What comics did you buy today?

[stevezodiac]

Dare of D Division is actually Dick Dare (should be in porn films). Usual boys paper stuff with all text stories and some nice illustrations. 28 pages.
The Vanguard is also 28 pages - on page 3 it has a Buster Keaton comic strip of eight panels with captions (no word balloons). The rest is text stories with illos.

[Phoenix]

Dare of D Division is actually Dick Dare

Can we follow this up just a little bit further, Steve, because the professional footballer was also called Dick Dare. Is there any indication in your copy of an author? To judge from the attachment below, which comes from the only issue I have, which is from August 1932, I assume that the editor of The Surprise did acknowledge his authors from time to time.

[Phoenix]

My postman has just delivered The History Of Girls' Comics by Susan Brewer, which again I bought through Amazon. Two immediately favourable reactions - first there are lots of colour images to offset the black and white ones, and secondly there's an index. One possible negative, admittedly from a quick flick through, could be her reference to a Bill McLaughton as her Thomsons source for the explanation about how the company used to put a new comic together in the 1970s. Could she mean Bill McLaughlin? Whatever his name was, that section raises one enormous query in my mind. He refers to the launch of the new Adventure, which they started putting together in 1969, and which came out on February 14th 1970. Why have I never heard of this paper, let alone seen one? I will be extremely grateful for any elucidation on this matter.

[Digifiend]

Sounds like they mean the second series of The Wizard. That did launch on that date, February 14th 1970.

[Phoenix]

Sounds like they mean the second series of The Wizard. That did launch on that date, February 14th 1970.

Thanks for the reply, Digi. I'm sure you're right but the trouble is I can't understand why such an obvious error wasn't picked up by the author at the proof reading stage, especially as she compounds it by listing Adventure in her index. The Wizard is also indexed, but only in reference to a mention in the section she devotes mainly to comics such as The Beano, The Dandy, The Topper and The Beezer, that being ...Buster, Cor!!, Sparky and Wizard (another Thomson winner). Frankly I would just like to settle down by the fire and enjoy this book, but I have just seen a DC Thompson. Something is stirring in my innards.

[Lew Stringer]

Sounds like they mean the second series of The Wizard. That did launch on that date, February 14th 1970.

Thanks for the reply, Digi. I'm sure you're right but the trouble is I can't understand why such an obvious error wasn't picked up by the author at the proof reading stage, especially as she compounds it by listing Adventure in her index. The Wizard is also indexed, but only in reference to a mention in the section she devotes mainly to comics such as The Beano, The Dandy, The Topper and The Beezer, that being ...Buster, Cor!!, Sparky and Wizard (another Thomson winner). Frankly I would just like to settle down by the fire and enjoy this book, but I have just seen a DC Thompson. Something is stirring in my innards.

Ah great. I've just ordered this book hoping it'd educate me about an area of comics I know little about but basic errors like that don't bode well. Hopefully the author knows her subject and the main body of the book is accurate.

(That D.C. ThomPson though. Aagh! My mind always "hears" it with a loud P when I read that error. Sadly some people even think a name like that can be spelled either way! )

[Kashgar]

I haven't seen this book so maybe I shouldn't pre-judge it on the few comments here but it does sound like another one of those volumes that we comicsuk smartypants will find great, if also somewhat wearisome, delight in pointing out the errors of its ways rather than praising it for its elucidation.

[felneymike]

Is the text itself actually worh reading or is it all "ha ha look at the way they talked back then, and this girl is shown enjoying cooking for her boyfriend, you wouldn't get away with that these days. And now for a whole chapter of hilarious adverts for patent remedies and toys that cost 1'6d (that's 25p!!!!!!!)", though?

Edit: Oh and on topic...
Dad was cooking and had no bolognaise sauce, so i ran around the village shop to get some and spotted a folorn copy of the Roy of the Rovers World Cup Special still on the shelf, so bought that. I never saw it in any big city shops!

[Phoenix]

I've just ordered this book hoping it'd educate me about an area of comics I know little about but basic errors like that don't bode well. Hopefully the author knows her subject and the main body of the book is accurate.

