First Comic You Ever Read

[Raven]

They were probably just reprinted US stories anyway. In fact they may even have been US imports (I vaguely remember them being that size and full colour).

No, they were UK originated.

[Digifiend]

If you know the franchise's history, it becomes obvious. The Mirage comics are too violent (moreso than any of the TMNT cartoons, which were toned down for kids, the 1987 version severely) and while Archie (the publishers of the US Sonic the Hedgehog comic) did do a comic directly based on the 1987 series, it was monthly (had to check this on Comic Vine), so the UK comic couldn't use it as they'd have run out of material too quickly. They had no choice but to create their own material, there simply wasn't the US material available to reprint. This is the wiki I mentioned.
http://tmnt.wikia.com/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles

[philcom55]

Did Harold Hare comic ever give away a deluxe plasticine free gift in the 60s that you are aware of, Phil? Coz I definitely have a vivid memory of a multi-coloured plasticine set, wrapped in cellophane, from some free-gift nursery source from this period.....

It definitely rings a bell but I can't remember the comic involved (Harold Hare's Own Paper no.1 featured a free mask and balloon). Nursery titles like HHOP, Playhour, Jack & Jill, Bimbo, Once Upon a Time, etc. had some fantastic free gifts and were amongst the most successful comics ever published; what's more I suspect they would have been the first type of comic most of us read (or at least owned) - in spite of which they are very rarely collected today. The trouble is that adults only tend to retain a handful of impressionistic memories from infancy. To my mind this is a great shame as these titles didn't only contain work by artists such as Bill Ritchie, Hugh McNeill, Ron Embleton and Don Lawrence, whose work is well-known from publications aimed at older readers, but also some equally remarkable art by people who are now all-but forgotten because they specialized in the nursery market throughout their career. One example of the latter group is the amazing Peter Woolcock whom I'd rate alongside Carl Barks and Reg Parlett as a true master of the humorous comic strip - yet wonderful pieces of his original artwork from the 1950s and 1960s can be acquired for next to nothing today!

Here, for instance, are a couple of panels I picked up from the Birmingham International Comics Convention on Saturday for just £1 each:



...To see how phenomenally good he was one only has to look at the skill with which he added the incidental background characters in these enlarged details from the above scenes:





A brilliant artist - one of the very best in fact. IMHO It would be criminally unjust to ignore him just because he only drew for the very young!

- Phil Rushton

[PaulTwist]

My first comic was, I believe, the second issue of Buttons, the BBC's pre-school comic. I suppose it was the 80s iteration of Toybox. I must have been three years old. I think it came with a free yellow badge that looked like a button, but I'm not 100% sure as it was nearly 30 years ago.

From their I graduated to Look-In. As a child (and, to be honest, as an adult) I was obsessed with TV - I think the main reason I learned to read was to read the listings in the TV Times - so Look-In was the obvious choice. After that I discovered The Beano, then Whizzer & Chips, Buster, Oink! (my favourite kids' comic of all time), Big Comic Fortnightly, Flintstones & Friends, The Bog Paper, TV Help...

I was always put off US comics because I preferred humour to adventure, which is why the first US comic I picked up was Groo The Wanderer in 1989, back when US comics were still readily available in newsagents. From then I eventually got into US superhero comics, the Marvel UK Punisher reprints, the London Editions Batman reprints and DC Action (where I discovered Grant Morrison's Animal Man run - mind-blowing stuff for a 12 year old!), 2000 AD/Megazine and Toxic!

From age 8-16 pretty much all of my pocket money went on comics. At 17 I discovered booze and girls and comics fell by the wayside (with the exception of Peter Bagge's Hate and anything by Evan Dorkin). Now I spend more on comics than I do on booze again!

[PaulTwist]

If you know the franchise's history, it becomes obvious. The Mirage comics are too violent (moreso than any of the TMNT cartoons, which were toned down for kids, the 1987 version severely) and while Archie (the publishers of the US Sonic the Hedgehog comic) did do a comic directly based on the 1987 series, it was monthly (had to check this on Comic Vine), so the UK comic couldn't use it as they'd have run out of material too quickly. They had no choice but to create their own material, there simply wasn't the US material available to reprint. This is the wiki I mentioned.
http://tmnt.wikia.com/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles

A few additional things to note:

The Archie comics based on the TV series were actually produced by Mirage then published by Archie. Very good they were too - probably better than the TV show!

