The class system in comics

[Peter Gray]

The topic deserved its own place here..

Buster of course is the flat cap boy...working class..and love the big feast rewards he got.lovely cakes drawn by Reg Parlett..
Mum in curlers at all time..

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

As I've just recently pointed out over on the 'BEEZER-TOPPER' thread, Peter, I'm sure that D C THOMSON were involved in driving WINNIE S. CHURCHILL out of Dundee between the two World Wars, when as then--Liberal MP, he was deemed 'unsuitable' to govern Dundee by the fircely indepently-run Conservative DCT.





above: even if you're a teen with no real interest of 20th Century, you must still surely recognize 'that man with the Chaplin moustache', as well as this champion of the Bulldog Breed.

[Steve Henderson]

Which editor demanded that nobody in DC Thomson offices should mention Churchill or have any pictures of him up? It may have been the original big cheese of DC Thomson and not an editor (I can't be bothered looking it up online)

When I visited the offices last year Alan Digby showed me the trophy that they use in the offices whenever they have competitions which is a Churchill toby jog, I asked him if it had anything to do with the original Churchill rule about not having any pictures up and he looked puzzled, not quite understanding what I was going on about.

Sometimes you can know too much useless rubbish, I can't even think of a pub quiz that this would come up in ha ha!!

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

I remember reading Maggie Thatcher's comments of 'BEANO-DANDY' , congratulating them on 50 years of mirth and mayhem in the very first 'GOLDEN YEARS' book of 1987......I was never convinced she researched the subject properly.....did she really know who MINNIE the MINX was, for example? If the woman did indeed have a sense of humour, it seemed to be at the expense of others, and not from reading the latest edition of 'BEANO'.........






above; let's face it, though: old MAGS was a gift for the satirists!

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

sorry to repeat what I wrote back over on the 'BEEZER/TOPPER' thread, but I was always intruiged by the sub-underclass that appeared in some comic situations: ie, this included the gasworks gang out of 'SNOOTY': the Bunkerton 'toff' and his chums acted like working-class oiks, [especially SCRAPPER, who looked and acted exactly like the very working-class SOAPY SOUTER out of 'OOR WULLIE'.]

The Gasworks Gang appeared to be a group of anarchists, of no known addresses, who just turned up with cartie-loads of artillery [usually rotten fruit/vegetables] to pelt Snooty and the gang..........the same goes for .MULLIGAN'S MOB' out of 'BANANA BUNCH': the BUNCH seem to be working-class, with no real cash to replenish their empty larder in the Bunch Hut.........the MOB seem to be another brand of underclass, of no fixed address.

[Raven]

Whizzer and Chips-wise, this could be a good place to revive my theory that Whizzer, featuring more well off/'upwardly mobile'/ambitious and achieving type characters (Sid, Tiny Tycoon, Champ, Super Store, etc.) had more of a middle class feel, whereas Chips, with its cast of plucky, hard-done-by, down at heel strugglers (Shiner with his Mum and her knotted headscarf, Wear 'em Out Wilf, Loser, Ginger's Tum, etc.) had more of a working class feel. So whether you were a Whizz-Kid or Chip-ite may have depended on your class background. Could that have been intentional?

Cor also seemed to specifically have quite a working class feel, but as a cheap form of entertainment, comics were often a big part of working class childhoods, and perhaps more likely to be looked down on by middle class families - so that's the kind of character they probably purposely came down on the side of; as in all the rich kid v. poor kid series (Ivor Lott and Tony Broke, The Upper Crusts and the Lazy Loafers, Milly O' Naire and Penny Less, etc). In fact, there often seemed to be something of a class struggle going on in the IPC pages.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

I did have one middle-class mate [we had a similar sense of humour, if very different backgrounds] who loved the 'HILLYS and the BILLYS' out of 'BEEZER', which was a very 'hicksville', 'out-in-the-sticks' redneck-style humour strip. He also loved STEPTOE and SON so this convinced me that real humour knows no real class barriers; I'm definately from a working-class background, for example, but as much as I loved STEPTOE, I still very much enjoyed the 'educated-Oxford ' humour of MONTY PYTHON and the GOODIES.

I agree with Raven that there was a fair bit of class divisions over at IPC, the ultimate surely being 'IVOR LOTT and TONY BROKE', possibly the last word in comicdom, regarding the rich/poor divide: and what of the BUMPKIN BILLIONAIRRES, a sheer paradox of a strip, that ran for a long time?

[Raven]

I agree with Raven that there was a fair bit of class divisions over at IPC, the ultimate surely being 'IVOR LOTT and TONY BROKE', possibly the last word in comicdom, regarding the rich/poor divide: and what of the BUMPKIN BILLIONAIRRES, a sheer paradox of a strip, that ran for a long time?

