The End of WHAM! (1968)

Launching in 1964, Wham! had been the flagship title of Odhams' 'Power Comics' but with issue No.187, dated 13th January 1968, it met its fate. Frankly, Wham! had been in decline for quite a while. Its high quality glossy Photogravure printing had long given way to cheap newsprint, more budget cuts had seen the inclusion of Marvel reprint in the form of The Fantastic Four, its main artist Leo Baxendale had left for the more lucrative options of the Fleetway comics, and even the mighty Frankie Stein by Ken Reid had disappeared from the comic long before the last issue. 

That said, Wham! was still livelier, cheekier, and more entertaining than some of its rivals. Let's take a look at a few pages from that final issue. Above is the cover by Mike Lacey, with The Tiddlers strip continuing on the back page. For cheapness, Odhams didn't use black ink on the covers of the newsprint issues of Wham!, utilising dark blue instead. (The same principle applied to companion comics Smash! and Pow!).

Art: Mike Lacey.

Wham! was fated to merge into Pow! the following week and it was announced with a full page ad...

The regular news page also made a big fuss of it...

Only a few strips from Wham! would make the transition to Pow! This issue saw the end of many long-running regulars; General Nitt and his Barmy Army, The Wacks, Glugg, Eagle-Eye, Footsie the Clown, Biff, The Humbugs, Danny Dare, and the Pest of the West. Here's a few examples of those final strips...

Art: Gordon Hogg

Art: Stan McMurtry

Art: Stan McMurtry

Art: Graham Allen

Final 'Barmy Army' strip.

Art: Artie Jackson

Artist unknown.

The strips that would survive were The Tiddlers (but only by merging with The Dolls of St.Dominics), Sammy Shrink, Georgie's Germs, and Marvel reprint The Fantastic Four. The final issue of Wham! and that week's issue of Pow! both ran the same episode of the F.F. (reprinting the start of Fantastic Four No.27) to encourage readers to buy the next issue ...

Art: Jack Kirby.

Wham! was definitely a better comic in its early days but its three and a half year run is still looked upon fondly by those of us who grew up reading comics in the sixties. Personally I think its merger with Pow! made for a stronger comic. In my next post I'll show a few pages from that first merge issue.

This wasn't exactly the final appearances of the characters as they'd return in new strips in the Wham! Annuals dated 1969 to 1971 but on a weekly frequency this was the end of Wham!

Graham Allen's 'The Nervs' (SMASH!, 1966)

Most fans of British comics rate Ken Reid's stint on The Nervs in Smash! as some of his best work, and deservedly so. However, Ken didn't take over the strip until late 1968, towards the end of its run. The majority of Nervs strips were drawn by Graham Allen, whose style may not have had the detail and surges of manic hilarity that Ken's had, but was still brilliant and funny in its own right.

A lot of people confuse Graham Allen's style with that of Leo Baxendale, and I must confess I used to be guilty of that too. Allen was no doubt encouraged to imitate Baxendale's style, as were several other cartoonists, due to Odhams' attempt to give some of their humour strips a kind of house style. However there are distinct differences, and as soon as one picks up on Allen's distinct inking style and, for example, his tendency to give a lot of his characters tiny feet, it becomes more obvious. (Plus the fact that Leo Baxendale was allowed to sign the pages he drew for Odhams, so a lack of his signature is also a good indication he didn't draw it.)

Here are a few examples of Graham Allen's excellent run on The Nervs from selected issues of Smash! from 1966, starting with the story from issue 1, when 'Fatty' was depicted as an adult...

From Smash! No.3 onwards, it seems there had been an editorial decision to make Fatty a schoolboy without any explanation, which he remained for the rest of the series...

There's a few occasions where Fatty is seen to take tablets. There's no way a children's comic would depict that today. Smash! and its companion comics Wham! and Pow! could often be a bit reckless, but they treated their readers with having enough intelligence not to imitate what they saw in comics.

I've always enjoyed the work of Graham Allen, and he was one of my favourite cartoonists in those Odhams comics. I hope this short tribute to his often overlooked work on The Nervs helps others appreciate what a great cartoonist he was, and indeed still is. I understand he still contributes to the Daily Express and has illustrated children's books. You can find out more about him here:

http://ukcomics.wikia.com/wiki/Graham_Allen

WHAM! Happy Easter!

