A Wartime Christmas

26/12/2011 by admin.

1940! Four digits written in fire on the pages of our history, Britain entered that year apprehensive about the “phoney war” and left it wondering if she’d ever see 1942. Large parts of our cities were rubble and the families of many a soldier and airman spent Christmas dinner with an empty place at the table.

However, in the middle of 1939 when these annuals were being prepared, it was still just a number. And for the children reading their new books on this day 72 years ago they were a welcome look back into times of peace.

 

 Though they’re both in remarkably good nick I actually got them months apart from different places!

One annual for boys and one for girls. Both from the same publisher and with a remarkably similar style of contents. They’re also very good value with over 200 pages each (paper rationing had not yet begun). Of course they’re full of text stories, reading two of those probably takes as long as reading the whole 2012 Beano Annual! And from the sound of things the Beano and Dandy annuals this year are actually thicker than the average size, which is 64 pages. 64 pages! That’s a jumped-up monthly magazine! Something ought not to have the right to call itself an annual with anything under 100.

 

Tell your friends… NOW!

 

The girls get a double-page contents with pretty illustrations.

Both annuals also have an introduction from the editor of their respective weekly comic (a thing unheard of today, though ask me again if Commando decide to do annuals again. Today “The Editor” would at least use their real name mind you) and extra illustrations around everything. Then we’re on to the stories, with block illustrations in line or grey washes. These washes look magnificent.

 

Not always of the most dramatic incidents in a story, mind you.

The Champion was primarily a sport-themed comic that ran from 1922 to 1959. It might be considered a forerunner of the sport-themed comic (with strips, not completely text!) Tiger , into which it was eventually incorporated. As well as sport it also included a few stories of war or adventure (most famously Rockfist Rogan, a fighter pilot who was also a boxer!). This particular story starts off the annual with a mystery about a “monster” seen in an estuary near a navy base. Why yes you have guessed that it’s a submarine! The opening illustration to the story even features some very German-looking men being punched. The story does not mention the nationality of the spies operating the sub, mind you.

 

The Schoolgirls’ Own Annual, in the tradition of British Annuals, was named after a publication that was already defunct. The Schoolgirls’ Own ran from 1921 to 1936, featuring stories of Morcove School. This was a girl’s school close to St Jim’s from The Gem, as Cliff House (home of Bessie Bunter) was close to Greyfriars (home of Billy Bunter). Comic cross-pollination is older than you think!

This opening story is also set in a public school (though not Morcove… in fact I don’t think any of the stories in this annual are!) and features a tangled mystery involving a young new girl, a bully, a wrongfully-expelled heroine and mysterious thefts. It’s a real page-turner though the solution to the mystery (and exposure of the real thief) is very cliche’d.

Other styles of story include tales of dancers and amateur theatricals…

 

Clickety-click

Both annuals cram in plenty of school sports…

 

You could just say “The Summer Game” and “The Winter Game” back then!

In the Schoolgirls’ Own we get an amusing comedy-of-errors story with plenty of characters all misunderstanding one another (an actress disguised as a schoolgirl fails to realise she’s insulting the headmistress of the school, for instance!).

 

The Champion, in it’s run, produced two detectives in the mould of Sexton Blake. In the beginning there was Panther Grayle (an article in the 1925 Champion Annual states he has very nearly acheived the same level of fame as Blake… among the staff of The Champion maybe!) and later on there was Colwyn Dane, assisted by cockney lad Slick Chester. This story for 1940 appears to be yer usual Scooby Doo-style tale of a fake ghost intended to scare people away from a treasure (I haven’t completely read either book yet!). Colwyn Dane continued in Champion Annuals into the 1950’s, the paper became even more sport-oriented after the war, and the stories reflected that - he would go undercover in a county cricket team and so on.

 

This reminds me of the style of one of the earlier Commando artists…

Finally mention should be made of a war story featuring air raids from the end of the Champion Annual. Something for the boy hiding in the family shelter to think over as the Blitz began, perhaps…

 

Now here’s the sort of scene that’s supposed to be in the illustrations!

Both annuals also feature articles. Most of the articles are also loosely written in the form of stories (what would have been called “chatty” in the 20’s and early 30’s)  that contain advice. In The Champion we have the rules and terminology of Baseball, supposedly introduced to an English public school by an American named Cornelius T Pepperjohn. While Americans probably usually assume Cricket is “the British version” of Baseball, in fact Rounders is a lot closer. However from what I remember of Rounders at primary school it’s not as “organised”, has more “bases” and different rules. Though that might have just been my primary school!

I do seem to remember playing a lot of Baseball at secondary school, mind you. Of course we didn’t have a proper field for it, they never even bothered to paint a diamond (there was easily enough room for one though, that school’s field was vast). I think it was just an excuse for our PE teacher to shout “Strike 2… he could be in trouble!” in a ridiculous American accent.

 

Also our school’s “catcher’s fence” was “my face” usually.

Of course in those days every boy knew all about Football, so a ’story article’ about that concentrates more on tactics, organising training and the importance of selecting team members based on ability, not friendship!

 

How many schools really appointed an ex-international as their coach? Even in those days of capped salaries?

Meanwhile on the girl’s side there’s an article about what to do when invited to a dance. The girl in question gets a fashionable dress… by altering one she already has with new bits of material. She can’t afford a fashionable handbag either, so creates a matching one for her dress from scratch, using a handkerchief and ribbon! The only new thing she buys is tights… could you imagine a girl’s annual suggesting altering and making things yourself these days? And remember this article was written before rationing!

 

“I might go and work in Singapore dontcha know. I’ll be well away from this Hitler business out there…”

There’s also more conventional articles with short sections containing useful information. For the girls there’s suggestions for hobbies and crafts… including plenty more making of your own clothes.

 

Everybody collected stamps back then. Everybody. It’s amazing there was enough left for posting letters.

And for the boys, advice for doing odd jobs around the house. The very idea of a book aimed at children these days talking about replacing fuses and fighting minor house fires! They’d never print that sort of thing today… and that means that we’ve lost something, quite frankly.

 

 “Most people fly into a panic and forget the number for the fire brigade” in my admittedly limited experience.

Interestingly there’s also an article about Speedway, from 1939! I was under the impression it didn’t arrive in Britain until the late 40’s, having originated in Australia. In fact the editorial in issue 4 of my Red, White & Blue said as much… oh well, lucky it’s going to be re-launched!

