Comics UK

I got four copies of Red Letter magazine a few months ago all from the late 1930s. Don't know why I didn't notice before but the back of the Christmas 1938 issue has a full page ad for the Thomson annuals. It got me thinking, the annuals go into production in the summer when the Dandy would have been only six months old. Looking at the ad itself it could be construed that the Dandy part in the middle might have been added later. Perhaps being such a young comic they hadn't considered an annual quite yet but then had achange of mind? I'm probably wrong but I wonder what the thinking was back then.





Also in the Red Letter were a couple of little known DC Thomson comic characters, Nutty and Sam, very much in the old balloon-less style. Anyone know who the artist was? Asking a lot I know. I'll put the other three of their strips in the second part of this post.



Looks like they got the names confused as the same character made both attacks on the pudding but they gave him both names. So not sure who is who but what is that on the black fellow's head?

Here's the other three:







I remember Thomson's magazines like Red Letter and Secrets still being on sale in the 1980s. i used to buy them occasionally just because they were Thomsons and were the same size and paper as the Beano and Dandy, gave them a quaint old fashioned feel but, alas, it was probably that which led to their demise.

I don't think he's black, just unshaven. He's wearing a long Dutch hat with a tassle (to my tired old peepers).

Both Beano and Dandy were outselling the Big Five boys papers as soon as they launched. It's not surprising therefore that the annual was produced so quickly. It also kind of acted as a Beano preview because Helpful Henry was in it (although Beano actually launched a month before the Monster Comic).

Digifiend wrote:It also kind of acted as a Beano preview because Helpful Henry was in it

Helpful Henry's appearance in the first Dandy annual was certainly not his debut. He emerged in Thomson world as one of four cartoon strips across the centre pages of issue 1 of The Wizard on September 23rd 1922. He was known then as 'Elpful 'Enery and his (mis)adventures, drawn by C. Cowell, continued until issue 39 on June 16th 1923. The following week he was replaced by Enterprising Edgar, the artist on this occasion being C. Holt. I am grateful to Kashgar for identifying these artists for me.

Didn't know that - it's not uncommon for strips to be revived years later in a different comic though. Think of Jonah, for example. Anyway, while the Monster Comic was probably planned earlier than Beano #1, the first 4 Beano's would've appeared before the annual. I guess the Beano's editor George Moonie liked Eric Roberts' interpretation of the character in the forthcoming annual, and decided to use it in the new comic.

Dunno about Cowell, but Holt's inital C is Charles. Mentioned in History of the Beano.

I don't suppose C Cowell is related to a certain X Factor/Britain's Got Talent judge?