Comics UK

Just checked. The Ken Harrison strips in 'Sparky' were 'We're the Kings of 'the Castle', first series Nos 230-260 (1969-1970) and 'Rudolf the Redcoat Mountie' Nos 276-299 (1970), I think these were the first strips he originated, rather than ghosting work for someone else. Ghosting work being notori...

What seems many years ago now I did write the indexes to all the major DC Thomson comic titles 'The Dandy Monster Index', 'The Beano Diaries' etc and I certainly have plans to do more but it is always difficult to really know which titles would generate the most interest and warrant the time and eff...

A few notes in response to some earlier remarks. 1) 'The Wee Fella' by Davey Law (Peoples Journal 20/4/46-6/2/54) was more of a prototype 'Baby Crockett' than 'Dennis the Menace'. Of toddler age he tended to accidently cause chaos because of his naive interpretation of the world around him rather th...

Re the question of who the artistic contributors to the 'Topper' and 'Beezer' feature pages were in the 1950's? The answer is many and various. Comedy pages more often than not done by George Drysdale, technical and mechanical pages, planes, cars etc George Blow, John. R. Mackay, nature Len Fullerto...

Hi Lew, If you want copy of the 'General Jumbo' strip I'll gladly sort one out for you. Payment not necessary, just email me your address.

If you loved it and gained some educational benefit from it then my apologies but I have to admit that as a kid I had a positive aversion to magazines like 'Look & Learn'. To me it was the sort of opus that Walter from the Dennis the Menace would have gleefully read from cover to cover. It was an ex...

'Dennis the Menace' was Davey Law's first work for the 'Beano' but he had been doing strips for the D C thomson newspapers and magazines for a number of years before that, eg 'The Wee Fella' and 'Busy Bella'.

The reason that 'Classics from the Comics' contains a dearth of materail from the pre 1960 period is that all of the artwork post 1959 was placed on film and it is a lot easier to access the film files than to haul up the original artwork from the vaults in order to reprint the earlier stuff.

Hi Angiel, Re the Bunty and Mandy Books W.H.Smith usually stock these at discount prices and I think Waterstones are doing a buy two get one free offer at the moment on all the annuals they stock so you might get a bargain if you haven'y already paid out for them. Regards, Ray.

I'll certainly have to invest in some of these DC Showcase titles. As a kid I was always much more of a DC fan than Marvel and always remember the era with the 'go-go checks' on all the covers with particular fondness(Mar 1966 - Dec 1967 I think). And then there was the first use of the 'DC Currents...

Hi Lew,
Hope you are keeping well. Bert Vandeput did the first series of 'Brian's Brain' in Smash Nos 1-15. Barrie Mitchell did the second in Nos 93-162. Regards, Ray.

There were only ever the four published 'The Truth about Wilson', 'Killer Slade of the Pony Express', 'The Goalmaker' and 'Braddock and the Flying Tigers'. The Braddock and Slade stories were edited reprints of material that had appeared in Rover and the Wilson and Goalmaker stories were originally ...

The story that the gentleman is looking for is 'Quick Nick - the Lightning Lock-Picker of London' which appeared in the Dandy Nos 427(28/1/50) - 438(15/4/50). The story was written by Reg Thomas and was illustrated by Jack Glass. It also featured in prose form in the 1952 Dandy Monster Comic and was...

Hi Jimmy, From memory 'Scrapper' which began in 'Cracker' before transferring to 'Beezer' following amalgamation was the work of Tom Lavery initially, as mentioned, and then was taken over in the main by Bill Hill. The cover of the 1980 Beezer Book was the work of D C thomson staff artist Peter Moon...

Hi Brian, Dates of four Bunty Judy annuals as follows 1) Bunty - The songs we sing at Christmas inside covers. 1961 ( Bunty ice skating on cover of dustjacket). 2nd edition. 2) Bunty - Ballet dancers inside covers. 1964 ( Bunty on horse on cover of dustjacket). 5th edition. 3) Judy - Sailor Girl. 19...