 

2 wheels, no brakes, aeroplane fuel. What could go wrong?

And finally, the back covers, both containing adverts for the weekly publications that the annuals are associated with… in the customary style!

Who cares about actual speed, bikes like that look faster than modern ones!

Posted in Schoolgirls Own, The Champion, Amalgamated Press, 1940's | 1 Comment »

Armistice Union Jacks

12/11/2011 by admin.

For nearly a decade after the end of the First World War it was hardly mentioned in British comics. Any war stories were either set further back in time (for instance the Afghan wars), or else were about fictional conflicts set in the near future. Often against made-up countries presumed to be in some part of the dismembered Austro-Hungarian empire.

However by the second half of the twenties stories and articles about the war gradually crept back in. The Union Jack in November 1926 was one of the leaders of this trend with a series of three plates celebrating the armistice.

I only have two of the issues though!

Normally I don’t care about gifts with comics. I buy them for the art and stories alone, in fact I prefer comics without their gifts because they are usually far cheaper! I got the first issue of the re-launched Wizard from 1970 for a tenner that way. But I made an exception when I saw the first of these pictures on sale…

Wonder if this has been reproduced anywhere else?

The plates are accompanied by brief articles about them. These also contain plenty of reminders that no other paper has ever made such an amazing offer at the price, that demand is high and that a regular order should be placed. You’d think The Dandy would try this in these days of ‘pester power’ eh?

 

They also contain previews of the next plate

 

And remember that regular order!

The three issues are bumper numbers in other ways too. They feature the start of the serial The Three Just Men by Edgar Wallace. This was considered so important that the first two parts (and maybe more) take precedence over Sexton Blake and appear right at the front!

 

I doubt that happened with many other serials.

The Three Just Men is the sequel to 1905’s The Four Just Men (yes the Four came before the Three, for reasons that will be obvious if you’ve read the first one XD). It features a group of highly skilled gentlemen who publicly sentence people to death and then carry out the promised assassination by some clever trick. Just like The Deathless Men and V would be doing in later decades. The Four Just Men was actually one of the first ‘really old’ stories I read. It was fairly hard going for me at the time but now I breeze through stories from 10-20 years earlier. Maybe I ought to re-read it.

 

The copy I own is actually from the 50’s mind.

Sexton Blake is also on top form. The story concerns the return of one of his greatest enemies (and he wasn’t short of those in the twenties!) Leon Kestrel, the “master mummer”. A mummer was a kind of ‘quick change’ artist who with clever, quickly-applied makeup, could appear to be many different people on stage. Kestrel on the other hand could do this in real life, with disguises that couldn’t be detected even at close quarters by friends of the person being imitated. This of course led to fantastic stories where you never quite know who is who, especially if Sexton Blake also steps into one of his famous disguises.

 

Kestrel also had a love of the theatrical. He would threaten to carry out seemingly impossible crimes - in this case stealing gemstones one at a time from a necklace (”pinching it by installments!” declares Tinker) despite the fact it’s inside a locked case and guarded round the clock. He would also steal valuable art treasures that it would be impossible to sell on simply for the fun of it. Not that he wasn’t also above swindling honest people out of large sums of money. Oh and of course his skills at deception, burglary and quick changes of appearance help him with an endless series of amazing prison escapes when he is finally captured!

 

Oh and his wife/accomplice Fifette who is just as skilled as he is!

I don’t have the third issue of these armistice numbers, but the editorial further up mentions that it is the first issue to feature Dr Satira. I don’t think I’ve ever read one of his stories, but it says he has a personal army of ape-men so I expect it can’t be half bad!

Posted in Amalgamated Press, Edgar Wallace, Union Jack, Sexton Blake, 1950's, 1920's | 1 Comment »

To celebrate the release of Green Lantern…

18/06/2011 by admin.

Lets look at how comic movies were advertised 101 years ago!

Or in the week ending May 21st 1910 to be precise.

The advert is rather more, ahem, restrained. It appears on the editor’s page and concerns a film made about a complete story that is printed in that very issue. As soon as readers finished with it they could rush to the “electric theatre” and see “clever performers” acting out the story in “living pictures”!

Did I mention The Boys Friend had the best editor’s page ever?

Of course not everybody counts the text-only story papers, such as this one, as “comics”. However for those that do, could this be the first ever comic movie?

Anyway, here is the ad itself…

Film was not exactly a brand-new technology in 1910, but was apparently rare and interesting enough for the editor to go into a technical description of how it works.

With seventy copies distributed to the ends of the country, I wonder if any copies of the film survive? And also how they stack up against the written story. Were liberties taken to ’simplify’ scenes that wouldn’t have been easy to capture with the limited filming time, heavy equipment and lack of sound in those days?

Posted in Comics on screen, Boys Friend, 1910's, Amalgamated Press | 1 Comment »

Odds ‘N Ends

26/05/2011 by admin.

Sorry I haven’t made any decent updates lately. I have a few ideas in the pipeline including some more reviews of serial stories (I have in fact taken the necessary pictures for a review of a 1930’s Girls’ Crystal serial and had them sitting around for ages!) and more looks at classic science fiction.

Anyway, for now here is an inspirational poem from The Juvenile Magazine for July 1886. Which also gives me an excuse to start an 1880’s category!

 

No mention of Jesus, unlike almost everything else this comic printed.

Well the gap between 1870’s and 1890’s was annoying. The 1890’s is the start of my “normal” collecting era, so I won’t feature much from before then (well from before 1892 when Chums started, really). The broad type of comics I collect started in the 1860’s but I don’t own anything from that decade yet!

Today I got this, though. An issue of my favourite comic from my favourite decade… with appropriate jingo:

New Series no. 56, June 14th 1902.

This is a special number to celebrate the coronation of Edward VII. It is also twice the size of a normal issue (and twice the price). Most issues of this era had black and white covers with part of a story on them, too.

This issue see’s the launch of two new serial stories - both with extra-long opening installments of several pages (tabloid sized pages with tiny print, the serials in The Boys’ Friend were truly “book length” ). It also has the usual installments of already-running serials, articles about the King, coronation ceremony and Britain in general. There is also an advert for issue 2 of The Boys’ Realm - which was a very similar story paper launched that year. In 1903 these two would be joined by The Boys Herald making a “big three” of tabloid-sized story papers.

