Comics UK

On my blog this week, a look back at the Chips Annual 1940:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/ ... -1940.html

I wonder why it wasn't called The Illustrated Chips annual?

stevezodiac wrote:I wonder why it wasn't called The Illustrated Chips annual?

Although I've always referred to the weekly as Illustrated Chips (as that was the full title on the cover) it was simply known as 'Chips' by its readers, and in references inside the comic itself, so I guess the annual title just reflected that.

Even the weekly sometimes dropped the 'Illustrated' prefix, in the case of Christmas and Coronation issues for example.
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2011/ ... -1942.html

Its great you show these very popular early comics...its easy to forget as time moves on..

Fascinating to see that strip by Reg Perrott. Before now I've only come across his work for Mickey Mouse Weekly; I had no idea he'd drawn for AP as well. He really was a huge talent, comparable imho to Alex Raymond and Hal Foster - one can't help wondering how he'd have fitted into the Golden Age of adventure strips during the 1950s and 1960s if he hadn't died in his early thirties in 1946. Just imagine his version of Heros the Spartan or Thunderbirds - or at a stretch even Judge Dredd!

- Phil Rushton

Lew Stringer wrote:

stevezodiac wrote:I wonder why it wasn't called The Illustrated Chips annual?

Although I've always referred to the weekly as Illustrated Chips (as that was the full title on the cover) it was simply known as 'Chips' by its readers, and in references inside the comic itself, so I guess the annual title just reflected that.

Even the weekly sometimes dropped the 'Illustrated' prefix, in the case of Christmas and Coronation issues for example.
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2011/ ... -1942.html

Looking at the Comics UK gallery, they did eventually drop the Illustrated part of the name for good, but by then the comic had less than two years left to go. The cover also lost the red spot colour in that period, and the price went up from 2d to 3d. No wonder it closed, The Beano and The Dandy were still 2d, had colour covers, and had an extra 4 pages (12 against Chips' 8). Chips clearly couldn't compete.

Digifiend wrote:Looking at the Comics UK gallery, they did eventually drop the Illustrated part of the name for good, but by then the comic had less than two years left to go.

It became simply 'Chips' in September 1952, just 12 months before it folded.

Digifiend wrote:The cover also lost the red spot colour in that period, and the price went up from 2d to 3d. No wonder it closed, The Beano and The Dandy were still 2d, had colour covers, and had an extra 4 pages (12 against Chips' . Chips clearly couldn't compete.

Yes, AP were winding down several of their comics by then. Chips, Comic Cuts, and Wonder (formerly Funny Wonder) all folded in the same week in September 1953. They'd all had very long runs though, having been around since the 1890s. Of the hundreds of British comics published over the years only Dandy and Beano have beaten that record.