45 year flashback

[Lew Stringer]

On my blog today I've taken a look back at an issue of Wham! that came out 45 years ago - 21st September 1964. Behold the brilliance of Baxendale and Reid...
http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... -no15.html

[tony ingram]

On my blog today I've taken a look back at an issue of Wham! that came out 45 years ago - 21st September 1964. Behold the brilliance of Baxendale and Reid...
http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... -no15.html

Nice one, Lew. I'm just rediscovering the Odhams stuff, and a lot of it was far superior to the IPC humour line. Someone really should put together a collected edition of Ken Reid.

[Lew Stringer]

On my blog today I've taken a look back at an issue of Wham! that came out 45 years ago - 21st September 1964. Behold the brilliance of Baxendale and Reid...
http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... -no15.html

Nice one, Lew. I'm just rediscovering the Odhams stuff, and a lot of it was far superior to the IPC humour line. Someone really should put together a collected edition of Ken Reid.

Yes, IPC really castrated that energy that Odhams had introduced. Even Ken Reid's style stiffened up. There were some exceptions, - Baxendale's Swots & Blots in IPC's Smash for one, but overall IPC's comedy lacked the edge of Wham. (Not to say there wasn't top class stuff produced by IPC of course.) Robert Nixon's Frankie Stein being the best thing to compare. Nixon was a fantastic artist, absolutely brilliant, but the tone of his Frankie strips was so much younger than Reid's original.

To be fair to IPC, it's all about business and on the whole IPC's comics lasted longer than Odhams' weeklies, so they were obviously doing it right. Odhams were more streetwise but perhaps Wham! etc went over the heads of many readers?

Lew

[philcom55]

I think there's a recurring theme in comics publishing where a new team starts out with a bang, full of enthusiasm, ideas and resources, only to see things become increasingly dull and formularised over time with sales sliding until they're finally replaced by another incoming editor/publisher. To my mind this happened with Power Comics, and to some extent the story repeated itself with IPC after they initially hit the ground running with titles like the New-Look Smash! and Cor!

Other examples are AP becoming Fleetway, Odhams taking over Eagle, the Mills/Wagner initiative that produced Battle, Action and 2000AD, the launch of TV Century 21 - and in America the early days of Infantino and Khan at DC (to name just two).

- Phil Rushton

[Lew Stringer]

I think there's a recurring theme in comics publishing where a new team starts out with a bang, full of enthusiasm, ideas and resources, only to see things become increasingly dull and formularised over time with sales sliding until they're finally replaced by another incoming editor/publisher. To my mind this happened with Power Comics, and to some extent the story repeated itself with IPC after they initially hit the ground running with titles like the New-Look Smash! and Cor!

Other examples are AP becoming Fleetway, Odhams taking over Eagle, the Mills/Wagner initiative that produced Battle, Action and 2000AD, the launch of TV Century 21 - and in America the early days of Infantino and Khan at DC (to name just two).

- Phil Rushton

Very good points Phil. Yes, I doubt anyone missed TV21 by the time it folded. It was a mercy killing.

I wasn't too chuffed when Smash! was revamped by IPC but compared to the early issues it had gone downhill a bit. Nevertheless, to abandon Ken Reid's The Nervs and Mike Higgs' The Cloak because they didn't fit IPC's template for humour was a great loss IMHO. Ken did some good stuff for IPC (his Scorcher work, Faceache, Banger & Masher, World Wide Weirdies etc) but it was never as wild and brutal as his Odhams peak. In later years one could even see his work stiffen up as he was clearly enjoying it less.

Lew