Talk:British comics/Archive 1

'''DO NOT EDIT OR POST REPLIES TO THIS PAGE. THIS PAGE IS AN ARCHIVE.'''

This archive page covers approximately the dates between 19 May 2004 and 14 October 2005.

Post replies to the main talk page, copying or summarizing the section you are replying to if necessary.

Please add new archivals to Talk:British comic/Archive02. (See How to archive a talk page.) Thank you. Hiding talk 14:16, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

http://www.sweatdrop.com/ - group of British comic artists who regularly club together on small print runs. Is it OK to link from here, or is it too advertising-esque?

What about merging the list of comics in this page with the List of comic books list ? It will avoid duplication of some titles and ease introduction of new titles ? Anybody against this proposition ? Lvr 08:45, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Sounds OK to me! BillyH 16:38, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

first pass at main entry: comments

 * This is some good stuff...could anyone with a better editing skill than me manage to intergrate it into the article? BillyH 07:35, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Hello - some initial comments from Steve Whitaker

British comics usually differ from the American comic book in a variety of respects. Until the 1990s the British comic was usually partly in black & white with some colour sections (especially the cover).

there are numerous format differences but the original 19thC titles like CHIPS and COMIC CUTS were roughly the same size & shape as the comics like THE BEANO or BUNTY were in the 1980s. The sizes were based on the folding of an imperial sheet of paper just as the American pamphlets that began in the 1930s were. The introduction of international paper sizes (A0, A1,   A2 etc) has made a small difference in the shapes.

Colour has been a rarity in the non-slick comics up until the 60s. The lack of a single British newspaper feature that had a Sunday Page for the weekend comic sections has a lot to do with what the reading public expected a comic to look like. Two-colour pages on the covers - often with the darker colour not being black - go back to the 1900s and were clearly done to make the title more noticeable at the paperstand. In the late 80s many of the traditional newsprint titles including THE DANDY, JUDY, ROY OF THE ROVERS (?) went over to glossy cover format.

The stories are most often intended for children and usually only one or two pages.

the comic didn't start being aimed at children until the turn of the century - the audience was perceived as semi-literate working people - male readers. There are examples of this approach continuing in Europe, South America, Mexico, the Phillipines & even the US with vaguely adult-themed, cheesecake titles from Fiction House

Comics intended for teenagers or adults are considered to be more or less stretching the medium beyond its primary audience.

A straw argument, I feel - teen-agers were considered children until the 50s. The themes in   British newspaper strips from the 30s onwards show that it was an adult audience that was being entertained

Some publications have had a slightly different focus, though, providing readers with articles about and photographs of pop stars and television/film actors, plus more general articles about teenage life and throwing in a few comic strips for good measure. These older orientated publications have always managed to maintain a niche in between the comics world and that of grown-up magazines.

This is too generalised - British comics weeklies & monthlies have been around 50 years longer than the US pamphlets. Case in point: I think THE GIRL'S CRYSTAL goes back to about 1929. Its a   weekly for schoolgirls - as were periodicals like THE BOYS OWN PAPER and THE ROVER.

The most popular comics have annuals (usually published just in time for Christmas) and summer special editions.

Again, this refers to post-war titles, ignoring over 70 years of publishing

In British comics history there are some extremely long-running publications such as The Beano and The Dandy published by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd, a newspaper company based in Dundee, Scotland. The Dandy began in 1937 and The Beano in 1938. They are both still going today. The Boy's Own Paper lasted from 1879 to 1967.

During the 1950s and 1960s The most popular comic magazine for older age-group boys was The Eagle published by Hulton Press.

A distortion. THE EAGLE was a slick, expensive, gravure-printed weekly (copying the pre-war   Mickey Mouse Weekly's format). Its a completely different comic to its newsprint rivals. This titles appearance marks the beginning of a new, short-lived scad of slick titles like TV   EXPRESS, RANGER, SWIFT, GIRL, BOYS WORLD, PLAYHOUR, DIANA, TV CENTURY 21, LOOK & LEARN, PIPPIN, PRINCESS, LADY PENELOPE & TV COMIC. These went from gravure printing to   offset litho (more affordable in lower printruns) at the end of the 60s. There are few new slicks in the 70s. COUNTDOWN mixed the obvious appeal of TV 21 and TV   COMIC. VULCAN was a reprint title. Many of the younger childrens' titles contiued into the late 70s as did Look & Learn. Many of the girl's titles like DIANA and JUDY continued as slicks but had to compete with other titles changing into ad-mags like BOYFRIEND and BLUE JEANS which featured more product articles and photo-strips.

