Comics UK

I've added a few new posts to my blog this week, including news on Moose Kid Comics, Scraps, the return of Brickman, and a convention appearance that may be of interest to fans of Sonic the Comic:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/

Looking back at something different today; the boom period of post-war joke mags aimed at men: http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/ ... -like.html

Arthur Ferrier was superb and deserves a section of his own and I always liked Phil Millar who we all know from his work on Sparky etc. I come across some of these magazines at the ephemera fairs and cannot resist them.

At the same time magazines such as London Opinion, Men Only and Lilliput featured a similar mix of material aimed at a slightly more up-market readership. And of course mass-market weekly periodicals in the style of Tit-Bits enjoyed tremendous popularity during the 1950s and 1960s.

philcom55 wrote:At the same time magazines such as London Opinion, Men Only and Lilliput featured a similar mix of material aimed at a slightly more up-market readership. And of course mass-market weekly periodicals in the style of Tit-Bits enjoyed tremendous popularity during the 1950s and 1960s.

True. I've only scratched the surface with my blog post about them. There were loads of joke magazines around. Unfortunately they'd all folded or turned into 'nudey mags' by the time I was old enough to buy them, but I did have some copies of the more innocent ones like Laugh Magazine and Weekend Book of Jokes. (I never liked Funny Half Hour. Too crude and obvious for the most part.)

The ones on my blog are issues I've bought in recent years from eBay.

I guess the existence of such a wide range of markets meant that cartoonists could submit work to high-paying magazines at first, then farm out the stuff that got rejected to increasingly less prestigious publishers: that way nothing ever needed to be wasted.

And if we can put the voluptuous models to one side for a moment, don't let us forget the many laughter books put out by S. Evelyn Thomas in the forties and fifties. These included titles like Laughs With The Medicos, Married Mirth, Laughs Along The Lines, Cricket Fanfare - Laughs Around The Wicket, Laughs In Short Pants (about football), Laughs Around The Home, and, needless to say perhaps, Laughs With The Lovelies.

On my other blog today, I've posted some images of my cover to Brickman Returns! at various stages of development for anyone interested in such things:
http://lewstringercomics.blogspot.co.uk ... ready.html

Also, the first review of the comic is in, over on The Oink! Blog:
http://the-oink-blog.blogspot.co.uk/201 ... inger.html

Buy British... and Brick-ish! A blatant plug for my new comic. No new UK comics around? Of course there are. Here's one I made earlier...

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/ ... n-yet.html

'Brickman Begins' and 'Brickman Returns'? Surely 'Brickman Falls' can't be far behind!!

Definitely a 'must buy' item for me Lew!

philcom55 wrote:'Brickman Begins' and 'Brickman Returns'? Surely 'Brickman Falls' can't be far behind!!

Definitely a 'must buy' item for me Lew!

The plan is for this to be the final Brickman story, although there are other characters in it who could spin off into a comic. No spoilers.

By the way, to answer a couple of queries: the reason it's twice the price of The Beano is because the print run is only a fraction of The Beano's so the unit print cost is higher. Also, for those of you who are interested about the paper quality Brickman Returns has 250gsm weight paper for the glossy covers and 130gsm for the silk interiors. (Silk is good because it doesn't reflect the light as much as gloss so it's a better reading experience.) Basically it's similar paper stock to that used in the Marvel Masterworks and suchlike, but as a 32 page comic. Print quality is excellent.

I could have had it printed on thinner paper stock like an average comic but the price difference was negligible due to the low print run so I thought it better to have a nice substantial looking product.

News about the new Thunderbirds comic on my blog today:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/ ... -14th.html

I'm not part of the Belfast Film and Comic Con this weekend but Brickman is. Here's how:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/ ... lfast.html

It's December! That means snow on the logo on my blog and the start of a look back at vintage Christmas comics:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/ ... -1966.html

Updates on both my blogs today. An expanded list of comic shops that stock independent / small press comics:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2016/ ... -more.html

And an update on my personal blog about the strips I'm currently working on:
http://lewstringercomics.blogspot.co.uk ... -come.html