Comics UK

Ah, but who’s played the Spot Snooper game? And which pages/strips did you spot him in? (sorry everyone who still hasn’t got a copy)

Well here at Spring Watch we noticed a Forsythia in blossum outside the Nobel’s house in part two of the Christmas Special. The "lager cans" are mounting up!

My bugbear with the Dr Who Christmas Specials is that they are full of CGI effects but they then go and leave in trees in leaf/blossom! The scene with the houses with Christmas lights and decorations outside and a cherry tree in blossom – argh!

Oddly enough there does seem to be a lot of retro ads for games e.g. Leggo and Mousetrap on TV at the moment.

I have a vague recollection that “Action Transfers” (possibly by another manufacturer so called something different) also came as a sheet of four characters e.g. two cops & two robbers, two cowboys & two Indians in one of the ubiquitous bubble gum packs of the 60’s

The free Yogi Bear Theatre, "Now you can stage your own spectaculars, folks" - with 14 players! - given away in Yogi and His Toy no. 32, October 1972, still seems the most extravagant and exciting free gift I can remember getting in a comic When Look-in first came out there was a cut out and displa...

The squirty ring also put in an appearance in Hotspur 626 dated 16/10/71. I remember those triangular boomerangs that didn’t come back when you thru them were popular (at least to the publishers) in the late 60’s early 70’s. So which gift was issued the most often?

Lion would also bring back old fave Paddy Payne from time to time

Seems unbelievable now but the Daily Mirror of the 70’s had FOUR great strips in it; The Perishers, Garth, Andy Capp and my own favourite the Fosdyke Saga. I also vaguely remember they had a weekly gardening strip called Mr Crabtree or somesuch. Then along came Cap’n Bob!

I was started early on Teddy Bear (I have a hazy recollection that all the characters were puns e.g. Uncle Fred Bear) and like Lew I could also read before I went to school thanks to comics.

I know someone’s going to be pedantic and tell me it’s not an “annual” but Amazon are listing Johnny Red: Falcons’ First Flight for a September 25th release.

The lone villain (or hero) has the financial and technological resources to build a secret base (usually with a nuclear powerplant) in either an urban area or some inaccessible spot undersea, behind a waterfall etc. Remote spots are always populated by descendents of the Mongols, Aztecs, Conquistado...

“how many of us would class any appearance by Kelsey Grammar in Cheers as the first episode of Frasier?”

I’m reminded of the US TV maxim that the Mary Tyler Moore show spun off Rhoda, which spun off Lou Grant (or was it the other way round?)

There was also a two page Roy of the Rovers feature in this weeks Mail on Sunday listing magazine. Abbreviated version at http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/home/book ... llins.html

Ah! But that Badd Lads strip now holds the record for the shortest time for a strip being repeated.

Incidentally check the bottom right corner of each page of the Hammer Man and you can see they’ve used a different device (blanking, shading and caption) to remove the date (20/10/73). Why?