Comics UK

I went to the ephemera fair in Bloomsbury yesterday and picked up a 1938 Weekly Welcome paper (issue 2222). It had this nice early Beano ad. I'd be interested to know the issue number to which it relates. Also I think the small strip above it is by Bill Hill. Am I correct?

I thinki this is the oldest original Beano (or Dandy) ad I own.

No 15 Steve.

Thanks to Compalcomics http://www.compalcomics.com/results/images/153/035.jpg

I bet there are not many of those around!

Thanks, special firework number that is actually dated 5 November.

Too early for Bill Hill Steve. It's actually Frank Minnitt.

Interesting, though, that anyone writing the definitive book about DC Thomson comics would have to research the women's papers for little hidden stuff like this. I don't think it's reprinted from an earlier title is it? I know the boy's papers had some humour strips in the thirties.

Women's titles from most publishers carried some fascinating comic strips - especially during the 1950s. I recently discovered a marvellous serial adaptation of Wuthering Heights in one.

philcom55 wrote:Women's titles from most publishers carried some fascinating comic strips - especially during the 1950s. I recently discovered a marvellous serial adaptation of Wuthering Heights in one.

The post war years seem to be a very interesting period for comics. As well as the obvious (Eagle, Baxendale in the Beano, explosion of indie comics) it seems to have been a time when comic strips were everywhere, and for everyone.

I'd be interested in hearing more about the strips geared towards women in the 1950s. Do you think this was part of a culture aimed at keeping women domesticated after WW2?

My feeling is that, even though British comics had been around since the previous century, it's noticeable that there was a sudden explosion in the comic strip form being used for serious dramatic storytelling in the immediate post-War years. This was evident in new children's comics like Knockout, picture serials in publications like Tit-Bits, and above all in the brand new picture libraries (particularly those aimed at women). For about a decade it seemed as though all this was an unstoppable bandwagon that might develop into a new literary format to rival the emergence of the novel in the eighteenth century, but unfortunately the whole thing was abruptly derailed before it had a chance to become properly entrenched by the all-pervading spread of television during the mid-1950s.

It certainly wasn't just television, Phil, with its monochrome programmes, which even included the Queen's Coronation in 1953, that contributed to the demise of the picture libraries. Don't forget also the increasing number of films in full colour that were appearing in the many cinemas in our towns and cities. Furthermore, the first issue of The Knockout Comic, as it was called, devoted 13 of its 28 pages to stories in text form, not all of which were humorous, and five more to non-humorous strips, and of course in the post-war period The Knockout Comic wasn't all that new either given that its first issue was dated March 4 1939. The humorous/serious balance did shift more towards the humorous at some point in the fifties although I have no idea when that process really got under way.

I was going through some Red Letter magazines last week and for a while it ran the Little Annie Rooney comic strip, sometimes over two full pages.