A Lament for Children’s Comics: Part One - British Comics

I must have been five or six when my Dad took my younger brother and me to the local newsagents one Saturday afternoon to choose a comic each. We debated the various merits of each comic before we both settled on a title. My brother chose ‘Pippin’, a title aimed at early readers and featuring recognisable characters such as ‘Larry the Lamb’ and ‘Trumpton’. I chose ‘TV Comic’. It had some of my favourite TV shows in comic form, including 'Dad's Army' and ‘Doctor Who’, and during the '70s, always had a colourful ‘Tom and Jerry’ strip on the cover. Dad added both comics to his newspaper order, so that every Saturday morning, the latest issues would slide through the letter box onto the mat.

Saturday Morning Nostalgia

I loved Saturday mornings. I’d hear the clatter of the letter box and would quickly nip downstairs to grab my comic before sliding back into my warm bed to read it, cover to cover. And so my love for comics began. I have read them obsessively ever since and see them as a huge influence on not only my reading ability from a young age but also my imagination and love for storytelling.

Another day clearly sticks in my mind. Again, I must have been about six and had found a new comic in the newsagent, the cover of which grabbed me and dared me to take it home. This comic promised thrills and adventure and excitement – plus a free gift (British comics often launched with free gifts attached to the cover). The comic was the short-lived ‘Vulcan’. At six, I wasn’t aware that it was an all-reprint comic, but that wouldn’t have mattered anyway. ‘The Spider’ was reprinted from ‘Lion’, ‘The Steel Claw’ from ‘Valiant’, ‘The Trigan Empire’ from ‘Look and Learn’, and so on.

I raced home to my room to devour these tales of heroes and monsters and spaceships and guns and… My Mum caught sight of it and wasn’t impressed. She forbade me buying the comic ever again, insisting that I was too young for such stuff. These days, of course, most parents wouldn’t have even shrugged as there is far more controversial stuff in Saturday morning cartoons, but my Mum wasn’t comfortable with my arbitrary shift away from the safety of ‘TV Comic’ into a world of violent adventure.

I was devastated and can still remember the loss I felt, even today. Scary, huh? Anyone got a reprinted compendium of ‘The Trigan Empire’ they want to lend me?

Decline and Fall

Sadly, the British comics industry is not what it once was, and today’s kids are the losers. Comics are an incredibly effective way to get kids reading, especially as the format of complimentary pictures and text allows a child to more effectively determine context and meaning when trying to decipher the words. Yet comics in their heyday were more than that. They were a gateway to kid’s imaginations, opening up their eyes to an immense number of ideas and creative style.

British comics had been a major part of growing up since the 1930s and the arrival of ‘The Beano’ and ‘The Dandy’.

Although American comics would make their way to England, British Comics developed a different style. The American comics were monthly titles, and by the time copies started to reach England, the format often featured only one lead story, and one genre– ‘Batman’, ‘Superman’, ‘Captain Marvel’, etc. British Comics were predominantly weekly anthologies, featuring a number of strips, ranging from 1 to 4 or more pages. A single comic could contain comedy, drama, sci-fi, western and romance.

Decades of Comics Fun

’The Beano’ and ‘The Dandy’ were entirely humour titles, introducing kids to ‘Dennis the Menace’ and ‘Desperate Dan’, ‘Korky the Cat’ and the ‘Bash Street Kids’. These characters survive today, ranking alongside ‘Superman’ and ‘Batman’ as the longest serving characters in comics. Rarely do these characters receive the recognition for their longevity and cultural power, outside Britain.

Other comics would also run for decades, introducing children to all manner of narrative styles. ‘Whizzer and Chips’ (1969 – 1990), ‘The Hotspur’ (1933 – 1981), ‘Tiger’ (1954 – 1985), ‘Lion’ (1952 - 1974) and ‘Wizard’ (1922 – 1964) are barely a few notable mentions in an incredibly diverse comic history. Remember, these comics were weekly. Unlike American comics where ten years would mean only 120 issues, some of these British titles numbered their back-issues in the thousands. A subscription to ‘Lion’ or ‘Hotspur’ could fill up cupboard space in no time.

As you can see from the dates of some of these titles, British comics didn’t go through the same upheaval as American comics, where very few titles survived the arrival of the superhero genre in 1937. British comics that were popular in the 1920s would still be popular in the 1960s, passing through generations of readerships.

I should make a distinction here. In the early days, British comics were more correctly referred to as ‘Boy’s Papers’, featuring a mix of illustrated stories, prose, articles and news. For example, ‘The Hotspur’ only dropped these additional features, relaunching to become a complete comic in 1959. But for most British kids, there was nothing wrong with breaking up their comic reading with articles on history, prose serialisations and photo-essays of news events. And whereas today some kids would avoid this attempt to shoehorn education into their entertainment, back then that was entertaining. That was the established format and kids bought these comics in their thousands.

And then there was ‘Eagle’ –probably the best comic ever produced.