Well, if the Bumpkin Billionaires had a message it was 'money isn't worth getting hung up about.' The Bumpkins thought it was more trouble than it was worth and were always trying to get rid of it. The only stressed ones were their middle class bank manager and the other people around them who took the accumulation of wealth and possessions very seriously. So again that could be seen a strip intended to appeal to the less well off sector of society.

Were you a Whizz Kid or Chip-ite, ISPYSHHHGUY?

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

probably Chip-ite, Raven. 'Chips' even sounded more 'working-class 'than 'WHIZZER', which for me at least conjures up visions of 'wizard show, old bean! ' ---type utterings.

Both 'Whizzer' and 'Chips' were equally good, however, I think, looking back, that Shiner was a clever marketing ploy to appeal to more 'rough-n-ready' kids to identify with, but on balance, 'SID'S SNAKE' was every bit as good---if not better than--------'SHINER'.

[Raven]

probably Chip-ite, Raven. 'Chips' even sounded more 'working-class 'than 'WHIZZER' ...

Exactly. Chips. What you had for tea.

Yes, both Whizzer and Chips were equally good, but they encouraged you to show allegiance to one gang or the other, didn't they, so I wonder if these elements had their influence. I, too, was of working class background and a Chip-ite.

[HUGH]

This probably says more about the times I grew up in, but there were several things that always struck me as a strip featuring a middle class family: the house had a bathroom and a garden, the father seemed to work in an office as he would leave the house with a hat and some sort of brief case. And for some strange reason a found it very posh if they kept their pet dog in a kennel - I never knew anyone who had a kennel for their dog.

[Peter Gray]

I came from a lower middle class family and I supported Whizzer..a Whizz-kid..

my Dad was a Graphic Designer and had a Daimer car which we never drove much as it cost too much petrol.. so we were trying to better ourselves..

5 years in a row at Bournmouth with Grandad, Grandma, the two cousions my age, Au8nty and Uncle..Mum , Dad and Sister....a nice big house near the gardens..magic holidays..we were on a tight budget..But all you need is a comic and the seaside..
Also Mum and Dad lived on a house boat for 5 years before I was born..
very bohemian as my Dad did oil painting and had long hair and sideburns..
they had to pop back to Mum's parents every week to have a proper wash and clean the clothes every Sunday..the boat had no electricity..

love the observations on the Bumpkin Billionaires my favourite in Whoopee!!

[tony ingram]

Very much a Chip-ite, here, and I loved Ivor & Tony and the Bumpkins, too-but I was never really aware of a class divide in the IPC titles. For me, if anything, it was more of a class divide between the companies: IPC had Ivor & Tony, and the likes of Major Eazy in Battle, while DCT had the likes of Snooty and Lord Peter Flint. Much as I loved certain of the Dandy and Topper strips, amongst others, they were just that little bit too posh for me to relate to, overall.

[HUGH]

Much as I loved certain of the Dandy and Topper strips, amongst others, they were just that little bit too posh for me to relate to, overall.

Interesting. I don’t know if it was inspirational, but I loved the “middle class” strips because of their escapism: I loved the fact the characters had their own bedroom where they could hang posters and display their toys, I loved the fact they had sheds where they could have secret meetings with their friends, I loved the fact the had banisters to slide down and I thought it was fantastic that if you had a bath you could play warships instead of having to go to the public baths where all you could do was wash - where was the fun in that.

But most of all I loved the Christmas issues - where it always snowed, houses were full of decorations, toys came in big boxes, and my favourite thing of all was in the final panel the table would be full of all kind of goodies to eat.

I may not know a lot about comics technically, but I do know they did bring me a great deal of pleasure in a sometimes miserable childhood.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

A very good point about escapism, there, Hugh: comics at that time were the only real form of entertainment that you could study visually as long you wanted to: especially if you kept all your back-issues. The technology of videotape or DVD never existed at the time, and comics---and radio [which I couldn't record until 1976 ] and, later on, records----were the main source of entertainment.

3 channels on TV meant having to watch what my parents preferred, none of this 'four tellies in every home' scenario we have today.

There were 5 kids in my family and though we certainly weren't rich, my childhood wasn't miserable.......

I noticed that characters like Cuthbert Cringeworthy were introduced to the very working-class-like Bash Street Kids, and perhaps CC and Walter of the Softies were intended for more 'refined' readers to identify with.

One constant theme that seemed to run for decades was that of the hungry central characters getting rewarded with a slap-up feed of epic proportions in the final frame , of Roman banquet scale. This was usually at the expense of obnoxious upper-class characters, or anti-social 'anarchist-class' ruffians.