Junior Detectives in the story papers and comics

[Earl]

Good topic. Nothing springs to mind in the comics’ world. As a child of the 70’s and early 80’s I devoured everything I could find in children’s detective fiction. I started with Blyton and her Famous Five series and soon graduated to the Five Find Outers and Dog, that lead me to the 3 Investigators series which I continued to follow into my teens even when I started to venture into more adult fiction. I read a few Hardy Boys and remember the 70’s show and especially Pamela Sue Martin in Nancy Drew. I did buy the first of the Papercuts Nancy Drew comics when they started a few years back and was a little disappointed with the latest Emma Roberts movie, although ‘the wife’ enjoyed it.

[Raven]

Of course, speaking of the Five, there were the Famous Five TV series adaptations, beautifully drawn by Mike Noble, in Look-In in the late Seventies. Some of his best black and white work. Some great Arnaldo Putzu painted Five front covers, too.

[philcom55]

I thought of this thread at a boot sale this morning when I came across a number of short strips that were actually called 'Junior Detective' while flipping through a 1970s Knockout Annual. The art was late period Ron Turner, but unfortunately the junior detective in question turned out to be the reader himself who was asked to solve a series of crimes by 'spotting the clues'!

- Phil Rushton

[Raven]

I thought of this thread at a boot sale this morning when I came across a number of short strips that were actually called 'Junior Detective' while flipping through a 1970s Knockout Annual. The art was late period Ron Turner, but unfortunately the junior detective in question turned out to be the reader himself who was asked to solve a series of crimes by 'spotting the clues'!

- Phil Rushton

We had that one posted here:

http://www.comicsuk.co.uk/Forum/viewtop ... f=4&t=3301

[Phoenix]

Leave it with me, Raven, and I'll try to get back to you a bit more quickly than I did over my impressions of Martin Barker's book Action - The Story Of A Violent Comic. Guaranteed.

Right, Raven, first come first served. Juvenile sleuths within a fortnight, today Action. As a preamble, let me remind you that although I have seen the odd copy of Action on dealers' stalls, I have never actually read one. I had heard about the withdrawal of the title, of course, and as I assumed that Martin Barker's book would give me all the information I required about the comic's history, I bought it. Mind you, thanks to Al, I got it at an extremely favourable Buy It Now price. If it had been at the more normal auction price of about £50 I wouldn't have the book yet. Furthermore, books and comics with a similar inherent interest factor have been entering my house since time immemorial without my necessarily finding the time to engage with that interest factor. Indeed, many such books that have been staring at me accusingly for half a century or more have still not been engaged with and regrettably, in a good number of instances, book and time may never come together.

I now have the problem of deciding whether I am supposed to comment on the book or the comic. Let's do both, the book first. I found it excellent, largely due to its measured and eminently rational introduction and conclusion, and the pages interpolated within the strips gave very useful information as well. The bulk of the book is made up of sample strips from the comic. If these had merely been odd episodes, I would not have found them particularly useful or illustrative. However, the author chose to present extensive and continuous episodes so the reader could easily follow the plot and also clearly see the evidence, the case for the prosecution perhaps we could call it. Other than stating that the author gratefully acknowledges all his sources and the assistance of people who were persuaded that he would present a balanced argument rather than some histrionic polemic, there is little more that needs to be said about the book.

Where the comic is concerned I only have the examples presented to go by. I read through some of the stories first and soon noticed that they were derivative. Barker quite properly acknowledges this in his introduction, but it did take me some time to realize how cleverly the source material had been adapted. Nevertheless, they were probably more derivative than the author admits. If we take Look Out For Lefty! for example, all the violence on and off the pitch, the cheating, the vindictiveness, the revenge, the young player coming through despite the setbacks etc have been seen before, even as far back as the text story papers of the forties and fifties. Two examples must suffice, a similar bottle-throwing incident occurred in They've Kicked Out Baldy Hogan! in Adventure 1301 (Dec. 24 1949), heading block picture posted below, and the whole of Dozy Danny, which started in The Hotspur 1191 (Sep. 5 1959) and finished in issue 29 of The New Hotspur. Danny Lorimer was seriously ill-treated by his feckless stepfather and the pupils and many teachers at his primary school and then got another dose at his secondary school. He didn't acquire his nickname because he was dim but because, due to being forced to get up in the middle of the night to make briquettes and prepare bunches of firewood for his stepfather to sell each day, he inevitably kept falling asleep at inopportune moments. Oddly the violence in Look Out For Lefty! and indeed in Action's other serials, didn't really disturb me. I'm wondering whether my sensitivities have been dulled, not so much by the passage of time but by the increasingly relaxed attitudes that have perhaps affected me subliminally over the last thirty years or so. I thought about how shocking Grange Hill was when it started because there was nothing remotely similar going on where I was teaching, children didn't even answer back, and then how it was taken off air because it wasn't reflecting what was going on in schools then, real schools were much worse. I was mildly disappointed not to have examples from all the serials but I'm sure the overall impression would not have been slewed at all even if finance had allowed for a slightly longer book.

