welcome and enjoy!

Hi and welcome to my blog about comics from other people’s childhood! It is dedicated primarily to British humour comics of the 60s and 70s. The reason they are not from my childhood is simply because I didn’t live in the UK back then (nor do I live there now). I knew next to nothing about them until fairly recently but since then I’ve developed a strong liking for the medium and amassed a large collection, including a number of complete or near complete sets. My intention is to use this blog as a channel for sharing my humble knowledge about different titles, favourite characters and creators as I slowly research my collection.

QUICK TIP: this blog is a sequence of posts covering one particular comic at a time. The sequence follows a certain logic, so for maximum results it is recommended that the blog is read from the oldest post up.

Copyright of all images and quotations used here is with their respective owners. Any such copyrighted material is used exclusively for educational purposes and will be removed at first notice. All other text copyright Irmantas P.



Friday, June 22, 2012

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 15)


Here are three BUSTER football cover stories from very different eras: the first one from the early 60s is by Hugh McNeill, the second from the 70s by Angel Nadal and the third from the early 90s by Tom Paterson. Followed by a nice crowded set of Terrors of Tornado Street by Juan Rafart – another Spanish artist who freelanced for Fleetway.




From BUSTER dated 6th May, 1961

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: THE SLIMMS


The Slimms. This was the last long-running IPC strip originally created for COR!! by Sheila and Terry Baves. In the second part of his article in the Summer 1986 edition of GOLDEN FUN Terry Bave recalls that slimming was a popular theme of the day, so his wife Sheila suggested that there might be makings of a good fun feature with slimming as the central theme. After some thought and some sketches, they came up with what they believed was one of their most successful features – The Slimms. It proved very popular with COR!! readers. The Baves supplied scripts for many weeks until other IPC writers took over; Terry Bave continued to draw The Slimms week by week until the paper folded.

From COR!! issue dated 19th January, 1974 (No. 190)

Little boy Sammy Slim has a problem and it’s his parents who are obese and Sammy is always ridiculed by other kids because of this. So he finally decides they can’t go on eating like this and will have to go on a diet, starting immediately. But Mum and Dad always manage to outwit Sammy and stuff themselves silly because they like being fat and enjoy grub too much to slim. Sammy is very persistent and schemes all kinds of plots to get his parents to diet or exercise. From what we can tell, Mum and Dad are unemployed so Sammy even tries to fix some jobs for them so that they can work off some of their weight

From COR!! dated 16th February, 1974 (No. 194)

The feature premiered in COR!! issue with the cover date of 1st January, 1972 (No. 83) and continued until the last edition of the paper dated 15th June, 1974 (No. 211).  A good share of the episodes were in colour, besides, The Slimms made as many as five front cover appearances on 23rd June, 1973 (No. 160), 10th November, 1973 (No. 180), 5th January, 1974 (No. 188), 20th April, 1974 (No. 203) and 18th May, 1974 (No. 207). 

Such was the popularity of the feature that after the demise of COR!! Terry Bave didn’t find it hard to persuade Bob Paynter that The Slimms be transferred to WHIZZER AND CHIPS where weekly appearances of the strip continued through to mid-1979. 

From COR!! dated 1st June, 1974 (No. 209)

Thursday, June 21, 2012

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 14)


Here is a triple helping of Dennis the Menace footy action by David Law:


From BEANO No. 858 (27th December, 1958)
From Dennis the Menace 1962 Annual

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 13)


I find it interesting that many DC Thomson characters were so broke that the majority of  football strips I managed to find in my collection show their efforts to see a match for free… 



From BEANO No. 896 (19th September, 1959)

From BEANO No. 750 (1st December, 1957)

From BEANO No. 765 (16th March, 1957)


A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: THE ADVENTURES OF SONNY STORM


The Adventures of Sonny Storm. In the opening episode Sonny comes across an old cupboard in the attic and finds a photograph and a funny-looking rattle. The man in the photo is his Mom’s great-uncle Ebeneezer who spent many years living with the Sioux Indians in America and he must have brought the rattle back with him. Inscribed on the handle are the words: By Medicine-Man and Sacred Feather, Repeat These Words and Ask for Weather. Sonny soon discovers that the mysterious artifact is a magic weather stick which enables him to create his own private weather. Sonny can now control different atmospheric phenomena and cause them at will; occasionally he gets a chance to use the weather stick to catch some evil-doers and crooks. The two-pager ran for 45 weeks from 25th  September, 1971 (No. 69) and was given a proper ending in the issue dated 22nd July, 1972 (No. 112) in which Sioux Indians came to Sonny’s town as part of a travelling circus and reclaimed the artifact. Sonny gladly returned it to the rightful owners. Artist unknown.

From COR!! issue dated 27th May, 1972  (No. 104)