Posted in Joseph Toulson, Boys Realm, Juvenile Magazine, 1880's, 1900's, Boys Friend, Amalgamated Press | 2 Comments »

The Case of the Nihilists Daughter - A Brilliant Union Jack

31/12/2010 by admin.

I recently read this tale, as a breaktime-filler at work, and just had to write about it, it’s brilliant!

 

New Series number 606, May 22nd 1915

The story begins with a lengthy prologue, in fact it’s so long you forget it even is a prologue and wonder when Sexton Blake is going to show up!

As it is, the tale begins in winter in the Russian city of Petrograd. General Karoski is waiting at a resturant for Elga Seblinsky, the daughter of a count that he is deeply in love with. However she is engaged to another man, Boris Tchapernoff. But the general has an ace up his sleeve - he knows that Elga’s father is “The Wolf”, and a member of The Nihilists, a group that want to bring down the government of Russia. The general attempts to blackmail Elga, telling her he knows where her father is meeting that very night, and that if she doesn’t promise to marry him her father will be arrested and exiled - virtually a death sentence.

Just as the general loses his temper Boris Tchapernoff appears on the scene and knocks the general to the ground, Elga faints and by the time she has come around the general is long gone - to arrest her father! Boris races them to the meeting-place in his sleigh, but they are just too late - and they witness Elga’s father being led away in chains, never to be seen again. Elga wants to shoot the general there and then, but it would only result in them being arrested too, and Boris has to drag her away.

Which can’t have been very easy in a Russian winter

During the earlier ’scene’ Boris and Karoski had arranged to fight a duel - which is to take place in the gardens of a mansion during a masked ball. Elga drugs Boris and takes his place in the costume, eager to have her personal revenge. However the general cheats at the duel - turning and firing after only five paces instead of the agreed six. “Boris’” second. Alexis Irloff, pulls off the victims mask and discovers the truth, shortly before being shot himself. Boris, recovered from the drug, arrives just in time to swear he will have his revenge on General Karoski!

Five years pass, and the world is plunged into a devastating war. One that causes Tinker, Sexton Blake’s assistant, to compose a ‘touching ballad’:

Tinker’s anti-German song!

 A woman named Enid Delane comes to visit the great detective - she is the victim of a blackmailer named Latham Gower, who has got hold of some silly love letters she wrote as a teenager, and is demanding ever-increasing sums of money not to send them to her husband. Gower has now invited her, and several other of his victims, to a party. Sexton Blake decides to accompany Miss Delane to the party, disguised as her father!

At the party two kinds of guests are present - high society, all of them Gower’s victims, and gower’s associates - dodgy bookies, loan sharks and the like. Enid and “Sir Thomas” Delane both arrive at the party, the latter engaging Gower in a protracted conversation about safes and burglars - in order to find out the location of Gower’s safe.

As the party wears on Sir Thomas, AKA Sexton Blake, slips away and breaks into the safe, collecting up all of the blackmail documents and burning them in the gas stove. Just as he is about to leave the room Gower enters and passes into a private office with one of his “clients”, the French Monsieur Leon. As Sexton Blake listens from his hasty hiding place the “Frenchman” begins to tell Latham Gower a ‘leetle story’ - about a murdering Russian officer who dissapeared, after wounding a woman severely in a rigged duel and driving her half-insane! For the Frenchman is really Boris Tchapernoff and Latham Gower is General Karoski!

I swear an illustration very similar to this one has been used at times to represent both Sexton Blake and Nelson Lee! This was before the reign of Eric Parker, who gave Sexton Blake a defined image.

Boris demands that the general fight the duel that they could not in Russia, when suddenly Elga bursts in through the large windows. She has been free of her insanity - which comes and goes, and begs Boris not to murder the general, for duels in England are illegal. Sexton Blake decides to intervene - when a body thuds against the office door and slams it shut. Then there is another thud, a whistle, and a sucession of horrifying screams!

Blake forces his way in and finds Boris knocked out, an ugly wound on his head - Elga is in the corner, screaming with insanity, and Latham Gower is dead, with a knife buried deep in his heart! Of course Sexton Blake is still in disguise so has to leave with his daughter, who “is ill”, and then rush back to the mansion as his true self and “discover” the crime. Luckily a doctor arrived quickly while Blake was away and the scene has not been disturbed too greatly - but the mystery is baffling - Boris was knocked out before the murder, and Elga could not have been strong enough to do it. Besides which the knife is a huge showy Mexican piece, not the thing a Russian would carry around. Added to this are some strange animal tracks in the room.

Inspector Martin, one of the Scotland Yard officials that Sexton Blake is familiar with, arrives at the scene and immediatley arrests Boris. The robbed safe and burned papers only add to the confusion. Blake decides to proceed more carefully and has Tinker bring Pedro, their intelligent bloodhound, over from Baker Street. they set pedro on the trail of the small animal that had been in the room… and wind up at a circus! On the way the Inspector tumbles to the  fact that Sexton Blake had robbed the safe and actually heard the murder happen.  The trail Pedro follows ends up at a tent where Captain Emanuel Carlos, a famous Lion-tamer, is performing. He wants to try and enter a cage containing a dangerous untamed lion, but has not so far managed the feat. He also has a pet ferret - the mysterious small animal!

Sexton Blake

Sexton Blake and Inspector Martin return to the mansion and search Latham Gower’s office to try and connect the lion tamer to the blackmailer. Eventually they find a hidden compartment in his desk with documents relating to Gower’s other, “official” business, as a moneylender with absurd interest rates. Emanuel Carlos is one of his victims. They need more proof, however, and Sexton Blake, disguised as a general worker at the circus, manages to enter the lion tamer’s caravan, and discovers that Carlos used to be a knife-thrower, and has 40 knives that are the exact duplicates of the ones that killed Latham Gower.

Sexton Blake and Inspector Martin go and watch the lion tamer, intending to arrest him afterwards. However the lion attacks him and he is fatally wounded - he makes a deathbed confession - he had originally borrowed money for his daughter’s medical treatment, but had got deeper into Latham Gower’s clutches. One night he heard that his daughter had died, and went to Gower’s house, taking advantage of the confusion of of the argument he witnessed to throw a knife through the window and kill the blackmailer!

In the end a friend of Sexton Blake performs an operation on Elga and cures her insanity - and later on her and Boris are married.