I've wondered whether the comic would have suffered the same fate now, and I've decided that I don't think it would be remotely likely. It seems to have suffered from the same kind of protectionist forces that tried to prevent the publication of Stanley Kauffman's The Philanderer, Lady Chatterley's Lover and Hubert Selby's Last Exit To Brooklyn. The more enlightened thinking that prevailed on those occasions was unfortunately not available to Action. I think Barker sees an irony in the fact that the comic appears to have been brought down and emasculated by some people whose attitudes in that instance were similar to some of those that they were seeking to suppress in the comic itself.

[Raven]

Thanks for your thoughts, Phoenix. I think the book's very good, too - very interesting social/comics history, nicely illustrated with so many consecutive strips. Though I think Barker probably over-intellectualises and over-romanticises somewhat, with his vision of working class urchins finding this comic a friend that spoke for them in their struggle for survival; the mean streets of Britain supposedly ringing with the cries of "They've taken away our comic!" when it was pulled.

I was probably a little young for it, but I do remember Action being passed round in junior school each week and didn't like it myself, finding most of the artwork very unappealing and most of the strips uninteresting. There was certainly a morbid fascination with the weekly gore of Hook Jaw, though, the strip we did give some attention to.

I do remember being quite disturbed by one image in Action at the time; the big picture at the top of page 2 of the first Kids Rule OK. This was one of the comics kept by the school in a cupboard for rainy days - I expect they hadn't checked the contents. I have a copy here now and it's a particularly extreme one, also featuring a very gory Hook Jaw, mostly in colour and mostly depicting a bloke being killed in various stages by Hook Jaw, and a violent Hell's Highway, too. I still remember how troubled I felt by the Kids Rule OK image upon first seeing it. At that age I just don't think the idea of people inflicting that kind of violence on a person had really occurred to me, and it stayed with me a while.

One thing I disagree on:.

I've wondered whether the comic would have suffered the same fate now, and I've decided that I don't think it would be remotely likely. It seems to have suffered from the same kind of protectionist forces that tried to prevent the publication of Stanley Kauffman's The Philanderer, Lady Chatterley's Lover and Hubert Selby's Last Exit To Brooklyn. The more enlightened thinking that prevailed on those occasions was unfortunately not available to Action

With protectionist forces for child-orientated things now stronger than ever, I don't think it likely that a comic like Action would be remotely likely in *even getting within a mile of the drawing board in the first place* today. Reading the Action book with its samples really is like entering another world.

I recently got four issues from August-October 1976 and it'll be interesting to look through and read them.

You report that your juvenile sleuth response is coming soon, so I presume you have found something or, indeed, sundry somethings from your D C Thomson archive. I'm very much looking forward to reading about whatever you've uncovered.

[Phoenix]

With protectionist forces for child-orientated things now stronger than ever, I don't think likely that a comic like Action would be remotely likely in *even getting within miles of the drawing board in the first place*

Yes, I'm sure you're right, Raven, but that wasn't the point I was making. I was working from a hypothetical assumption that the comic was still available on a week by week basis. The society that children have to negotiate these days is very different from that of the seventies. Bullying is almost a default position now because children cannot allow themselves to be seen as victims. I see it as a defence mechanism. Strike first to be on the safe side. Whether we like it or not we are living in an era of gangs, happy slapping, teacher baiting and casual disregard for courtesy and general decency. Watching internet porn is routine, and one of the results of this is that teenage girls are expected to do things with their boyfriends that would probably have been rare even in marriages before the war. Naturally those child-protection organisations would do their utmost to prevent a comic like Action from reaching the bookstalls now on the same kind of basis as cigarettes would be instantly banned, if tobacco was a recent discovery, in order to protect adults. However, nowadays even your gory shark activities can be seen up close and personal on a good number of programmes on assorted TV channels including BBC and ITV. I stand by my point that Action would not be banned now. In comparison with other media offerings, Action would no longer raise eyebrows, it's just too tame.

[Raven]

I'd still disagree there. Obviously the idea of Action still running has to be a fantasy anyway, but I think there'd be as big an outcry as before, if not bigger. For the most part, the junior school age group (9-12) that Action was aimed at are still fairly sheltered - gangs, happy slapping, internet porn, etc. isn't a part of *their* world, and their schools focus on constant 'positive reinforcement', 'good citizenship' etc. with even competitiveness treated with suspicion. This is an era where young children are extremely featherbedded and 'protected' and their entertainment reflects this. Even Dennis is no longer allowed to be a menace.

