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.



Sunday, June 26, 2016

GUEST APPEARANCES AT SCREAM INN – FRANKIE STEIN




When SHIVER AND SHAKE merged into WHOOPEE! in October 1974, Scream Inn and Frankie Stein were among the strips that confidently made it to the combined paper. A few weeks after the merger Frankie Stein stopped by at the spooky inn and tried to win the million quid. Brian Walker was a very good imitator and his Frankie looked very much like that by Robert Nixon. It’s a shame the printing presses used by IPC at the time often failed to present beautiful artwork decently. The episode is from WHOOPEE! AND SHIVER & SHAKE cover-dated 23 November, 1974 (No. 38). Followed by both pages of the Frankie Stein strip from that same issue, by Robert Nixon, of course.





Tuesday, June 21, 2016

THE MOONSTERS COVERS OF SPARKY - PART FOUR



Here is the next batch of SPARKY covers with Peter, Penny and the Moonsters by Bill Ritchie, Nos. 60 – 69 from 1966!













Saturday, June 11, 2016

GUEST APPEARANCES AT SCREAM INN – I SPY LOOK-ALIKE




Shiver and Shake merged into Whoopee! in October 1974 and Scream Inn was one of the strips that found its way into the new paper with the clumsy title of Whoopee! and Shiver & Shake

The first guest appearance in Scream Inn can be found soon after the merger, in the issue cover-dated 26 October 1974 (No. 34), and it was quite an unusual one indeed. That week’s guest looked a lot like I Spy from SPARKY comic published by DCT. I believe this is one of very few examples in British comics when a character appeared in a rival publication produced by the competitor. Brian Walker illustrated I Spy starting from SPARKY issue No. 300 (17 October 1970), so the inclusion of a look-alike into the episode of Scream Inn in Whoopee! and Shiver & Shake (published by IPC) must have been a cheeky experiment on his part. Here is the episode, followed by the three-page set of I Spy from SPARKY, the first one by Brian Walker.







While we are on the subject of SPARKY’s I Spy and cheeky sneak-ins by Brian Walker, who is that bespectacled bloke in the top right corner of this panel of Scream Inn from Shiver and Shake issue 51 (February 23rd, 1974)?



Sunday, May 29, 2016

THE MOONSTERS COVERS OF SPARKY - PART THREE


Time for ten more early Sparky covers with the Moonsters. The first and the last ones in this post are interesting: the first one (No. 50) because it celebrates the New Year, while the last one (No. 59) because Bill Ritchie later re-drew it as the cover of Sparky Book 1968 (see my old post HERE).