This is a brilliant story, with a lot of unexpected twists and angles. It goes off the boil in the end, though. The Lion-tamer’s mauling and deathbed confession is all a bit too neat and tidy - but space restrictions and wartime shortages applied. I wonder how much better this tale may have been if it had been extended and held over for the 60-80,000 word Sexton Blake Library, which began in September 1915?

Posted in 1910's, Amalgamated Press, Union Jack, Sexton Blake | 1 Comment »

Some Christmas covers

26/12/2010 by admin.

I did this before, right back at the start of the blog. My collection has expanded quite a bit since then, so it’s time for another gallery of Christmas covers!

Ho Ho… ho?

Starting off right back in 1874 with Chatterbox. That’s not actually the fourth issue, the numbers were restarted for every volume. As you can see the cover is not particularly ‘festive’, but the 1870’s were puritannical times and perhaps a bird dying in the cold was supposed to remind readers to be miserable. The cover refers to a long poem taking up the first two inside pages of the issue within.

Chatterbox was one of the first story papers, starting in 1866. I distinguish these from the penny dreadfuls that were most popular from the 1830’s to 1890’s by the fact that story papers were not horror-focused, and often had more than one story in them (the penny dreadfuls were just a chapter of one long story - of course it was not only ‘dreadful’ stories that were published in this way, the work of Dickens was originally too!). Of course most, but not all, of the early story papers were Christian focused, or else they had only the loosest credibility by being published by the same people who were churning out the penny dreadfuls!

Chatterbox was a bit different, it had more high-minded, ’straight’ adventure stories without ghosts or ghouls. It also had informative articles and shorter stories about naughty children repenting. It was started by a reverend - J. Erskine Clarke, M.A. so in a way anticipated the Boys’ Own Paper of 1879 and The Eagle of 1950. This 1874-5 volume is of course loaded down with Jesus, but later volumes became more secular, reflecting the attitudes of their age. The first really old book I bought was the 1908 volume of Chatterbox which is a great deal less pious. Chatterbox actually ran all the way up until 1955, though by the end it was just a series of adventure story annuals, and virtually indistinguishable from any of the other “Grand Book for Boys” publications.

By Jingo!

It’s 1897 now, and this is the Christmas edition of The Marvel (which began in 1893 as The Halfpenny Marvel and gave us Sexton Blake). Where the older story papers were content to just be an alternative to the penny dreadfuls, Alfred Harmsworth’s halfpenny story papers were a clear shot across the bows of these gruesome horror stories. By 1900 the penny dreadfuls were holed below the waterline. Though in the early days of the Harmsworh papers the stories were not all that brilliant, and one wag wrote them off as “Halfpenny dreadfullers”.

Another way that Harmsworh’s story papers differed from the older story papers was their jingoism. By the 1890’s church had been replaced by state in the affections of the people and the empire had become something to be widely celebrated. Harmsworth’s papers captured the mood of this age, and  how better to show it but than with this cover? Santa does not introduce us to presents, or a dickensian scene, but to a host of British troops on the march, “Jack Tar” to the fore and surrounding Britannia on a white charger. We’ll not see the likes of this again until… well until i do a Christmas issue of one of my comics.

Oops, no cover

Into the twentieth century now, with the 1901 Christmas issue of The Boys’ Friend - except the cover is missing! The Boys’ Friend only had black and white printing most of the time, but relatively frequent “double numbers” (the Christmas and Spring ones being regular fixtures) would have a beautiful colour cover, and double the page count (pst, and also double the price!). Double numbers were also chosen to introduce new serial stories.

The serial was the stock-in-trade of the tabloid-sized Boys’ Friend which started as a halfpenny paper in 1895. The serial stories, large size and cheap paper make collecting The Boys’ Friend very difficult today, may I add! Each issue also had a long complete story of 10,000 words, though, and many of these are great reads. The large size of the paper and tiny type used allowed for very long stories to be told, and also for large and lavish illustrations. To my mind this is one of the greatest of all British comics!

How, um traffic was a nightmare

Now it’s 1913 and time for another lavish Boys’ Friend double number. This one with it’s wonderful cover intact. The content inside was much the same, a long complete story, ongoing serials, new serials with extra-long opening instalments, and the Editor’s page. I ought to say something for the editor’s page of the Boys’ Friend (and very-similar Boys Herald and Boys’ Realm, which started in the 1900’s and were cancelled in the 20’s), the editor would give well-meaning, and well-researched advice to his readers. He would also give long and friendly replies to readers, try to help them with problems (usually this help involved the purchasing of other Amalgamated press publications or books, ahem) and regularly advise on the dangers of smoking, drinking, gambling, rash emigration to the colonies and going to sea “for an adventure” without thinking it through - all pitfalls that it was all to easy for children to fall into in those days!

Compare this for a second to the letter’s pages of the comics i was growing up with in the 90’s - that is The Beano, The Dandy, Sonic the Comic and a bit later the Judge Dredd Megazine - in those readers were lucky if the reply to their letter was more than a single line. And that single line usually just contained some terrible pun. The Boys’ Friend - Best British comic ever.

Anyone for footer?

Followed closely by this one! The Union Jack started in 1894 as a virtually-identical story paper to The Halfpenny Marvel. In 1904 it became “Sexton Blake’s own paper” and that detective featured in every issue from then on. Now 10 years later Europe is in the grip of a huge war that many people predicted would be over by Christmas. It wasn’t, as this issue shows! The story revolves around a gentleman falling into disgrace and joining up as an ordinary soldier to seek his own death.

This paper gives the lie to the oft-repeated notion that “popular magazines” during the World War 1 would portray the trenches as a grand life of camping, cricket and then short, easy battles where you would get to “account for” scores of the beastly Hun. This was only the case for the first month or so of the conflict, as it drew on writers became a lot more realistic. The stories in this issue certainly don’t make life in the trenches sound desirable - if anything they exaggerate the horrors! One passage talks of soldiers “fighting for hours waist-deep in freezing water”, which they couldn’t have really done, it’s biologically impossible! Unless you want your legs sawn off afterwards. It’s not exactly discouraging either though. There was after all the need to actually win the thing, so the story emphasises that whilst you may not like your duty, every patriotic Briton must do his best to discharge it.

For the glory of the School Soviet, comrades!

