Childhood Comics and Annuals

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Rob Houghton
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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by Rob Houghton »

As I still live in the house where I was born, there is a lot of junk in the loft which would otherwise have been thrown away! All my childhood books are pretty much still there, on shelves in the loft, which is how come I still have my old annuals. I have Rupert Bear, Beano, Whoopee etc as described earlier, plus a few others - Pinky and Perky, two Sooty annuals, a Whacky Races annual,Popeye annual, Jack and Jill annuals, Muppet Show annuals, Beezer annuals, look-in annual, etc etc. Our loft is like an old book shop!
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Anita Bensoussane
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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by Anita Bensoussane »

Julie2owlsdene wrote:I used to look forward to the Christmas Annual coming out. I had Bunty, and Diana and wish now I had kept them all, but sadly they all got thrown away!
My sister and I used to get the Jinty, Misty and Tammy annuals between us in the late 70s - early 80s.
LexFraser wrote:Topper was also one of my faves - I actually got a cartoon published with them when I was about 8 years old. My prize was a big cardboard box full of every conceivable joke trick known to man (whoopee cushions, packet of chewing gum with a mousetrap hidden inside, itching powder, hand shake buzzer, etc) - the greatest day in my life when that arrived in the post! Although, my mum was not best pleased when I had to go to the docs to wash the sneezing powder out of my eyes!!!!
What a fabulous prize (despite the mishap with the sneezing powder!) Once a year my sister and I would visit a joke shop in Prestatyn and stock up on tricks and jokes - though we never bought sneezing powder or itching powder as we'd heard they could be dangerous.
Tony Summerfield wrote:At one stage I had a pile of about 400 Beano and Dandy comics, but about 40 years ago I wondered what was the point of keeping them as they were just taking up space. Little did I know that they would have been worth a penny or three in years to come, so sadly Desperate Dan and Dennis the Menace went up in flames, but it was a spiffing bonfire! :cry:
A sad story. I regret getting rid of my old comics, which I donated to Bring and Buy sales at school.
"Heyho for a starry night and a heathery bed!" - Jack, The Secret Island.

"There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books."
- E. Nesbit, The Wonderful Garden.


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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by Moonraker »

Tony Summerfield wrote:Sitting on my back stairs I have a stack of Beano and Dandy Annuals which I have just counted and there are 47 of them there - I had forgotten all about them until I read this thread as the back stairs are really just for servants...
I thought I had been all over your house, but I've only ever seen one staircase. I see I have more areas to explore!

Annuals were wonderful presents. I had The Beezer and The Topper annuals every Christmas. :D
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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by Billy Farmer »

I used to look forward to receiving Beano and Dandy Annuals, for Christmas, also others, like Buster and Roy of the Rovers, I have got a lot of Comics, up in the loft, but no longer obtain old Comics, in their original form, I live in a bungalow, and there's no more room for old Comics, in their original form (I collect many other items, which take up no end of space), but I do buy DVD-ROMs, from eBay, which contain hundreds of issues of old Comics, also Annuals, and Comic Specials.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from= ... _sacat=267" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I can read the issues of Comics (which are on DVD-ROMs), on my computer.
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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by Courtenay »

Here's an article that I thought might be of interest to some here:

Christmas annuals in the attic — what are yours worth?
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It was a nuisance. An adventure was one thing - but an adventure without anything to eat was quite another thing. That wouldn't do at all. (The Valley of Adventure)
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Rob Houghton
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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by Rob Houghton »

Thanks Courtenay! Very interesting! It seems that the era of the annual has now passed, which is a shame - but then back in the 1970's and 80's annuals were still very good value - loads of pages, and great artwork. Annuals seem about 50 pages thinner these days. :-(

I always had Rupert annual...often had Enid Blyton's Bedtime annual when I was small, and was a real fan of annuals, as I'm sure I said earlier up this thread. Beano, Dandy, Whoopee, Whizzer and Chips, Buster, Jack and Jill, Fun-to-Do, Wacky Races, Popeye, Scooby Doo, The Muppet Show - all annuals I had for Christmas at one time or another. Happy days! :D
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by Courtenay »

