FIREWORK COVERS

With Guy Fawke’s night just a few days away, let’s take a look at some of those bright Fireworks covers. The one below is that of a very early issue of THE BEANO. It was offered in one of phil-comics auctions which ended yesterday. With 60+ watchers, more than 10 bidders and 36 bids, it went for an impressive £677. Phil-comics never fail to attract top prices for their excellent items!

As many of you may know, in addition to being a highly-reputable eBay auctioneer of UK comics, Phil is also a publisher who has produced the beautiful collection of Christmas covers of the Beano and the Dandy 1937 - 1969, so if you need a X-mas gift for someone who is into this kind of thing, why not buy a copy from phil-comics on eBay? I hope sales are going well enough to make it worth Phil’s while to publish a similar volume of Fireworks covers sometime in the future! Before this happens (if ever), here are some festive covers of the Dandy from the 50s. All but one are from my collection. 

ARTIST SELF-PORTRAITS (Part 12)

I will wrap-up the Artist Self-Portraits series  (for now) with a selection of pages of The DANDY’s Smasher from the brush of the ever-excellent Brian Walker. I don’t know of any other UK comics artist who made so many appearances as an active character in his own strip. The first example that I spotted is in the Dandy No. 2370 cover-dated 25th April, 1987:

My collection of the Dandy has a large gap from the end of July 1988 till the first issue of 1990 but then continues without a break until the middle of 1994 (as a result of my effort to collect full sets two brilliant strips by Tom Paterson - The Laughing Planet and Hyde and Shriek). 

Brian Walker made one appearance in Smasher in 1990 (issue No. 2528), together with the Dandy Editor Morris Heggie :

… followed by as many as three in 1991 (issue Nos. 2577, 2602, 2607):

… followed by two in 1992 (issue Nos. 2628, 2642):

… and just one in 1993 (issue No. 2672):

Although I have very few issues of the Dandy from the later years and Brian Walker doesn’t appear in them, I believe he didn’t stop drawing himself in, as confirmed by this episode of Smasher from The Dandy Summer Special 1996: 

1996 DANDY SUMMER SPECIAL also sports this bright back cover with caricatures of the Dandy editor Morris Heggie. Not a self-portrait but still a nice piece to include in this series. I've got no idea who drew it though.

CHRISTMAS IS A COMIN'

Early this week I received my copies of The Dandy and The Beano - Classic Christmas Comic Covers 1937-1969 book from Phil Shrimpton. This super-nice volume has already been covered, praised and promoted on many other blogs and sites, and I am sure many of my readers have already bought themselves a copy, but since I happen to have a little something to do with the book (as indicated in the Credits section), I would like to urge you to order another one or two as a Christmas gift to your friends and family. Please, remember that the success of this book will determine whether we’ll see more of the kind in the future... 

Copies are available directly from Phil_comics HERE, or eBay HERE. 

BONFIRE NIGHT!!

Let's have some firework fun with Ken Reid's Ali Ha-Ha and the 40 Thieves from the Dandy of the early 60s.

DANDY’S KORKY SPENDS A NIGHT AT SCREAM INN...

Now that I have your attention with an unlikely headline, I would like to share an interesting find from a joblot of Dandy comics that I won on eBay a few weeks ago. 

Who could deny that sporting this nice cover in the Summer of 1975 was not an attempt by DC Thomson to benefit from the theme of the then successful strip (Scream Inn) in a rival publisher’s comic (Whoopee and Shiver & Shake)?