Archive's Sunday Comics - 1970's style

The 1970's were the decade that I did most of my comic book reading - I was five years old at the start of the decade and when it ended I was mid-way through my teenage years. This was the age to be reading comic books and although I have kept reading comics into middle age and seen some amazing use of the medium, nothing can compare to the total immersion I felt during my childhood years.

The 1970's was an extremely active decade for British comics and many of the most fondly remembered titles came from these years - 2000AD was launched mid way through the decade, Battle Picture Weekly came a little earlier, as did Action. The latter not to be confused with the American title of the same name which showcased Superman. The UK Action was a totally different beast. In other parts of pop culture the 70's saw the birth and demise of British Punk and there was a new attitude that swept the old aside. This new attitude was reflected in UK comics, particularly in the more edgier titles published by IPC/Fleetway. Titles such as 2000AD and Action.

In the 1970's you could walk into any newsagents and the range of titles available were staggering - Whizzer and Chips, Cor, 2000AD, Battle, Whoopie, Tiger, Roy of the Rovers, Shiver and Shake, Action, Warlord, Bullet, Victor, The Beano, The Dandy and Look- in, are just some of the titles I can recall off hand but there were many many more, including titles aimed squarely at girls - but differing totally to the girl's comics published today. Misty, for instance, was so cool that boys would often sneak a read of their sister's copy. For 10p you could usually get two comic books as well as change to spend on a mixture of Black Jacks and Fruit Salad chews - I seem to remember getting five of these for a penny. There was no political correctness back then and anyone who suggested Black Jacks were racist sweets would be beaten and then tied to one of those new fangled skateboards and sent whizzing down Thomas Steet - man, that was one steep street. Walking up it on a warm summer's afternoon was a bitch, even for young legs.

The decade also saw the emergence of new comic talent that are these days big names in Brit Comics - Pat Mills, John Wagner to name but two . The 1970's was certainly a vibrant decade for Brit comics, with sales very healthy indeed - perhaps the reasons for this was that children growing up in this decade were the last not to have computer games and 24hour television to steal their attention, from the delights of comic book reading. We had no X-Box's. Playstations or DVD players . We would never have believed the Internet and we only had three TV channels and BBC2 was filled with hippie shit in any case - least, that was how it seemed at the time.

This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius, the theme of some TV show told us (and for the life of me I can't remember what that show was) and at least in terms of comic books we were entering a brave new world.

Everything seemed to be changing - the cinema had changed forever, some would say for the worse, when Jaws heralded in the age of the blockbuster and then a little, dare I say overrated movie called Star Wars changed everything and like the rest of the world UK comics looked towards science fiction as the genre of choice. 2000AD was launched mid decade - billed as the galaxy's greatest comic the title was seemingly edited by an alien whose Spaceship had landed on earth and disguised itself as King's Reach Towers. His name was Tharg and he was a hip cat and you know he's still editing the comic now. Not real? What do you mean Tharg is not real? Get out of here.

When the decade ended and we moved towards the 1980's, a kid of the time would have been left feeling things had improved. Video Recorders were just making an appearance, Betamax and VHS, and we had the first home computer games - that these games consisted of a square pixel hitting a smaller square pixel around the screen with only two sound effects didn't matter. These were cutting edge and we marveled at the graphics. How things would change - the two colour world of the Sinclair Spectrum was just around the corner.

During the 70's it had been a cool time to be a kid and life for us imitated art or at least Star Wars and we ended the decade by seeing a female version of Darth Vader become Prime Minister. From then on it wasn't such a cool world....ven today it remains not such a cool world.

To commemorate the 70's in comics we present a scan of Jack Adrian's Kid's Rule OK from the controversial comic, Action. Remember click on any image for a larger version and find a full history of the UK Action comic HERE

Archive's Sunday Comics - War gets weird

Genre mesh-ups are quite common in comic books and this weeks' strip comes from the long running Weird War Tales which was published by DC Comics. In fact this standalone strip comes from the very first issue.

The original title ran for 12 years and 124 issues and was brought back by DC's adult line, Vertigo for a four issue mini series in 1997 and then in 2000 a single special issue was produced.


So settle back and enjoy a war story like no other

Legal Note: These scans come from my own comic collection, and I do not own the copyright. The scans are presented to illustrate articles looking at the considerable contribution comics have made to popular culture, and will be removed if requested by the copyright owners. Where possible we have obtained permission for the use of copyrighted imaged.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Archive's Sunday Comics - The Demon in Hollywood

Curtis Magazines was actually Marvel Comics, but the imprint was set up in 1971 to exploit the interest in all things fantastic with the more mature comic book reader. The reason the imprint was set up was because the comic didn't carry the Comics Book Authority Code and Marvel didn't want any backlash reflecting on its better selling mainstream titles. Marvel published many comic/magazines using the Curtis name and perhaps the bestselling was the Conan series.


