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.



Showing posts with label Norman Mansbridge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Norman Mansbridge. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

A LOOK AT SHIVER & SHAKE STRIPS: TOUGH NUTT AND SOFTY CENTRE



Tough Nutt was a tough kid who liked fried tree roots and nail sauce for breakfast; he was so tough he flew his kite on barbed wire and used a boat mast for a fishing rod. Softy Centre was a cissy who could throw a fit in front of his parents if his milk was half-a-degree too warm; he was so weak that his weight registered as 'nothing' on the scales and he preferred using a ping-pong ball when playing golf because he didn't have the strength to hit his golf ball off the tee.



Neither were appealing characters at first: Tough Nutt was a nasty bully and Softy Centre a weakling and a spoilt brat. Very soon, however, the disagreeable side of Softy’s character vanished and was replaced with some positive traits, including even the nerve to stand up against Tough Nutt. The showing-off ruffian that he was, Tough Nutt always tried to tease and push Softy Centre around in order to have some fun at his expense but Softy had more brains and was luckier than the bully so he usually came out on top and Tough Nutt always ended up as a looser. 





Illustrated by Norman Mansbridge, Tough Nutt and Softy Centre must have been popular with the readers of SHIVER AND SHAKE. This is confirmed by the fact that the feature didn’t miss a single week and continued as a two-pager after the pagecount reduction of 1974 and during the weeks when extra pages were allocated to Frankie Stein pull-out booklet and Whoopee! ads. Was it because readers liked to see a frail kid outsmarting a bully or standing up to him every week? Probably so.




Tough Nutt and Softy Centre was not considered good enough to make it to the combined WHOOPEE! AND SHIVER AND SHAKE. The pair met for the last time in the final issue of SHIVER AND SHAKE in which Tough Nutt suffered a concussion and lost his memory. Softy was quick to take advantage of the situation:

Sunday, May 27, 2012

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: TEACHER'S PET


Teacher’s Pet was a long-running series in COR!! about an annoying school-girl named Patsy and her never-ending attempts to get into her teacher’s (Miss’) good books. Patsy’s efforts usually backfired and infuriated the teacher, besides she often suffered at the hands of her classmates for being a sneak. Miss’ real name was Miss Fortune and according to the piece of information shared in the Postbag section by the Editor, she’d been trying to change it ever since Patsy joined her class. The strip enjoyed full-colour treatment and often occupied the prime slot on the back of the paper, especially in the early months. It didn’t miss a single week and made 3 front cover appearances in COR!! issues dated 15th December 1973, 9th February 1974 and 11th May, 1974 (Nos. 185, 193 and 206). The artist was Norman Mansbridge but there was also another illustrator who stepped in quite frequently. I don’t know the name but he also drew Boney in Knockout and Whizzer and Chips.

Episode drawn by Norman Mansbridge from COR!! issue dated 12th December, 1970 (No. 28)
Episode by another artist from COR!! issue dated 23rd February, 1974 (No. 195)

This post covers the last feature that appeared in the first issue of COR!! The total number of different strips over the relatively short lifetime of COR!! came to sixty, not counting reader participation features, “guest star” appearances, “cor-medy choice” features and a few series that only appeared in COR!! annuals and specials that I hope to cover in due course. Teacher’s Pet was No. 27 so less than half of the strips have been covered so far.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

A LOOK AT COR!! STRIPS: STOWAWAY STEVE


Stowaway Steve was a very short-lived series about a boy who always stowed himself away in different places and objects. In all likelihood the editors didn’t think much of the series and stowed it away for good after just eleven episodes. The feature occupied 2/3 of one page (the remaining 1/3 was allocated to Kids’ Problem Column). The last episode appeared on 12th September, 1970 (No. 15). Stowaway Steve missed the following weeks: 8th, 15th and 29th August and 5th September, 1970 (Nos. 10, 11, 13 and 14). It was illustrated by several artists including Mike Lacey and Norman Mansbridge.

From COR!! issue dated 1st August, 1970 (No. 9)