Let Me Take You On A Joyride ( No. 2 1946)

There were 5 issues in total and all published in 1946. Now, Bob Wilkin is only credited with issue number one -I've no idea about 2-5. The first issue is listed as "NN" -"No number". I'm guessing Wilkin must have worked on the others -the proof is here!
Never seen this particular comic before so it's a real find. By the art style I'm guessing this is Wilkin of seaside postcard fame?

I'm hoping to get more info on him as well as, I hope, a photo, for the Golden Age blog and the Archives Yahoo group.

And that's about all I know!!

An Early UK Time Traveller: Bring 'Em Back Hank! (Gerald Swan Comics)

 William A Ward

 

Jimmy Jingles Time Machine....Better Than "Jimmy Jingle Bells" I Suppose!

 

Jimmy Jingles Time Machine was another superbly drawn comic strip from Knockout -this sample from the issue dated 22ndAugust, 1942.  The artist is Eric Parker.  Now I know Parker's career spanned almost sixty years! 

I began writing up notes and I found a scribbled URL (normally I bookmark these things on the computer!) but it took me to a wonderful article on the artist by Norman Wright and David Ashford that I recommend!

http://friardale.co.uk/Ephemera/Book%20and%20Magazine%20Collector/218-Eric%20Parker-artist-May%202002.pdf

A question -Jimmy Jingles -a suitable character for "resurrection"?

Was Electroman Blond or black haired?

 

This is an interesting one. King-Ganteaume Productions was set up by two ex GIs after 1945 when the GI Bill etc helped ex servicemen retrain or set up business. The studio supplied lot6s of small British companies including Swan and Scion. This is no. 6 (only 7 issues) from 1952.

Notice something different compared to the 1st issue from 1951?

Well, the most obvious is that he has black hair in issue 1 and his costume chest emblem is of a white and a black lightning bolt crossed -youcan see this in the cover below

This may well be down to whoever was given the job of drawing the strip as it was a studio and there are a few odd stories about how it was run! Of course, you might say that his Marvelman -like change was prone to "oddities" such as his black hair going blond but then things were pretty fast and loose with these small studios. Also, the hair was black on other issues....

Maybe the artist got Marvelman and Electroman mixedup....oops. No. Marvelman did nopt appear until 1954 so this will have to remain as one of those oddities of comics before the laser-like eye of continuity crept in (almost).

Money, Money, Money.... Then No Money!

 Back in the late 1970s and 1980s my plan was to be a comic publisher. None of that writing and drawinmg stuff for me. I'd get other people to do that stuff. With Gerald Swan I paid out. With Denis M Reader I paid out, I paid out to a few old publishers as well as buying rights from Donald Glut in the US.

The result?

I spent so much money that I had to start writing and drawing stuff myself!

At least it meant that reintroducing lost and forgotten characters  to new readers meant I could stick as close to the character as possible -some were pretty one dimensional if great fun!

Comic Bits 4

 

A4

80pp

colour and black and white

Perfect bound

£12.00 Until December 1st 2026 then £20.00

https://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper/comic-bits-4/paperback/product-nv555mq.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Celebrating the British Platinum, Golden, Dark and Silver Ages of Comic Art and the long forgotten masters of comic book art and in this issue we look at George H Heath, Jack Greenall, Hugh Stanley White and John R Turner who are mostly forgotten. Their work from the 1930s to 1960s shaped the face of British comics.

And lost or forgotten characters? We hve those.

Who remembers Dick Gordon The Bat-Man?

Cyclone?

Even though he was a long lasting character who remembers The Falcon?

If that isn't good enough how about delving into the early 19th century and the first indisputable pop culture icon Dr Syntax. Educational and entertaining Comic Bits 4 is for the comic historianb as well as lovers of comics.

Thunderbolt Jaxon and the Glamorous Cannon Ball

   Thunderbolt Jaxon started out in The Comet (13th August, 1949) so is definitely a Golden Age hero. In 1958 he moved on to Knockout comic with some reprints. Hugh McNeil was the artist who drew the adventures.

