Comics UK

If you are indeed Ray Moore Kashgar, I gave you a name credit in me `Sparky File` as I upgraded some data on a few Sparky characters I hadn't known for certain were in earlier comics - `Meddlesome Matty` for example!

`IF` you are Ray, Kashgar, why did you not turn your talents to `Sparky`? Though, it has left me rather an open field! I could guess you felt (A) only 12 years life too little to work with! (B) Sparky deemed the "Runt of the litter" not worth the bother! I know some DC Thomson fans don't rate it much!

alanultron5 wrote:If you are indeed Ray Moore Kashgar, I gave you a name credit in me `Sparky File` as I upgraded some data on a few Sparky characters I hadn't known for certain were in earlier comics - `Meddlesome Matty` for example!

`IF` you are Ray, Kashgar, why did you not turn your talents to `Sparky`? Though, it has left me rather an open field! I could guess you felt (A) only 12 years life too little to work with! (B) Sparky deemed the "Runt of the litter" not worth the bother! I know some DC Thomson fans don't rate it much!

Yes I am Ray 'Dandy Monster Index' Moore Alan. At least I was when I got out of bed this morning.
Why no Sparky Index? Truthfully, I just didn't get around to it. It certainly wasn't it's relatively short life-span ( I did a Magic Index and it only ran to eighty issues) nor that I felt it wasn't, as a newer title, worth indexing. I think at one time I was considering putting all the later Thomson titles from Sparky to Hoot in one book but, for one reason or another, it just never materialised.

Ray! Glad to know you! I have thoroughly enjoyed those three books of yours since getting them! Did you know the `Mini-Martins` was originally a Sparky strip in 1971?

My `File` could never see light of day as a book! I'm just too opinionated i'm afraid! If i like something I really praise it-if I don't I `hammer` it! Afraid this is me! I did my file for myself mostly! Only when chance of it going on internet did I `moderate` meself somewhat! I am adding bits of data now as those Index' of Ray's have been invaluable! Just found out `Charlie Chutney` had been a Dandy strip in the mid 40s!

Alan, you don't have a copy of Dandy/Beano: An Alphabet of Fun then? The Dandy's Charlie Chutney was in it.

Not only did I bump into Phoenix on one of his travel expeditions but he gave me a brilliant present(So I didn't actually buy it) this amazing 200 page bumper book by the very man himself, I'm going to have some good reading, the colour pictures of the free gifts are great.



Read a review here.

http://www.csgb.co.uk/sitefiles/Publica ... okrev4.htm

alanultron5 wrote:Ray! Glad to know you! I have thoroughly enjoyed those three books of yours since getting them! Did you know the `Mini-Martins` was originally a Sparky strip in 1971?

My `File` could never see light of day as a book! I'm just too opinionated i'm afraid! If i like something I really praise it-if I don't I `hammer` it! Afraid this is me! I did my file for myself mostly! Only when chance of it going on internet did I `moderate` meself somewhat! I am adding bits of data now as those Index' of Ray's have been invaluable! Just found out `Charlie Chutney` had been a Dandy strip in the mid 40s!

It's now a long time ago but it seems I didn't spot the connection between the Sparky/Topper 'Mini-Martins' strips at the time Alan or I would have mentioned it. I seem to recall that the later, Topper, version drawn by Ken Hunter didn't include any mention of aliens though.
All sorts of connections existed between the Sparky in its early days and other Thomson titles that went before it. Wee Tusky and Flipperfeet spring to mind as does
'The Magic Sword' and then of course there was the outright reprinting of some strips like Pocahontas, Lonely Larry, and the 'classics in pictures' Uncle Tom's Cabin, David Copperfield and The Old Curiousity Shop.

Yes! Indeed! SPARKY was the `Sargasso Sea` for old stories/Strips! I really enjoyed it's surreal thread with such as "Dreamy Dave & Dozy Dora" "Will O' the Well" "Granny Cupp" "Willie the Woeful Wizard" etc!

Anyone got a scan of the Dandy `Meddlesome Matty"?

Raven wrote:

Digifiend wrote:Wasn't Jonathan Ross by any chance? We know he's a comics fan! Just kidding.

He's not into British ones, though. In a recent online interview he spoke as if they were all like the Fifties Eagle!

If only, eh?

Though with a few Twenties Union Jacks and Ninteen-Hundreds Boys' Friend's thrown in there.

