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.



Tuesday, August 6, 2019

QUEEN OF THE SEAS PANEL


Ken Reid was known to have sometimes been ‘text heavy’ in the strips that he scripted himself, making it necessary for editors to cut his writing down. Below is a nice example of that. The panel is from original Queen of the Seas artwork. I am not completely sure, but I believe I photographed it from the original piece owned by Peter Hansen:



The episode was printed in Smash! No. 31 (3rd Sept., 1966). The ugly colouring ruined the beauty of Ken’s linework,  but the reason I am showing the panel here is Captain Enoch Drip’s new speech balloon:



The Editor apparently thought Ken’s original version was too long, or eccentric…



This is how the panel looked in the reprint of the same episode in Buster cover-dated 8th July, 1972:


Click on the POWER PACK banner in the right-hand column and get your copy of the POWER PACK OF KEN REID - the deluxe two-volume set of Ken’s strips in WHAM!, SMASH! and POW! comics of the ‘60s.

Monday, July 22, 2019

A TREASURE TALE OF PRINCESS MARIGOLD, THE WIZARD’S BLACK MAGIC – PART TWO



Further to my previous post a few days ago, here are the remaining 5 pages of The Wizard's Black Magic tale, from TREASURE magazine issue Nos. 67 – 71 in 1964, artwork by Nadir Quinto. Click to enlarge.






Click on the POWER PACK banner in the right-hand column and get your copy of the POWER PACK OF KEN REID - the deluxe two-volume set of Ken’s strips in WHAM!, SMASH! and POW! comics of the ‘60s.

Sunday, July 14, 2019

A TREASURE TALE OF PRINCESS MARIGOLD, THE WIZARD’S BLACK MAGIC – PART ONE



Two posts ago I mentioned how I love stories in which characters have the power to control colours. A Treasure Tale of Princess Marigold - The Wizard’s Black Magic which ran on the back page in issues 62 – 71 (21st March - 23rd May, 1964) of TREASURE magazine for young readers is a brilliant example of that. Illustrated by Nadir Quinto, the 10-page tale features a villain who is delighted to be able to make everything loose colour but Prince Rupert and three little pixies save the day. Nadir Quinto was an excellent artist, wasn’t he?

Here are the first five episodes, the rest will follow soon. Click to enlarge and enjoy!






Click on the POWER PACK banner in the right-hand column and get your copy of the POWER PACK OF KEN REID - the deluxe two-volume set of Ken’s strips in WHAM!, SMASH! and POW! comics of the ‘60s.

Monday, July 8, 2019

SERIALISED FACEACHE STORIES – PART ELEVEN: PIG’S HEAD



The next Faceache story arc by Ken Reid was in the two consecutive issues of BUSTER with the cover dates of June 23, 1979 and June 30, 1979:

School cookie asks Faceache to nip down to the butchers and get him a pig’s head for school dinners. On his way to the village Faceache becomes thirsty, so he decides to call at farmer Jasper’s farm and ask for a drink of milk. Knowing that the farmer hates school kids but loves cats, Faceache scrunges into a stray pussy. 


Farmer Jasper has just created a potion that will increase his bacon production. Faceache drinks the “milk” and it alters Faceache’s normal self drastically. When he demands a pig’s head at the butchers’ the butcher tells him he’s in luck because he’s already got one…



Terrified, the lad rushes to the school clinic. On the way back to school, the effects of the pig-potion wear off without Feceache’s knowledge. 


Faceache tries to explain his situation to the cook who can’t make any sense of his babbling and takes him to the Headmaster. 



Characters are © Rebellion Publishing Ltd
Click on the POWER PACK banner in the right-hand column and get your copy of the POWER PACK OF KEN REID - the deluxe two-volume set of Ken’s strips in WHAM!, SMASH! and POW! comics of the ‘60s.