ADVERTISEMENTS IN MONSTER FUN COMIC

Before I close the chapter of MONSTER FUN COMIC weeklies and call this mission completed, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the adverts which appeared in the paper.

IPC in-house advertisements can be found in nearly every issue of the paper. They promoted free gifts and special features in sister publications such as Whoopee!, Whizzer and Chips, Jinty, Tammy, Battle, Tiger and Scorcher, Shoot!, BUSTER, LOOK AND LEARN and others. They also advertised Annuals and Holiday Specials of various IPC comics; here are some of the countless examples:

During its short lifetime MFC celebrated the arrival of quite a few new sister publications in a variety of genres:

From MONSTER FUN COMIC No. 15

From MONSTER FUN COMIC No. 19

From MFC No. 36; MFC Issue No. 35 had 4 pages of ACTION adverts

From MONSTER FUN COMIC No. 68

From MONSTER FUN COMIC No. 71

It is impossible to imagine an IPC comic without those small post stamp offers and ads aimed at stamp collectors. They can be found in nearly every issue of MFC:

Very often post stamp ads appeared in the same block with Whimsies from Wade or Whoppas from Wade:

Toys companies formed another group of commercial advertisers. One can’t help noticing that the vast majority of products were boys’ toys. There were quite a few ads of North Pacific line of flying craft models from Hales. The black and white adverts promoted Delta Dart Glider, Sky Flyer, Sleek Streek, Drifter, Skeeter, etc:

Atlantic UK Distributors Shard (Sports & Toys) Limited with their ATLANTIC big new range of scale models in full detail was another big advertiser of boys’ toys. Their adverts with red spot colour made several appearances on the back page of MFC towards the end of the run:

The full-colour full-page advertisements of Minic Ships range of scale models by Hornby also fell within battle and warfare category:

These adverts of Timpo adventure club from Timpo Toys, Kung Fuey Dragon Kite from Golden Wonder, Prehistoric monsters scale models and Kellogg’s Rice Crispies were also targeted at boys:

..not to mention these Norvic Man ads:

Here's an untypical Norvic advert promoting something specifically for girls:

These were not gender-specific:

 

Unhealthy foods and sweets formed another major category of the adverts. Cadbury’s was a regular advertiser. Their Curlywurly Bar ads came in a variety of designs and free gift promotions but always featured this poorly drawn bloke:

Cadbury’s also advertised their Freddo competition:

TreborLand and Trebor Blobs candies appear to have been big in the mid-70s; they were a frequent guest in MFC: 

...and sometimes even paid for two pages to promote their competitions:

Bessett’s Sweets were after kids’ pocket money as well:

Kellogg’s, Nestle, Nesquik and Weetabix were also there:

There were four adverts of cinema films: one for the musical Mister Quilp of the Old Curiosity Shop:

…  two for At the Earth’s Core:

… and one for Future World:

Adverts in comics were often presented in the form of comic strips, and there were several examples in MFC; all can be viewed in the gallery below.

 

This concludes the series of blogposts about MONSTER FUN COMIC weeklies and I will now proceed to Holiday Specials and Annuals.

All Images 2014 © Egmont UK Ltd.  All rights reserved. Used with permission.

ONE-OFF FEATURES IN MONSTER FUN COMIC

One-off features probably served the same purpose as reprints and were used to fill the space which was originally reserved for something else.

Brain Benders in issue No. 21 was a weak prelude to Ticklish Allsorts:

Film Funny in issues 23 and 32 were collages consisting of classic horror movie screenshots with added speech balloons. One or two can also be found in the early Shiver and Shake Holiday specials. Here’s an example from MFC No. 32:

All Images 2014 © Egmont UK Ltd.  All rights reserved. Used with permission.

REPRINTS IN MONSTER FUN COMIC

MONSTER FUN COMIC wasn’t big on reprints but it still included a few that probably served as space fillers when artists failed to deliver their weekly strips on time.

The Robot Maker was a short-lived strip in the early issues of COR!! illustrated by Frank McDiarmid in his version of Ken Reid’s style. Only one episode was reprinted in MFC No. 47 where it substituted Teddy Scare which failed to appear that week.

Stoneage Brit Ancient Nit was another reprint from COR!! It made a surprise one-off appearance in MFC No. 40 where it was introduced as a Fave Funster from the Holiday Special:

The same goes for Sam’s Spook: the caption above the first episode of the strip in MFC suggests that many readers wrote in asking to see more of the strip after it was (re)printed in the first MFC Holiday Special. The original run of Sam’s Spook appeared in SMASH! in 1970 - 1971 where it was illustrated by Leo Baxendale. Reprints of Sam’s Spook can be found in MFC issues 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 38 and 46. Originally it was a b/w strip but two episodes in MFC Nos. 24 and 34 were couloured in:

Hairy only made one appearance in MFC No. 7. I am unsure if it was a reprint and if it was one, I don’t know where from. Can anyone help?

All Images 2014 © Egmont UK Ltd.  All rights reserved. Used with permission.

A LOOK AT MONSTER FUN COMIC FEATURES: MONSTER HITS

Monster Hits (Top 10 Gags) was a regular reader participation feature in MONSTER FUN COMIC in which readers were offered cash prizes for sending in their jokes. Every week contributors of the gags ranked 10 to 2 in the “chuckle charts” received a pound each, while the sender of that week’s chart-topper (printed at the bottom of the page) collected 2 quid. Production process took approx. two months, so the names of the first participants appeared in MFC No. 8.  We may not know who sat on the “panel of experts” that compiled the charts and ranked the jokes at MFC offices but we know who the illustrators were – and this is what matters. 

A few of the weekly sets were by Artie Jackson who drew the jokes in MFC Nos. 1, 4 (together with Mike Lacey), 49, 50, 52, 61 and 70. Mike Lacey illustrated the chart in MFC No. 2 and drew some of the jokes in No. 4 (others were by Artie Jackson). Here is the page from MFC No. 4 with Artie Jackson’s and Mike Lacey’s work side-by-side:

Leslie Harding drew three sets in MFC issues 5, 6 and 7:

Starting from MFC issue No. 8 the vast majority of the sets were by Tom Paterson whose style was still shaping itself at the time. It looks like at that stage he was studying and trying to imitate Graham Allen – his other strong influence besides Leo Baxendale. Here are two early examples from MFC No. 8 and 14:

Monster Hits continued throughout the entire run of the comic, missing only one issue (No. 3). All were in b/w except in issues 11, 24 and 26 were they were printed in full colour. This one is from No. 24:

All Images 2014 © Egmont UK Ltd.  All rights reserved. Used with permission.

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.