Todays' strip comes from Monsters of the Movies which had a short run between 1973 and 1974 -
Covering classic and contemporary horror movies, Monsters of the Movies included interviews, articles and photo features. The magazine was an attempt to cash in on the success of Warren's Famous Monsters of Filmland . The Monsters of the Movies staff was roughly composed of half freelancing West Coast horror fans, and half members of the Marvel bullpen located on the East Coast.

 Our strip this week is The Demon That Devoured Hollywood written by the famous Roy Thomas, with art by Barry Smith.

Enjoy.

Legal Note: These scans come from my own comic collection, and I do not own the copyright. The scans are presented to illustrate articles looking at the considerable contribution comics have made to popular culture, and will be removed if requested by the copyright owners. Where possible we have obtained permission for the use of copyrighted imaged.

Archive's Sunday Comics - Cor!!!

Cor! comic ran for four years and 210 issues and eventually merged into Buster, but the Cor name was carried on with a series of summer special and annuals that ran into the early 1990's

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This weeks' strip - Fiends and Neighbours, which was later reprinted in Scream Comic, was always one of my favorites. It told the story of a group of monsters living next door to an ordinary couple and the trouble that followed - think The Munsters on steroids.



These were the days when British humour titles were everywhere. Of course D C Thomson ruled the roost with The Beano and Dandy, but Fleetway/IPC, publishers of Cor!!, had a number of titles aimed at this market - Whoopie!, Whizzer and Chips, Krazy, to name but a few. And the IPC titles were generally thicker that D C Thomson titles, but in the humour market could never quite eclipse the success of The Beano and Dandy, both of which are still being published today.

Archive's Sunday Comics - Child's Play

Terry Vance was a longtime backup character in MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS. He was a genius inventor and a schoolboy detective, who owed much to Sherlock Holmes -  his sidekick was a monkey named Doctor Watson. The strip is best remembered for featuring the formative artwork of Bob Oksner, a name that would become very familiar in comic book circles. The artist would later become renowned for his work with D C Comics especially on the Supergirl strip. The character's adventures ran from 1940 to 1944and in the latter strips he was often thwarting the evil exploits of Axis agents operating in America.

He had an attic laboratory in which he conducted  experiments related to his investigtions, s. Among his inventions were a "large gas model airplane with radio control," his ultraviolet flashlight, and his "detectoscope," a "sensitive microphone connected to earphones and operating by two batteries" that can listen through solid stone walls. A regular Miss Marple with acne, he monitored police broadcasts on his radio, and when a case attracted his interest, he swung into action, accompanied by his "able assistant," the monkey "Dr. Watson." Terry was often helped by his older friend, the ace reporter Deadline Dawson. 

We present a complete strip from January 1941 - note we consider these old comic strips to be important works of art as well as historical douments. They are intended as a tribute to the talented individuals who have worked in the comic book medium over the years - we are not trying to infringe on copyright and where possible have tried to obtain permission to use the strips. Strips will be removed if requested by the copyright owners but it is hoped these articles will be enjoyed and appreciated in the spirit behind them.

Marvel Mystery Comics (first issue titled simply Marvel Comics) is an American comic book series published during the 1930s-1940s period known to fans and historians as the Golden Age of Comic Books. It was the first publication of Marvel Comics' predecessor, Timely Comics, a division of Timely Publications.

Archive's Sunday Comics - 2012: Battle stations

The comic book industry is a fraction of the size it was when I was a kid, at least it is in the UK - I was always a voracious reader of comic books and at the prime comic book reading age - say, 10-15- I had a dazzling variety of titles to choose from.

Each week I had Battle, 2000AD and Tiger on standing order from my newsagents and when I could afford it there were many other titles waiting to claim my money - the Beano and Dandy, Bullet,  Hotspur, the new Eagle, Action..the list goes on. Of course those were British titles.

My local newsagent didn't stock the American imports, but every now and then I would take a bus ride to nearby Porth and pick up a few of the American titles. Though in all honesty I preferred the more realistic UK anthology comics as most of the US titles I came across were superhero related, and whilst I enjoyed Batman, Superman and Spider-man I wasn't a massive fan of US titles. They were glossier than the UK titles, and often in full colour but UK titles reflected a working class society I understood. That society has now vanished and most of the comics have gone with it.

A visit to a newsagents in 2012  is a depressing experience for a comic book reader - 2000AD is still there but none of the other action titles are being published today and most comic books seem to be  aimed at the younger market with the cover mounted gifts being more  important than the story inside. The Beano and Dandy  still go on but these titles are unlike the versions I read as a kid - Dennis has been de-menaced and Desperate Dan is now politically correct.

Things have certainly changed. The US titles still seem to be going strong, though from what I understand with not a fraction of the sales they once boasted.  Titan and Panini between them are publishing high quality UK titles made up of American reprints and these are very popular, but the Brit stuff with the exception of titles like 2000AD and Clint have vanished. Of course the Commando Comics are still there but these are unique in that they are self contained stories and far removed from the anthology weekly comics that were once so prevalent. Early in 2011 a promising new title was announced called, Strip but it didn't seem to materialise - least I've never seen a copy. Apparently it's now on issue three but distribution can't be very good as I've yet to see a copy anywhere.

