Comical comics
Comical comics |
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Page 13 of 34  page from Blondie (c 1935), one of the notorious pornographic 'Tijuana Bibles'. Art/script: Anon. There were also British editions of American comics, typically in black-and-white, and published by small companies like Thorpe and Porter and L Miller and Son, plus indigenous titles based on American characters. Of these, none was more popular than the first, Mickey Mouse Weekly (Willbank, 1936), which lasted for an impressive 920 issues. It was a lively photogravure tabloid starring various Disney characters, well-known to young Britons from their cinema appearances; it mixed reprinted stories from American syndicated newspaper strips and new material by British artists. Other titles similarly used American cartoon characters as the basis for strips through the 1940s and 1950s. As the swinging 1960s dawned, there were further developments in the circulation war. In 1960, Amalgamated Press was bought up by the Mirror Group, publishers of the Daily Mirror, which then became the International Publishing Corporation (IPC). But the change of name did not mean a let-up in their publishing schedule. Their first move was to create a new imprint, Fleetway, and to publish Buster (1960), the eponymous hero of which was supposed to be the son of Andy Capp, the famous strip character created for the Mirror. Buster was a funnier-than-average title, and gave the Thomson comics a run for their money.  Detail and panels from 'Thimble Theatre' (King Features Syndicate, 1931 and 1933), starring Popeye. Art/script: Elzie Segar. The spinach-fuelled sailorman was one of the best-loved characters of the period. |