From the 1970s onward that position of popularity was taken over by 2000AD, a comic for older boys and girls but also for teenage or even grown-up readers published by IPC Magazines Ltd.

2000AD didn't start until 1977 and wasn't an instant hit. There were IPC stablemates like ACTION with its bloodthirsty features such as Hookjaw, a newsprint revival of THE EAGLE which eventually merged with 2000 as did their semi slick STAR-LORD with its SF theme.

The intellectual span of British comics over the years has stretched all the way from the cheerfully moronic obscenities of Viz (adult) to the political awareness of Crisis (adolescent to adult) and the sound educational values of Look and Learn (children's).

So you're saying British comics are stupid or dull. Is this the editorial stance of this online encyclopedia?

Anyone who's read a copy of THE BEANO knows that its irreverant, often offensive humour was what VIZ was trying to reclaim in the 80s. Decades of conservatism at DC Thomson have emasculated the tearaway excitement invested in characters like Davy Law's Dennis the Menace & Leo Baxendale's Bash Street Kids

Why no mention of WARRIOR at this point - which ran V for Vendetta & Marvelman by Alan Moore. Adult, readable, intellectually sound & stimulating. These strips & the people who produced work for WARRIOR had a huge impact on the American comics industry in the 80s.

There has also been a continuous tradition of black and white comics, published in a smaller page size format, many of them war titles like Air Ace inspiring youngsters with tales of the exploits of the army, navy and RAF mainly in the two world wars, also some romance titles and some westerns in this format.

Then we come to the reprint market. The comics reading public in Britain were not always able to get reliable supplies of American comic books and yet have always enjoyed the different approach to comics writing from the other side of the Atlantic. So the lack of reliable supplies was supplemented by a variety of black and white reprints of Marvel's 1950s monster comics, Fawcett's Captain Marvel, and some other characters such as Sheena, Mandrake the Magician, The Phantom etc.

There were several reprint companies that re-packaged American material - see Denis Gifford's   Catalogue Of British Comics. Len Miller sold his holdings to Alan Class around 1960/61. Class continued to produce black & white reprints until the late 80s.

The importer/distributor Thorpe & Porter published a series of titles in the same format under various names including Strato. They also re-published issues of Dell's FOUR COLOR series and Gilberton's CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED in the UK including several issues of WORLD ILLUSTRATED that featured material never published in the US. They were purchased by the American News Corp (the distributing arm of National/DC Comics) in 1964 ad went on to publish DC SPECIAL - an official Superman/Batman reprint title.

When Captain Marvel ceased publication in the United States because of a lawsuit the British reprint company, L. Miller & Son, just copied the entire Captain Marvel idea in every detail and began publishing their own knock-off under the names Marvelman and Young Marvelman, taking advantage of different copyright laws (after all, Eagle had gotten away with Dan Dare, a ripoff of Buck Rogers). These clone versions continued for a few years and were revived years later, in the 1980s by Alan Moore as an "adult" syle superhero. The new version of Marvelman was published in Warrior, a sort of British equivalent of Heavy Metal magazine. They were later reprinted and the story continued in an American full-colour comic, but with the name changed from "Marvelman" to "Miracleman" to avoid the lawsuits which would've followed.

A oddity of the trans-atlantic comics trade is Sheena, Queen Of The Jungle. This female version of Tarzan (with an element of H. Rider Haggard's "She who must be obeyed" - She... Na!) was created in New York by Will Eisner's Eisner-Iger studio for a British tabloid, Wags in 1937, but, when Sheena became a success in Wags the British newspaper got a contract to supply the character for publication by Fiction House magazines in the United States, thus exporting the character back to her country of origin.

