User:DonJay/my sandbox

British Boy's Magazines and Comics Magazines intended for boys fall into one of three classifications. These are comics which tell the story by means of strip cartoons; Papers which have several short stories and pulp magazines which have a single, but complete novella in them, each was really a book. The latter were not for the younger child and were often detective or western in content and were generally greater in cost. Several titles were published monthly whereas the other two categories were more frequent.

Victorian period
In the latter part of the19th century a start was made to publish periodical directed at Boys rather than adults. Their clientel was limited due to * the lack of education of the majority of children until the 1880s (Universal education started in England in 1871).. Even then, the cost gave further limitations. Their value was negated by the adult world, resulting in them being refered to as "Penny Dreadfuls".

One of the first was "Every Boy's Magazine" in 1863. Few of these publications lasted more than a couple of years. One, however published over a period of 86 years. * This was "Boy's Own Paper" published from 1879 to 1965. Another was "Boy's Friend" 1895 to 1927. Boys Own Paper was published for a record 88 years.

Another magazine with a comparatively long life was "Chums" which started in 1892 and survived until 1934. It have stories about Animals and Sports as well as many about young people. Sax Rohmer wrote a number of stories for it in 1924. Chums in its early days worked closely with Baden Powell, but after a disagreement with him became quite derisive about the Scouts. In 1909, however, it became the official Journal for the British Boy Scouts ( a break-away group from Baden Powell's Scout movement.

Early 20th Century
John will you re-write this section, your knowledge of Gem & magnet is much greater than mine.

This period gave rise to two of most famous boy's papers,the Gem and the Magnet.

A short lived paper of this period was the Vanguard, which published from 1907 to 1909. It contained many stories written by Charles Hamilton under a host of pen names. It was the fore-runner of the type of stories that Gem and Magnet were to continue publishing for many years. A series of school stories on the "Blackminster School" were written by H Philpott Wright (J Weedon Birch).

Between Wars
In between the two world wars there appeared in Britain a number of weekly magazines or papers aimed at boys between the ages of 8 and 16. Their price was 2d (two pence) and they were consequently known as the "Tup'penny bloods". They were printed on newsprint, with a coloured front cover. Inside there were short stories, with illustrations and often in a serial form. Some factual article were included. By today's standards, they were not particularly violent or lured, but even so, they were often frowned upon by educators. In 1940, George Orwell wrote an essay entitled "BOYS’ WEEKLIES", in which he was highly critical of them. He condemned them both from their literary content and their subject matter. Frank Richards (Charles Hamilton (writer)), the originator of "Billy Bunter", replied to the essay. This critisism did not, however, prevent thousands of boys descending on their local newagent each week to purchase one or more of the "bloods". Many boys obtained a taste for reading from an exposure to them. They were at the same period as the comics like "Comic Cuts", "The Dandy" and "The Beano" which were in the strip cartoon form. These magazine contained a number of short stories or articles, many of which were in a sequence. The stories were mostly about school life, sport or war, often with a young hero, that the reader could easily associate with. Many stories had over-drawn characters, and used many descriptions that were 19th century parodies of nationality, profession or type. There were two main groups of publication the earlier was run by the Amalgamated Press, while the second run by D C Thomson was known as the "Big Five". One boy's magazine that does not conform to the above formats was "Modern Wonder". It had a comparatively short life, starting in 1937 and closing down in 1941. It differed from the other magazines by mainly having articles of a technical nature, instead of all fiction. There were some short stories and a serial included, but it was largely well illustrated articles about modern inventions. The format of the magazine was also different from other boys magazines, being initially 16 inches (40.6 cm) by 10.5 inches (26.7 cm) which is close to the size of newspapers. The covers and the centre pages were printed in colour, the latter often having sectionized drawings of modern items (such as buildings, machinery, or armaments). Similar drawing were placed on the front cover, and the rear cover sometimes carried strip cartoons of a SciFi nature.

Post-war Period
Several new Boy's comics were started in the 1950s, "Tiger"and "Eagle" being long lasting. The characters in the strip of these two comics were mainly human, unlike those in Beano and Dandy. The Eagle had comics such as "Dan Dare" and "PC 49" drawn without distortion.

By the middle of the 1960s, the taste of the youth of Britain was changing. Television had, for many, displaced reading  The improvement of publoc libraries also hastened the end of some magazines. As a magazine stopped publication it was sometimes combined with one of the remaining. By 1970 most of the publication with text had been replaced by new weeklies of the strip cartoon type. This type of boy's magazine had largely been only available as imports from North America. There had also been a similar introduction of strip novels for adults.

As the 20th century drew to a close, many of these magazines had become collector's items, and from being worthless paper, copies became highly desirable with high prices attached to them.

Magazines

 * Boy's Own Paper - from 1879 to 1967
 * Chums - from 1892 to 1934
 * Boy's Friend - from 1895 to 1027
 * Vanguard - from 1907 to 1909
 * Amalgamated Press - The Gem - from 1907 to 1940 (St Jims School stories)
 * Amalgamated Press - The Magnet - from 1908 to 1940 (Greyfriars School stories)
 * Thomson's The Dandy - from 1937 (still publishing) - a strip comic
 * Thomson's The Beano - from 1938 (still publishing) - a strip comic
 * Thomson's Adventure - from 1921 to 1961
 * Thomson's Rover - from 1922 to 1961
 * Thomson's Skipper - from 1930 to 1941
 * Thomson's Hotspur - from 1933 to 1959 ( Red Circle School stories)
 * Thomson's Wizard - from 1922 to 1963
 * The Champion was published during the period 1939-45 (probably between 1922 and 1955)
 * Modern Wonder (later Modern World) - from 1937 to 1941
 * Tiger - from 1954 to 1985 - a strip comic
 * Eagle - from 1950 to 1994 (with a gap in publication) - a strip comic

References and Cover illustrations sources

 * "Wartime Scrapbook on the Home Front 1939 to 1945" by Robert Opie - published by piglobal ISBN 0 954795 44 X
 * "The 30's Scrapbook" by Robert Opie - published by piglobal ISBN 1 872727 33 6
 * British Children's Comic covers & comments
 * History of the British Comic

External References

 * The Big Five -
 * Fiction for the Working Lad (essay) -
 * Orwell's Essay -
 * Modern Wonder covers -
 * British Juvenile Story Papers and Pocket Libraries Index -
 * Literature for Victorian Children -