Great news inside for all readers

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

That's the first time I've laid eyes on WEE KEN for decades, Powerfan!

In the words of youtube-users: 'thanks for sharing'.

[stevezodiac]

I have quite a few Titbits and Weekends and lets not forget Reveille. The cartoonist Rigby who drew the political cartoons in the Sun when it was relaunched in the late 60s always drew a little man in each cartoon. As did Franklin who drew a small pigeon as well. I have a book of Rigby cartoons somewhere - I saw it last week but can't remember where it was. Here's a rare Annual amalgamation. The contents seem to be reprints with stuff from other comics like Express Weekly.

[Digifiend]

The 1973 Wham annual was also called Wham and Pow - but unlike 1974, used the comics' final logos. Just checked the Comics UK annuals gallery at archive.org (I'll be glad when Al restores the website to working order)

Another major example of amalgamated annuals is The Magic-Beano Book, which was a merged Beano Book and Magic Fun Book created due to paper rationing and Magic Comic's resulting demise. It was dated 1943 through to 1950.

[blaing]

And more recently, we had the Topper and Sparky book 1981, which was the final Sparky themed annual.

[Power fan]

That's the first time I've laid eyes on WEE KEN for decades, Powerfan!

In the words of youtube-users: 'thanks for sharing'.

My pleasure. As a one-off especially for you, see if you can find Wee Ken in these 5 pictures - he's definitely there!

[Power fan]

Pics 4 and 5

[steelclaw]

My mum used to buy Weekend everyweek, I used to like the latest pop lyric and picture they used to have in it.

[Niblet]

Thanks for posting the Weekend covers, Power Fan.

When I was a teenager, the woman next door used to buy loads of magazines (Woman's Realm and other ladymags, Titbits and Weekend), and every month she'd give my mum a big pile of mags that she'd finished with. I'd immediately look for copies of Titbits, as it would feature rather racy photos which required a great deal of studying in the privacy of my bedroom. That was in the late 60s/early 70s, and at the time Weekend seemed a more staid publication than Titbits, but from your posts it seems to have become rather racy in the 80s.

I'm not sure when the original Titbits ceased publication, but I think years later someone published a top-shelf mag with the same name, which I suppose was well-suited to that kind of reading material.

I never knew Bob Todd could foresee the future.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

I found 3 of the 5 'Wee Kens', Powerfan! The covers might seem a bit titilating, but there's similar imagery seen on supermarket shelves today.....a different era with a different hypocrisy.

Good to see these type of magazine covers again.

[stevezodiac]

Does anyone know where Weekend originated from? The issues I have from the 60s and early 70s have issue numbers in the 3000s but it didn't exist by that name before the late 50s so must have continued from another magazine and changed the title. Titbits started in the late 19th century I think it finished in the 1980s.

[STARBOY]

Weekend took over Titbits in the early mid 80s if I remember clearly (certainly around that time) I remember my mum getting them in the late 60s - mid 70s and used to renjoy reading them so I imagine there were a lot of cartoons in them - also remember the previously mentioned Revelie - Does anyone remember if any of these mags had a cartoon character (if I remember correctly just a little sketch type character) hidden in the pages that you had to find???

[stevezodiac]

So these were the final single Pow! and Wham! annuals.

[Digifiend]

Odd... all three are the same price (60p) even though Thunder has double the number of pages that the others have.

[philcom55]

Interesting that the Pow! and Wham! annuals still seem to be using a lot of Odhams material, even though most of the staff had left by that point after years of being hamstrung by IPC's insistence that none of their titles should compete directly with the sort of material published by Fleetway. A sad end for one of Britain's most illustrious publishers!

- Phil Rushton

[Lew Stringer]

Odd... all three are the same price (60p) even though Thunder has double the number of pages that the others have.

The Wham and Pow annuals were on much better paper and had full colour or spot colour on every page. Thunder Annual was mostly black and white on pulp paper.

Interesting that the Pow! and Wham! annuals still seem to be using a lot of Odhams material, even though most of the staff had left by that point after years of being hamstrung by IPC's insistence that none of their titles should compete directly with the sort of material published by Fleetway. A sad end for one of Britain's most illustrious publishers!

- Phil Rushton

Interesting! I didn't know that IPC had insisted that for Odhams. I always assumed Odhams wanted to forge their own path, choosing to avoid war/sport stories in the main. Any more info on this?