Please note that I slightly cracked the spine on the annual to bring you these pages...at my age I cry over such things.

I Found Another Spring-heeled (or Springheel) Jack!

 

With my long time (decades) of studying and researching the springald known as Springheel Jack how could this not catch my eye?

 Butterfly and Firefly No. 1001 13th May, 1936

William A. Ward's...The Invisible Spy

 

The Outlaw Sheriff

 From D C Thmsons Adventure no. 1346  4th November, 1950.  There is absolutely no information online or anywhere else about this character so even artist is "anon"

or is it?

Looking at the style and there is almost the look of Dudley Watkins in the art. It might bhe possible since he did a lot for Thomson and thee were short one pagers.

Another interesting fact is that in the 1985 edition of Denis Gifford's The Complete Catalogue of British Comics... Thomson's Adventure is not mention but a dozen other "adventures" are!

The Tumble-weed Kid

 McCail

BCBA -What Is The British Comic Book Archive?

 I started the idea of the BCBA back in the 1990s. A numjber of family members of deceased artists contacted me after failing in attempts to get scanned samples of a father/grand fathers work. Companies were not helpful as it took up their time and, in many cases, the british publishers these people worked for went out of business during the late 1950s into the early 1970s. 

 It takes time tracking down good quality and confirmed artwork (in comic format) by specific creators but I did and families were quite happy to finally see the work for the first time. 

We have also lost so much work because when the smaller companies went out of business most everything that could not bring in money was dumped. Gerald Swan really did not like his comics bhut he saw the gap in the market created by WW 2. I asked, as I assumed that I was buying art stock, what was available? Nothing.  Pages were dumped or pulped and that was it.  Original art was apparently also stolen.

What I had not expected was the  ill feeling from people within what was left of British comics toward the archive idea. Not publishers but comic creators. I put up with name calling and worse just for attempting to preserve UK comic heritage. I should point out that I was not makjing money doing this but I was LOSING a lot!

The British Golden Age Comics Face Book page took over from the destruction of Yahoo groups. Rare or near impossible to find photos of creators and publishers I posted there. This blog as well as the loss making Golden Age books and Comic Bits are here to try to preserve our almost lost comic history at least until the Managing Editor Upstairs calls me in!

It is not money making. It is a project to save our heritage.

Quick On the Draw [Edited]

 

1975: FRANK HAMPSON - creator of DAN DARE | Nationwide | Science Fiction | BBC Archive

 

Roger Dean on the Massive Influence of Dan Dare

 

DAN DARE THE EAGLE STORY

 

Always Check -or ask me if in doubt.

 Someone messaged me and said they were going to put a £25 bid in on this book. Waaaaay too much.

He asked what comic strips were in the book and I had to explain to him that there were none. This does say "Album" but it is an album of Western stories withnthe occasional illo (looks like John McCail). The album is also A5 (I think B5 in the US?).

Swan published pulps on detective/crime. horror, sci fi and so much more and these often ended up as compilation books -albums.

So do not be fooled by AI described (lot of sellers using that now and not checking the books themselves) books or a seller using confusing descriptions to make you think you are buying a comic annual (they KNOW what they are doing). Take a deep breath anbd ask the seller "Does this contain comic strips?"

Million Dollar Shots -The Missing Link

 Funnies Album 1944  Artist  William (Bill) McCail        BCBA

Dr Satoni -Crime Chemist

 From Swan's 1944 Funnies Album    BCBA   Artist William A Ward

Whatever Happened To Marvelman?

 

I have some Marvelman and Young Marvelman comics and annuals. Really fun and the case of the stolen giant marrows had me chuckling. Up until the 1990s the British loved their allotments and gardens. Growing fruit and veg boomed especially during/after the Second World War.  A lot of 1960s kids like me were presented with steamed/boiled marrow as part of Sunday dinner.

Confession: I could not stand marrow. 

