HAROLD HARE’S OWN PAPER, April 1961

HAROLD HARE’S OWN PAPER was another nice nursery comic of the 60’s by Fleetway, and here is a random issue published at about this time nearly 60 years ago.

The cover is by Hugh McNeill, as was some of the artwork inside. I have credited the artists where I could recognise their styles. The comic was larger in size than companion PLAYHOUR and JACK AND JILL at the time, so I couldn’t scan complete pages, but the "clippings" below will give you a taste. If I were a British kid when these comics were around, I would have probably preferred PLAYHOUR but HHOP also had some nice art and stories to offer.

Here’s another strip by Hugh McNeill:

Moony was a weird creature from the Moon who could transform himself into any shape and form:

The centre pages had Here Comes Mr. Toad by Peter Woolcock:

The Adventures of Pinocchio was illustrated by Tom Kerr (I believe):

The back cover featured The Stories of Katie Country Mouse by Mendoza. His work here seems to be less inspired than that of Gulliver in PLAYHOUR which Mendoza had stopped drawing by then:

PLAYHOUR EASTER ISSUE 1959

It looks like my detailed account of Gulliver Guinea Pig’s stories will have to wait because I am now busy coordinating another exciting project which I hope to be able to announce here very soon…

I haven’t added a new blogpost for quite some time, so in keeping with the theme of the last few posts, here is a complete Easter issue of Playhour published at about this time of the year nearly 6 decades ago in 1959. It comes from a small batch that I recently picked up on eBay. The quality of artwork can’t be praised enough and it’s a shame the title appears to be largely forgotten and underappreciated among collectors. On the other hand, those old issues are rather difficult to come by. Click on the images to enlarge.

Enjoy!