The Best of Them All

Launched in 1952, ‘Eagle’ was devised by a vicar called Marcus Morris in response to the rise in importation of American EC horror comics. As many American comics had made it across the Atlantic with GIs during the War, many British kids were exposed to these genres for the first time. Appalled at what he saw as terrible storytelling, macabre images and adult content of the American comics, Morris drew together some of the greatest comic creators to develop a new boy’s paper that would provide the same thrills in a more responsible way.

’Eagle’ soon supplanted these brief invaders and became, arguably, the most fondly remembered comic in the history of British publishing. Introducing sci-fi adventure with ‘Dan Dare’ (for my money, still the best-quality comic strip ever produced - Frank Hampson is a hero), comedy with ‘Harris Tweed', adventure with ‘PC49’ and ‘Riders of the Range’, and peppered with articles, informative biographies and plenty of reader-generated content, ‘Eagle’ became a phenomenon, selling out from the very first issue.

There were ‘Eagle' hosted carol services every Christmas. ‘Eagle’ holiday shows in many seaside resorts during the summer months. An ‘Eagle’ radio show became popular, with a sing-along every week of the official son – ‘Spread Your Wings’. This was more than a comic, it was a way of life for thousands of children in the ‘50s and ‘60s, my Dad among them.

The British Comics Heyday

Although ‘Eagle’ declined in sales towards the end of the ‘60s, this was partly due to the plethora of new titles that had begun to appear. The late ‘60s and ‘70s were a heyday for British comics, with new titles seemingly popping up every week. There were comics for girls such as ‘Judy’, ‘Jackie’ and ‘Bunty’, war comics such as ‘Battle’, ‘Victor’ and ‘Valiant’, new funny comics such as 'Whoopee', 'Monster Fun' and 'Krazy', sports comics such as ‘Tiger’ and ‘Roy of the Rovers’ and action comics such as ‘Vulcan’, ‘Hotspur’ and ‘Lion’ and, after ‘Star Wars’ became a box-office success, sci-fi comics popped up with ‘Starlord’, ‘2000AD’ and a relaunched ‘Eagle’.

Each comic attracted reader allegiances, spurred on by the lead character that would often dominate the cover strip. ‘Robot Archie’ stared out from the cover of ‘Lion’. ‘Dan Dare' set-up camp on the cover of ‘Eagle’. ‘Judge Dredd’ was the poster-boy for '2000AD'. ‘Desperate Dan’ represented ‘The Dandy'. ‘Dennis the Menace’ occupied ‘The Beano’. ‘Roy of the Rovers’ led ‘Tiger’, before spinning off into his own comic.

To British adults, some of these characters carry far more nostalgia and fond memories than the superhero comics that for many years only made their way to Britain as reprints. The Marvel comics were aggressively marketed to Britain in the 1960s, leading to a new brand - Marvel UK in 1972, with new anthology titles set up to present these tales in a format with which British kids were familiar. That meant chopping up the monthly titles into weekly instalments and reconstructing them as anthologies. This did lead to some peculiar cliff-hangers, as adventures had to be cut after the requisite number of pages, regardless of what was happening in the scene. These reprinted superhero comics were still very popular among British kids, but in no way supplanted our loyalties from our own comics. After all, the styles were completely different. I couldn’t get western adventure or war thrills or sci-fi future-scapes in the superhero comics – they could only provide costumed blokes hitting each other week-in week-out.

The Disappearing Comics

But the bubble burst. The 1980s saw a huge decline in comic readership, and many titles folded. By the mid-‘90s, barely any of these titles would survive. Today, ‘The Beano’, ‘The Dandy’ and ‘2000AD’ are, I think, the only survivors from a time when every child would have an allegiance to a title and a host of characters they would defend to the death (or a skinned knee) in the playground. Even amongst those three, ‘2000AD’ has changed its target audience, growing up with readers so that now it is very much a more adult title, wholly unsuitable for under-tens.

There were a number of factors that contributed to the decline in the British comics industry. Many of the companies overstretched themselves and were not able to cope when a decline came. Other forms of entertainment such as video games and 24-hour television competed for the allegiances of children. The local reprinting and importing of American comics provided additional competition, especially as producing reprints was also far cheaper and as superheroes grew in popularity through TV shows.

I credit comics with helping me achieve a reading standard way above average in my primary school years. They were safe, and exhilarating and imaginative and just plain wonderful. Much as I love the America superhero genre, they will never come close to the breadth of ideas and stories I could receive in one weekly issue.

It disappointed me that I was never able to take my daughter to the local newsagent and help her to choose a comic (or should I say girl’s paper) that we could add to our delivery order for her Saturday morning reading. It still disappoints me that such a rich seam of creativity and imagination has virtually died out, with most British comic creators now working entirely within American superhero comics.

I just want to hear that letter-box flap again so I can sneak downstairs in my slippers and find a bundle of excitement staring up at me from the mat.

(Don't forget to also read - "A Lament for Children's Television" and return soon for part two of the Lament for Children's Comics, looking at the American market.)