THE BASH STREET KIDS LEARN HOW COMICS ARE MADE. PART TWO

In his comment to my previous blogpost Peter Grey mentioned two more visits of the Bash Street Kids to THE BEANO offices. Both were reprints from old comics included in the DANDY/Beano Magic Moments book which unfortunately I haven’t got a copy of. Peter kindly sent me photos of the two sets and I checked my collection for the original comics where both stories first appeared but it turns out I haven’t got them either (Peter – the Sutherland set is definitely not from 1961, 1962, 1963 or 1964… It must have appeared later on, or maybe it was in an early Beano Holiday Special). Here is the cover of the book and photos of both reprints.

The search for the two episodes wasn’t in vain because I came across other two interesting sets about the making of comics. The first one comes from THE BEANO No. 1090 (year 1963). The Bash Street Kids visit THE BEANO printing works and cause a full-scale ecological disaster. It’s a lovely episode and even includes a colouring contest. Below is the image of the whole centrespread, followed by cropped panels for easier reading. I will include the other episode in my next blogpost. It is from a 1964 issue and shows how the class went into publishing business. Watch this space :)

THE BASH STREET KIDS LEARN HOW COMICS ARE MADE

Browsing through the comics that I found waiting for me at the post office upon my return from holidays, I came across this interesting set of the Bash Street Kids in which the class learn how their favourite comic is made. 

It wasn’t uncommon to see comic characters reading their own paper in their strips but a story showing the mechanics of making a comic is a rare treat so I thought you might be interested to see it.

The episode is from THE BEANO No. 2155 cover-dated 5th November, 1983.

Here is the strip in one piece for those of you who prefer to read it that way:

HELPFUL HETTIE SITUATION

The other day I checked the stats of my blog and was surprised to find that the normal daily rate of 150 – 200 pageviews surged to more than 1,000 for a few days, all at the expense of an old little post on Helpful Hettie that I did in my COR!! series last year. Turns out the post got a brief mention in THIS thread on Gunnerkrigg Court forum. I am not familiar with Gunnerkrigg Court webcomic by Tom Siddell, nor have I ever heard about the project that members of the forum are pursuing, but it looks fun. Frankly, I’ve got no clue what the discussion in the thread is about – I suppose one has to be familiar with the comic to make sense of it.

The strong interest that members of Gunnerkrigg Court forum have shown in the blogpost rightfully described in the thread as “probably not related too much” got me thinking that contemporary British-made comics have quite a large following and aren’t doing as poorly as I thought (albeit the majority of traffic appears to be from the US). Gunnerkrigg Court certainly attracts much more attention than old UK comics, at least those published by IPC and covered on this blog so far…

With nearly 2,000 views, Helpful Hettie is now the most popular post on Kazoop!! and is likely to remain at the top forever because the second most popular post only has just over 500 views. Why the article about the last months of COR!! is the second most popular post here is a mystery to me – I think there are many other strips and posts that deserve more attention :)

SHIVER AND SHAKE HOLIDAY SPECIALS AND ANNUALS AFTER THE DEMISE OF THE WEEKLY

The first two SHIVER AND SHAKE Holiday Specials were published in 1973 and 1974 when the paper was up and running. Both have been covered in their dedicated posts HERE and HERE. The same goes for the first two Annuals cover dated 1974 and 1975 – you can take a look at them HERE and HERE.

As was the case with all IPC comics titles, SHIVER AND SHAKE didn’t end with the last edition of the weekly in 1974 but lived on for many years in the form of Holiday Specials and Annuals.

Holiday Specials continued until 1980, running up to 6 more editions published after the demise of the weekly.

Annuals lasted even longer with the last one released for the Christmas of 1985, so that’s eleven more books in addition to the two already covered.

Every Special and Annual will receive its own blog post over the coming weeks until all have been accounted for but there may be some delay because I am going on holiday :)