, and in first-run syndication in the United States. Many US stations scheduled the show in late night time slots, which resulted in low ratings and contributed to its cancellation.
The series was created by Gerry Anderson and was a mix of science fiction and police procedural that combined elements of many of Anderson’s previous series such as Space: 1999, UFO and Thunderbirds, but with an added dash of Law & Order and Dragnet. Anderson was executive producer with Tom Gutteridge. One of the series’ directors was John Glen, who had previously directed five James Bond films. There were a number of directors used on the series, but the majority of the episodes were edited by the series editors, Sue Robinson and Jason Krasucki.
*This title is complete*
1-3
4-6
Annual 1996
The Last Warrior
Rupert Bear is a children’s comic strip character created by the English artist Mary Tourtel and first appearing in the Daily Express newspaper on 8 November 1920. Rupert’s initial purpose was to win sales from the rival Daily Mail and Daily Mirror. In 1935, the mantle of Rupert artist and storyteller was taken over by Alfred Bestall, who was previously an illustrator for Punch and other glossy magazines. Bestall proved to be successful in the field of children’s literature and worked on Rupert stories and artwork into his 90s. More recently, various other artists and writers have continued the series.
The comic strip was, and still is, published daily in the Daily Express, with many of these stories later being printed in books, and every year since 1936 a Rupert annual has also been released. Rupert Bear has become a well-known character in children’s culture in the United Kingdom, and the success of the Rupert stories has led to the creation of several television series based on the character. The character also has a large fan following, with such groups as The Followers of Rupert.
Rupert Weekly 1982-10-20
Rupert Weekly 1982-10-27
Rupert Weekly 1982-11-03
Rupert Weekly 1982-11-10
Rupert Weekly 1982-11-17
Rupert Weekly 1982-11-24
Rupert Weekly 1982-12-01
Rupert Weekly 1982-12-08
Rupert Weekly 1982-12-15
Rupert Weekly 1982-12-22
Rupert Weekly 1982-12-29
Rupert Weekly 1982-01-05
Rupert Weekly 1983-01-12
Rupert Weekly 1983-01-19
Rupert Weekly 1983-01-26
Rupert Weekly 1983-02-02
Rupert Weekly 1983-02-09
Rupert Weekly 1983-02-16
Rupert Weekly 1983-02-23
Rupert Weekly 1983-03-02
Rupert Weekly 1983-03-09
Rupert Weekly 1983-03-16
Rupert Weekly 1983-03-23
Rupert Weekly 1983-03-30
Rupert Weekly 1983-04-06
Annual 1936
Annual 1937
Annual 1938
Annual 1939
Annual 1940
Annual 1944
Annual 1945
Annual 1950
Annual 1951
Annual 1952
Annual 1953
Annual 1954
Annual 1955
Rupert Annual 1956
Rupert Annual 1957
Rupert Annual 1958
Annual 1960
Annual 1964
Annual 1966
Annual 1967
Annual 1968
Annual 1969
Rupert Annual 1970
Annual 1971
Annual 1972
Annual 1973
Annual 1974
Annual 1975
Annual 1976
Annual 1977
Annual 1978
Annual 1979
Annual 1980
Annual 1981
Annual 1982
Annual 1983
Annual 1984
Annual 1985
Annual 1986
Annual 1987
Annual 1988
Annual 1989
Book 1946
Your Favourite Rupert Story Collection
Some content on this page was disabled on October 24, 2024 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Rebellion Comics. You can learn more about the DMCA here:
Some content on this page was disabled on October 24, 2024 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Rebellion Comics. You can learn more about the DMCA here:
Some content on this page was disabled on October 24, 2024 as a result of a DMCA takedown notice from Rebellion Comics. You can learn more about the DMCA here:
Publisher: Gutenberghus
Publication Dates: 1985 – 1986
Number of Issues Published: 16 (#1 – #16)
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Short-lived title focussing on characters from children’s novelist Enid Blyton’s adventure books, most notably the Famous Five. Seventeen issues were published, each one adapting one of the Famous Five novels to comic strip form, alongside other features.
