1950s annuals

[Lew Stringer]

This weekend I've added a couple of blog entries about British annuals of the 1950s, along with scans of a few strips and covers. Peter Gray: there's a firework strip there you might enjoy!

http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/

Lew

[Kashgar]

Really great to see those annual covers Lew. Although the 1950's is before my time in terms of an ability to read, having been only two when the decade ended, it's still a time that conjures up a great deal of nostalgia for me. This is no doubt due, in part, to the odd 1950's annual that came my way via jumble sales etc in the 1960's and also because the comic titles of that decade were using a number of artists whose work was still happily appearing in comics a decade later. TV Fun, the only 1950's title I have a complete collection of, I find particularly appealing because it contains a great deal of work by two of my favourite artists Reg Parlett and Harry Farrugia.
By the way the the Wilfred Pickles page from the 1951 Radio Fun annual is actually the work of John Jukes. Jukes was one of the titles most prolific artists and was drawing Norman Wisdom for the paper right up until the final issue in 1961. He then dropped out of sight for a decade until in 1971, the year before he died, he began to contribute a strip to Whizzer and Chips titled Belle Tent which in itself was a revival of the old Buster strip Dinah Mite.

[Lew Stringer]

By the way the the Wilfred Pickles page from the 1951 Radio Fun annual is actually the work of John Jukes. Jukes was one of the titles most prolific artists and was drawing Norman Wisdom for the paper right up until the final issue in 1961. He then dropped out of sight for a decade until in 1971, the year before he died, he began to contribute a strip to Whizzer and Chips titled Belle Tent which in itself was a revival of the old Buster strip Dinah Mite.

Thanks for that Ray. I'll update my post on that blog pronto and give you a credit.

Lew

[Kashgar]

Thanks for the credit Lew. If of interest the strip 'The Boys of Coughdrop College' that you've featured from the 1950 Slick Fun Album and which is signed 'HEP' is the work of H.E.Pease one of a number of usually'second string' AP artists who moonlighted for Swan publications where the page rate was a little better than at the AP but the work available not as steady. His brother, younger or older no one seems to know, Albert 'Charlie' Pease was blessed with more natural artistic talent and was a real star of the AP comic papers for fifty years. 'Charlies' last artwork, other than the odd reprint, being on the Billy Bunter strip in the last years of 'Knockout' and the first years of 'Valiant' following amalgamation of the two titles. Work from the pen of HEP seems to have fizzled out in the 1950's but as to when he died there seems to be no record, on the other hand it is believed that his brother Albert 'Charlie' Pease died in 1966.