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! 

Happy Birthday to Mike Noble!

Today is the 84th birthday of Mike Noble, one of the greatest adventure strip artists of British comics, - and certainly my favourite. I've been a fan of Mike's work for 49 years, ever since his Fireball XL5 strips in TV21, and although he's not as active in illustration today his style is still as dynamic and accomplished as it ever was. 

Mike's a rare visitor to comic events but I did have the pleasure of meeting him ten years ago at a Bristol Comic Expo, and he came across as an unassuming and genuinely nice bloke. 

On Facebook today, Beano artist Nigel Parkinson (who used to draw for Thunderbirds the Comic) said:
"Lovely fellow and very humble. When I met him (wow, 20 years ago!) he was saying to Alan [Fennell] how much he admired Embleton and Bellamy and how he wished he could draw as well as them. Well sir, you did and do!"

I wrote a tribute to him and his work seven years ago on this very blog and you can read it here:
http://comiconline24h.blogspot.co.uk/2007/02/dynamic-art-of-mike-noble.html

Today, the Down The Tubes forum has a birthday tribute to the great man, which you can read here:
http://downthetubes.net/?p=16528

Here's wishing Mr.Noble a very happy and healthy birthday, and many more to come! 

Photo from LOOK-IN in 1971 showing Mike's original art.