Enid Blytons Adventure Magazine 01,03
Enid Blytons Adventure Magazine 04-09
Enid Blytons Adventure Magazine 10,11
Enid Blytons Adventure Magazine 12,13
Enid Blytons Adventure Magazine 14-16
Famous Five Go Down To Sea
Famous Five Go Off To Camp
Famous 5 and the Inca God
Famous 5 and the Treasure of the Templars
Publisher: Apocalypse
Publication Dates: 1991 – 24 October 1991
Number of Issues Published: 32 (#1 Sample Copy – #31)
Color: Colour
Dimensions: 21.3 cm x 29.5cm
Binding: Saddle-stitched
Publishing Format: Was Ongoing Series
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
Toxic! was a British weekly comic book published by Apocalypse Ltd. A total of 31 issues were published from March 28 to October 24, 1991.
Toxic! was the idea of Pat Mills, Kevin O’Neill, Mike McMahon, John Wagner and Alan Grant. The aim was to provide creators an outlet for their work to be published with them retaining the rights and control of their work. This was in contrast to 2000 AD, which Mills had also launched in 1977. Toxic! was to be the main rival of 2000 AD, and Toxic! would be in full colour throughout as opposed to 2000AD, which was still mainly published in black and white.
Toxic! was published by Apocalypse Ltd, an offshoot of Neptune Distribution based in South Wigston, Leicester. Neptune also owned Trident Comics which printed black and white comics by mainly new, unpublished creators.
The first title released by Apocalypse was a Marshal Law special titled Kingdom of the Blind published in October 1990. This was followed by the first issue of Toxic! in March 1991. Toxic! was initially dominated by Mills (Mills had rejected John Wagner’s proposal for Button Man based on its supposed similarity to Accident Man. It later appeared in 2000 AD). His Marshal Law strip was seen as the flagship title and a character to perhaps rival Judge Dredd. Mills also wrote Accident Man (with Tony Skinner) and Muto-Maniac in the first issue, which was rounded out by a short strip by Alan Grant and Simon Bisley.
This first issue set the tone of Toxic! as it upped the levels of violence, bad language and general anarchic tone that Mills had felt was lacking in 2000AD at the time. The second issue saw Wagner and Grant’s The Bogie Man strip start in an adventure called The Chinese Syndrome. The strip did not fit comfortably with the others and The Chinese Syndrome stopped suddenly with issue nine, and a different story (The Manhattan Project) started with issue eleven. The second issue also saw the launch of the love-it-or-loathe-it strip The Driver co-written and co-drawn by David Leach and Jeremy Banx, one episode of the which resulted in a visit by the local constabulary to the offices of Toxic after a complaint from an offended reader about Toxic containing obscene material. Issue #15 saw the start of (‘The Dinner Ladies From Hell’) written and drawn by David Leach, described as a cross between Dennis Wheatley and Robert Rankin.
This was not the only strip which suffered problems, Marshal Law began to miss issues, and some of the material replacing it proved not to be as popular. Some strips meant to be published by Trident Comics were even used to provide filler material. This hurt the title as although it had sold well initially, sales were dropping and it became clear that there were problems with Apocalypse paying creators. These problems meant many creators such as Mike McMahon saw work published which he had not been paid for. After 31 issues the comic was cancelled and shortly afterward Apocalypse went bankrupt. This meant many involved were never paid and some of those never worked in comics again.
Toxic! may have ended up being a failure but it proved a full colour weekly comic could be done. This changed 2000AD as it was forced to change its format to mirror the full colour format of Toxic!. It also gave some creators their first major break into comics, Mike Carey being one of several examples.
Several strips did go off to other publishers. Mills took Marshal Law, Sex Warrior and Accident Man to Dark Horse, Wagner and Grant took The Bogie Man to Atomeka Press, and several other strips were recycled in 2000AD.
