50 Year Flashback: Daily Mirror strips October 13th 1965

Several years ago I bought a bunch of old newspapers from the first Birmingham Memorabilia Show, back before the show became dominated by more recent nostalgia items. Here are the strips and cartoons that appeared in the Daily Mirror exactly half a century ago today.

The Andy Capp strip that day (above) is of course typical of the character; boozy and in debt, but creator Reg Smythe always managed to make the gags feel fresh and, more importantly, funny. 

The main strip page, regularly shared with Live Letters, featured Garth by John Allard and Steve Dowling, The Larks by Jack Dunkley, and The Flutters by Len Gamblin. We had the Daily Mirror every day when I was a kid so I have a particular fondness for these strips. 

Like Andy Capp, The Perishers (by Maurice Dodd and Dennis Collins) was on a different page back then, and a larger size strip than the others.

As well as five daily strips, the Mirror had a good selection of cartoons 50 years ago too. The Laughter column always carried work by some of Britain's top gag cartoonists.

There were also two regular 'pocket' cartoons. Useless Eustace by Jack Greenall...

...and Playboy! by David Rowe...

Plus the political cartoon by Stanley Franklin...

Strips and cartoons were considered an important part of the paper back then, and served as light relief to the serious news of the day. Sadly, the news of 50 years ago was very grim indeed, with the cover story revealing the re-opening of the tragic case that would be referred to as the Moors Murders. At this point it seems the press had not been informed of the arrests a few days earlier of the vile serial child-killers Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.

To end this blog post on a lighter note, here are the TV listings for this day 50 years ago. Only three channels, but at least there was a repeat of Hancock's Half Hour to watch, and a new Dennis Potter play... 

I hope you'll find these pages of historical interest. Click images to see them much larger and more readable. As for the weather forecast on 13th October 1965: "Mainly dry with some sunshine after early fog". Pretty much like today then!

Buck Ryan returns, replaces Horace

This was a surprise. From today, the Daily Mirror is starting a series of reprint strips featuring their private eye character Buck Ryan. The strip originally ran in the paper from 1937 to 1962 and was a favourite of readers for years. (I remember my mum and dad talking about it.)

The reprints begin with the first episode of the serial Road Raiders from 1959. The artwork is by Jack Monk and was originally published in black and white but colour has now been added by Martin Baines and he's done a nice job of it. Click to see it larger: 

While it's great to see this classic character making a comeback it's a shame the reprint replaces Horace by Roger Kettle and Andrew Christine after a run of over 20 years. This now means that half of the Mirror's strip page is from the archives, with Garth and The Perishers also being reprint and only Andy Capp, Mandy, and Gag Vault being new. Over on the official Horace Facebook page, Roger Kettle made the following announcement:

End of an Era
Those of you who read the "Daily Mirror" or "Daily Record" may have noticed a Horace-sized gap in your paper today. Sadly, after 26 years, the strip has made its final appearance. Due to the financial situation at most newspapers today, severe cuts are being made and Horace is a victim of these circumstances.

Andrew and I would like to thank all those readers who have followed our daft little characters over the past quarter of a century---it really is appreciated. Who knows---maybe Horace, Mojo, Granny and the rest will pop up somewhere in the future. In the meantime, thanks again.
I'll leave you with a line from Granny to the outlaw, Jesse James...
"Son, you've got a big mouth and a girly name---neither of which will stop a knee to the groin."
Keep smiling.
Roger Kettle.

The last 'Horace' from Saturday's Daily Mirror, 1/8/2015

It's very sad that once again cutbacks have affected comic strips. During World War 2, when paper rationing reduced the Mirror to just 8 pages a day, it still devoted over one page to all new comic strips. Today, with the paper regularly carrying 64 pages or more, its one page of strips is half reprint. Whilst no one would expect it to devote an eighth of its content to comics now of course, it's disheartening to see how strips have become such low priority. How times change. Roger Kettle and Andrew Christine are two of the funniest strip creators in the world (been a fan since the first episode of Beau Peep in the Daily Star back in the 1980s) and I wish them both well for the future.

Today's extra Beano

Just a quick reminder that today's Daily Mirror contains a free 32 page Beano, and they certainly aren't shy of announcing that, as shown by the cover above. (A shame they chose to run with a header about perverts immediately beneath it though but you can't predict what'll hit the headlines on the day of a promotion.) 

The free comic contains all new material and is packed with strips by Nigel Parkinson, Laura Howell, and more. None of my strips are in there unfortunately but one of the numerous Joe King vignettes I supplied is used throughout the comic.

The comic also features a cut-out coupon to save readers £1 on the next issue (which goes on sale on Wednesday). 

Daily Mirror No.15,171. On sale now. 80p

Bonfire Beano, plus Daily Mirror freebies!

