Comics UK

RE Sparky cover strips The Moonsters was on the cover from 35-139. Sparky himself was on the cover 2-34 and then 140-210. Barney Bulldog, Sparky's longest running cover strip, was then there for issues 211-447 after which large panel covers, again quite often initially featuring Barney, ran from 448 to 567. Finally the Strip Some Mummies Do 'Ave 'Em featured on the cover in issues 568-652. Issue No 1 BTW had a free gift cover.

Are you sure? I'm sure I've seen an L Cars cover in Classics. I've just updated Wikipedia to state that Moonsters and Mummies were cover stars.

AFTER BARNEY BULLDOG stopped being 'cover star' around 1974 [large single-gag front cover pic], SPARKY started doing eclectic covers all through later 74 and most of 1975 [see 'GOODIES' cover in COR!! thread elsewhere on here]: JOHN GEERING also done a lot of excellent one-pic covers in this period. This was SPARKY'S 'anything-goes' front-cover period, the most extreme example of which was a blow-up of an amateurish reader's doodle [A coup -----that of gracing the coveted front cover of a 'name' comic spot---that was denied to many a professional cartoonist.]

Digifiend wrote:Are you sure? I'm sure I've seen an L Cars cover in Classics. I've just updated Wikipedia to state that Moonsters and Mummies were cover stars.

I think you'll find that this was in the one-off period 1973-1975 when a lot of different characters featured on the cover although most of these were single panel jobs. There was also a hiatus in the Barney Bullbog run in Dec 1970 when there was a single panel Xmas cover drawn by Vic Neill featuring the whole Sparky cast. I'd forgotten about that one.

It was a three page story, which I guess would've continued in the centre spread, so that would explain it.

here are some examples of SPARKY'S 'single-image' covers, which ran during 1974-75. This stuff was an almost 'MAD'-like attempt to produce eyecatching covers, with varying degrees of success; some punters thought this was a waste of an entire page [one gag stretched to the limit], but some excellent JOHN GEERING covers from this era:








SPARKY'S poorest-ever covers came from this period also; these depicted photographic blowups of then-contemporary popstars, and are for the most part pretty dire.......for serious SPARKY buffs, only!

ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:
SPARKY'S poorest-ever covers came from this period also; these depicted photographic blowups of then-contemporary popstars, and are for the most part pretty dire.......for serious SPARKY buffs, only!

They looked rather like black and white photocopies, didn't they? Goodness knows why they couldn't have got colour pics at least.

I like disaster adventure sci-fi strips..





http://www.26pigs.com/sparky/lg3.html

from ebay

The Lonely Lad of Blue Lagoon is presumably the exact same character as Lonely Larry who appeared in the Hotspur Books throughout the Seventies?

He is indeed. When I mentioned his Hotspur appearances in the 1960's I only referred to those items that were published pre his arrival as a reprint in the pages of Sparky in 1967.

Great to see more of "Willy The Woeful Wizard" It is the October 1966 to April 1967 Sparky's that i'm most short of which is when Willie appeared!

Incidently! After Easter I am starting a "Sparky File" thread in the `Comic Titles` section. I aim to do a page-by-page breakdown of contents in selected Sparky's 1965 to Jan 1969. Starting with Issue No2. Sadly, I don't have No1.

wow! Old 'SPARKY' is sure getting the in-depth treatment on COMICS UK.......I will help out with what visual material I have from the early comic days.

Those scans confirm it. The L Cars cover had the same Sparky logo on it. It was the final logo wasn't it? It's used on the late 1970s annuals anyway.

Rab! I am currently getting a set of Photo-Copies together to send to you for your own Sparky archives! If you can scan a few to help my article it would be very welcome! I havn't done as many colour ones as I could due to cost-but there are a few! The colour cover of Sparky No7 is included as it must be as close to `racist` as you could come in those days! Unbelievably bad taste!

there's still a lot of bad taste in the media in 2009, Alan.....surely we al agree on this???!!!!