Now it’s 1921, and the Nelson Lee Library. This was an odd one - a size roughly equivalent to the modern(ish) A5 and with quite a high page count, it carried complete stories about Nelson Lee in each issue. Nelson Lee was a detective who first appeared in the 1890’s, and was not greatly different to Sexton Blake at the time. However by the 1920’s things have rather changed a bit! Nelson Lee is now working as a schoolmaster at St Frank’s boarding school. He isn’t undercover - everybody knows he is a detective, and his boy assistant, Nipper, is a pupil at the school.

This unique setup allowed for the stories to waver between “Billy Bunter”-esque dorm feeds and practical jokes, to serious stories of solving murders and foiling gangs, with ease. Often these two elements would coexist in the same story, and the various boys of the school (not quite the fantastic characterisations of Charles Hamilton, but very close) would often take a hand in the solving of the mystery. Another remarkable aspect of the Nelson Lee library was that it was one huge serial - for decades the main story (it also carried more conventional serials - often 2 or 3 at a time!), while complete in each issue, followed on from the previous one and anticipated the next. Of course these were split into ’series’ too (in the same way as some, but not all, Sexton Blake stories in the Union Jack were in the 20’s and 30’s) but even then a minor plot element in one series would become a major focus in another.

Oh, yeah, this particular issue is part of one of the more famous series in the Nelson Lee’s history - the “Schoolboy Soviet” series, in which a few boys, inspired by the revolution in Russia, turn the school into a communist state! Of course this descends into tyranny and starvation and they eventually welcome their rightful ‘rulers’, the teachers, back. Unfortunatley I don’t own the whole of this series, so i can’t read it, yet! Anybody got the issues that came directly after the one that was actually named “The Schoolboy Soviet”?

The flash and old ink is only partly responsible - the cover really is that gloomy!

Now it’s 1925 and we’re back with the Nelson Lee Library. “Snow on the logo” is a long-standing British Comic tradition but in some of these old publications it looked like the wrong kind of snow - not the  soft white stuff you can look out at from your warm room on Christmas day, but the freezing, slippery stuff that your car skids on as you slowly crawl to work on a gloomy November’s morning.

The story in this issue is rather more lighthearted (well from the quick flick I had when i took it out to photograph it, anyway). Several of the boys from St Frank’s end up at an uninhabited stately home for Christmas, with only one butler and no food! But they suspect the castle is haunted - especially when a huge feast seemingly appears by a miracle on the dining table that was completely bare only half an hour before. I doubt it’s worth betting that the ‘ghost’ turns out to be Nelson Lee playing a Christmas prank and that a jolly holiday of crackling fires and gigantic cakes ends the tale.

 

Christmas in space

Now it’s the 1950’s and we’ve never had it so good - Photogravure printing of art and writing that well deserves it, a genius artist firing on all cylinders and a minutely-researched science-fiction tale where British pluck, and not technobabble, reversed polarities and sonic screwdrivers wins the day! This is the first Christmas issue of The Eagle - a title that hardly needs introduction. It was created by a Reverend and intended to kill off the popular horror comics of the time. Sound familiar?

Of course I don’t own the actual issue, this is just a reproduced cover in a book about the comic’s most famous character - Dan Dare! They really pulled out all the stops on ‘decorating’ this cover, with holly between the panels!

Ahh the festive tradition of poisonous gas - bring back the dying Robin!

Now it’s 1952 and Dan Dare still adorns the cover of The Eagle, which is still at the top of it’s game. It hit the ground running and barely faltered for 10 years! This issue isn’t quite so christmas-ey, no holly between the panels. Mind you the snow on the logo is now present and correct.

 Dan Dare and The Eagle copyrighted, trademarked and sole property of The Dan Dare Corporation PLC LTD KGB NKVD 1950-perpetuity. No infringement, expungement or disengagement of the copyright solely owned by the Dan Dare Corporation is hereby expressed, implied or implicated. Use of photographs of covers of The Eagle, copyright of the Dan Dare Corporation 1950-perpetuity, complies with the fair use law regarding critcism and/or review.

And I managed to make a whole post that didn’t involve Chums!

Posted in Frank Hampson, Eagle, Dan Dare, Wells Gardner & Co, 1870's, Rev Erskine Clarke, Hulton Press, Boys Friend, Nelson Lee, Chatterbox, 1910's, Sexton Blake, Halfpenny Marvel, 1950's, 1890's, Alfred Harmsworth, 1900's, Amalgamated Press, Union Jack, 1920's | 1 Comment »

Murder in Melchester!

23/05/2010 by admin.

Everybody remembers where they were when they heard Roy Race had been shot. For instance i distinctly remember not being born yet.

But who remembers the other high profile attempted murder case from that “large, old fashioned town” located “about sixty miles from London“? The attempted murder of the chemist Leonard Jardine by the town’s respected doctor Edward Sharlaw? This case, as it developed in 1928, caused no end of sensation in the newspapers of Amalgamated Press Land. After an investigation by the famous detective Sexton Blake the doctor was cleared of the charge, as the chemist had been injured by accident and confessed all after the doctor’s son, himself a spinal expert, saved his life.

Despite the naming coincidence, i’d say it’s pretty unlikely that anybody involved in Roy of the Rovers, despite the fact it was published by IPC which was a descendant of AP, had ever read this story. It’s just one of those things… (also it seems fairly likely that the Melchester of Roy of the Rovers is supposed to be a lot further north).

Posted in Roy of the Rovers, Amalgamated Press, Sexton Blake, 1920's | 2 Comments »

Something funny going on…

26/04/2010 by admin.

Let’s take a complete story from an issue of Chums at random, shall we? Hmm, No 736 from October 1906 looks good…

‘Twixt Jackson and Barker

It’s the typical boarding school tale of the time. A boy called Jackson has some important news for his friends when his eye falls in a great new bicycle just received by one of them called Barker.  After admiring it he wishes he had such a machine: “what wouldn’t i do for a mount like that!“. Barker asks him what he would do for it, Jackson asks him to name his terms, these are:

-To climb to the top of the cathedral in the nearby town

- To persuade the timid science teacher to tackle a local ‘tough’, an ex-sailor called Jem Starbottle

-To cycle from Arlington to Greatthorpe, a distance of 5 miles, in 15 minutes

A short story this, it’s only over two pages. Mind you the pages of Chums are pretty big. The illustration on the second is a cartoon and not related to the story.