This is a strange version of the story! Firstly, WAGS was produced for a distributor to Austalasia and the UK - there are editions for both sides of the world in existence. Secondly, the deal with Eisner & Iger was via their hastily-set-up syndicate Universal Phoenix Features so the strips were created for licence with WAGS as the initial customer (the strips continued through to 1939). Sheena was originally drawn by Mort Meskin but taken over by Bob Powell, Jerry Iger claimed he   created her (but this was around the time of the 1980s Sheena movie where royalties were in the    offering). When Fiction House set up its comic JUMBO COMICS in 1938 they hired the WAGS artwork from Eisner & Iger and then employed the Iger Shop to continue the features - Jerry Iger & his partner Ruth Roche are usually credited as editor for the Fiction House titles throughout their run into the early 50s.

---

In general: there needs to be more attention paid to who PUBLISHED the titles.

Show the variety of GENRES tried over the years: children's titles, Romance, Western & Detective in the pocketbook format - which had more than one publisher - eg: Fleetway(IPC), DCThomson, Gordon & Gotch..., girls comics (SALLY was an amazing title with everything from a superheroine   in The Justice of Justine to SF in The Legion of Super Slaves) and the slicks have some beautiful artwork - mostly done in Italy or Barcelona, supernatural (Misty) - more Spanish artwork, American imprints (Marvel UK who had many original titles before being bought by Panini in the   mid-1990s).

Take a closer look at what happened before WWII - and, indeed, before WWI !

List of British Comics

There have been thousands of comics in Britain over the years, including:

2000AD (1977-current) Action (1976-1977) Adventure (1921-1961) Air Ace Picture Library (1960-1970) Battle Picture Library (1975-1977) The Beano (1938-current) Beezer (1956-1990) and (to 1993 with Topper) The Boy's Own Paper (1879-1967)

Boys World

Bunty (1958-2001) Buster (1960-1999) The Buzz (1973-1975) The Chatterbox Cheeky (1977-1980) Commando Comics (1961-current) Cor!! (1970-1974) The Cracker (1975-1976) Crisis (comic) (1988-1991)

you've omitted CHIPS and COMIC CUTS - the original two comic titles in this country

The Dandy (1937-current) The Eagle (comic) (1950-1969) and (1982-1994)

you've included Wham Smash and Pow but omitted FANTASTIC with its Missing Link/Johnny Future strip and TERRIFIC which also featured new material Film Fun (1920-1962) Funny (early 1990's) Giggle (1967-1968) Hornet (1963-1976) Hotspur (1933-1981) Jackpot (1979-1982) Jack and Jill (comic) (1885-1887) and (1954-1985) Jackie (comic) (1964-1993) Jinty (comic) (1974-1981) Krazy (1976-1978)

KNOCKOUT - Amalgamated Press' answer to D C Thomson's titles

Lion (comic) (1952-1974) Look and Learn (1962-1982) Mandy (comic) (1967-1991) Mickey Mouse Weekly (1936-1955) Mirabelle (1956-1977) Misty (comic) (1978-1980) Monster Fun (1973-1976) Nipper (1987) Oink! (1986-1988) Picture Politics (1894-1914) Picture Fun (1909-1920) Pippin (1966-1986) Plug (1977-1979) Pow! and Wham! (1967-1968)

Wham began in 1964 & Smash was its sister title a year later

Puck (1904-1940) Radio Fun (1938-1961) Rainbow (1914-1956) Robin (1953-1969) Romeo (1957-1974) Roy of the Rovers (1976-1993) School Fun (1983-1984) Shiver and Shake (1973-1974) Smash (1966-1971) Sparky (1965-1977) Star Wars (Weekly) (1978-1986) The Big One (1964-1965) The Swift (1954-1963) Tiger Tim's Weekly (1920-1940) Topper (1953-1990) and (to 1993 with Beezer) TV Century 21 (1965-1971) TV Comic (1951-1984) Twinkle (1968-current) Valentine (1957-1974) Valiant (1962-1971) Victor (1961-1992) Viz (1979-current) War Picture Library (1958-1984) Whizzer and Chips (1969-1990) Whoopee! (1974-1985) Wonder (1942-1953) Wow! (1982-1983)


