British comics are dead. Discuss.

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Digifiend
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Re: British comics are dead. Discuss.

Post by Digifiend »

Tin Can Tommy wrote:Children's books seem to be doing well. I dont see why british comic publishers dont go down that route collecting a load of comic strips into a book format. It could be mostly reprint. If it's a decent comic strip then it doesnt really matter to the reader and theres decades worth of stuff for publishers like DC Thomson to reprint so there is bound to be alot of good stuff. All the strips would be based around a single theme. And then selling it in bookshops and have it appear in school libraries. I could imagine this being successful as the Beano Annuals are always bestsellers.
Indeed they are - there's an advert in this week's Beano for this year's annual, proudly boasting that it's the "UK No.1 best selling annual in 2009-2011".

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stevezodiac
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Re: British comics are dead. Discuss.

Post by stevezodiac »

There must be a market, at least, for a humour magazine. Punch closed a few years ago and Private Eye tends to lean towards current affairs and politics. Apart from that there isn't really a general humour magazine in the UK - except maybe Viz. If we accept that a new comic title isn't viable then how about a Mad/Punch/Funny Half Hour hybrid. It could have a mixture of strips, gag cartoons and syndicated newspaper strips of which there are hundreds to choose from. A catchy title like LAUGH! might help in these gloomy times too.

Sits back and waits for idea to be pooh-poohed.

Lew Stringer
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Re: British comics are dead. Discuss.

Post by Lew Stringer »

stevezodiac wrote:There must be a market, at least, for a humour magazine. Punch closed a few years ago and Private Eye tends to lean towards current affairs and politics. Apart from that there isn't really a general humour magazine in the UK - except maybe Viz. If we accept that a new comic title isn't viable then how about a Mad/Punch/Funny Half Hour hybrid. It could have a mixture of strips, gag cartoons and syndicated newspaper strips of which there are hundreds to choose from. A catchy title like LAUGH! might help in these gloomy times too.

Sits back and waits for idea to be pooh-poohed.
Sounds like a great idea! Everyone likes a laugh.

Remember Laugh MAGazine from the 1960s? I have a handful of those, which featured gag cartoons and short anecdotes. Pocket size, like Commando. I think it was American reprint so the humour was fairly conservative but a modern version with a truly British sense of humour would be good to see. Those sort of mags were quite prolific in the 1940s-1960s I think. Trouble is, everyone's used to getting jokes free via text or email these days.
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Phoenix
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Re: British comics are dead. Discuss.

Post by Phoenix »

Lew Stringer wrote:Remember Laugh MAGazine from the 1960s? I have a handful of those, which featured gag cartoons and short anecdotes. Pocket size, like Commando. I think it was American reprint so the humour was fairly conservative but a modern version with a truly British sense of humour would be good to see. Those sort of mags were quite prolific in the 1940s-1960s I think.
Here are some examples of the sort of British humour magazine from the 40s and 50s that Lew is referring to. Apologies for the crosshatching effect. I have previously promised to upgrade my scanner but I haven't yet quite got round to it.
Attachments
laughsbooks1.jpg
laughsbooks2.jpg
laughsbooks3.jpg

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stevezodiac
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Re: British comics are dead. Discuss.

Post by stevezodiac »

I mentioned before that the people at the Weekly News have had a monthly cartoon magazine on the back burner for a couple of years - surely everyone likes gag cartoons whether they're into comics or not. I remember Marvel's Epic magazine which was a sci fi version of what I had in mind for a humour magazine - a bit of everything, even short stories. Perhaps even contributions from comedians and comedy writers.

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