The first challenge passes easily enough. Jackson and co. climb to the top of the acessible steps in the cathedral and then sneak out onto a narrow parapet. Jackson then climbs above this and stands up on the ball right at the top of the spire, with only the lightning conductor for support! He then descends but misses his step and has to circle the entire spire to find it again (this scene is not too well described XD). The first challenge is over, his friends say it was the easiest one but he says he wouldn’t do it again for a thousand sovereigns. His friend Burgess says he wouldn’t even watch the feat again for two thousand!

The next challenge is more difficult. Jackson, on the next half-holiday (a day with only half the amount of school work and the other half given over to sports/hobbies/free time, as these were boarding schools the pupils could not go home for short holidays) Jackson agrees to accompany the science master, “Smiley” on one of his long and invariably boring nature rambles. Meanwhile another of the friends named Timmins rushes off to find Jem Starbottle and tell him that a licking awaits him at such-and-such a place.

As Smiley comes to the end of the ramble, composing a poem about a Dandelion watched by Jackson and, unknown to him, the others hidden in a haystack, Starbottle comes along looking for his “licking” …and gets it! Much to the astonishment of all concerned. Jackson later explains that on the same afternoon the bike arrived the science master gave him a lesson in boxing: “You should have seen his arms - wire ropes!“

The final challenge awaits, Jackson is lent the bicycle and travels down to the starting place with Timmins, who has synchronised his watch with Burgess who awaits at the finish line with Barker. He is a bad cyclist and knows it, he doesn’t expect to actually finish the course in the alotted time, to make matters worse the road is very bumpy. Still he decides to have a try at it, and sets off.

As soon as he is out of sight Timmins is accosted by a local farm-hand, advising him: “Oi’d go b’train ef oi ere you, Wi’ Capt’in Symons tiger loose, the roads bean’t safe after dark“.  Timmins takes the advice. He’s no coward but the road is dark and “Tigers are tigers!“. Meanwhile Jackson is in the depths of despair, he has done the first mile and is already behind time and worn out beyond beleif. However suddenly the tiger leaps out behind him and starts to chase him. With this ‘encouragement’ he rushes the rest of the course and finishes it in record time, winning the bike! Towards the end the tiger, seeing the lights of the town approaching, gave up the chase, leaving Jackson wondering if he had imagined the whole thing.

That was a pretty good story. I’m in the mood for some AP now, lets turn to an issue of one of thier “Big (in size!) Three”, The Boys’ Herald - No 215 from August 1907.

The Feats of Tony McTurk

By L.J. Beeston, this is a typical boarding school story of the time. A boy called Pilberry has just received a new camera from his uncle, with all the latest improvements up to the very hour. The only one not enthusiastic about it is Pilberry himself, his only photographic expedition resulted in pictures of his coat. Well how he was he to know which way around it went?

Along comes Tony McTurk, a pupil of the same school who does like photography, but who could never afford such a “snapper” as this. He instead says “There’s nothing worth doing that I wouldn’t attempt to win that spanking camera“. With the gauntlet on the ground Pilberry decides to name his terms:

-To call the headmaster, Dr Twelvetrees, a giant of a man with a fierce temper, an ass to his face.

-Persuade the French master to leap from his study window, twelve feet off the ground.

-Cycle from the town of Claythorpe to the school, a distance of 5 miles, in 14 minutes.

Three days pass in which Tony racks his brains for ways to complete these tasks. He evidently thinks too hard at them because he ends up working too hard on his French… so hard the one night his friends are awoken by monotonous chanting in thier dorm room… he’s sleep walking, and studying French while doing it! Fearful of waking the sleepwalker, they instead follow him… until he stops outside the headmaster’s door, his French verbs becoming louder and louder. The headmaster is roused to anger at first, but them realises what is happening and starts to gently shake the boy in order to wake him. This seems to bring Tony round and he remembers another task: “you - are - an - ass” he mumbles to the headmaster, before being woken up. “You were walking in your sleep, McTurk” the Headmaster tells him “You have been studying too hard, i will see that you have a holiday to-morrow!“. First task completed, and he escaped annihilation into the bargain. His friends aren’t impressed… but they can’t deny he did it!

Now he has to work out how to get the French master, Monsieur Duport to leap from his study window. A few weeks later a half-holiday rolls around and his friends are told to wait beneath the window for something to happen.  The Frenchman is annoyed by boys hanging around beneath his window and repeatedly tells them to leave, only for them to return soon after. As he ponders this he is visited by an inventor of explosives (another of the French master’s interests). This melancholy man is looking for funding for his new high-powered explosive, the stick of which he is carrying would obliterate the school. When the rather extravagant funding is not forthcoming the inventor wonders what the point of living is, and throws the explosive into the fire! Duport leaps! After a few minutes he realises maybe the “explosive” wasn’t so explosive after all. Of course the “inventor” is long gone… who was he? If any of the boys know, they aren’t telling!

And now for the final challenge - the ride! Now, Tony is by his own admission not a very good cyclist, and also the road is in rather bad condition and has a couple of stiff hills. But he decides to try it all the same and, started off by a friend called Weekes, who has synchronised his watch with Pilberry. Tony begins the race… and as Weekes turns to walk back to the school he is informed by a farm hand to take the train instead… for a Jaguar which escaped from Bunkum & Barnaby’s circus is still on the loose! Now Weekes isn’t a coward, but “Jaguars are jaguars!“.

Meanwhile, Tony is already tired out, and behind schedule. The Jaguar on the other hand, is watching him closely… it hasn’t eaten all day and this strange whirling creature coming down the road seems just the ticket! It leaps to attack the creature from behind… Tony, glancing back, see’s it and starts to pedal like mad to escape certain doom!

At the end of the course, his friends are waiting with the stopwatch… will be do it in time?… listen, here he comes! Meanwhile, the Jaguar, tired out from chasing this strange, fast creature, dives through the hedge and disappears.  Tony crosses the finish line with seconds to spare, and wins the camera! After the race he wonders if he had been chased by some imaginary creature… but later reads of the eventual shooting of an escaped Jaguar… and trembles!

So, what’s going on?

Well, the first and most likely explanation is that the two stories were written by the same man - L.J. Beeston. However the earlier Chums story is uncredited, so this can’t be confirmed. While some papers undoubtedly had ’staff’ writers, there must also have been a vast pool of freelancers. (for instance Harry Blyth, who created Sexton Blake for Amalgamated Press, also wrote for Chums, then owned by Cassell’s) This was, remember, the golden age of publishing, and to my mind the golden age of British comics! There was a bewilderingly vast array of titles all crying out for stories to fill their pages. With imagination and a typewriter there must have been a decent living in it… You didn’t even have to be particularly good (just read pretty much any Halfpenny Marvel for proof!). I only wish i had lived in that era.

