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.



Saturday, January 27, 2018

TERROR TV IN BUSTER AND MONSTER FUN – PART ONE




A recent e-mail from a fan and researcher of Doctor Who requesting details about episodes of Terror TV strip featuring the Time Lord made me realise that I’ve left some loose ends when covering the strips that originated in MONSTER FUN COMIC and were transferred to BUSTER when the two titles merged in 1976. There were eight of them - Martha’s Monster Make-Up, Teddy Scare, Draculass, Terror TV, Kid Kong, Gums, Mummy’s Boy and X-Ray Specs. I covered their runs in MONSTER FUN COMIC in my detailed account of MFC a few years ago. I have no wish to go too deep into BUSTER territory but the relatively short runs of Martha’s Monster Make-Up, Teddy Scare, Draculass and Terror TV in BUSTER AND MONSTER FUN make me want to cover the four strips to their very end. 

I am not sure there’ll be much to say about all of them but Terror TV was a really interesting one. You can refresh your memories of the strip by revisiting my old article HERE

In MONSTER FUN COMIC, Terror TV was a two-pager, it ran for 24 weeks in issues 50 – 73. The illustrator was initially Ian Knox. Barrie Appleby took over from issue 67 and drew the strip till the end of the series in MFC. 

Barrie Appleby remained in charge of the feature after it transferred to BUSTER and became a one-pager. The first combined issue of Buster AND MONSTER FUN was cover-dated 6th November, 1976. Terror TV ended 68 weeks later in the issue with the cover date of 18th February 1978. It missed one week (October 8, 1977), so the total episode count in BUSTER came up to sixty-seven, all illustrated by Barrie Appleby. The strip made five front-cover appearances in colour.

The vast majority of the episodes lampooned real TV shows and required Barrie Appleby to draw lots of caricatures of real TV personalities. My knowledge of British television of the seventies is patchy and only a few of the names make sense to me (Fawlty Terrors = Fawlty Towers, Doctor Boo = Doctor Who, Looterror Colomboo = Columbo, John Claws = John Cleese, Jimmy Madville = Jimmy Savile, etc.). Below is part one of the complete list of the episodes with a few scans of the pages that I find to be interesting or nice. Part two will follow soon. Have fun identifying the names of the shows and TV stars and reporting your findings in the comments section :)

November 6, 1976 · New viewer for Terror TV visits Terror TV studios and gets a taste of some of their programmes – Miss Weird Contest, Weather Fearcast and Opportunity Knees-Knocks
November 13, 1976 · Saturday sports programme - Grimstand
November 20, 1976 · Nationweird hosted by Michael Baarghatt
November 27, 1976 · Comic couple – Eric and Ernie – Morescream and Wince
December 4, 1976 · TERROR TV featured on front cover. The Generaving Game, hosted by Bruce Forfright


December 11, 1976 · Terror TV’s Open Ghoulf Championship, presenter – Harry Carpenterror
December 18, 1976 · Christmas film shooting (Christmas on Creaky Island)
December 25, 1976 · Christmas Fright with Stars  - chat with your favourite disc jockeys Tony Bleakburn, Jimmy Madville, O.B.E. and Ed ‘Screwtop’ Stewart
January 1, 1977 · Terror TV’s Annual Pantomime – Jack and the Scream-Stalk
January 8, 1977 · Animal Panic, presenter – Johnny Morbid
January 15, 1977 · John Raving’s Newsround
January 22, 1977 · Fawlty Terrors


January 29, 1977 · Scaretrek - the Scareship Enterrorprise
February 5, 1977 · Tomorrow’s Weird presented by Raymond Backscare
February 12, 1977 · Filming the commercial for “Daze”
February 19, 1977 · Looterror Colomboo, your favourite TV cop


February 26, 1977 · Ghoulling for a Song hosted by Max Robertscream
March 5, 1977 · The Superscares – the programme where we find which star of sport stands up bests to being terrified
March 12, 1977 · Another tale of those wartime weirdos in Dad’s Scare Me
March 19, 1977 · Pot Bleak - TV spooker game hosted by Alan Freaks
March 26, 1977 · New Faceaches – the popular TV talent show hosted by Derek Horribleson
April 2, 1977 · TERROR TV featured on front cover. Interview between John Claws and Ronnie Corbite
April 9, 1977 · Scare of the Century – introduced by Nicholas Panics-on
April 16, 1977 · Angela Rave-on welcomes you to this year’s Eurofearsome Song Contest
April 23, 1977 · Multi-Horrored Shock Shop with Noel Demons