Funny, we never had annuals for Christmas — I don't think they've ever been so much a big thing in Australia (or if they were, we missed out). But I've bought my mum an Enid Blyton's Magazine Annual with dust jacket for Christmas. :D She still loves reading these things too!
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It was a nuisance. An adventure was one thing - but an adventure without anything to eat was quite another thing. That wouldn't do at all. (The Valley of Adventure)
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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by Daisy »

I remember getting the School Friend Annuals for 2 or 3 years. I also had one or two Rupert books. My younger sisters had Girl Annual and I think "Chick's Own" also. I don't remember any of my own children being interested in Annuals in the 60s and 70s, so have no idea what was around then.
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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by Lucky Star »

I have a stack of old 70s and 80s Whizzer & Chips, Beano, Dandy and Buster annuals. I pulled a few down on Christmas Day and read them again for the umpteenth time. Timeless classic stuff.
"What a lot of trouble one avoids if one refuses to have anything to do with the common herd. To have no job, to devote ones life to literature, is the most wonderful thing in the world. - Cicero

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Rob Houghton
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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by Rob Houghton »

Lucky Star wrote:I have a stack of old 70s and 80s Whizzer & Chips, Beano, Dandy and Buster annuals. I pulled a few down on Christmas Day and read them again for the umpteenth time. Timeless classic stuff.
Great idea! I sometimes do that to recapture the feeling of Christmas in my late childhood and early teens! :-D
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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timv
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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by timv »

I had a couple of the Rupert annuals from the late 1960s- early 1970s, which I think was the era of Alfred Bestall as the illustrator.The scenic endpaper panoramic views of the area around Rupert's village of Nutwood were really lifelike and I wonder if these were ever based on real views or totally invented; it was a bit like Sussex where I lived. I generally had 'Buster' annuals (comic cartoon-style strips like the Beano and some of the same illustrators) and the annuals of the IPC magazine group's comics 'Smash' and 'Valiant' (a mixture of comic cartoon strips and strips of adventure stories, with some science fiction, spy and history stories). Also the last of the original run of 'Eagle' magazine before it closed and a few of the 'Blue Peter' annuals of the Noakes/ Singleton/ Purves era.

Some of the artwork in these comics was first-class and very realistic, and the artists deserve to be as well remembered as the better-known comic strip artists like Leo Baxendale of the 'Beano' (who I think did some of the Buster' strips). Notably there seemed to be no crossover with children's book artists in that era - was working on comics looked down on? Checking up since starting some collecting as an adult, I notice that there were quite a number of Spanish and South American artists involved, not just UK ones.
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Rob Houghton
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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by Rob Houghton »

I saw in the news last night that 'Dennis the Menace' is no longer to be called 'the Menace' but just plain old Dennis...after about 67 years. Sign of the times - people are appalled that he should be a hero who is a menace.

I was amazed...but not really surprised...to hear that at its peak The Beano sold 2 million copies a week - while these days 35,000 a week is looked on as being very healthy indeed! :roll:
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by KEVP »

There is an issue with "Dennis the Menace" that there are TWO comic strip characters with that same name, one American the other British. I wonder if the name change is therefore to avoid trademark or copyright problems.
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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by KEVP »

In the USA, there never was such a thing as an "annual". What always surprised me was that in the UK, there would be annuals for American TV shows. Like the Dukes of Hazzard!
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Rob Houghton
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Re: Childhood Comics and Annuals

Post by Rob Houghton »

KEVP wrote:There is an issue with "Dennis the Menace" that there are TWO comic strip characters with that same name, one American the other British. I wonder if the name change is therefore to avoid trademark or copyright problems.
If that's true, I'm surprised nothing's happened before, since the British and the American Dennis the Menace have both been around since 1951! Presumably they were the same character depicted differently?
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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