Comics tend not to feature Easter themed strips much these days but here are a few appropriate pages from the Easter issue of Wham! from 50 years ago! Let's take a look at these fantastic strips from 1965. (Click on images to see them much larger.)

Above is the front cover strip Biff, drawn by Graham Allen. Below is General Nitt and his Barmy Army by Gordon Hogg...

Even the pop feature page that week had an Easter makeover. A reflection of the times when it was ok for a children's comic to refer to women as "swingin' chicks"...

Are you ready for some Ken Reid? Of course you are. Here's his Frankie Stein strip for that week...

Followed by Danny Dare drawn by Artie Jackson (with Dan Dare daydream panels by Bruce Cornwell I think)...

Finally from this selection, the back page strip Glugg by Gordon Hogg, wherein Glugg invents Hot Cross Buns centuries before Easter!   

Christmas Comics: WHAM! (1964)

It's the final festive flashback for this year as the Blimey-Timey Time Machine settles in 1964 for the duration of Christmas. This issue of Wham! was published exactly 50 years ago today, on Monday 21st December 1964. A smashing seasonal cover by Graham Allen (who put his initials in the last panel) with a sleigh-full of Wham stars on the masthead.

Let's have a look at a selection of some of its contents. Here are The Wacks, drawn by Gordon Hogg...

On the facing page was the regular pop feature, and who better to appear in this special Christmas issue than Britain's biggest popstars The Beatles? 

Kelpie the Boy Wizard didn't have a festive theme but I couldn't resist the chance to show two pages of classic John Burns artwork...

In these early strips The Tiddlers had a teacher who was on their side called Super Sir! After a while, the strip ditched Super Sir in favour of a traditional put-upon teacher warring with the kids, which was a shame. This episode looks like it might be the work of Terry Willers...

Only one strip by Leo Baxendale in this issue, but what a strip! Eagle-Eye, Junior Spy running across the centrespread in full colour. Some of the humour is of its time and might understandably give offence now, but the artwork is top quality funny stuff...

How's about a Christmas ghost story? Here's the short and spooky Vanishing House. And for lighter fare, It's a Crazy World drawn by Artie Jackson...

It wouldn't be Wham! without Frankie Stein and here's Frankie's first Christmas, drawn by the genius Ken Reid...

Finally, a lively Georgie's Germs strip which shows that Santa even visits germs! Several artists drew this strip over the years and this one is by the excellent Brian Lewis...

I hope you've enjoyed these visits to various Christmas comics of the past. Thanks for dropping by and may I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

Christmas Comics: LOOK-IN (1971)

Kicking off a short series of festive blog posts, here are a few pages from the first Christmas issue of Look-In, dated 25th December 1971. (Click on images to see them larger.) Dubbed the 'Junior TV Times', Look-In was published by Independent Television Publications Ltd (as was the TV Times then) and featured strips based on popular ITV shows. The wraparound cover above is by Arnaldo Putzu, who was the comic's regular cover artist and an illustrator of film posters of the day.

The comic's 24 pages contained a variety of humour and adventure strips but it's only the humour strips I'm showing here as the adventure serials didn't have a festive theme. First up, here's Crowther in Trouble, featuring ex-BBC Crackerjack star Leslie Crowther, drawn by the prolific Tom Kerr...

Please Sir! was a popular comedy series and to me seemed to be a mixture of the movie To Sir With Love and The Beano's Bash Street Kids! The strip in Look-In was drawn by the versatile Graham Allen...

A spin-off from Please Sir! was the TV series The Fenn Street Gang, about Class 5C's adventures after leaving school, featuring the actors who could no longer convincingly play 15 year olds. Artwork for the strip by that man Tom Kerr again, a familiar artist of seventies comics...

The strip version of On the Buses was drawn by Harry North, an excellent artist, although Olive's reaction to being blasted in the face by a shower in the last panel seems oddly static. 

Look-In also carried several feature pages. Curious as to what was on TV back then? Here's a selection of ITV highlights for Christmas 1971. I seem to remember watching the Mike and Bernie Winters All Star Christmas Comedy Carnival which contained new mini-episodes of various comedy series (a bit like Children In Need does now). 

More festive fun soon!