Comics UK

I received a couple of Tobys today. I assume the colour double-pager Num Num and his Funny Family (featuring Drag-a-Chair Kitten!) is a reprint from Playhour and/or TV Toyland, potentially from as far back as ten or eleven years earlier. All the other strips are copyrighted to Martspress. Some time ago Captain Storm posted that Toby was published by Martspress, though it's actually an IPC publication, so I wonder why they made that arrangement.

Leonard Matthews seems to have cut a deal with IPC that enabled his Martspress company to use their material whenever he wanted - even when he was packaging material for other publishers. For example this 1980s title, produced for Marvel Comics, included strips from Toby, Rupert and Once Upon A Time alongside Frank Bellamy's Robin Hood from Swift!



- Phil Rushton

philcom55 wrote:Leonard Matthews seems to have cut a deal with IPC that enabled his Martspress company to use their material whenever he wanted -

The funny thing with Toby, though, is that it's IPC using mostly Martspress material!