(The other alternative explanation, especially if these stories were not written by the same writer, is downright piracy!)

So, which is the better story? For my money it’s Tony McTurk! It’s quite a bit longer for starters (filling 3 pages and most of a column in the Boys’ Herald’s large tabloid size) and has more illustrations. The descriptive details are much better written (even the Jaguar is a character!) , the challenges and their solutions are much more imaginative and, of course, it’s a great deal funnier! The sleepwalking sequence in particular.

Posted in Boys herald, LJ Beeston, Chums, Cassell & co, 1900's, Amalgamated Press | 1 Comment »

Bad news from Classics Illustrated! + new stuff.

07/03/2010 by admin.

After my last post, suggesting that perhaps Classics Illustrated were going to start using a more sensible colour scheme in Macbeth, i couldn’t wait to get the comic - well i did yesterday, and it appears that i was premature with my praise. The preview picture on the back of the issue had evidently been taken from an old issue, as they hadn’t finished ruining “modernising” the artwork for publication. Here is what the previewed page actually looks like:

As you can see the bright primary colours have returned with a vengeance! Just look at this page from elsewhere in the issue:

Pink and yellow fields? Purple mountains? Green and yellow castle walls? Based on the preview image on the back of this one, the next issue, The Invisible Man, is going to be back to abnormal too.

New items!I’ve actually bought a great deal of new stuff since my  last post, which will hopefully be described in future posts. But here are some of the more recent and interesting items:

Sexton Blake: A Celebration

This is a book from 1994, published by “Museum Press”, which details the history of Sexton Blake in exhaustive detail (though not as exhaustive as the recent radio documentary… but that also made a few mistakes / deliberatley twisted details to ‘fit in’ with the awful “comedy” series / read out period adverts in a ridiculous voice). I paid £25 for it and i haven’t seen it before, which suggests it’s pretty rare. Perhaps “self published” in a small print run? The end of the book mentions a planned TV series, which ended up never being made.

A TV series could be well-done today if producers put thier minds to it - taking Doctor Who for inspiration they could jump around Blake’s extraordinary lifespan, setting one episode in the 1890’s and the next in the 1950’s, for instance. Mind you i wouldn’t trust many people in the ‘meedja’ to do such a series correctly… they’d probably turn it into unfunny trash just like with the radio series. (And apparently the 1978 TV series was pretty bad too)

James Bond Omnibus

This is a beautifully-reproduced collection of several of the James Bond newspaper comic strips which existed before the films. They are products of their time rather than being, well, products of their time like the films are. This means that Bond thunders around in a pre-war “blower” Bentley rather than an Aston with loads of comedy gadgets. I certainly know which one i’d prefer! The collection is enticingly numbered 001 - are they aiming for a ‘complete run’ of all the strips eventually?

The Gem issues 1-15

Wha-a-a-a-a-t?, as Quelchy himself might say. These aren’t the originals, but facsimilies, seemingly sold individually just like the real issues were (only on much thicker, better paper) and bound privately by a collector, as opposed to the W Howard Baker preprint books which collected ‘runs’ of issues as a book.I didn’t know there had been individual facimilies issued… perhaps they were sold through the now-defunct “Old Boys’ Book Club”? (well, i beleive it continues as a Charles Hamilton focused Yahoo group… but i was summarily thrown out after, i suspect, they looked at the other groups i was a member of - gay/swinging ones - and got rid of me) Either way there was several of these being sold on Ebay, the Gem in blue covers and the Magnet in red covers, all beautifully bound and certian to last down the generations, it’s a shame the collection was being broken up really, but i couldn’t have afforded them all! Still it’s a shame i didn’t buy more as several would have looked great on the shelf together:

Oh, and like Batman, the most famous character from this comic didn’t actually appear in the first issue! Here he is appearing in the third:

Tom Merry & Co certianly took over in The Gem a lot more quickly than Sexton Blake did in the Union Jack. In issue 11 he moved from his initial Clavering school to St Jim’s, where he would remain for almost 40 years (erm, best not think about it, it just works!) and from then on the main story in each Gem was about this school and the boys and masters in it. Once the Magnet had been launched and established crossovers between the schools and characters of the two papers (and later other schools from The Boys’ Friend, and girls schools from papers such as School Friend) became commonplace. Other AP characters including Sexton Blake also made appearances from time to time.

Posted in Classics Illustrated, 2010's, Museum Press, James Bond, Amalgamated Press, 1990's, Charles Hamilton, Howard Baker, Sexton Blake, Gem | 1 Comment »

Chums: 1906/7 and 1932/3

17/01/2009 by admin.

Announcement:

The British Comics Wiki is launched! Go to www.crystal-knights.co.uk/

The Post:

Having built up quite a collection of food, i was able to save some money recently. And, trying to ignore my need of new shoes (”the weather’s warming up anyway, it won’t rain much”) i decided to buy a Chums volume i’ve had my eye on. It was £45 (well, 40 as the woman very kindly gives a student discount), as opposed to £2.99 (and £10 delivery) for the 1906/7 volume… but then again that was from Ebay, which is often cheaper, and in horrendous condition. It even smells like it’s been near a fire at one point, my more adventruous nature would like to think it narrowly escaped the blitz, but more likely it was in an attic near where the chimney went up for many years.

Anyway, Chums was initially started by Cassell & Co. in 1892, pre-empting the perhaps better-remembered Boys’ Friend for a large-format story paper with serial instalments, in addition to a complete story of decent length, and the odd factual article. Then again Chums was most likely a penny when it started, whereas the Boys’ Friend was a halfpenny in the 1890’s, that would have accounted for sales success.

Following the style of the times, the size of the paper was what we’d today call arbitrary. Or perhaps “two thirds tabloid”.

Volumes of The Boys’ Friend 1903-4, Chums 1906-7 (the covers are only very slightly bigger than the comics within)  and a typical “half tabloid” (roughly A4 give or take a few mm’s - though older ones described as the same were actually a little bigger, especially in height, due to cheaper printing quality needing more ‘run off’ room.) comic.

