Strange comic policies of the 70s

Raven · Post by **Raven** » 24 Aug 2007, 01:13

I think I recall reading in Leo Baxendale's autobiography that IPC had a policy of putting all their best talent on the new fun titles when they started, then gradually moving them off after a while to whatever the next new titles were - and the humour comics certainly do seem to me to be at their best in their first couple of years.

Whizzer and Chips started off packed with good, potential-packed, creative strips - Me and My Shadow, Aqua Lad, Fred's Family Tree, The Mummy's Curse, Space School, Jimmy Jeckle and Master Hyde, The Scareys of St. Mary's, Leo Baxendale's Champ, Reg Parlett's Harry's Haunted House - a bumper read of strange, inspired strips from 69-70, with the later 70s editions I grew up with seeming threadbare by comparison, with some really banal one-idea strips like Hover Boots and Lazy Bones which I remember almost boring me to tears as a boy. And how long did they drag the repetitive and one-dimensional Sweet Tooth out for?

Cor!! seems similar with the first couple of years packed with strong strips and great artists and much better than its latter period - Reg Parlett was even taken off Ivor Lott and Tony Broke after a short while, let alone Hire a Horror (at least he was replaced by Robert Nixon on that, who could also draw charming monsters with great skill). The 1970-71 issues seem miles better than the 73/74 era.

Did any IPC humour comics actually get better or do collectors generally find that the first year or two are always the best to go for when collecting?

Another policy I always wondered about concerned the colour pages. The humour titles generally *always* had front and back cover and two pages inside in colour, but growing up with the 70s Buster as your regular comic you got the short end of the straw - not only no colour inside but even the back page was in black and white! (Buster seemed to have more than its share of reprints too.) I wonder if this was because it sold so well they didn't need to bother with any colour, or because it sold so poorly that it wasn't considered worth the expense ... and if IPC editors would get jealous over who got colour pages and who got none at all in their titles! (How the Buster editor must have glowered at the Donald & Mickey editor with his *16 pages* of colour per issue AND good paper ... )

It also seemed peculiar with D. C. Thomson that their not-particularly-strong new title Plug was printed on high quality shiny paper while flagship titles Beano and Dandy remained on cheap newsprint - and that the Topper and Beezer annuals would be published mostly in full glorious colour while the flagship Beano and Dandy annuals had no full colour inside at all.

I wonder if there was any rhyme and reason behind it all - or it was just a case of if a title was selling well enough anyway, it wasn't considered worth making any effort with.

Kremmen · Post by **Kremmen** » 24 Aug 2007, 12:11

I used to get Buster from 1965 to 1969 and for the most part, as you say, only the cover was in colour. Occasionally the back page was in colour, as I remember an ad for Captain Scarlet Sugar Smacks on the back once in glorious Fleetway colour. But surely most of the Fleetway/IPC titles were like that anyway, just the front page in colour. In 1969 the exception would be Tiger when it absorbed Jag and became eight pages colour, the rest b&w. Also, in late 1969, Whizzer and Chips. From 1970 onwards I remember some, but not all, their comics having a lot more colour than Buster.

Raven · Post by **Raven** » 24 Aug 2007, 12:36

Kremmen wrote: But surely most of the Fleetway/IPC titles were like that anyway, just the front page in colour.

Well, through the 70s when I was getting them, the humour titles always had two colour pages inside (Kid Chameleon in glorious, vivid colour in Cor!!, the front and back page of Chips in Whizzer and Chips, The Lone Ranger in Whoopee, etc.) and a colour back page (Joker in Whizzer and Chips, World Weirdies in Whoopee, etc.) and often about four 'single colour' pages inside, too (blue, black and white or red, black and white) - yet Buster always stuck to black and white throughout with even the back page colour-free - except on the very odd occasion where an advert would appear in colour and had presumably been specially paid for to be so - which did make the title stand out by looking rather cheaply put together in comparison to all its companion titles.

Ian · Post by **Ian** » 24 Aug 2007, 21:51

I agree with Raven, Cor ! in its first 2 years it was full of fantastic strips but by mid to late 1973 it was shade of its former self.I only continued to get it because my Mum had it on order for me at my local newsagents and I had a certain loyality to it as it was the first comic that I was allowed to get every week.
Some of the strips in the 73/74 period of its life were pretty dire ie wonder worm,jellybaby and the slims.

By 1974 I asked my Mum to change my order to a new comic called Whoopee but I still felt a sense of sadness when Cor passed away in June 74 by joining forces with Buster.

I find in general that the first few years are when a comic is at its strongest.

In regards to Plug it was very upmarket looking with its glossy syle paper but looking back now over some old issues the strips were very poor Im not surprised it didnt last long.I always wondered why Plug was given its own comic I would have thought it would have made more sense to give it all of the Bash St kids ie Bash St weekly.

Raven · Post by **Raven** » 24 Aug 2007, 23:23

Ian wrote:I agree with Raven, Cor ! in its first 2 years it was full of fantastic strips but by mid to late 1973 it was shade of its former self.I only continued to get it because my Mum had it on order for me at my local newsagents and I had a certain loyality to it as it was the first comic that I was allowed to get every week.