Kids these days don't know what they're missing and I'm glad I grew up during a time when comics were still a big part of every childhood...

And so all this leads us to our strip this week - an episode from the gritty war drama Hellman which was written by  Gerry Finley-Day and appeared appeared in Action Comic and later survived when the title merged into Battle.  And as a bonus we also have a couple of random pages from another UK comic, Warlord.


And remember click on any of the images for a larger readable version.

Enjoy

Archive's Sunday Comics - Festive Adventure

Christmas comes a day early on the Archive and so this week Sunday Comics is here on a Saturday - ahh well, like the rest of you I'll be too hungover tomorrow to operate a keyboard, let alone see what's on the screen. And so from myself and Keith Chapman, the man largely responsible for most of the Sunday Comics posts we wish you all a great Christmas and a cool new year.

The last balloon in our Sunday comic this week reads, "Wow! This must be the most exciting, merriest Christmas we've ever had!"

Archive readers have confirmed here before that some of the merry-ness of Christmas holidays during their twentieth-century childhoods was created by the sumptuous annuals produced largely by publishers of the juvenile weekly comics. The annuals must also have been a godsend to aunts, uncles and grandparents at a loss to know what to buy for little Johnny's or Jenny's Christmas stocking. The easy solution was check out which comics the children favoured, then call in at the local newsagents or booksellers. They were sure to be stocking the corresponding annuals from around September onwards.

The comic publishers produced annuals specifically for the Christmas trade and advertised and promoted them at no cost in their own weekly papers. They were undeniable moneyspinners.

This week's complete strip, written by Keith Chapman, is an excerpt from Girls' World Annual 1968, published in 1967. We've discussed the topic of UK girls' comics here very recently.  So all that's left to note is that, just as male Archive followers have disclosed they often enjoyed their sisters' comics, many of the boys at Christmas time also sneaked secret peeks into the girls' annuals ... especially when they could find neat little spy thrillers like Christmas Casualty!     

Archive's Sunday Comics - SWASHBUCKLING ADVENTURE

Back in the 1960s and '70s, British comics for children sold hundreds of thousands of copies on a weekly basis. The two biggest comics publishers, IPC and D. C. Thomson, alone required hundreds of a pages of original art for their many titles, which created full-time work for writers, artists and editors. Few of the professionals involved at the time envisaged the industry's eventual collapse or can fully explain its causes. "Kids today don't want comics; they're uncool" is a pat answer of doubtful truth.

Like many other Spanish artists who were recruited to help fill the pages of comics, despite the complications of working through agencies and translators, Matías Alonso has in recent times followed a different career path, similar to Martin Salvador's. (See last week's Sunday Comic). Writing about Alonso at the Illustration Art Gallery website, comics bibliographer and repackager Steve Holland says, "His last known contributions to British comics appeared in the early 1990s when he drew strips for Judy Picture Library and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. By then Alonso had established himself in Spain as a painter – noted for his landscapes of northern Spain and of Spanish ports with boats jostling in the water – and has had his work exhibited in Barcelona and Madrid."

Alonso is chiefly recognized by the British comics-collecting fraternity for his contributions to various IPC war picture libraries (complete, 64-page graphic novellas), Thomson's similar Commando, and the Thomson weeklies – primarily The Victor (over 23 years), plus Bullet, Judy, Diana, Debbie and Emma. 

But among Alonso's early assignments for the British market were two eight-page historical strips, The Sea Adventurers and The Fighting Cavalier, which appeared complete in the Odhams' Boys' World Annuals for 1968 and 1969 respectively. We've already run the second of these as an Archive Sunday Comic. Here is the first, written in 1966 by Keith Chapman and drawn by Alonso.   


NEXT ISSUE (week) - in the best tradition of comic books we have a special Christmas themed story - now that's what I call Sunday Comics

 

Archive's Sunday Comics - Cast Iron Chills

Today artist Martin Salvador is described elsewhere online simply as "Spanish painter". He has an impressive gallery of coastal landscapes and street scenes on You Tube and at his website. But as we have noted before, his career began in comics in his teens. The peak of international success in that medium was reached when his work appeared in the American black-and-white horror comics Creepy and Eerie. These magazines were published by the Warren company, unrestricted by the US "Comics Code Authority" rules that controlled content in the children's colour comics.

In 1971, James Warren began using artists represented by the Barcelona agency Selecciones Illustradas. Over the next few years, stunning work from the Spanish studios, Salvador's amongst it, was his magazines' main artistic strength.

For this Sunday's treat for comics aficionados, we have the opening pages of three of Salvador's contributions to Creepy ... plus a four-page adventure of the Iron Man.

Before his stint for the Warren Publishing Co., Salvador had drawn for Spanish and British comics, including the weekly instalments of the Iron Man strip that appeared in the Odhams titles Boys' World and Eagle from 1963 to 1969. Naturally, the Iron Man also featured in complete stories in the Odhams annuals. Here is one of these adventures, written by Keith Chapman and first published in Eagle Annual 1968.

  Remember click on any image for  a larger version
You can find more info and an earlier Sunday Comic by the same team HERE