Film Fun Facts

[stevezodiac]

Yes I think you'll find the majority of its readers did not go on to assassinate a Beatle. According to the press he has written loads of stuff during his exile and it will probably be released some time in the future.

Getting back to Film Fun I was up till the early hours this morning trying to put my hundreds of Wally Robertson pencil roughs into story order, have found a kind of short cut and am getting there. Interestingly - and to confirm Lew's assertion - some of the strips have been blue-pencilled by the editor along the lines of "use for another character" and one has Sydney Howard saying "Ooh, What a to do" which was a George Formby line. On another he has put a cross right across the page as if to say "not good enough".

[NP]

Read the book, NP.

You're not convincing me. Any reason why I should?

I think you'll find the majority of its readers did not go on to assassinate a Beatle.

Still, too much of a coincidence.

rather like refusing to listen to the Beatles' White Album because of Charles Manson.

That's OK too, nothing is compulsory.
However, if one had read the book prior to the murder, one might have a different view, I quite understand the possibilty of this.

[Phoenix]

You're not convincing me. Any reason why I should?

In the first instance I was trying to point out to you that you are not entitled to comment on any book you haven't read, and then expect people to take your comments seriously. This immediately demolishes any counter-argument that you might put forward claiming that you can do anything you damn well like and you are entitled to your own opinion anyway. Those people who dismiss everybody's opinions except their own, without having previously thought the issues through as thoroughly as they can, end up as bigots. This applies to books, films, politics, football, anything you care to name really. Those who do as they like and ride roughshod over the rest of us will risk asbos and jail terms. We all need guides from the very beginning but we cannot learn everything we need from parents, friends and school. That's where literature comes into the equation. Ask yourself why we still read books written by the ancient Greeks and Romans, Chaucer's poetry, Shakespeare's plays, novels from the eighteenth century onwards, foreign works in translation, Tolstoy, Dostoevski, Camus, Cervantes, Goethe as a very small example, almost all of which will be kept in print by firms such as Penguin for each succeeding generation. It has nothing much to do with money, it's because these works contain perceptions and truths about the human condition that we really ought to learn and take into consideration. They don't necessarily contradict what we have already learned, they may well confirm things and refine others, but they nearly always offer us situations that we couldn't possibly experience whose essential nature is relevant to our own life. The Catcher In The Rye is one such work but it mustn't be read just to see what happens next. We can leave that kind of novel to Dan Brown. Think as you read, about Holden Caulfield's background, his attitudes to family, friends, black people, foreigners, life, what are his dreams and ambitions and what does he do about them, do you like him, if so why, if not why not, is he really whiney and self-justifying as you said, do you understand him, do you empathise with him in any way, what do you think about his friends and family, obviously he has to interrelate, to what extent do they help or hinder him now and so on and so forth. Try and get a three-dimensional picture, these characters were very real to Salinger. Look at the book as if you are looking in a mirror. Do you see yourself anywhere, if so do you like what you see, is it just possible that something in the novel might serve to modify your own views and attitudes? I'm not saying that this process is easy but the effort is worthwhile. Read the book, NP.

[philcom55]

The format of Film Fun altered little in the first 37 b/w years of its life. Only with issue No 1954 in Jun 1957 did it add a coloured border to its front and back cover
and then subsequently add a secondary colour (orange) to its cover strips with issue No 2009 (19/7/58).

It seems to me that this issue, dated June 13th 1959, also represents a significant moment in the long history of Film Fun. Though the title change to 'Film Fun and Thrills' didn't last very long the increased number of adventure strips that it heralded did more or less persist until the end. Along with the cover feature 'Scoop Donovan' (beautifully drawn by Geoff Campion, and later by Ron Turner) I'm pretty sure Reg Parlett's more realistic version of Tony Hancock began his residence on the centre pages with this issue. What's more the same date saw major changes to Film Fun's sister papers TV Fun (which effectively became a girls' comic, soon to be renamed TV Fan) and Radio Fun (which inherited the former title's long-running 'Jimmy Edwards' strip).

It seems likely these changes were a direct result of Cecil King's acquisition of the AP group earlier that same year; unfortunately they were almost immediately overtaken by a crippling printers' strike which lasted from June through to late August. In a very real way it marked the end of one era and the beginning of a new one since the eventual return to normal production coincided with a name change for the entire company - from the historic Amalgamated Press to the fledgling Fleetway Publications, which was to make its own mark on the following decade...