There was some lovely stuff right at the start - Reg Parlett's Freddie Fang the Werewolf Cub (a great idea for a strip - 'he does a bad deed every day') Hire a Horror and Ivor Lott and Tony Broke, those colourful Kid Chameleon doubler-pagers, and a couple of strips I really like which may well be mostly forgotten now - Little Geyser, one of IPC's weirdest, about a living hot spring of water lost in England, and Dogsbodies Academy about a class of dogs, which was very nicely drawn.

A Bash Street weekly instead of Plug back then is a pretty good idea - I agree that would have had much more potential.

Peter Gray · Post by **Peter Gray** » 24 Aug 2007, 23:33

I think they had the idea from Goofy......he was into sports in his own comic....like Plug doing lots of sports...
Leo Baxendale came up with Plug from the radio Goons show what did Echieles look like the dumb one...he always talked through his teeth suggesting buck teeth...though Plug became his own character..

Also Cheeky a toothy grin had his comic...

Buck teeth was in...

ISPYSHHHGUY · Post by **ISPYSHHHGUY** » 27 Oct 2007, 15:37

Some very well thought-out reasoning on the subject of I.P.C. humour titles starting off with a 'bang', RAVEN, then slowly but surely, unwinding into a terminal downhill slide----this certainly ties in with my memories. I genuinely thought that the very early 'WHIZZER and CHIPS' was pretty good, sure, 'ME and my SHADOW'creeped me out, slightly, but i still remember it almost 4 decades later, so it must have had something........similarly, 'MINNIE'S MAGIC MIXER' on the back-page lingers in the memory......surreal to be sure, but not bland. And who can forget the free gift of a D-I-Y flickbook in issue one......i'm sure it was 'SID'S SNAKE' doing the animated honours on this one...........i may be right in saying that a very early free gift in W+C was a GUY FAWKES mask. I have vivid memories of the night of NOV, 5, 1969, in which said mask, being added to a 'guy' effigy constructed by my dad, catching ablaze.......a small fortune [the mask alone could now seriously be put up on E-BAY] literally going up in smoke............

felneymike · Post by **felneymike** » 27 Oct 2007, 16:40

Lets not forget the fact that some comics where never "supposed" to last. Like Tornado and Starlord being born pretty much soley to develop good strips for later incorporation into 2000AD (i hear... Ro-Busters came from Starlord after all). And 2000AD itself was so named because, depending what you read, it wasn't supposed to see issue 30, wasn't supposed to see the 80's, or wasn't supposed to last 5 years... and certianly wasnt supposed to see 2000 AD XD

ISPYSHHHGUY · Post by **ISPYSHHHGUY** » 27 Oct 2007, 17:14

The best example i can muster on comicstrips not meant to last must surely go to DUDLEY D. WATKINS, who, way, way back in 1936, told his wife that his two new strips, 'THE BROONS' and 'OOR WULLIE', might 'only last a few weeks'..............

tolworthy · Post by **tolworthy** » 27 Oct 2007, 21:17

felneymike wrote:2000AD itself was so named because, depending what you read, it wasn't supposed to see issue 30, wasn't supposed to see the 80's, or wasn't supposed to last 5 years... and certianly wasnt supposed to see 2000 AD XD

LOL! That always tickles me. The most successful comic of the past generation has the worst possible name (from a medium term perspective). I bet they agonized long and hard over whether to change it when the milennium arrived.

I suppose it now has an ironic value. And I wonder, if it's still published in a hundred years time will it be full of quaint historical tales?

On the other hand, from the very long term perspective, a number ir probably the best possible name. Words like "Beano" and "Whoopee" no longer have any real meaning (except as comics), but numbers are here forever.

felneymike · Post by **felneymike** » 27 Oct 2007, 21:53

My brother started collecting 2000AD for a while around 1996 and 1997 (if i remember correctly, in time for the film's video release, we where too young to see it in the cinema) and there where many readers letters about possible future names. Some erring on the rather obvious and cheesy 3000AD (In one issue they gave away a spoof free issue of what 2000AD would be like if it was being first published in 1997, and that was called 3000AD), another i remember is "Science Fiction Action", which Tharg was worried would be shortened to SFA (which i only just 'got'), or "Beyond 2000" (which was already used as the title of a Canadian version of "Tomorrows World" from the 90's that was put on Sky when they didnt have anything else to fill up 200 channels)

Steve Flanagan · Post by **Steve Flanagan** » 27 Oct 2007, 22:21

tolworthy wrote: Words like "Beano" and "Whoopee" no longer have any real meaning (except as comics), but numbers are here forever.

"Whoopee" still has a meaning as a cushion...

Kremmen · Post by **Kremmen** » 29 Oct 2007, 10:51

...and as an actress who played Guinan in Star Trek; The Next Generation

Kashgar · Post by **Kashgar** » 29 Oct 2007, 12:42

Speaking of colour in the IPC comics the 'king' of these was surely the revived Knockout which was in fact promoted as 'the all-colour comic'. It was all a bit of a swizz as it turned out though as most of the colour was just a single wash added to almost every page.
That Whizzer & Chips Guy Fawkes mask had already been given away years before in the Buster, twice if memory recalls.

Post by **AndyB** » 29 Oct 2007, 20:08

... and was duly given away several more times in Buster over the years.

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