Forgotten hero: The Purple Hood

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 24 Mar 2007, 13:21

Does anyone remember this character from the late sixties?

[IMG:283:386]http://i7.tinypic.com/4idivd0.jpg[/img]

More info (or what little I know about him) here:

http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2007/03 ... -hood.html

Lew

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 26 Mar 2007, 18:57

So as the tumbleweeds roll across this thread 48 hours later I take it no one remembers this comic at all?

Lew

Post by **AndyB** » 26 Mar 2007, 19:04

Some of us are only just about old enough to remember Sparky before it was rolled into Topper and Sparky

colcool007 · Post by **colcool007** » 26 Mar 2007, 19:28

Lew, when you first found the Purple Hood, I was 7...months old!

Richard S. · Post by **Richard S.** » 26 Mar 2007, 21:16

Never seen the title before but it is a great spotlight on a very obscure title. I'll be keeping my eyes open for the title from now on, but don't hold your breath!

Richard Sheaf

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 27 Mar 2007, 10:23

Comics historian Steve Holland had kindly solved the "mystery" of this character (and the John Spencer comics line) with a detailed posting over on his blog:
http://bearalley.blogspot.com/2007/03/ ... omics.html

Thanks Steve!

Lew

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 27 Mar 2007, 13:10

Oh, boy Lew! You certainly came up with an obscure entry here. A character that appeared in two comics in 1967. Yep! His name will be on the tip of every collectors tongue who can remember the late 1960's. Mind you it's just as well you kept the evidence for all these years or you would have entered that well-known world of torment, the comic twilight zone wherein exist all those characters and titles that you remember, or at least half-remember, that no one else does and as a result you begin to question whether you didn't dream them all up.
A good example of this sort of obscurity for me is does anyone else remember a single produced by a major pop band in the early 1970's that cribbed its picture sleeve artwork from a strip in an old Beano Book? I only know the answer to this because I bought the single at the time and recognised the artwork so a) Name the band and b) Name the character who appeared on the single sleeve? If stumped answer will be posted next week.

john56peter756brit · Post by **john56peter756brit** » 27 Mar 2007, 13:53

Was it Thin Lizzy The Boys Are Back In Town?

grumpy old man · Post by **grumpy old man** » 27 Mar 2007, 15:36

Lew you?ve made my day! You're stumped!!! I?ve done some research for you, try this link to International Heroes http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/p/purphood.htm

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 27 Mar 2007, 16:16

grumpy old man wrote:Lew you?ve made my day! You're stumped!!! I?ve done some research for you, try this link to International Heroes http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/p/purphood.htm

Sorry to un-make your day but I already knew that info from reading the actual comic!

The info I was after was background details on the comic and the publishing company, which Steve Holland has now kindly provided. (See my follow up comment above.)

Lew

philcom55 · Post by **philcom55** » 27 Mar 2007, 19:26

It's interesting that you picked up your copy of Purple Hood while on holiday in Blackpool Lew. From what I remember newsagents in seaside resorts tended to be something of a treasure trove for comic collectors throughout the 60s and 70s as a result of distributors using them to offload job-lots of stock they couldn't sell elsewhere. I think the idea was that kids on holiday with a pocketful of spending money would buy almost anything - especially if they found themselves stuck in dismal, rain-lashed boarding houses for a whole week (which is what usually happened in Blackpool after all!).

Apart from finding rare comics like Fantastic Four Annual no. 1 years after they were published I also have fond memories of a shop selling nothing but Russ Manning Magnus Robot Fighter comics, and another with a spinner-rack bursting at the seams with weird DC titles I'd never even heard of like Pat Boone, Sgt. Bilko, All-Star Western, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis...as well as piles of Romance Comics with the little red 'heart' where the usual DC logo was supposed to be!

...Maybe I'm strange but whenever I think back on childhood holidays it's never the sun, sea and sand I recall, but gazing in wonder at all those bizarro comics that seemed to have fallen out of a parallel universe!

I wonder if anybody else remembers making similar discoveries during their own holidays...?

- Phil Rushton

Brendan McGuire · Post by **Brendan McGuire** » 27 Mar 2007, 19:29

Kashgar wrote:a) Name the band and b) Name the character who appeared on the single sleeve? If stumped answer will be posted next week.

The band? Um, nope. The character? Was it that Grizzly Gus from the Three Bears? I can't remember his real name, but I think he was dressed up in native North American (did you notice how my more mature modern sensibility prevented me from descending to the use of outmoded and insulting terms like <sounds like engine>?) war garb. Actually, I think it could have been Pa Bear himself!

Lew Stringer · Post by **Lew Stringer** » 27 Mar 2007, 20:45

philcom55 wrote:It's interesting that you picked up your copy of Purple Hood while on holiday in Blackpool Lew. From what I remember newsagents in seaside resorts tended to be something of a treasure trove for comic collectors throughout the 60s and 70s as a result of distributors using them to offload job-lots of stock they couldn't sell elsewhere.

Agreed. The same year I picked up that issue of Purple Hood I remember a stall in an indoor market (Abingdon Street probably) with stacks of comics and issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland. At 10, I wasn't allowed the horror mags but I did buy Fantasy Masterpieces No 10, featuring a great reprint of a 1940's All Winners story.

Like yourself, I associate a lot of comics I bought back then with clear memories of Blackpool holidays. The titles were often out of date, having lingered on the racks or stalls for months. One in particular being an issue of crap super-team Mighty Crusaders that for at least two years running was in a rack outside a shop on South (or Central) Pier, colours bleached out by the sun!

(I always bought my Dandy and Beano Summer Specials from Blackpool too. They were in good supply back home, but it added to the holiday feel to have them while I was away.)

In 1974 there was a shop somewhere in the back streets of Blackpool which had LOADS of non-distributed Marvel comics. (Titles that normally wouldn't reach UK newsagents, such as early issues of Jungle Action and Marvel Triple Action.) None of them had a UK price on, and most were water damaged (crinkled).

I was having a conversation with cartoonist Dave Windett about this last year, and he remembered it too, although neither of us ever saw that shop again! Just that one year, it's stock was almost all comics. Like a comic shop before there were comic shops! (More likely it's lease ended and it's now a burger bar or something.)

Anyone else here remember it?

Lew

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 28 Mar 2007, 11:42

OK Brendan. I think you deserve the prize. (Not that there is one of course). The character in question was Pa Bear from 'The Three Bears' in 'The Beano' and he is dressed in full red-indian battle gear as in the original strip the art was cribbed from he is about to have a fight with Grizzly Gus who was similarly attired. The artist was Bob McGrath and the band who cribbed the artwork was Mott the Hoople.

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 28 Mar 2007, 11:47

Speaking of seaside comic shops. In the late 1960's we used to holiday at Butlins in Bognor and there was a great little comic shop just off the sea-front that sold loads of old DC's and Marvels. A genuine highlight of my holiday week. Holiday money to spend and lots of comics to buy.

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