ZIP (1958)

Zip is a comic that seems quite rare. I'd heard of it but had never seen a copy until this issue turned up on eBay last week for a reasonable price. It was a tabloid sized weekly published by Odhams and ran for 92 issues from 1958 to 1959 before merging into Swift. Apparently Zip was a replacement for Mickey Mouse Weekly after Odhams lost the rights to the Disney strips. (Source: http://ukcomics.wikia.com/wiki/Zip )

The tone of the comic is quite young and seems pitched as a bridge between nursery comics and traditional humour and adventure weeklies. The cover strip is Skippy, The Boy Who Lives in a Barrel by Robert McGillivray. (I'm pretty sure he was the artist who drew The Mighty Smiths and Fairs Please for Tiger in 1969/70.)

The plot of Skippy isn't clear, but he seems to be on the run from the authorities. In which case, perhaps having a postal address to his hideout (and his name above the door) might not have been his wisest decision.

A strip that I'm sure will interest most UK comic fans is Strongbow the Mighty, illustrated by the great Ron Embleton (who gets to sign his art).

Over the page, the humour short The Pond People. There's something familiar about the art style but I can't place who drew it.

On the facing page, another adventure strip that should be of interest; Wells Fargo by Don Lawrence, several years before he'd illustrate The Trigan Empire.

The centrespread of Zip followed the old British comics tradition of being a sort of patchwork quilt design of short strips.

Kiki the Boy Clown wasn't anywhere near as scary as he appeared on the free Kiki mask given away with that issue.

The Brainy B's seems very much in the style of the Famous Five books and the Children's Film Foundation movies of the time. Art by Redvers Blake. 

This issue also featured a competition, with the prize being a flight to Scotland. It didn't explain how readers who lived North of the border could benefit, but perhaps another issue gave them the opportunity to fly to London? (Or was Zip only sold in England?)

Billy Brave, the almost obligatory school strip, was nicely illustrated by Tony Weare...

On the back page, another boy living in a tree house; Robin Alone. Artist unknown.

Zip seems quite a gentle comic but with good art and plenty of variety to its content. I hope you've enjoyed this brief look through one issue.      

This week in 1965...

I haven't done one of these for a while, where I look back at several comics from years ago that were published in the same week. Above is my photo of how a newsagents counter may have looked this week exactly 50 years ago when all of these issues were on sale! Half a Century ago! Blimey!

Let's start off with the issue of Valiant that went on sale Saturday 20th February 1965. Cover by Mike Western which looked back on other events of this week in times past...

Inside, the dark, tense artwork of Solano Lopez with the latest Kelly's Eye chapter. These old strips certainly knew how to deliver a great cliffhanger!

As the topline on the cover promised, this issue saw the start of a new adventure with The Wild Wonders, drawn by Mike Western...

A good horror/mystery serial in Valiant at that time was Jack O'Justice, drawn by Tom Kerr... 

That issue also carried a half page ad for that week's Buster and The Big One which featured a free gift...

Monday 22nd February 1965 saw the publication of The Dandy No.1214 with a very amusing Korky the Cat strip drawn by Charlie Grigg...

Inside, Dudley D. Watkins proved what a master comic artist he was with a Desperate Dan strip with 17 panels on one page...

The Smasher was up to mischief as usual, drawn by Hugh Morren. Note the advert at the foot of the page, heralding the start of Greedy Pigg the following week! (Greedy Pigg would replace George Martin's Sunny Boy which ended that week.)

The Dandy carried a regular feature page back then called My Home Town. Humour illustrations by Frank McDiarmid, with the 'straight' artwork by Thomson staff artist Alan Gibson. (Thanks to Ray Moore for correcting me on that.) Note the ads for that week's Bimbo and Diana at the bottom of the page...

The same day saw the publication of Wham! No.37, with a cover by Graham Allen doing his best to 'ghost' Leo Baxendale's style...

This issue of Wham! saw the debut of two new strips. In actuality they were both reprints from Swift. Western serial Johnny Straight by Don Lawrence was a re-lettered reprint of Wells Fargo...

...whilst The Bouncers by Peter Maddocks was also reprinted from Swift.

The rest of Wham! was still all-new though, and worth every penny. Especially with Leo Baxendale's glorious centre-spread strip Eagle Eye: Doomsday School...

This week in 1965 saw the publication of TV21 No.6. (Apologies for my copy having a bit missing from the cover.)

An important issue as it saw Mike Noble's arrival to TV21, taking over the art duties on Fireball XL5...

On the back page, The Daleks were proving to be more devious and cunning than they'd be portrayed in some of their TV appearances. Artwork by Richard Jennings...

Sparky was also on issue No.6 that week. Cover by Ron Spencer. My apologies if anyone is offended by the strip. Presented as it was in different times. Thankfully things have moved on since.

The centre pages featured another adventure with Dreamy Dave and Dozy Dora with artwork by George Ramsbottom. (Thanks to Ray Moore for that info.) One of the weirdest things about this strip was that every week the sleepy siblings shared the same dream! 

On the back page, another nice Moonsters strip by Bill Ritchie...

Just a few examples of the wide variety of strips from the many British comics that were available 50 years ago. It was a great time to be a child!

Marvelman Annual 1960 (p.1959)

Marvelman was probably the UK's most popular superhero, as not only did he have a weekly comic in the 1950s to early 1960s he also had several hardback annuals. (As did his companion crime-fighter Young Marvelman.) I recently bought a copy of the Marvelman Annual that was published in 1959 and thought I'd show a few pages here.

This 96 page hardback was published by Len Miller and claims the illustrations are all by Mick Anglo, although that wasn't the case. I suspect that some of the strips are the early work of Don Lawrence, who drew a lot of the Marvelman strips back then.

The book has a good mixture of strips, text stories, puzzles, and a four page Flip and Flop humour strip by Denis Gifford...

There's also a Doc Holliday strip reprinted (and translated) from a European western comic. It's illustrated by the Spanish artrist José Gonzalez, who a few years later would produce fantastic work on the Vampirella comic.

It has to be said that the Marvelman stories were notably daft, and often contrived. Sometimes due to tight deadlines no doubt, but sometimes deliberately so. For example, in the 10 page story Pipe Dream, Marvelman's arch enemy Gargunza invents a method of time travel... using a bong pipe! 

It's hard to imagine the creators of the strip were innocent as to what bong pipes were used for, and Gargunza certainly goes on a 'trip'. Even more amusing is that when Marvelman discovers the pipe he wastes no time in trying it out himself! 

Anyway, here's the full story for your entertainment. Due to the printing limitations of the time, the strip switches from colour to black and white throughout, which is pretty trippy in itself. Don't do drugs, kids! 

The endpapers also highlight this story, with a crazed looking Gargunza inhaling from the pipe. I can't help wondering what, if any, reactions there were at the time. Just a few short years after that ridiculous outrage over horror comics, and there's a story with children's favourite Marvelman using a hookah pipe. However, I guess if it was okay for the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland then it was considered okay for a Marvelman Annual. It still seems strange to modern eyes though, and I doubt any such scene would appear in an annual today.