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Looks good, Mike. I don't know enough about early story papers to comment but most of your article seems to stand up well.
Just a few points that I noticed:
1: Doctor Who "appeared on and off in the much older TV Comic".
Well, sort of but it needs clarification I think. The Doctor Who strip ran every week from 1964 to 1971, after which it jumped to Polystyle's new adventure weekly Countdown (which was re-named TV Action a year later). Doctor Who returned to TV Comic when TV Action merged into it in 1973.
2: "In 1966 Smash! Appeared, with a similar diet of mostly humour and some superheroes. In 1967 Pow, Fantastic and Terrific were started. These were dominated by Marvel content, and the characters appeared on the cover in overblown American-style blurbs. The power comics did not last long, all merging into Smash!, which was revamped into a humour comic in 1969, before merging with Valiant."
Not really. (I presume you used the article about Smash from Crikey for your info, which made the same mistakes.) From the outset, Smash! was a UK humour and adventure weekly. It added The Hulk from No.16, and Batman soon after, and other Marvel strips much later, but it always retained some new adventure and humour material as well. Smash! was not revamped into a humour comic in 1969. Just the opposite. It was retooled into more of a traditional adventure comic in the style of Lion and Valiant. (See: http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2009/ ... rates.html )
Pow! wasn't dominated by Marvel content. It took up about 50%, with the other 50% shared between new UK adventure and humour strips.
3: You expressed some uncertainty over Striker's launch. It was 2003, not 1999.
For me, FM, there are two main areas of concern, the first being errors of spelling and grammar, some of which are clearly just careless, to be fair. The other concerns comments you make about DC Thomson papers, or characters, that are simply wrong.
Some examples include highwayman when you mean highwaymen, footballed for footballer, it's (it is) when you mean its (ie. belonging to), less pages when you mean fewer pages, the masked avengers was called when you mean were called, a missing a in your sentence This was gamble that didn't pay off. The word installment is usually written instalment in this country. Could you also check the spelling of Turett in The Secret of the Grey Turett. It may well be correct of course, as it is a very early story, but these days the word has 2 rs and 1 t. Also look again at The writer of this story, and the later serial The Fifth Form At St. Dominic's were written by Talbot Baines Reed..., and, instead of a full stop after eighties in ...became the dominant force in story papers through the eighties. Though..., put a comma, and then use a lower case t for though, making one sentence out of two.
Turning to DC Thomsons' output, you say DC Thomson serials were actually a series of complete stories. This did happen from time to time but it wasn't the norm. You also say In these early days Thomsons avoided recurring characters. This is untrue because the editor of Adventure in 1921 realised that having popular characters that returned for new adventures was the perfect way of ensuring that his readership returned as well. In the six months prior to the launch of The Rover on March 4th 1922 there were at least eight Adventure returnees on their way to becoming very popular, Dan Trelawney, a boy jockey, Jimmy Power, a star goalkeeper, Dandy Nick Holt, another top class footballer, Dick Ripley, a worldwide adventurer, Peter Nicholls, a junior seaman, Non-Stop Ned Byng, a detective adventurer, Syd Osborne, a wireless operator, and Jig Lumsden, an adventurer, often in boats. When you refer to the launch in 1930 and 1933 respectively of The Skipper and The Hotspur, you say that they were virtually identical to the previous three. I suppose that could be true of The Skipper but it certainly isn't true of The Hotspur because it was launched as a school story paper. I am still amazed at just how inventive their writers were, given that fundamental restriction on their creativity. Your point that the Big Five remained resolutely text-based until the late forties ignores the 1938 15-instalment picture serial The Crimson Crusader so it might be better for you to put mainly text based (hyphen not required here). You say Limp Along Leslie was first seen in The Wizard in 1960. His first serial started in 1951 and by 1960 he had been in nine series and part of a tenth, including repeats.
I think it would be a good idea for you to have your article proof-read before you publish it, just to iron out spelling and grammar errors. Facts are a different matter because a proof-reader might not be an expert on comics. Hopefully, if you have made any mistakes where the Amalgamated Press is concerned, unlikely I must admit in that that is your main area of expertise, there will be someone else to point them out. I have no issue with the overall thrust of your article and I wish you well with it.
Thanks for the advice everybody. I ought to add that the final version will also contain a lengthy acknollidjements section. Oh and better grammar and spelling, I just wanted to get the first version "down" so I could ask for advice on it.
Most of the stuff about the Amalgamated Press from the 1890's - 1920's was informed by my own collection, so hopefully I've not made too many glaring errors there (still not sure when The Schoolgirl started though, any ideas?).
Also a lot of the stories I've seen in the Thomson papers are "complete" in that a problem appears and is solved all in one issue. I'll have to find some other way to put that, maybe I could say that each episode of a serial explained what went before in the story itself rather than in a "story so far" section.
felneymike wrote:
Also a lot of the stories I've seen in the Thomson papers are "complete" in that a problem appears and is solved all in one issue. I'll have to find some other way to put that, maybe I could say that each episode of a serial explained what went before in the story itself rather than in a "story so far" section.
Yes, most Thomson serials seemed to have situations that were resolved in the same episode but often advanced the main plot a little too. (Eg: getting the character closer to his objective by uncovering a new clue or suchlike.) I always thought it was a very clever writing method that could satisfy both new and regular readers.
The Fleetway/IPC method of cliffhanger serials created stories that were far more frantic. As a kid I preferred that, but on reflection the Thomson method offered stories that were more thoughtful and better structured.
Phoenix is bang on in pointing out spelling and grammatical errors and the suggestion of having someone who knows what they are doing to proof read, even after you think you have everything checked and double-checked, is something you must do. That apart, the article moves right along, is informative and entertaining. I can't comment on the accuracy as the knowledge of many on this forum greatly exceeds mine and I, therefore, take what you write as accurate. A couple of items I would like to comment on. The first being Aldine, because later in the companies life (early 1900's to after 1st. W.W.?),they published pocket text libraries, e.g. Aldine Thrillers, which featured stories of yet another Holmes/Blake clone, Dixon Brett. Aldine also published Diamond Library, and, again, Dixon Brett was the star.
Next, James Henderson & Sons Ltd. published The Nugget Library, early 1900's - W.W.1?) which featured both school stories and yet another Holmes/Blake clone, Peter Flint. I realise you can't and don't want to include everything but if you didn't already have this info., you might be interested.
Back to proof-reading and checking. I prepared an article for an American publication, which has been accepted but, as yet, hasn't seen the light of day and in it I tackle (or try to) some of the masked mystery men from British papers who preceded Superman and Batman (and The Phantom, in some cases) and the many obscure (to non-British storypaper and comic fans, or those on this forum, that is) heroes and MMM who followed. I did my research and tried mightily to get it down on paper in a coherent and grammatically correct form, only to be told that many things needed to be fixed. Fortunately my wife, who has written, edited and proof read, educational and training materials, professionally, came to the rescue and made a number of corrections and offered suggestions on re-phrasing and other matters which I knew better than to refuse.