The UK Fleetway comic was mostly Archie reprints but, as Digi noted, the UK comic was weekly and the US comics were monthly. Even though the US had a good head-start on the UK, they quickly caught up. The UK got around this first by producing "poster mags" (I think these were A2 sheets folded to A4, with a short-ish comic strip on one side and a poster on the other), then by originating new material to fill in between the US reprints. The difference between the material was quite obvious, not least because Michaelangelo's nunchuks were omitted from the UK-originated strips (as indeed they were edited out of the BBC broadcasts of the series) but were still present in the US reprints.

[Raven]

I suspect they would have been the first type of comic most of us read (or at least owned) - in spite of which they are very rarely collected today. The trouble is that adults only tend to retain a handful of impressionistic memories from infancy. To my mind this is a great shame as these titles didn't only contain work by artists such as Bill Ritchie, Hugh McNeill, Ron Embleton and Don Lawrence, whose work is well-known from publications aimed at older readers, but also some equally remarkable art by people who are now all-but forgotten because they specialized in the nursery market throughout their career.

It used to be really nice how there were quality UK comics for every age group, and you could graduate quite naturally from Playhour/Jack and Jill, to Donald & Mickey, to Whizzer and Chips, to Valiant, to 2000AD etc.

Certainly some of those "nursery" titles are very charming. Playhour was certainly my regular (Mr. Toad was my favourite strip), but I must have read Jack and Jill, too, at times, because Walter Hottle Bottle, Tiger Tim and the Bruin Boys, and the fab Freddie Frog have all stuck in my mind.

Amazing that you got that original Freddie art for £1 per picture!

Yes, it's a pity there's little interest in these comics, as a lot of effort went into those pre-schooler titles - they made reading very appealing; I remember Disneyland being a high quality weekly, and Pippin and Playland were both nice.

Did anyone get Teddy Bear?

[Raven]

The UK Fleetway comic was mostly Archie reprints but, as Digi noted, the UK comic was weekly and the US comics were monthly. Even though the US had a good head-start on the UK, they quickly caught up.

The UK comic was actually fortnightly.

[PaulTwist]

The UK comic was actually fortnightly.

Gah! What he said.

[Digifiend]

Just to point out, while admittedly I did presume that it was weekly because of the mention of Beano being bought instead, I never actually said it was.

[PaulTwist]

Don't worry man, it was my error!

[Peter Gray]

Just been reading 1961-2 Jack and Jill comics the funny tales of Freddy frog...they are very well drawn and good backgrounds as you say..

nice to get original art like that..
might have to do a post on this artist...what welse did he dra other than Freddie..

I actually found another washing line episode But this time it is an elastic washing line which makes the washing ping off next door into Mrs Badgers washing basket and she lifts up in embarssement Freddies spotted pants..

[AndyB]

I think mine was probably the Beano, or Whizzer and Chips. Too long ago!

[Peter Gray]

http://petergraycartoonsandcomics.blogs ... eddie.html

My first comic must have had the Mr Men in it...I was a huge fan...remember it was on the back page of one of the junior comics..
Fun to do..I remember..lots of cutting and making...did any of these comics survive!!!
Playhour
Jack and Jill
Buttons.got the first issue..not now though.....might still have that yellow button somewhere..

[wilsia]

As a small child I remember clearly sitting on my mums knee and her reading Harold Hare to me..Am I right in saying that Harold Hare was also in Jack and Jill?

Also I remember my Mum showing me a advert for the new Robin annual and asking would I like it for Christmas.This would have been in and around 1966. My Mum was an avid reader and my love of comics came from her.

I progressed to TV Comic and even at a young age I recall thinking why was "Mighty Moth and Texas Ted" not on TV.

Ive enjoyed reading the comments on this subject. Great memories.

[davidandrewsimpson]

The earliest comic I can remember is a nursery comic called Jack And Jill. I have a very vivid memory of being at an agricultural show in my home town of Ellon, and one of my parents must have bought it for me. That would have been in the early sixties, so time wise that matches what I've just ggogled about Jack And Jill.

The first comic I got regularly, delivered every week by the butcher's van (we lived in the country then), was The Hotspur. That would have been circa 1963/1964. Several years ago I bought a large stack of Hotspurs from 1966 and 1967. it was rather reassuring that the strips I remembered still seemed to be rather good, while strips that I couoldn't even dimly remember were mostly quite poor.