Apart from 'Scoop' and Tony, the other major strips in this issue are 'Frankie Howard' (also by Reg Parlett), 'Harry Secombe', and 'Terry-Thomas' - as well as film adaptations of 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' and 'The Last of the Mohicans' (can anybody identify the artists on these last four btw? - 'Mohicans' looks a bit like an earlier Campion job and 'Terry-Thomas' could almost be another Parlett, but the remaining two have me completely stumped)

- Phil Rushton

[Kashgar]

I agree that 'Film Fun and Thrills' was a key moment in the paper's life Phil and, as you say, as it was a change that also came to Radio Fun which became 'Radio Fun and Adventures' and also to TV Fun it seems that a new broom policy was at work. In fact by the end of October 1959 nearly all of AP's remaining titles had been tweaked in some way. Some like Comet and Sun being lost altogether and others being subject to format changes under the umberella 'Five Star Weekly' imprint. An overhaul that would have happened title-wide all the sooner hadn't it been for the strike that occurred in the Summer.
I haven't got my Film Fun collection to hand at the moment so I can't say for sure but until I can check for certain I seem to remember that Geoff Campion was the artist on Last of the Mohicans and that C Montford was the artist on The Hound of the Baskervilles. I'm also fairly sure that George Parlett was the Harry Secombe artist at the time and I think you may be right about Reg Parlett drawing Terry-Thomas as a stop-gap measure in that particular issue. I'll check for certain though.
Re Jimmy Edwards transfer to Radio Fun from TV Fun this was a little more complicated a transfer than it might appear as it was only after that transfer that Jim became headmaster of Chiselbury School, his domain in the Whacko TV series as, ironically, he had been the headmaster of an entirely different educational establishment in the pages of TV Fun.

[Lew Stringer]

You're not convincing me. Any reason why I should?

In the first instance I was trying to point out to you that you are not entitled to comment on any book you haven't read, and then expect people to take your comments seriously. This immediately demolishes any counter-argument that you might put forward claiming that you can do anything you damn well like and you are entitled to your own opinion anyway. Those people who dismiss everybody's opinions except their own, without having previously thought the issues through as thoroughly as they can, end up as bigots. This applies to books, films, politics, football, anything you care to name really. Those who do as they like and ride roughshod over the rest of us will risk asbos and jail terms.

Like Mark Chapman, Catcher in the Rye's most infamous reader?

Read the book, NP.

This isn't a book club. Surely if Nigel chooses not to read it that's up to him? For the record I haven't read it either, and probably never will. I don't believe for one moment that it'd corrupt my perspective as Chapman apparently claimed. I'm just not inclined to read it.

Lew

[philcom55]

Re Jimmy Edwards transfer to Radio Fun from TV Fun this was a little more complicated a transfer than it might appear as it was only after that transfer that Jim became headmaster of Chiselbury School, his domain in the Whacko TV series as, ironically, he had been the headmaster of an entirely different educational establishment in the pages of TV Fun.

Appropriately, the final TV Fun strip ends with the complete destruction of his previous school, St. Capers!

June 13th 1959 was the end of an era in more ways than one: I've heard that Terry Wakefield - the previous artist on both Harry Secombe and Terry-Thomas (not to mention Laurel & Hardy, which he'd inherited from his father Billy) - forever after referred to that date as 'Black Tuesday' since this marked the point at which he was told his type of artwork was 'no longer required'. As far as I know he never worked in comics again. Looking more closely at the new Terry-Thomas strip I'm inclined to credit it to the great Roy Wilson who did manage to survive the changeover, though like both the Parlett brothers he'd clearly been instructed to adopt a more modern, 'realistic' style. Presumably there was a deliberate intention to aim at a slightly older, more sophisticated audience at this point, thereby acknowledging DC Thomson's relative mastery of the juvenile humour market: a decision which seems quite ironic when one considers the age group at which most remaining British comics are aimed today.

- Phil Rushton

[Phoenix]

Surely if Nigel chooses not to read it that's up to him?