Anyway last weekend (but the site was down XD) i bought two copies of The Schoolgirls' Own (with stories of Morcove school by "Marjorie Stanton" ...possibly Charles Hamilton?) both from 1934.
I also got one issue of The Girl's Friend Library, a pocket-sized complete story paper like The Boys' Friend Library (and there was probably a weekly Girls' Friend paper to go with it). Unlike the boys one the girls one just had plain covers with big black text rather than coloured pictures! I don't know when this issue is from, it's number 354 and costs 4d, issue 1 (which i got ages ago from New Zealand, bound in a hard cover to protect it - what a find!) came out in 1906 and cost 3d (and actually had a picture on the cover!)

steelclaw wrote:this amazing 200 page bumper book

It is actually 256 pages, steelclaw. Don't be selling me short now. It even says so in the review you posted a link to!

Phoenix wrote:

steelclaw wrote:this amazing 200 page bumper book

It is actually 256 pages, steelclaw. Don't be selling me short now. It even says so in the review you posted a link to!

Phoenix I know I said I needed some reading classes, Have another look at your book, I have the book in front of me and it's 200 Pages
Unless the reviewer has a Limted Edition copy with an extra 6 pages.

the latest purchases at e-bay.

Sparky, Issue 507
Cheeky Weekly - issue of 11/2/78 and
Cheeky Weekly - issue of 18/2/78

and The Cheeky Annual - 1984

(now for the 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983 and 1985 annuals.)

steelclaw wrote:Phoenix I know I said I needed some reading glasses, Have another look at your book, I have the book in front of me and it's 200 Pages

Don't check this until tomorrow morning, steelclaw. I remember when I was a student I used to have similar alcoholic hazes which acted rather like a Romulan cloaking device. Recently though I have been less given to imbibing noxious substances* and, as a consequence, I can now see things that are actually there and I can count beyond my ten fingers. By my calculations, there are 10 pages in the introductory section, 198 pages in the main body of the work and 48 pages, unnumbered I grant you, of illustrations - total 256 pages.
* I am, of course, discounting the occasional snifter or three with friends in hostelries in places like the Portobello Road, for example.

felneymike wrote:

Raven wrote:

Digifiend wrote:Wasn't Jonathan Ross by any chance? We know he's a comics fan! Just kidding.

He's not into British ones, though. In a recent online interview he spoke as if they were all like the Fifties Eagle!

If only, eh?

Though with a few Twenties Union Jacks and Ninteen-Hundreds Boys' Friend's thrown in there.

Anyway last weekend (but the site was down XD) i bought two copies of The Schoolgirls' Own (with stories of Morcove school by "Marjorie Stanton" ...possibly Charles Hamilton?) both from 1934.
I also got one issue of The Girl's Friend Library, a pocket-sized complete story paper like The Boys' Friend Library (and there was probably a weekly Girls' Friend paper to go with it). Unlike the boys one the girls one just had plain covers with big black text rather than coloured pictures! I don't know when this issue is from, it's number 354 and costs 4d, issue 1 (which i got ages ago from New Zealand, bound in a hard cover to protect it - what a find!) came out in 1906 and cost 3d (and actually had a picture on the cover!)

Marjorie Stanton was a AP in-house pseudonym for a number of girls' paper writers but I don't think Charles Hamilton ever used it. The most frequent user of the name was the writer Horace Phillips.

Phoenix wrote:

steelclaw wrote:Phoenix I know I said I needed some reading glasses, Have another look at your book, I have the book in front of me and it's 200 Pages

Don't check this until tomorrow morning, steelclaw. I remember when I was a student I used to have similar alcoholic hazes which acted rather like a Romulan cloaking device. Recently though I have been less given to imbibing noxious substances* and, as a consequence, I can now see things that are actually there and I can count beyond my ten fingers. By my calculations, there are 10 pages in the introductory section, 198 pages in the main body of the work and 48 pages, unnumbered I grant you, of illustrations - total 256 pages.
* I am, of course, discounting the occasional snifter or three with friends in hostelries in places like the Portobello Road, for example.

Oh I went straight to the back and saw page 197 then added the last 3 unnumbered pages.
I now make it 212 pages counting the first unnumbered ones at the beginning OK a couple of them don't have any text on but they're still pages.

steelclaw wrote: Oh I went straight to the back and saw page 197 then added the last 3 unnumbered pages.

Which three unnumbered pages? There's only page 198. You haven't been including the front and rear covers in your count, have you? As well as not taking into account the 48 pages of illustrations? I'm off to Lancaster now for the afternoon, steelclaw. You should have had enough time for a recount or two between now and the time I get back. I know that there are a few blank pages but all of them have a nominal if unprinted page number. The reason the 48 pages of illustrations are not numbered is that I didn't know until I had finished the book exactly where I was going to insert them. The Digital Print department at Thomsons were totally aware of this all along, especially as the 24 colour pages had to be printed separately, and they certainly didn't make any mistakes. I have the greatest regard for their professionalism.