I don't think you have too much to worry about, Lew. I have now read the book and I can safely say it has a lot to commend it, especially the scope of its topic areas. Briefly, the author surveys nursery titles, pen pictures of juvenile titles that she divides up into what she calls Golden Age and Silver Age comics, categories I think she has taken from the American comics grading system, and in any case her dividing line is a bit nebulous, key characters, the links with pop culture, part-works, toys, free gifts, problem pages, tie-ins with games, puzzles and annuals, and a personal assessment of what might come next. There is rather more emphasis on Thomson titles than Fleetway but no more than about 60/40 I would guess. There is a good deal here that I know very little about, given that I nailed my colours to the Thomson mast at a very young age. I would not, therefore, feel comfortable commenting on the 40%, so any analysis of the book along the lines of the ones I attempted early in the year for Adam Riches's two is obviously impossible for me. I should also point out that Susan does imply early that she is an enthusiast and is sharing that enthusiasm with her readers, therefore in a sense she is no different from all the rest of us. Her book, she says, is intended as a nostalgia-inducing frolic through our childhood; a social history looking at a more leisurely way of life, a time when children had little money and made the most of what they spent it on. Her enthusiastic energy will inevitably contain both the potential successes of the book and the potential failures. How we judge it must depend on how we read it, which, in turn, depends on what our expectations are. Seen from the point of view of Lew's requirement, this book will be judged a success. If I adapt my expectations in the light of Susan's stated intentions, I will also see it as a success. I have always felt that if you achieve what you set out to achieve in any piece of work, that piece of work is a success. However, I cannot help being troubled by judgements about any particular title when they are based on a tiny fraction of the total run, particularly when two issues are a couple of decades apart. Such snapshot-based conclusions are obviously only really valid for the issues consulted, and cannot be offered as binding on the whole run, and also tend to lead to carelessness. For example, at one point Susan quotes Bill McLaughlin on the demise of Tracy, as saying, Tracy was just stopped and didn't combine with anything else. Just another victim of the 1980s. Bill was mistaken but Susan did not check or she would have discovered that Tracy was annexed by Judy in January 1985, and the combined title Judy and Tracy ran for more than two years, unlike Suzy, for example, whose extended life as Bunty and Suzy only lasted eight weeks.

I haven't seen this book so maybe I shouldn't pre-judge it on the few comments here but it does sound like another one of those volumes that we comicsuk smartypants will find great, if also somewhat wearisome, delight in pointing out the errors of its ways rather than praising it for its elucidation.

Kashgar is quite correct in the sense that his first comment certainly was hasty. As for the rest of it, I haven't the foggiest notion who he could be referring to. Perhaps the fog is on the Tyne.

[felneymike]

The Boys' Friend Christmas double number 1901 (missing the cover)
The Boys' Friend Christmas double number 1913
The Boys' Friend issue 680 from June 1914. Featuring a war story called "Legions of the Kaiser"... just over a month before Britain and Germany really want to war!

[Phoenix]

Bunty For Girls (2010 version) arrived this morning from Amazon.

[Digifiend]

Even The History of the Beano had a few mistakes (such as saying Billy the Cat's demise ended David Sutherland's adventure story work, when he had in fact passed it on to another artist; Billy was also referred to as the last new adventure character in the Beano, but it's actually Johnny Hawke), and that one was an official release. No researcher can get everything right, to be fair. The Beano website actually admits on it's Retro section that there may be mistakes, please point them out (all I've found so far is a date being a year out and a couple of typos).

[big bad bri]

at the mo any spare money i get is going on buying back issues of beano or dandy but is the history of the beano book any good/worth getting as it seems a bit pricey.does it show all covers or has complete story listings dates etc.cos i have seen no synopsis for this book just the cover on amazon and is there a similar book for the dandy

[felneymike]

I beleive it has masses of scans including every page of the first issue and complete, readable pages from all eras of the comic. Plus a listing of stories with the dates and issue numbers that they first appeared in and lots of stuff about artists and how characters were created.
But i don't have it. Last time i saw it in a shop i was a student and couldn't afford it, or a van to carry it home in, it's absolutely vast! I'd better buy it soon, though.

[Digifiend]

It's a very good and very heavy volume (more than 350 pages). Reprints entire issues from 1938, 1950, 1954 and 1958, and assorted strips from throughout the comic's history. There are features about most of the original artists and all the biggest names from later decades such as Ken Reid, Leo Baxendale, and David Sutherland. The strips range from the final episodes of Billy the Cat, Pansy Potter, and the original Lord Snooty; several instalments of Wild Boy of the Woods, featuring the giant Hitler statue story which is now mentioned on his page on Beano.com's retro section; Pansy Potter drawn by several different artists during the war; through to an up to date example of Fred's Bed (the first two pages of the 70th anniversary story). For some reason they even included a colour Desperate Dan strip from the joint Dandy-Beano Summer Special (along with General Jumbo from the same special). At the time it was the first most people will have heard about Super School - there's reference to a strip called The Ultras, which had it's name changed after History went to press. The best part IMHO is saved for last - The Beano Index is reprinted from Ray Moore (Kashgar)'s book The Beano Diaries, and updated to 2008.

And for some reason, no The History of The Dandy doesn't exist. It was planned but cancelled if I understand correctly.