Of course it is, Lew, and I'm not bothered one jot whether NP reads The Catcher In The Rye or not. Why should I be? That decision is quite properly his business. But you must be able to see that what I was actually complaining about was his decision to comment on it without having read it first. When he asked me to give him some reasons why he should read it, I expanded on my earlier point and then made some suggestions as to how he might do so. In truth, the Salinger novel is not that relevant. It could have been any book, play, comic, TV programme, football match, whatever. The real issue was the distinction between forming your own opinions, which would then be worth listening to, and expressing somebody else's, which would not.

[NP]

Well OK I do have a reason for describing Catcher in the Rye as 'whiny' and that's because I did once try to read it at the urging of a playwright but found it impossibly juvenile (MY OPINION) and tedious (MY OPINION) and shortly thereafter a reader of the book used it as his justification to murder someone who's art I, on the other hand, had always admired, so I presumed I was personally right to not finish reading it.
I guess some people live real life and some like to read about it.

[Phoenix]

a. As you had already dismissed the complete novel's qualities after reading a handful of pages, despite the recommendation, and indeed urging, of the playwright you refer to, a cultured, sensitive and intelligent person I assume, calling up Chapman's later murder of John Lennon as a reason for not finishing it was clearly unnecessary and irrelevant.

b. The fact that you continue to pass off your shallow judgements based on a reading of a few pages as valid opinions, it is clear that there is no point in my continuing this conversation because you are dismissing out of hand the very point I am making.

I guess some people live real life and some like to read about it.

c. Personally I do both, to the full.

[philcom55]

To be fair I was a pretty whiny teenager myself when I read Catcher in the Rye, and I think that's probably the best age to appreciate it; I can certainly understand how an older reader might find himself completely out of sympathy with the lead character. For what it's worth I had a similar reaction to Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting when I read it a few years ago. The tragedy of people like Chapman is that they somehow seem to get stuck in a perpetual adolescence - though I think it'd be unfair to blame their personal shortcomings on Salinger or anyone else: that way lies rump of skunk and Mary Whitehouse!

...Er, anyway, wasn't this thread supposed to be about Film Fun?

- Phil Rushton

[Phoenix]

Er, anyway, wasn't this thread supposed to be about Film Fun?

Yes it was, Phil, and it's a perfect example of how a thread on a comic theme can naturally go off at a tangent. This kind of thing will inevitably happen again, as I pointed out before Christmas, despite the existence of the new non-comic themed forum, which to my way of thinking is an excellent idea. Andy is to be congratulated for setting it up.

[Kashgar]

Just to bring things back on topic then. I still haven't managed to check that particular issue Phil (13/6/59) so I can't comment on whether Roy Wilson began drawing Terry Thomas regularly in this issue immediately on the departure of Terry Wakefield. He was the regular Terry Thomas artist after Wakefield's departure but when you mentioned Reg Parlett you did stir up some memories of Reg drawing the occasional strip in Film Fun in mid 1959 that weren't in his usual repertoire and I thought this might have been one of them.

[philcom55]

Here are the three character-based strips in question, drawn in the the new 'straight' style. As far as I can judge the respective artists are Reg Parlett, his brother George, and Roy Wilson (the same issue also includes Reg's Hancock centrespread and a joke page that could be the work of Albert Pease):





To my mind the last one is particularly interesting in that, in spite of the superb draughtsmanship and characterization, one cannot help but notice the absence of chortling birds and squirrels that would have automatically been included in Wilson's earlier work. In fact the log which rather boringly occupies the right foreground in panels 5, 6 and 7 looks especially out of place - almost as though the great cartoonist was consciously trying to restrain his natural creativity.

I know that some people like Denis Gifford rather resented this revamped format, but I have to say that for me it still represents something of a high point in the long history of Film Fun.

- Phil Rushton

[Lew Stringer]

It's fascinating to see those examples Phil. Why did Film Fun revamp the comic like that? Were they becoming aware that the Roy Wilson house style of AP was starting to look old fashioned? (To new readers I mean. It'll always be wonderful to collectors.) Or were they realising that adventure comics were on the rise and felt they needed to tweak Film Fun a little bit into that look?

Beautifully drawn as those pages are, I don't think the experiment is completely successful. Taking the fun and bounce out of the penline tends to deaden the tone somewhat, I think. Presumably the majority of readers weren't too impressed either, as that style didn't continue for too long did it?

Lew