SPARKY issue No. 59 with the cover date of 5th March,
1966 is one of the few issues that I still need to complete my set of the title.
Someone is offering a copy on eBay this week but I think it is overpriced and
postage rate to where I am is outrageous, etc., but that’s not what this post
is about… I am glad the seller showed a decent image of the cover, so now I know what's on it.
It looks like Bill Ritchie later used the idea of Moonsters’
brass band for the cover of Sparky annual 1968. Some of the figures are
near-identical, don’t you think? Remember to click to see the image full size!
In my opinion the whole series of SPARKY ‘Moonsters’ front
page sets is among the best impact covers in British children’s comics. The action-packed,
bright single-panel drawings must have been real eye-catchers on the newsstands.
I might do a complete series of those covers (more than a hundred of them!) sometime
in the future…
I'll be sure to look out for that post, Irmy. I've got that Annual too, and it's a nice little slice of the '60s.
ReplyDeletelook forward to that...
ReplyDeleteGreat find of an earlier idea used again..
Bill also drew other poster pages..
The Cat Street kids
quote
Kashgar ... he did in the New Hotspur titled 'The Cat Street Kids'.
Other strips he did in this format were The Moonsters and Spadger and his Pals in Sparky and Rover & Wizard respectively.
Just to clarify. 'The Cat Street Kids' first appeared in New Hotspur No 37 (2/7/60) and the episode in which Bill Ritchie drew himself in his studio, surrounded by the kids, was published in issue No 88 (24/6/61).
Funnily enough I’m working through Sparky at British Library at the moment – backwards! Called up the ’72 issues last week and have ordered ’71’s issues for tomorrow. The Sparky character was, with the benefit of hindsight, not the wisest move DCT ever made, but by nearly’69 it’d rid itself of the character and had eight more years of uncontroversial (and, in some cases, extremely funny!) entertainment.
ReplyDelete