FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 23)

Here’s the second batch of examples of football strips by Ken Reid.

From SCORCHER dated 14th March, 1970

From SCORCHER dated 17th October, 1970

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 4th November, 1972

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 9th December, 1972

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 27th October, 1973

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 17th August, 1974

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 21st September, 1974

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 29th July, 1972

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 22)

Flag flies half-mast over my house because the team that I supported dropped out yesterday. Next time maybe... Hats off to super-Balotelli!

The next two football posts will be dedicated solely to those rarely-seen and nearly forgotten Ken Reid footy strips from SCORCHER (and later SCORCHER AND SCORE) in the period from 1970 until 1974 - Sub, Football Forum, Manager Matt, Hugh Fowler, The Soccernauts, Harry Hammertoe, Jimmy Jinks and Triptoe Triers.

From SCORCHER dated 31st January, 1970

From SCORCHER dated 22nd August, 1970

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 24th June, 1972

From SCORCHER AND ASCORE dated 30th September, 1972

From SCORCEHR AND SCORE dated 28th October, 1972

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 13th October, 1973

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 20th October, 1973

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 24th August, 1974

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 19)

Millions of people around the Globe are crazy about football but surely there are also those who are less than keen on the game. Here are three nice episodes of Hugh Fowler – the Man Who Hates Football from SCORCHER AND SCORE, illustrated by Ken Reid.

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 28th August, 1971

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 18th September, 1971

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 9th October, 1971

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 18)

England has now dropped out of EURO 2012, unlike Manager Matt and his Mudchester United who didn’t lose a single match during their 1971 tour of Europe.  Read on to see how they tackled Spain and then were triumphant in the finals...

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 3rd July, 1971

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 31st July, 1971

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 17)

With England now warming up to play against Italy later this afternoon, it is appropriate to remember Ken Reid’s Manager Matt and his Mudchester  Eleven and see how they tackled their Italian opponents back in 1971. From the perspective of this day and age, the set looks somewhat racist and it is difficult to imagine one like this being included in a modern comic.

Now that I come to think of it, in the light of the recent banana incident during Italy's European Championship game against Croatia, the Frankie Stein episode in one of my previous football posts also comes across as racist.

From SCORCHER AND SCORE dated 17th July, 1971

I know I said my football posts were going to focus on humour comics but as I was searching my collection for interesting examples to show on this blog, I found an issue of TIGER AND HURRICANE with an episode of Roy of the Rovers and most importantly – a rough copy of a letter written by a young reader and long forgotten inside the paper. The boy was so upset with the referee’s decision in that week’s installment that he had to sit down and write this angry note to the editor. Isn’t it sweet to see how strongly the kid (whose name I have whited out) felt for his favourite characters...

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 5)

Yesterday’s match between England and France in the Ukraine ended in a draw but France didn’t get so lucky when Mudchester United challenged them for the European Cup in this episode of Manager Matt from Scorcher by Ken Reid. Mudchester United also tackled two or three other teams during their 1971 tour of Europe but I’ll save those episodes for later – perhaps the teams will meet in EURO 2012 later in the tournament...

From Scorcher cover dated 19th June, 1971

Here’s another Beano with a football-themed cover that I managed to find:

I just love those scrumptious BUSTER football covers by Nadal and there’s enough of them to last until the end of the month!

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 3)

Angel Nadal drew a lot of football-themed Buster covers. Here is a nice sample:

Sub was one of the eight humour series in SCORCHER by Ken Reid from 1970 until 1974. The sample below is from the period when his Odhams career had ended and his work for IPC Magazines was limited to football strips in SCORCHER, until he started drawing Faceache in JET in the spring of 1971.

From Scorcher dated 7th March, 1970

I managed to find very few issues of The BEANO with football-themed covers, here is one by Dudley Watkins:

FOOTBALL THEME IN BRITISH HUMOUR COMICS TO CELEBRATE EURO 2012 (DAY 2)

From Scorcher cover dated 26th September, 1970

COR!! FLYERS AND ADVERTISEMENTS IN IPC COMPANION COMICS

The arrival of Cor!! was advertised in other IPC comics of the time, such as Whizzer and Chips, Buster, Smash! and even Scorcher. The campaign began in the issues with the cover date of May 23rd, 1970. They carried a half-page teaser to wet readers‘ appetites, urging them to watch out next week for more exciting news.

Cor!! teaser in Buster dated May 23rd, 1970

The news came a week later in the form of a 4-page pull out in which Gus Gorilla announced that the super new laughter weekly was due to be out next week.

Cor!! promotional flyer in Whizzer and Chips
dated May 30th, 1970.

A week later most companion comics came with another 4-page flyer – “COR!! OUT TODAY” proclaimed the sign on the front of the pull out. Centre pages showed a number of characters from the new comic and invited readers to guess their names by choosing from the list.

Cor!! No. 1 promotional flyer in Whizzer and Chips
dated June 6th, 1970

The launch of Cor!! coincided with a rough period for some IPC comics because their publishing schedules were disrupted by industrial action. It affected Buster, Smash! and Valiant that all came out with a double cover date of June 6th/13th, 1970. In effect this meant that there were no issues on 13th June and no ads for the second issue of Cor!! were published.

Scorcher wasn’t affected by the action and the issue of June 13th, 1970 had a full-page ad of Cor!! issue No. 2; so did Whizzer and Chips, but the ad was only ½ page in size.

Cor!! No. 2 ad page in Scorcher dated 13th June, 1970

Cor!! No. 2 ad in Whizzer and Chips dated June 13th, 1970

Next week things came back to normal, and Cor!! issue No. 3 was presented with a full page ad in all companion comics.

Cor!! No. 3 ad in Buster dated June 20th, 1970

The promotional campaign ended a week later with a half-page ad urging readers to place their regular order now.

Cor!! ad in Buster dated June 27th, 1970

Valiant appears to have run a somewhat scaled-down advertising campaign of Cor!! There was no teaser in the issue dated May 23rd, nor there was anything in the week preceding the premiere (although there is certainly a possibility that the pull-out was removed from my copy of Valiant, can anyone confirm please?). The double-dated issue of June 6th/13th, 1970 was different from other IPC comics of that week in the sense that it only had a single-page ad of Cor!! No. 1 rather than the full 4-page flyer as in other comics.

Cor!! No. 1 ad in Valiant dated  June 6th/13th, 1970