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?
It's true that some covers were less than inspiring, but I can't remember seeing any truly awful ones. I'd have to see them first and refresh my memory. Oh, tell a lie - there was a cover of the Phoenix a while back that was pretty poor, design-wise.
ReplyDeleteI am not a fan of covers with nothing else but drawings of different prizes offered in competitions - bicycles, radio sets, etc. Various IPC comics had a few in the 80s, I think. They look like cheap supermarket catalogues.
DeleteWhat in the living expletive?!?!? How could ANYONE have decided that those Jackpot covers were good to be printed?
ReplyDeleteMaybe one of the Spitting Image puppet-makers had a job at IPC at some point...
Jackpot's biggest slipup to my mind was the cover of the 1983 annual; two kids holding the annual while characters jumped out. It was TOO realistic, but very well drawn. I think Jackpot merits a few more posts, not least because it reintroduced (or introduced in my case) Sherlock Jnr and Fiends & Neighbours. Top heavy on reprints eventually, yes, but a very worthy comic for a time.
ReplyDeleteI don’t think that cover was very well drawn. It easily deserves a place in the gallery of goofy covers – the blank expressions of their eyes give an impression that they are blind, or high, or something. Jackpot will get its fair share of posts on my blog in due course – I have a full run of the weeklies and believe there was some interesting original content there.
DeleteGlad you like Jackpot comic..
DeleteHow could I not! It gave me access to Fiends and Neighbours which I'd only seen in late '70s Cor Annuals, and Sherlock Jnr, which I didn't then know had been in Buster TWICE - http://bustercomic.co.uk/s.html.
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