felneymike wrote: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.
felneymike wrote: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).
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!ISPYSHHHGUY wrote: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.....
A few additional things to note:Digifiend wrote: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
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.philcom55 wrote: 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.
Amazing that you got that original Freddie art for £1 per picture!philcom55 wrote:
The UK comic was actually fortnightly.PaulTwist wrote: 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.
Gah! What he said.Raven wrote:The UK comic was actually fortnightly.