A question for you all

[RuthB]

In our last Foroesther Magazine, we published an interview that was made to Purita Campos and her husband Paco Ortega in 1988 for the Newspaper La Vanguardia. In it, they talk about the situation of the comics in those years and the obvious decline of the industry. They speak about how much better the conditions of work and salaries were in UK compared to the treatment and money (if any) they got in Spain and mention as well that in Uk the comic was a bit the same than a newspaper: it was bought, read and put in the bin.
Some of the girls at our forum have asked if that was so. My boyfriend is Irish and he agreed that some weekly comics weren't kept but he kept his Spiderman comics. But other weekleys they thrown away after a couple of weeks.
So that make me ask your opinion on the matter: was it this way? Was the comic in the eighties a "read and throw away"? Did you throw your comics away and now are trying to get them back again? Did you keep them every week?
Thanks.

[Niblet]

I would say that it's always been the case that most readers in the UK threw their comics away. It's only a small number of people who have kept their comics from childhood.

I was an avid comic reader as a kid in the 60s. I had indulgent parents who allowed me to keep all my comics. When I reached the age of about thirteen I felt that having a cupboard full of comics in my bedroom did not fit with the image of the cool dude that I was striving for at the time (never actually achieved it!), and I dumped them all. I started buying comics again in my early twenties, when a wave of nostalgia hit me and I decided to build a collection again, (in the mid-70s) but I very rarely bought back issues, I just bought ones that were current at the time (British humour/adventure and Marvel and DC). I have kept all the comics I bought since then, but I stopped buying them in the mid-90s when I ran out of storage space, and now I very rarely buy any comics as I have nowhere to keep them, and I couldn't buy a comic then throw it away.

[helsbels]

We used to read and then pass the comics on to my mum's friend for her kids to read, though that was more because my mum didn't like hoarding stuff! However when Misty came out I saved them (from no 15 onwards) because they were so obviously special - I also saved the annuals and summer specials at the time too. I did go on and save Tammy & Misty for a while too, but it wasn't quite the same!! When Misty ended in 1980 I was sufficiently enraged to write to IPC complaining about the demise of my all time favourite comic, casually mentioning I had a number of issues missing! I got a reply from Bill Harrington, the then editor at the time along with 7 of the issues I required!

According to Bill in his letter, Misty was merged with Tammy to "shore up the falling sales of Tammy". I continued to buy all the annuals until the end, I bought the "Best Of" monthlies in 1986 (I was 22 by this time!) and many years later with the help of ebay I finally plugged all the gaps in my collection and also went generally gaga for collecting the comics of my childhood (and some from the late 80's onwards that I hadn't come across as an adult).

[Peter Gray]

Mum

I don't have to say any more.now I have my own place and very understanding wife..

[RuthB]

So it is what it is... I throwed away my Spanish comics in October 1995 (when I was 25). I remember perfectly because I moved houses and left them behind. I kept my patty's volumes (similar to annuals) but no I have more than I ever had. got back the ones y had and trible it at least another 3 times!!

[steelclaw]

So it is what it is... I throwed away my Spanish comics in October 1995 (when I was 25). I remember perfectly because I moved houses and left them behind. I kept my patty's volumes (similar to annuals) but no I have more than I ever had. got back the ones y had and trible it at least another 3 times!!

Same as me 1989 I moved into a studio flat and threw around 600 comics away, I kept a few No.1s, I have now got back all the comics I thew away ,complete 1970s Knockout, complete Thunder all the Lion and Thunders, Jet and I've just completed all the Buster and Jets, and around 250 Wizards, plus loads of other comics.

In the sixties after reading my comics they were all put in the magazine rack with the papers, my mum used to ask if I wanted them when having a clear up every couple of weeks I said no usually so loads of 60's comics went in the bin.

[felneymike]

Yeah if the owners don't throw them away their mums do when it comes to a house move or she is tidying up. A bloke at work, who grew up in the late 40's and early 50's when there was shortages of everything, said that when he'd finished with his Radio Fun his dad rolled it up and used it to light the fire!

Strangely enough I don't know the fate of many of my comics. I remember once dad got me and my brother to have a major tidy-up, my brother chucked all his Farthing Wood ones away and I shifted the pile about a bit, added a few Beanos and said "most of" them were in it! But over the years my "every week from 1993-99" collection has shrank to about 7 issues.

[STARBOY]

As a reader of UK comics (weekly) in the mid sixties to late 70s (and on occasion after that) we swapped our comics with friends - 6 UK weeklies for 1 US comic (depending on the titles) others were given to friends , family etc for free - remember it was baby boom time so lots of kids in Glasgow etc to swap with. When it came to the pocket books (Commando, War Picture Library etc) we could swap these 2 - 1 for a US comic with friends and also to a local shop and van that would take 2 of these comics and around 3d (1 1/2P) and you got a new US comic (old comics were about 2d each etc). I tended to keep my Pows, Smash's etc as they were a bit more expensive and special issues (1st issues, free gift issues, Holiday specials, Annuals etc). In the 70s I kept all my UK Marvel weeklies ( ie Mighty World of Marvels, Spider - man Comics weekly, Avengers etc) for several years (still have first 30 of those titles) before giving them to a charity shop. US comics I kept religiously although now weeding these out now as well.