Though such things are all around and easily available for teens - and, in the adult racks alongside 2000AD it would indeed pass unnoticed - I think Action at its most extreme; a nihilistic, cynically bleak and extremely violent comic *specifically aimed* at that young age group, in the children's racks, would cause an extreme reaction. And something like Kids Rule OK, with old men having their teeth kicked out by thugs, knife fights and the like, still isn't tame as children's entertainment.

For this kind of thing:

Bullying is almost a default position now because children cannot allow themselves to be seen as victims. I see it as a defence mechanism. Strike first to be on the safe side. Whether we like it or not we are living in an era of gangs, happy slapping, teacher baiting and casual disregard for courtesy and general decency.

I think you're talking about a minority. Most kids aren't like that, or any more so than previous eras.


(PS - if a moderator is reading and knows how, maybe this Action talk should be moved to its own thread for people looking for threads on Action, and to keep this one mostly about kid detectives in comics?)

[Lew Stringer]

Yes, I'm sure you're right, Raven, but that wasn't the point I was making. I was working from a hypothetical assumption that the comic was still available on a week by week basis. .....

(snip)

......However, nowadays even your gory shark activities can be seen up close and personal on a good number of programmes on assorted TV channels including BBC and ITV. I stand by my point that Action would not be banned now. In comparison with other media offerings, Action would no longer raise eyebrows, it's just too tame.

So basically you've created your own hypothetical society where Action wouldn't be banned because it's been running since 1976 impervious to any ban. Naturally in that fantasy world the comic would be safe, but it's only safe because you say so.

In reality there's no way a comic like Action would be published for children today. The attitude to comics from parents, retailers, and publishers has been affected by history (the 1950s horror comics, Action, Oink, etc) making them all over-cautious. Despite there seemingly being no evidence to prove it the assumption is that "violent" comics are "bad" for children and Action wouldn't stand a chance of appearing on the shelves now. It might be possible in a comic aimed at adults, (2000AD still features violence and gore) but not for children.

[STARBOY]

I definately think ACTION if it was released today for children would be cancelled (in fact it wouldn't even get its first issue to WH Smiths)which is irionic considering some of the the trash they put on their shelves. It would have to be in a different format (a magazine type format such as the Megazine as opposed to 2000AD).

[Digifiend]

Sad but true. If BeanoMax had been mostly comic strip like the weekly Beano (which could've happened, they were planning on using the Wizard name at one point), it probably wouldn't have been stocked - shops apparently mistakenly think that comic strips don't sell. Beano and 2000AD say otherwise though...

[Lew Stringer]

Sad but true. If BeanoMax had been mostly comic strip like the weekly Beano (which could've happened, they were planning on using the Wizard name at one point), it probably wouldn't have been stocked - shops apparently mistakenly think that comic strips don't sell. Beano and 2000AD say otherwise though...

2000AD's sales are very low though I think. However kids always respond well to comic strips. The inclusion of articles has been around for a long time (Look-In, TV21, Eagle, and earlier) but it's become so commonplace now that publishers expect to include them to save on strip costs and retailers expect them to appeal to readers.

I just wish these retail giants could look up from their spreadsheets and find time to be aware that comics still sell across Europe and Japan. There's no reason that British kids would be any different in their appreciation of strips than French or Norwegian kids if the right presentation and tone is found. Comics have a universal appeal if done right. Unfortunately most Brits have such a downer on comics that they fail to see any potential or artistic merit in them, in my experience.

Anyway, I'd better shut up before I'm accused of "lecturing" again.

[Raven]

Aren't we losing our way a bit here? I'm not sure Digi was following the exchange properly. We were saying that Action wouldn't exist today as a children's publication purely because of its violent content, nothing to do with the fact that it was predominantly comic strips.

[Digifiend]

I was responding to STARBOY's post - he compared Judge Dredd Megazine to 2000AD, and they have a similar relationship to each other that Beano and BeanoMax do.

[Raven]

I was responding to STARBOY's post - he compared Judge Dredd Megazine to 2000AD, and they have a similar relationship to each other that Beano and BeanoMax do.

Yes, but I thought Starboy's point was that if it was aimed at children today, Action would be cancelled/not stocked at all due to its violent content, unless it was issued in a more adult magazine format like the Judge Dredd Megazine - nothing to do with shops thinking that comic strips per se don't sell, as you seemed to interpret it, but that its *content* would be unacceptable as a children's title.