If you thought that the traditional 'fireworks issue' of children's comics was a thing of the past, check out the latest issue of The Beano. It features a fireworks-themed Minnie the Minx story drawn by Nigel Parkinson, and a great bonfire cover by him too. In the shops now!

More Beano news. If you hop over to the Daily Mirror website you can download a free digital Dennis the Menace comic worth £1.49 compatible with iOS or Android devices. The offer runs until Saturday November 13th. Full info here: 
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/free-beano-digital-comic-download-4532214

Speaking of that paper, this coming Saturday (November 1st) the Daily Mirror will contain a free special promotional edition of The Beano containing many of the regular strips in new stories. Never Be Without A Beano!   

Daily Mirror strips of the 1960s

We had the Daily Mirror every day when I was growing up in the 1960s. My family must have been reading it since the 1930s as my mum told me that when she was a child she enjoyed the Pip, Squeak and Wilfrid comic strip. The Mirror was the paper of the working class, and it had a direct and intelligent writing style that cut to the chase for the man in the street. 

It also had some great comic strips. I showed a page from a wartime edition here the other day, but today I'm focusing on the strips I enjoyed as a child in the sixties. There was Andy Capp by Reg Smythe, and The Perishers by Maurice Dodd and Dennis Collins of course, and I'm showing a couple of those here, but the strips I enjoyed most were the three tiers that always appeared around page 20: Garth, The Larks, and The Flutters. 

18th September 1962

Perishers: 18th September 1962.

Frank Bellamy's dynamic take on Garth in the 1970s receives a lot of praise, and justifiably so, but it was the earlier strips by John Allard and Steve Dowling which captured my imagination as a kid. Their stories often had a creepy atmospheric quality about them, even tense and claustrophobic at times due to the hatching and cross-hatching of the inks, but that added to the likable strangeness of the strip. Garth was aimed at adults of course, and women our time-travelling hero encountered would sometimes be topless, so that, plus the dark mood of the strip made it seem very mature to my young eyes. 

28th June 1963.

The Larks by Jack Dunkley was a standard family sit-com, and it felt a bit too middle-class for the Mirror to me, perhaps better suited to the Daily Mail. Nevertheless, I often enjoyed the gags and I liked the artwork. The interesting thing about The Larks is that the characters aged with the strip, so as the years progressed the kids grew into teenagers, Sam (the father) gained a bit of grey in his hair, etc.

14th February 1964.

14th February 1964.

The Flutters was a strip I really liked. I'm sure that some of Ian Gammidge's scripts with all their sporting/gambling references went right over my head as a child, but I think it was the fact that it was a continuing humour strip that grabbed me. The artwork by the appropriately named Len Gamblin was the clincher though; busy but clear, and just right for the strip. I was disappointed when The Flutters was eventually replaced by Bill Tidy's Fosdyke Saga which I never really took to.

22nd April 1964.

Anyway, here are several examples of those strips, mostly from the mid-1960s. I hope you enjoy looking at them! All are scanned from old copies of the Daily Mirror I bought at a Memorabilia Show a few years ago. I've cleaned a couple up in Photoshop as necessary but I've left that authentic newspaper look to most of the scans. 

30th January 1965.

Perishers: 30th January 1965.

13th May 1965.

16th July 1965.

Andy Capp: 16th July 1965.

20th September 1966.

14th November 1966.

10th June 1968.

Also related:

http://comiconline24h.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/day-of-double-strips-in-daily-mirror.html

70 years ago...

 Last Monday, the Daily Mirror contained a free copy of the complete 'D-Day' edition of the paper as a commemorative souvenir. The issue is dated June 7th 1944, so I don't know why it wasn't given away today, exactly 70 years later, rather than 6 days early, but it was a good freebie all the same. 

Back then, the Daily Mirror only had 8 pages an issue (wartime paper restrictions and all that) but it was packed with information. Interestingly, comic strips featured heavily, taking up 37% of the paper, and the political cartoon dominating page 3.

If you missed the reprint, here's a few pages from it. The issue that was on sale exactly 70 years ago today. I've cleaned the pages up a bit in Photoshop as the reproduction in the paper was a little off register. Click on the pages to read them at a legible size.

Cartoon by Philip Zec.

Strips:
Buck Ryan by Jack Monk and Don Freeman.
Beelzebub Jones by Hugh McClelland. 
Belinda by Don Freeman and Tony Royle.
Popeye (US syndicated strip) by E.C. Segar.
Ruggles by Steve Dowling.
Garth by Steve Dowling.

Jane by Norman Pett.
Just Jake by Bernard Graddon.

Back page pocket cartoon:
Useless Eustace by Jack Greenhall.