[Digifiend]

I have around 15 years of Beanos stashed away, along with a few dozen Dandys, and that's not including the annuals. When I redecorate my bedroom, I'll have to put the comics into folders or something (six months per binder, I think) as a lot of them are currently hidden where I can't get at them, behind my bed (which is a bunk with cupboards underneath - it's falling apart, being over a decade old though, so it'll be replaced with a more grown up bed when the room is done) or in the drawer of a cabinet (some of my annuals are on the shelves) which is behind my computer!

[Lew Stringer]

Did you throw your comics away and now are trying to get them back again? Did you keep them every week?
Thanks.

Comics are generally considered to be junk and throwaway items in the UK. Perhaps it's one reason why Britain doesn't show the same appreciation of its comics history as European countries.

I threw out my early comics (1964-66) but started collecting and saving British and American comics from 1967 onwards. (Although every few years I'll get rid of the more recent ones except for those I'm published in.)

Over the years I've re-acquired the early sixties ones I threw out and more besides as I'm interested in comics from every era, not just my own nostalgia.

[blaing]

When I originally collected comics as a kid, I would have them for close to about a year after release before I had to have a regular "clearout" (no recycling back then for us.) (1974-1982)

Today, since I started to collect again, I have ended up buying a sampling of the comics (mainly IPC/Fleetway) that I read as a kid, plus (thanks to the now defunct "Classics from the Comics") have been introduced to all of D. C. Thomson's comic titles.

Not only that I had for a number of years a selection of Gold Key/Whitman and Harvey comic titles (hand me downs from my brother)

[Captain Storm]

In retrospect what were we thinking!? Of course back then they were essentially weekly escapism and the following week would be used to wrap up fish and chips Nobody could have foretold the advent of the internet and basically without it , we wouldn't now be chatting about it. I had a complete set of Starlord comics - the full run - and for many years after was gutted that I didn't keep them. Probably the best comic ever produced. Jeez , it's a travesty that the poorer selling 2000ad subsumed it. Apparently the bosses at the time thought 2000ad was the cooler sounding name. Somebody mentioned in an earlier post that Misty was amalgamated with Tammy to shore up falling sales. If so ,why wasn't Misty the lead name on the masthead. Parralels with Starlord methinks. Still , it was all a long time ago and it can and will never be the same again. That's just the way it is

very sincerely,

The Cap.

[Lew Stringer]

Somebody mentioned in an earlier post that Misty was amalgamated with Tammy to shore up falling sales. If so ,why wasn't Misty the lead name on the masthead. Parralels with Starlord methinks. Still , it was all a long time ago and it can and will never be the same again. That's just the way it is

very sincerely,

The Cap.

I'd guess that they thought Tammy would have a wider appeal in the long term than a supernatural comic.

Wasn't Star Lord more expensive to produce than 2000AD, therefore making it more logical to keep 2000AD as the main title?

[Kashgar]

Of all the comics I had as a kid in the 1960's/early 1970's I have little recollection of where they all went. I distinctly remember that my cousin Leonard was gifted my collection of DC Comics in a moment of, now, quite unfathomable largesse on my part but, apart from that, everything else the Dandys and the Beanos, the Beezers and the Toppers, the Busters, the Victors the Hotspurs and all the rest seem to have quit the Moore household without a ripple of recollection as to the means and manner of their departure being left behind. I certainly don't remember any juvenile tantrum as the bin-men hauled away a young lifetime's collection of comic papers. So I can only imagine that they left in dribs and drabs on a regular basis, probably gifted to younger relations like my aforesaid cousin Leonard and with the grief of their passing, if it was ever there to be felt, being ameliorated by the batch of new comics that arrived in turn to replace them.
Of course annuals were different, they hung around for longer. They were books and not tarred with the same throwaway 'chip paper', here this week, gone next week, brush as the local newspaper that weekly comics suffered comparison with.

[Shaqui]

I'm a compulsive collector & hoarder (see the feature in the up-&-coming issue of 'Andersonic' for more! ) and usually kept my comics but also had (ack!) a habit of cutting them up and putting thing in scrapbooks so little of the original hoard remains - although I still have the first five years of the 1980s 'Eagle', plus specials and annuals (the last throe while at college).

In adult life I've rebuilt my collection to the point where I can hardly move because of the shelves and boxes lining every room , hall, stairwell and cupboards...

I'll shut up now...