Comics UK

Well...er...the thread title should be fairly self-explanatory.

I'll start.

1) Characters leaping off high walls and using a prone fat man's stomach as a trampoline (Booiing!). This usually causes said fat man to turn red and go "Ooooff!". [Seen this everywhere from classic British weeklies to Tintin. Lesson = If you're overweight don't sunbathe 'neath a high wall]

2) The ultimate reward a child can receive is a giant pyramid of mashed potato with sausages jutting out at irregular intervals. [This seems to be unique to British comics. Inevitably followed by sated-looking characters leaning back on chairs with legs on table. And full rounded bellies giving off glowy lines of pleasure]

Over to you.

'Hair Restorer' actually works. Not only can it 'restore' hair, it can cause it to grow where there was none before.

Pies cooling on windowsills, then stolen by a bully.

Lew

Bending over to tie your shoelace outside a bank, tripping up an escaping bank robber and being handed a £5 cash reward.

In fact, being handed a cash reward for just about anything.

fústar wrote:
2) The ultimate reward a child can receive is a giant pyramid of mashed potato with sausages jutting out at irregular intervals. [This seems to be unique to British comics. Inevitably followed by sated-looking characters leaning back on chairs with legs on table. And full rounded bellies giving off glowy lines of pleasure]

Something to do with wartime and post-war austerity this, I think. Harking back to a time when a big, full meal would be a genuine treat for a kid. Maybe sausages and mashed potato were especially hard to get delicacies!

Oh, and people talking in puns. It's SNOW joke!

sticking plasters, armslings and even plaster-casts magically appearing from nowhere on baddie's broken bodies, after a punch-up that invariably resembles a mini-whirlwind with added typhoon properties.....ho yes, with attendant five-sided stars flying in all directions.

The dead returning to life?

Teacher wearing a mortarboard. That was outdated 50 years ago!

People actually saying 'ho ho ho' when they laugh. And also 'chuckle' and 'snigger'.

People finding just what they need at that particular moment at the "dump", which appears to be a walled-off enclosure found on a city street as if it's a shop or something.

Actually that might be to do with post-war austerity too. A shop that's been hit by a bomb is left as rubble until the mid 50's and in the meantime becomes an impromptu bin.

Oh and EVERY football match being won by a last-minute blinder.

No, the football one sometimes happens in real life too, Hull City scored the opening goal against Chelsea last weekend. Chelsea equalized - then got the winner in the 92nd minute!

Getting fence building and (on guard)fencing mixed up..Tom drew this twice for Minnie and Full O beans!!

Raven wrote:

fústar wrote:
2) The ultimate reward a child can receive is a giant pyramid of mashed potato with sausages jutting out at irregular intervals. [This seems to be unique to British comics. Inevitably followed by sated-looking characters leaning back on chairs with legs on table. And full rounded bellies giving off glowy lines of pleasure]

Something to do with wartime and post-war austerity this, I think. Harking back to a time when a big, full meal would be a genuine treat for a kid. Maybe sausages and mashed potato were especially hard to get delicacies!

No doubt. But you could hardly describe the 70s and 80s as a "post war" period! Humour comics always had a timeless/dated quality - like...er...Coronation St. The last place where post-war food fantasies. mortarboards and corporal punishment survived.

Still doesn't explain why the mashed potato was always pyramid-shaped though.

fústar wrote:
No doubt. But you could hardly describe the 70s and 80s as a "post war" period! Humour comics always had a timeless/dated quality - like...er...Coronation St. The last place where post-war food fantasies. mortarboards and corporal punishment survived.

Post war austerity did very much linger on in the '70s in the way parents (who'd lived through those years) brought up their children, though - but it's probable that those comic traditions started during that earlier period and just stayed around. Something to do with the age of the writers, too, perhaps.