I've blogged about The Big One before, quite a long time ago when this blog was just starting up, when I shared some pages from the last issue. A short-lived experimental comic published by Fleetway, The Big One lasted only 19 issues from 17th October 1964 - 20th February 1965 and, as the name suggests, is the biggest comic ever published in Britain (and maybe even the entire world). With the exception of the front cover of the last issue, the entire contents consisted of reprinted material from earlier Amalgamated Press comics. The front cover features Smiler illustrated by Eric Roberts. Smiler has originally appeared under the strip's original name 'Mike' in both Knockout from 1945 - 1957 and then in Sun from 1957 - 1959.
Besides Shiner only a handful of strips had a new year's theme. Two of those appeared on the back page in full colour. Handy Andy at the top is an ex-Knockout strip illustrated by Hugh McNeill, and at the bottom Georgie the Jolly Geegee is from the pages of Radio Fun, illustrated by John Jukes. The layout of this back cover reminds me very much of the back of early Buster comics. It's bright appealing colours would be gone by the last issue though, replaced with nothing more than black and red ink.
The Big One Birthday Club is the only editorial feature inside and it offered readers the chance to win big prizes. The letter claims that "week after week hundreds of parcels leave the Club store on their way to members of the Big One Club", but I wonder how much of an exaggeration this is seeing as the comic lasted less than five months. The section also says members will receive a special red and gold club badge. I wonder if any still exist.
The idea behind the comic was that it's size would make it more noticeable than anything else on the newsstands, driving up sales. Of course no newsagent in their right mind would stock it as it is, and they were all folded in half then half again, making them the same size if not slightly smaller than other comics at the time. To get an idea of just how big an unfolded copy is, here's a photo of this issue next to a random issue of Buster (the closest comic I had). Now imagine having that open and trying to read it anywhere with even a slight breeze - it's next to impossible! It's big size was ultimately its downfall, it merged into Buster on 27th February 1965.
I own, even after seven years of collecting, just one girl's comic, a solitary issue of Princess Tina from 6th August 1970. In fact, until the other day, I had never even read it, it has sat in my 'to read' pile for over two years now, probably because the idea of a "girl's comic" didn't appeal to me.
The first strip inside was The Happy Days, a comic strip written in the style of a diary of a young girl called Sue Day. The writing is very strong on this strip, the author has done an excellent job of giving it a child's voice in the captions using techniques such as listing (in the first caption), and the artwork is very solid too. The artist is Andrew Wilson and unfortunately the writer's name will probably never be known.
Hugh McNeill, a well known D.C Thomson artist, had a two-pager in Princess Tina called The Trolls. It is about, obviously, trolls, who always annoy the owners of the garden they live in. The weekly strip is a promotional piece for the trolls toys (you know the ones - with the long colourful hair), and it must be said that this is amongst the better advertisement strips I've ever seen.
There was one other humour strip in the comic - Willy the Wily Wolf. A funny one-pager about a wolf who, this week, is trying to impress a lady. I don't know who the artist for this page was.
There were five pages that used full-colour in this comic, the front and back covers, the center spread and page 25. The centre spread was given to a photo of two Princess Tina readers wearing trendy gear, and a how brave are you quiz, so the only comic strip to recieve the full-colour treatment was Vicky in Australia. This is a reprint from Girl, in which Vicky used to travel the world in various adventures. Although not credited in Princess Tina, both the writer and artist are named in Girl - the story is by Betty Roland and the artist is Dudley Pout.
That just about sums up this look at Princess Tina. Princess Tina is actually two comics not one, for it is made up of Princess and Tina, for when Tina comic folded it merged into Princess and instead of becoming Princess and Tina they decided to name it Princess Tina.
I'll wrap up this post with the fantastic looking advertisement on the back page, for the Super Mousse chocolate bar.
To tie in with The Ashes I thought it'd be fun to post a few comic strips with a cricket theme. We start off by heading all the way back to the Beano of 1947, where Big Eggo gives the sport a go, only to end up in a theatre with a policeman! How did he do it? Click on the image below to find out! Art by Reg Carter.
Coming forwards 14 years to a 1961 issue of Buster. This time Buster tries to help a cricketer, but does too good a job! Hugh McNeill is the artist here.
Come forwards to 1970 now to an early issue of Cor, and in this one the Robot Maker helps out a struggling cricket team in order to win the match. But there's a lot at stake, because if they don't win the club will have to fold due to lack of funds! Frank McDiarmid did a wonderful job illustrating this strip, and this episode is no exception.
And in the 1971 Cor summer special the Hire A Horror team helps a man watch the test match in peace! I'm not sure who the artist is, but it's definitely not the usual Reg Parlett.
And finally, we head back to 1960 and take a look at this Terrors Of Tornado Street strip by Juan Rafart.