April 30, 1977 · Jim’ll Freak It! with Jimmy Savage
May 7, 1977 · Terror TV’s Special Weather Forecast
May 14, 1977 · Table Terror Tournament
May 21, 1977 · TTV’s new cowboy serial – The Revenge of Pocahauntus
May 28, 1977 · Scream Test hosted by Michael Odd. Magnus Murkysome thanks reader for programme idea


June 4, 1977 · TTV’s Annual Presentation of TV Awards


June 11, 1977  · Terrorzan of the Jungle film
June 18, 1977 · Raving Damp featuring that meanest of mean landlords, Mr. Rigsfear
June 25, 1977 · The Sky at Night hosted by Patshriek Moore
July 2, 1977 · Groan-in – TTV’s version of a phone-in programme where viewers ask people in the studio questions 
July 9, 1977 · TERROR TV featured on front cover. Wrestling match – Big Baddie vs Terror TV’s Box of Tricks
July 16, 1977 · Bat’s Life hosted by Esther Rantscream. Magnus Murkysome thanks reader for programme idea


July 23, 1977  · It’s a Shock-out hosted by Stuart Horror
July 30, 1977 · Scaresky and Hunch – the creepy crime-busters. Magnus Murkysome thanks reader for programme idea
August 6, 1977 · Top of the Shocks introduced by Dave Lee Terror 


August 13, 1977 · Horridge, your favourite prison series with its number one convict, Norman Stanley Freaker

COME BACK SOON FOR PART TWO OF THE COMPLETE LIST OF TERROR TV PROGRAMMES!

Friday, January 5, 2018

GULLIVER GUINEA-PIG ORIGINAL ARTWORK BY GORDON HUTCHINGS



Here are some nice examples of Gulliver Guinea-Pig original artwork by Gordon Hutchings that I recently came across on eBay. I didn’t buy them, so the images are “borrowed” from the auction site.


They were first printed in PLAYHOUR in 1961. According to the auction description, the story was re-used in TEDDY BEAR’S PLAYTIME in the 1980s. It looks like the full page shown above was “constructed” from two episodes of the original tale. Here is how they appeared in PLAYHOUR:





Gulliver Guinea-Pig Saves Summer started in PLAYHOUR cover-dated 25 February, 1961 and ran for 6 weeks until Easter issue of 1 April, 1961. It was the second Gulliver story illustrated by Hutchings who took over from the original artist Philip Mendoza. Both did an excellent job on the strip. The quality of the artwork and the stories makes me want to do a detailed account of all Gulliver’s travels during the seven years of the strip’s existence (1958 – 1965)…

Thursday, December 21, 2017

THE STORY OF FATHER CHRISTMAS - PART TWO



Here is the rest of The Story of Father Christmas by Geoffrey Squire from December 1957 issues of PLAYHOUR. I don’t have a hard copy of issue No. 168 so I can’t show the front cover, but I found a scan of the centre pages on the web, so enjoy! 

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!








Monday, December 18, 2017

1957 PLAYHOUR X-MAS: THE STORY OF FATHER CHRISTMAS FEAT. NORMAN GNOME - PART ONE



In 1957 PLAYHOUR celebrated the Holiday Season throughout December. Christmas-themed stories appeared on the front covers as well as inside, including The Story of Father Christmas presented on centre pages in full colour. The story was painted by the now largely-forgotten British illustrator Geoffrey Squire (1896-1989). The quality of art in those nursery comics of the 50s and 60s never ceases to impress me. 

Below are the front covers of the first two issues of December (Nos. 165 and 166) and the first two installments of The Story of Father Christmas. The remaining two will follow in my next blogpost. 











Friday, December 15, 2017

X-MAS ON 1956 PLAYHOUR FRONT COVERS



To celebrate the Holiday Season, here’s a nice sequence of 4 covers of PLAYHOUR young children’s comic from December 1956 featuring Dicky and Dolly & Co., illustrated (I believe) by Harold McCready. The realism of those anthropomorphic animal characters has a strange air of creepiness, don’t you think?