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What was the best annual you got for christmas :
you got your major matt mason or action man for us old fogies or star wars for the young wippersnapers but that night you whent up to bed with your new unread annual of your fav comic to savor. mine was a dalek book with its cutaway of the inside of a dalek. i got a fair copy of this book a year or so ago again at a bootie for a few quid and traveled back in time to christmas past
plus i always liked the dandy annual much better than the weekly comic
They were all great. To me, Christmas was never Christmas unless there was an annual in your stocking. The one that I enjoyed the most, now that's hard. Probably have to go for the first Warlord Annual. I loved the cut-out calendar and did, doing so much damage to my Annual, I had to hunt round for years to pick up a relatively undamaged one.
I started to say something sensible but my parents took over my brain!
I agree with Colcool they were all great and for my age band (over 21, well over...) annuals were a major part of Xmas . As I have an older brother, who also loved comics we got twice the amount between us - The special ones for me were the Odhams annuals - I only got 3 Odhams annuals as a kid as my parents prefered to get me the tradional Fleetway and DCT titles, which I loved as well (Odhams had the "dodgy" strips like "Frankie Stein" and "Spiderman" a bit controversial in their day) I have a special place for WHAM 1966 Annual (which I picked up again about 6 years ago and remembered almost every strip 2nd time around) my only other Odhams annuals were the Pow and Wham 1967 annuals. Oor Wullie of course every 2nd year was special for me ( although that, along with the Broons was a Hogmany present for me). Of course the BEANO was the must have for any self respecting 9/10 year old. When I was 11/12 I got into US comics in a big so my UK annual list dropped to the Valliant and Lion plus a batch of DC, Archies and Marvels (plus Alan Class reprints) Great days though always my favourite present (even in the years when I was fortunate enough to get a Scaletrix and train set) .
ROY ROGERS wrote:What was the best annual you got for christmas :
Difficult to pin down as each Christmas brought at least one that stood out from the crowd. However, they say you never forget your first (;-)) so it'd be The Dandy Book 1965 (Christmas Day 1964).
For me the 1966 D C Thomson annuals, or rather books, as in those days Thomsons always termed them books and not annuals, have always remained in my affections. I think this was because it was the first year that I got the lot i.e the 'magic foursome' Dandy ( with Korky in the swing shaped like a giant boot), the Beano ( with Biffo on the big bass drum), the Beezer ( with Ginger blowing bubbles) and the Topper (with the Julius Cheeser 'firecracker' strip), plus Oor Wullie (the four portraits) and Dennis the Menace (the drum-kit) while not forgetting the Victor (the guy in the pith helmet) and the Hotspur (surfing) the latter, as far as I was aware then, being the first edition of the book ever published. Wonderful stuff then and now!
I was always pleased that Mum and Dad would buy me the Monster Fun annual (which carried on until about 1985 or thereabouts). They Also got me the 1978 Dr Who annual at a time when I wanted to grow up to bit Dr Who's assistant, but I only read the 2 comic strip stories and played the game, but still remember it fondly [there were loads of these made, I remember in January there were monster piles of them in the sales in all the bookshops and ebay have an unlimited supply 30 years later].
From D C Thomson, I thought their 70s Sparky annuals especially tended to be very nice and lively, and seemed to have a lot of effort put into them.
From IPC I particularly recall the Monster Fun annuals from when the comic was running and just after, having some nice material, and some very good covers.
Topper from 1970 and Beezer from 1971 have fond memories. Trouble was I used to read them all in one day, it was so hard tying to make them last the whole christmas holidays.
As well as reprinting Davey Law strips from the Beano the 1960's Dennis books also reprinted some of Davey Law Dennis strips from The Weekly News 1953-1957. You can easily spot these half taboild strips as they were reprinted across two pages in the Dennis books.
oopps have to add to my favs (ie WHAM 1966 and Beano annual any year up to 1970 ) the Beezer Book 1966 I loved that annual with the Iron Eater strip - the early Dennis annuals are fantastic but really expensive would love some of them.