 * Okay, I've had a go at integrating it. I'm not up on the period between the wars, so if Mr Whitaker ever passes back again and lets us have the info, or better yet adds it himself, that would be great. Hiding 20:45, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Page move
I moved this page from British comics to British comic per Wikipedia naming conventions. See Naming conventions (plurals). Nohat 19:01, 8 August 2005 (UTC)
 * I moved the page back. I don't wish to start an edit war over this, and am quite happy to discuss and reach a consensus, I just want to revert things back to their original shape before that process is begun.  I noted that no pages that lkink here have had their links corrected, so I don't think it causes huge kerfuffle.  I think prior example for the pluralisation is set at Comics, where it is explained that the artform of sequential art is known seperately and more commonly as comics.  Since this article looks at the publication history of the British art form, and since the art form as it is known in the US is formed from the history of British comics, I'd argue that it should remain at British comics.  Hiding  talk 09:53, 10 August 2005 (UTC)


 * After considerable thought, I guess I agree with the move. Therefore, I have moved it to British comic because of the singular rule and also because it seems to me the article is about the history of the British comic. Hiding  talk 20:01, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
 * I don't think the naming convention is applicable here. The main article, comics uses the plural and you never refer to this in singular unless you mean one very specific comic like Superman. It's not too different from how language familes are in the plural.
 * Peter Isotalo 01:20, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
 * See, you misunderstand what this article is about. Note the article at American comic book.  Should that be at American comic books?  This article is about the publication format of a comic.  The article at comics is about the artform.  Hiding  talk 10:49, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
 * The title and scope of that article is obviously only because of confusion among editors what they're actually describing. The article is clearly about both the art form and the medium and there's no logic in keeping them separated. I've moved the article to American comics so that it's analogous to Franco-Belgian comics and this one (more or less).
 * This division betwen "American comic books" on one hand and "British comics" on the other is as far as I can tell something which exists pretty much only here on Wikipedia and perhaps in select circles of comic book collectors. I'm currently reading the book Adult comics: An introduction by British author Roger Sabin. In the introduction Sabin clearly points that he is a Brit and that he writes from a British perspective. While he doesn't ignore either American, European, Japanese or other comics from around the world, he does focus on British and American comics. However, there is not a trace of the distinction you're trying to assert. Also, I don't see any logic at all in trying so hard to separate art form from medium when we're talking about comics from a specific country. It's one thing to have a separate article on the comic book, but to keep the articles about country or region specific comics separate from the country or region specific comic books is ludicrous. No one is going to understand the point of why they're kept separate and the articles are bound to either become duplicates of one another or, more likely, yet another battle ground for pointless minutiae debates.
 * Peter Isotalo 21:33, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
 * Please provide outside references that support the idea that "comic" is the proper, widely accepted term for a British comic book. Also explain why any comic book that isn't British is so different from those in the UK that the latter gets a separate English language term. If this merely amounts to slightly different language usage in the UK compared to the US, then the distinction you're trying to make is merely a dictionary definition. In an encyclopedia, a comic book is a comic book, no matter where it's from.
 * Peter Isotalo 22:03, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Have a read of Sabin's Adult Comics and see if you can reference where he uses the term comic book. It's not indexed.  Note on page 17 he calls Ally Sloper's Half Holiday "the first modern comic."  Not a comic book.  The Penguin Book of Comics refers to the modern comic as well, and is a British publication.
 * "The comic book, from which newspapers tend to dissociate themselves, is a magazine with a page size of ten inches by seven; it features one or more complete stories told in strip formthroughout its pages. The British children's comic, a form of publication unknown in America, is a periodical containing an assortment of gag strips, serial strips, stories and other matter.  With few exceptions there is no interchange between newspaper strips, comic books, and children's comics."
 * If you will also accept my Penguin English Dictionary, it defines a comic but not a comic book. Could you please also avoid making such POV statements as In an encyclopedia. It only defines what you believe, and not an actuality. I doubt very much that articles are bound to either become duplicates of one another or, more likely, yet another battle ground for pointless minutiae debates.  At present that hasn't happened.  Let us leave that bridge to be crossed when in it is built. Now I think I have to respectfully point out that the burden of proof is on you to start sourcing your arguments in outside references. And I feel I must also respectfully ask you to ground your arguments as to what Wikipedia should contain in Wikipedia policy. Hiding  talk 13:51, 14 October 2005 (UTC)