The genius of Mick Anglo, and he was a bit of a comic genius (far more than Alan Moore or anyone else ever gave him credit for), was that he got artists working on strips that to any British kid was full of things they would be familiar with -weird aliens from TV puppet shows and of course the sacred marrow.

Read in 2026 they are still fun books. But, no, we just cannot allow fun comics can we?

And so, in the 1980s, I walked into a newsagents with my brother, Mike, and there was this magazine called Warrior. I looked -that was Marvelman! I bought. We got home and I opened it up to find that...it was not Marvelman. It was ...Miracleman?

Okay, Dez Skinn "purloined" the character assuming that it was public domain. He had worked at Fleetway so was aware of the "Thirty Year Rule". It is a rule that existed for...well, from the Platinume Age to 2000s but when you do something or use a character and  the slime involved in the periphery of comics in tyhe UK do not want you to they start protesting there is no such rule. There is and a chat with HM Copyright Office told me that they knew it existed.

The 30 Year Rule that Skinn employed stated that if a character had not seen publication in 30 years it was open to use. There was a 35 Year Rule which was a safety guard meaning the character was out of use but you allowed a further 5 years "in case". 

I mentioned this to the late Gil Page who was Managing Editor at Fleetway and had been there starting as an office boy when it was still Amalgamated Press -45+ years man and boy. Gil told me it was a known rule and Fleetway had used it themselves but giggled and told me "Best keep that quiet!" (I think I know the characters he was referring to now).

People are still criticing Skinn over "stealing" Marvelman but he was acting on well known and used rules so yah-boo-sucks!

Alan Moore "rebooted" the character to Miracleman and I must admit liking the series at the start as I switched off any Marvelman memories. However, as the series progressed you could see Moore's usual school boy minded excesses taking over. The graphic "Child birth" issue was one such because you had to ask why we needed to see a graphic child birth? It made no difference to the story it was just Moore being Moore.

I have posted before about the whole Alan Moore nad Eclipse farce where someone sold the character when they had no right to and "poor Alan" was (not) ripped off again. Eclipse was the company that published the "controversial" child birth issue but then the series just stopped....as did Eclipse.

Marvel then stepped in as it did not want any loose character running around that could use the name Marvel (when Marvelman appeared it was many years before Timely/Atlas become Marvel so use of the name yah-boo-sucks. They republished some of the black and white strips and I loved that.

Marvel Comics then finished the storyline which started with Moore and then Neil Gaiman before the latter "got cancelled". As someone at Marvel stated "We dodged a ------ bullet with that! If the story had broken earlier we would have junked the series!" I guess the loss of money would have been hurtful to the accountants!

After all of that Miracleman was never name changed back to Marvelman and why not doesn't make much sense since they purchased the Marvelman character from Anglo (was there anything odd in that deal (ahem) such as Anglo insisting that Marvel could use the character likeness but not the Marvelman name -it had t remain Miracleman to distinguish it from his fun creation (just saying. People talk).

Anyhow, as I stated when Marvel purchased the character, there was talk that they intended to make him American. As Lee said in the 1970s: "Make comics American" (yeah, I watched that edition of Pebble Mill at One on the BBC at the time.

And so, in 2026, a failed Captain America causes all sorts of chaos in a rather messy and almost unreadable Avengers Armageddon and suddenly....becomes Miracleman. Well he ain't Mike Moran so the dignity of the original Marvelman is intact.

Miracleman in Marvel's new Avengers title

Miracleman joins the Marvel Universe as the final member of the new Avengers lineup in the upcoming issue of Avengers #1, debuting on November 4, 2026. David Colton, the 21st-century Captain America, inherits Miracleman's legacy and extraordinary powers, which include flight, superstrength, durability, and the ability to switch between human and superhuman forms. Miracleman's arrival is a significant development in the Marvel Universe, as he is expected to play a pivotal role in the new era of heroes.

We know how Marvel's previous "New Eras" have gone.

We'll see. But as a side note that "costume" looks bloody awful!