The 1907 (i’ll call them by the later year now to save myself so much typing!) volume, despite being very rickety (it needed repairs i may cover in another post), contains a lot of fascinating material. The typical content of an issue seems to have been longish instalments of at least two serials, a complete story, sometimes a second complete story, as well as an “editors chat” (sometimes a page, sometimes two columns). At least one humourous comic strip, usually with it’s panels “scattered” on a text page and miscellaneous oddments of knowledge or snippets of interesting news and events.  A bit like a less-childish Chatterbox, really. Some issues would include a longer article in place of the second complete story, these articles usually profusely illustrated with photographs and related to some subject of direct interest to the readers, such as scouting.  Still more issues didn’t feature either, though, simply taking up the room with a lot of small articles or jokes.

The 1907 volume also reproduces the covers and adverts, in fact it’s just the same as the paper that was sold individually in the shops. There is, actually, the possibility that this is a bound volume of the paper that was bought every week by somebody and then bound together using the “official covers” that could probably be bought seperately. However the beginning of the book (mainly the bit of ‘tracing paper’ over the contents, as was the style of the times) suggests otherwise. I’m sure the advertisers and cover illustrators didn’t complain about the extra exposure anyway.

Two typical spreads from the 1907 volume. Note the comic strips (and the sometimes “scattered” layout of them), the short articles with bold headings and the adventure stories. Aside from the comic strips, covers and heading pictures for the stories (in a lot of serials this seems to have been the same each instalment) illustrations of the text stories are actually quite few and far between. The odd complete story seems to have quite a few, though. Perhaps it was just what would fit in once the story was done… or if the illustrators had time to provide any!

Photographs are actually a more common sight in the older volume than the new. Several articles on ships (this the HMS dreadnought, the insitigator of a whole era of naval warfare) and monarchs / heads of state feature them. The reproduction is actually quite good compared to the high-contrast, murky reproduction in some other papers. (It’s certainly better than the flash makes it look in this picture!)

Onto the newer volume now, covering 1932 to 1933 (the volumes start from roughly September). This one features no covers or adverts reproduced, and judging by the contents the quantity of factual articles, sage editorial advice, comic strips and amusing snippets had been reduced to almost nothing, a whole issue could seemingly pass without any of those. To make up for this, the quantity of exciting adventure stories was greatly increased. Serials were still the norm, with complete stories appearing in every issue. The number of illustrations, especially in the complete stories, was greatly increased too.

The reason for the apparent vanishing of the factual articles and such-like may be down to the fact this is a bound annual sold by the publisher, and not the individual issues. The articles may have been left out, providing only the stories. Or else the page count of the issues themselves may have been drastically reduced. The reasons for this are not too hard to work out - by this time Chums was published by the Amalgamated Press, presumably they had bought Cassell & co. out, and they wanted to run this “rival” into the ground. Or else sales were just dropping off anyway. That said the paper did seemingly continue into 1941 (so says a book i have), so perhaps it avoided “Graveyard week”. I bet the final volume, with inevitable war stories, makes fascinating reading! Another interesting note is that Chums’ seeming ‘main rival’, the Boys’ Friend, had actually vanished in 1927 (though if you ask me, from the limited exposure i have had to both, the Boys’ Friend was better!).

(Also - from the brief flick i had it appears that none of the AP staple characters of Bunter & co., Sexton Blake, Nelson Lee etc appared in Chums. I did notice the familiar styles of Eric Parker, illustrator to Sexton Blake’s golden age, illustrating a story though)

The spines. Actually a terrible pic but you can just make out the publisher’s names - as well as the shiny new card of my home-made repairs to the 1907 volume. The spine was just a sheet of cloth and some very crumbly 101-year-old card when i recieved it.

Two typical spreads, the short factual articles and anecdotes are now reduced to tiny box-outs that can be ignored. Comic strips are replaced by single “gag panels” too (not that the 1907 volume didn’t feature those in great number too, but in the 1933 one they are rarely seen at all). The rest of it is wall-to-wall swashbuckling adventure! The choice of these two spreads was actually not brilliant, as there’s hardly any pictures. They are a lot more common in this volume though - honestly!

Another thing that is a great deal more common in the 1933 volume is coloured plates. Some do appear in the 1907 volume though, and not in an “even pattern” either, so it’s probable that they were lost (i’m sure there’s the odd page missing too, i havent read a great deal of it yet. Despite immense quantites of PVA glue not all the pages are attached). In the 1933 volume though they are all present. I don’t know if they were sold with odd issues of the weekly paper (Chatterbox was apparently often sold with an optional plate - and only some of these plates appeared in the published annuals, meaning private-bound volumes had more) or just specific to the annuals. Photographs seem to only appear on the rear of the coloured plates too, and not in the actual comics. 

The content of the adventure stories in the 1933 volumes has two overriding themes when you turn to a random page. Flight is the first, the 20’s and early 30’s being a golden age of aerial navigation, without ground control or radar anybody who could afford a flying-machine could take to the skies whenever the fancy took them, and charge about at leisure. A close encounter with another aeronaut being the occasion for a friendly wave and maybe a little stunt display - and not terrified screams from air-traffic control, perhaps the scrambling of fighters and a front-page headline “NEAR MISS DEATH MANIAC! - It wouldn’t have happened if we all had ID cards” on every paper the following day.

The other common theme is war, most especially “The World War”. The stories are somewhere between later reflections on the horrors of the trenches, and the stories of “Let’s get ‘em! hurry up it’ll be over by christmas (notice we don’t say what christmas)!” that appeared during the conflict. So whilst the stories still provide the right amount of thrilling adventure and characters devoted to duty and doing everything they can to fight the enemy so long as they have breath in thier body, the tales still muse on the horrible toll, and the fact that not all of your friends, or you, will ever return home. Which if you ask me is the perfect balance - because if you want realism, go outside.

As an aside, just look at the picture below, taken from the very last complete story in the book - wouldn’t look out of place in Charley’s War, would it?

A final oft-seen theme in the book, primarily in serial form, is the boarding school story. This was, after all, the age of the Magnet and Gem. No obvious Charles Hamilton spotted… but he had his hands full writing for the Magnet, Gem, Penny Popular and who knows what else each week. So i doubt there is any.

Another interesting thing that appeared in the 1907 volume is this fold-out coloured plate, that was just tucked in near the back. It appears to be from the Boys’ Own Paper? I might frame it one day, even with that crease.

Posted in 1930's, Eric Parker, Chums, Cassell & co, Amalgamated Press, 1900's, Blog | 2 Comments »