SPARKY MOONSTERS COVERS - PART ONE

Rather than doing the series of guest appearances at Scream Inn in one go, I though it would be more fun to add some variety and start a concurrent gallery of those bright and busy SPARKY Moonsters covers by Bill Ritchie. 

By way of intro, here is the back page of SPARKY No. 1 with The Moonsters advert:

… and the back page of SPARKY No. 2 with the premiere of the strip, explaining how the two main characters found themselves on the Moon and met the funny native folk:

Here are the first five Moonsters covers after the strip was moved from the back page to the front and marked the beginning of the spectacular run of 105 covers:

Come back soon for the second guest appearance at Scream Inn. In fact, it was guest appearance of Scream Inn in a strip from a sister title that made a guest appearance in Shiver and Shake. Am I making sense here? :)

SPARKY 'MOONSTERS' COVERS

SPARKY issue No. 59 with the cover date of 5th March, 1966 is one of the few issues that I still need to complete my set of the title. Someone is offering a copy on eBay this week but I think it is overpriced and postage rate to where I am is outrageous, etc., but that’s not what this post is about… I am glad the seller showed a decent image of the cover, so now I know what's on it.

It looks like Bill Ritchie later used the idea of Moonsters’ brass band for the cover of Sparky annual 1968. Some of the figures are near-identical, don’t you think? Remember to click to see the image full size!

In my opinion the whole series of SPARKY ‘Moonsters’ front page sets is among the best impact covers in British children’s comics. The action-packed, bright single-panel drawings must have been real eye-catchers on the newsstands. I might do a complete series of those covers (more than a hundred of them!) sometime in the future…

ATTENTION, SPARKY PEOPLE!

As a special treat, today I offer you a look at Bill Ritchie’s first drafts of what later became front covers of the first two Sparky annuals. I photographed them during a recent visit to my mate Peter whose collection of UK comics, free gifts, original artwork, etc. is by far the biggest in the World.

I’ve placed the paintings side-by-side with the actual covers, spot-the-difference puzzle style. In reality, they are approx. twice the size of the printed versions. Enjoy!