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1991 1991 1991 1991 1991
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Toxic! 1991-03-28
Toxic! 1991-04-04
Toxic! 1991-04-11
Toxic! 1991-04-18
Toxic! 1991-04-25
Toxic! 1991-05-02
Toxic! 1991-05-09
Toxic! 1991-05-16
Toxic! 1991-05-23
Toxic! 1991-05-30
Toxic! 1991-06-06
Toxic! 1991-06-13
Toxic! 1991-06-20
Toxic! 1991-06-27
Toxic! 1991-07-04
Toxic! 1991-07-11
Toxic! 1991-07-18
Toxic! 1991-07-25
Toxic! 1991-08-01
Toxic! 1991-08-08
Toxic! 1991-08-15
Toxic! 1991-08-22
Toxic! 1991-08-29
Toxic! 1991-09-05
Toxic! 1991-09-12
Toxic! 1991-09-19
Toxic! 1991-09-26
Toxic! 1991-10-03
Toxic! 1991-10-10
Toxic! 1991-10-17
Toxic! 1991-10-24
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PRESENTS PRESENTS PRESENTS
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Toxic! Presents 01 – Marshal Law – Kingdom of the Blind
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James Bigglesworth, nicknamed “Biggles”, is a fictional pilot and adventurer, the title character and hero of the Biggles series of adventure books, written for young readers by W. E. Johns (1893–1968). Biggles made his first appearance in the story The White Fokker, published in the first issue of Popular Flying magazine and again as part of the first collection of Biggles stories, The Camels Are Coming (both 1932). Johns continued to write “Biggles books” until his death in 1968, the series eventually spanning nearly a hundred volumes – including novels and short story collections – most of the latter with a common setting and time.
There have been many different versions of Biggles comics published in different countries in Europe, including Great Britain, Belgium, France and Sweden.
The first British annual appeared in 1980. Some albums were released in 1990 featuring the Biggles team. The titles are separate from the books though they cover the same war or after war investigation operations of Biggles.
In India, Euro Books published 14 titles of the Biggles Series along with compilations of the same in 2007.
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Biggles Annual 1980
Publisher: Thorpe and Porter
Publication Dates: ???
Number of Issues Published: 229 (#1 – #229)
Color: Full Colour Cover; Black and White Interior
Dimensions: Digest (circa 12 cm x 18 cm)
Paper Stock: Glossy cover; Newsprint interior
Binding: Perfectbound
Publication Type: magazine
Publishing Format: Was Ongoing
Information thanks to the Grand Comics Database
UPDATE 2023-11
Pocket War Library 024
Pocket War Library 029
Pocket War Library 044
Pocket War Library 049
Pocket War Library 057
Pocket War Library 061
Pocket War Library 070
Pocket War Library 072
Pocket War Library 086
Pocket War Library 100 Upgrade
Pocket War Library 103
Pocket War Library 115
Pocket War Library 124
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1971,1972
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Pocket War Library 001 A Man’s Honour
Pocket War Library 002 Shadow Over Australia
Pocket War Library 003 Love Of Country
Pocket War Library 004 Resentment
Pocket War Library 005 Guadalcanal Hero
Pocket War Library 006 Preparing D Day
Pocket War Library 007 Death Is The End
Pocket War Library 008 To Know Courage
Pocket War Library 009 Foe … Or Friend
Pocket War Library 010 Captured Beneath The Sea
Pocket War Library 011 Only The Brave
Pocket War Library 012 To Die Costs Nothing
Pocket War Library 013 Burke’s Dilemma
Pocket War Library 014 Jungle Glory
Pocket War Library 015 Hell In Borneo
Pocket War Library 016 The Lost Patrol
Pocket War Library 017 Moby Dick
Pocket War Library 018 Sergeant’s Nightmare
Pocket War Library 019 Brave Strike
Pocket War Library 020 We Go Together
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VARIOUS YEARS
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Pocket War Library 100 Treacherous Sands
Pocket War Library 118 Always A Loser
Pocket War Library 051 Ready To Die
Pocket War Library 084 Escape Route
Pocket War Library 175 First To Die
Pocket War Library 227 The Fearless 47th
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British Comics 