GOOFY COVERS

While composing a recent post where I showed front pages of several landmark SPARKY numbers, I realized I’ve seen lots of beautiful covers of British comics but I’ve also come across a few that weren’t quite so excellent.

The examples that immediately came to mind were the covers of JACKPOT where attempts to draw realistic portraits resulted in these creepy caricatures of sinister-looking creatures:

Tammy also had a few. Take a look at this one; there is something seriously not right with the poor girl on the right, don’t you think?..

TAMMY had a series of covers drawn from readers’ ideas by one of the good artists but in this case the Editor was probably pressed for time and simply used the drawing sent by a reader:

I am sure there are many more and I will expand the gallery when I come across some. Do you recall any covers that you thought weren’t quite up to the standard?

TWO VERSIONS OF THE BANANA BUNCH FEATURE

The very early installments of The Banana Bunch in The Beezer were full-pagers with a single picture. Drawn by the young Leo Baxendale, they were printed in colour on the back page of the comic for thirteen weeks starting from the very first issue (January 21, 1956). Starting from issue 14 (April 21, 1956) the feature was moved to the inside of the paper and appeared in black and red.

The reason I am writing this post is because some time ago I saw a copy of The Beezer from 1961 on eBay. One of the photos uploaded by the seller showed a reprint on one of those early full-page sets, rendered in back and red. I though my readers might be interested to see the two versions side by side. Here’s the original in full-colour from The Beezer No. 10 (March 24, 1956):

… and here’s its twin from the issue cover-dated June 24, 1961:

The colour version looks OK, but I have to say that in this particular case I prefer the reprint. What do you think? I wonder if DC Thomson reprinted other early installments of The Banana Bunch in the same way?

ALMOST THERE WITH MY SPARKY COLLECTION!

I’ll do some bragging today because recently I received a joblot of Sparky comics from 1966 and filled all of my gaps for the year. This means that my mission of collecting a full set of this interesting and scarce title is nearly complete. I am now only one number (No. 620 with the cover date of 4th December, 1976) away from being able to call myself a proud owner of one of the very few full sets that exist out there. I also need a complete copy of issue No. 110 (25th February, 1967) because mine has its centre pages missing.  Do let me know if you have spare copies of Nos. 620 and 110 to sell or swap!

The picture below shows the 4 boxes which hold my Sparky collection. All comics are bagged and boarded, two magazines per bag, one on each side of the board.

To celebrate the achievement, here’s a gallery of some landmark Sparky covers for you to enjoy:

First issue:

First cover with Sparky the character:

First Moonsters cover; they also changed the colour pattern of the logo starting from this issue; Moonsters covers are my favourite ones:

First issue with a new logo; Sparky the character returns to the front cover, ousting Moonsters to the back page:

New logo; first Barney Bulldog cover:

First issue with another new logo:

…and then another new logo:

…and finally the premiere of the last logo (a remarkably uninspired cover design, don't you think?..):

First Mummies cover:

Final issue:

HAVING FUN ON EBAY

After quite a long while, I spent some time on eBay tonight.

Beano No. 1242 is the only one I don’t have from 1966. It is the famous ‘Eric Clapton’ number that appears to be in very high demand among fans. The copy offered by the seller was described as Very Good, so I knew it wasn’t going to go cheaply, but the winning bid of £101.55 was nearly £10 more than I was prepared to offer this time… I know I will get my copy one day; in the meantime, here are the covers from the auction site, front and back:

Another seller had quite a selection of good-looking copies of WHAM! in batches of 10 issues or so. These stirred little interest on eBay tonight and went for less than a pound per issue! Quite a contrast to the prices that I paid in the process of collecting my complete run a few years ago, but that’s eBay for you… Someone got himself some good bargains!