One of my favourites would have to be the 1963 Supercar Annual, featuring the only appearance of 'Super-R' (R for Rocket!). This contained some fantastic colour artwork by Lady Penelope's Eric Eden (who was at least ten years ahead of the pack with his mastery of the airbrush). The thing that really struck me about this was that, like the later Dalek Book, it basically told one big story with a few interludes along the way: in effect coming very close to the format of a modern 'Graphic Novel'. Also, the giant rocketship itself, based on Supercar's own advanced technology, seemed to fit beautifully into the wider Gerry Anderson chronology as a prototype for the later Fireballs; so much so that I was really disappointed when the connection was never exploited in TV21.
Incidentally, if Shaqui is reading this I'd be interested to know if the Supercar and Fireball Annuals are due to be added to his brilliant Gerry Anderson website. If so does he know how many of the Supercar Annuals were produced as I've only ever seen two but the old Comic Book Price Guide suggested there were three altogether?
Speaking of old Annuals, one of my greatest discoveries as a kid was finding out that the covers of all that year's Annuals could be found six months early in the Autumn/Winter editions of Mum's mail-order catalogues (alongside a treasure trove of toys such as working hovercrafts and the 'Johnny Seven' supergun: all you had to do was skip past page after page of boring pictures of pullovers, garden tools, kitchen appliances and half-naked women dressed only in their underwear!!!). I pored over these intriguing covers for months, writing and rewriting wish lists as I dreamed of Christmas - but whatever I eventually received there were always some that 'got away', thereby attaining some kind of mythic status in my memory (...until I finally tracked them down twenty odd years later of course!).
- Phil Rushton
Last edited by philcom55 on 07 Nov 2007, 20:47, edited 1 time in total.
Fleetway's 1972 Birthday Book for Boys was a real treat - it had a boy with a big cake on the cover - blending strips from the IPC/Fleetway stable of comics: Cor!!, Tiger, Lion, Scorcher and Score, Valiant, Whizzer and Chips, all in the same volume. I remember the very tiny me being extremely pleased with this compilation (of new strips or reprints? I'm not sure.) Good idea on Fleetway's part too, to introduce you to characters from comics that may otherwise be unknown to you.
It turns out there was a second Birthday Book For Boys, too, probably from the following year, but I didn't get that one.
I well remember my first annual, the Beano 1992, with the Bash Street "baloons" story, "Smiffy's silly quiz" that my spock-like younger self attempted to do "properly" and, er, no that's all i can remember at present. I still have it somewhere but rather worse for wear, and missing the covers entirely.
I have recently been collecting annuals of various kinds, the Hotspur and Victor 1992 are fascinatingly past thier sell-by-date but still brilliant. Whoever did "Mantracker" could draw a great Sierra. "Hurricane" annuals seem to be ever so slightly larger than the average one, they certianly pack a lot more in. I'd like to find a few more Action ones too, 'specially the one and only pre-ban one with the stock cars on the front (a picture i failed miserably to emulate on my website!).
I've also been into older "annuals" of storypapers, or even just stand-alone ones, such as "The Book for Boys" and "The Bumper Book for Boys", the bumper one is from 1935, the other one looks to be from the 40's. Next to no clue as to publishers, or weather they where supposed to tie in with a storypaper, but still good reading. Also the 1944 "Chatterbox" annual (early ones, like the 1908 one i also have, reprinted everything from the issues of the Chatterbox paper, but later ones where just stand-alone stories) is excellent, i want to find more from that era. Another interesting one is the "Collin's Adventure Annual", the one i have is apparently "in it's ninth year". No clue as to date but there is a boy doing something that could be misinterpreted as a nazi salute at the front... also several of the stories do, from a quick flick-through, appear to have a nasty racist undercurrent, with constant battles against "blackfellers" and "savages" depicted... which leads me to beleive it's pre-war. Or else subtle during-war propaganda by hitler-sympathisers
