The First Funny Wonder Annual

The very first Funny Wonder book came out for 1935, a super-sized edition of the popular weekly comic published by Amalgamated Press. The comic began life in 1914... sort-of, and would continue until 1953. It was actually the second comic to have the name, the first of which was published in the 1890s by Harmsworth Brothers. I'll leave it at that as it's a long and confusing history that I am still wrapping my head around and is probably more deserving of its own post - all you need to know is this is from the second run.

Just from looking at it, I can tell this book would have stood out on any shelf of a 1930s newsagents. Look at the photo above and you can see just how bright it appears when compared to the regular weekly edition. Measuring an inch cover to cover it's also incredibly thick, with pages so heavy they are essentially cardboard.

It cost 2/6, for which readers were treated to 110 pages (not counting the covers). Of those internal pages, nine were in colour, including this wonderful full-page gag illustrated by Roy Wilson. Wilson also drew that stunning front cover, of course.

Advertisements for the annual began appearing in The Funny Wonder in early September 1934. The editor, in the regular 'News From Your Editor' section published in #1069 (22nd September 1934) said "it is the funniest book on the market". 

"My dear readers - I wonder how many of you have seen the Funny Wonder annual for 1935? Those of you who have will know how jolly good it is!"

"Your old friends, Pitch and Toss and the Captain, appear inside, with a number of other fun-merchants and the stories are all written by your favourite Funny Wonder authors! All for half-a-crown!". 

Here are a couple of those adverts:

Moving along inside, and the next page we are greeted with is this letter from The Editor. I do wish the editor was named so I could tell you who it was, I also wonder if it is the same editor for the weekly comic. I assume it would be. I like this third paragraph here, promoting the "weekly blue-coloured paper The Funny Wonder".

The book is a wonderful mixture of stories, comics, puzzles and pictures - a fantastic annual that really utilises the space it has. For me, the highlights of this book are the full-page illustrations by Roy Wilson, the king of slapstick. There were two others printed throughout the book in addition to the full-colour one show above, both with black and red ink. Oh how I wish these were also printed in full colour, but of course doing so was expensive in 1934 and colour had to be used sparingly. Wilson was a master of the craft and I certainly haven't written enough about him on this blog. So significant was his work, and at such an important identity-forming time for British comics, I don't think it would be unfair to say that his style and legacy live on through artists working today.

There are plenty of text stories covering a variety of exciting genres, from far-away adventures to mysteries, this book has everything. Any child would have spent hours pouring through them, they really are fantastic. They vary in length so I'll show a shorter one - The Automatic Man. This has it all - a robot, a burglar, and a fat reward!

Before moving on, I feel I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention the racism in the comic. Sadly there are a couple of instances, shown below, where racial stereotypes were used. I get that such depictions were somewhat commonplace in comics of the time, but nonetheless they do dampen the comic when looking back. I'm glad times have changed.

On a lighter note, here's a fun Charlie Chaplin comic strip, partially coloured in by a previous and enthusiastic owner of the book. Chaplin was a regular in The Funny Wonder at this point, with a comic strip on the centre spread every week. It's interesting that the comic has a summer beach theme, given the book was released with intentions of being a Christmas present. It works for those of us in the southern hemisphere, I suppose.

There's also a character called Pearl Pryor in the strip Pranks in the Park who looks incredibly like Keyhole Kate! No copyright claims can be upheld here of course as The Dandy, and Keyhole Kate, didn't arrive on the scene until 1937.

There's plenty more for readers of course but I'll wrap it up for this blog post. The last thing I want to share is this wonderful back cover, advertising various comics published by Amalgamated Press at the time. The Funny Wonder is on there, of course, alongside Larks, Jester, Jingles and Tip Top, each coming out on various days of the week. I love these early comics and wish they were easier to find copies of these days. I know if I had been alive in 1934 I would always be broke!

Vintage Tin Adverts

These beautiful signs sold last week at auction, and I simply couldn't resist sharing them here. Made of tin, such signs were common in the first half of the 20th century and were often tied up outside newsagents - it's not rare to see them in the background of old photos.

Should you have any more cool old adverts, or even just photos of some, please do send some photos of them my way. They're a joy to behold, and I'd love to share some to the site.

Dennis the Menace Book 1956

Dennis the Menace must have been hugely popular right from the very beginning if he was to get his very own book less than five years after his first appearance in The Beano in 1951. Yet that's exactly what happened, with the 1956 Dennis the Menace book coming out in time for Christmas 1955. I love the front cover of this book, with the entire town, including no less than three policemen and even a cat, cowering in fear as Dennis strides along with a big bucket of bright red paint. Wonderfully illustrated by Dennis' creator and first artist Davey Law, I was fortunate enough to pick up a copy that still has the vibrant colours it was printed with back in the 1950s. Here's the accompanying back cover, which just captures the spirit of the character so well.

These were the days before Gnasher entered this scene (I posted his first appearance here), so it's up to Dennis to carry the fun on his own. There is no price tag inside the book, but I believe it cost 5/-, for which readers got 80 pages (counting the covers), all of which were printed with red and black ink. I can only assume this was to show off Dennis' infamous red and black jersey. For comparison, the 1956 Beano and Dandy annuals both cost 6/-. I'm not sure about The Dandy, but The Beano book had 128 pages.

The book contains a mixture of comic strips and text.

I'm a big fan of Davey Law's Dennis but of course 1950s Beano comics can fetch a premium and are hard to come by. Early Dennis books are certainly collectable, especially this 1956 edition, but for those wanting to see Law's work on a bit of a budget getting a hold of them is well worth doing. I picked this up just this week for $35 (New Zealand dollars, so about £17) and it's in pretty nice condition. However, I believe most of the Dennis strips in the early books were actually reprinted from strips published in The Weekly News, not The Beano. In addition to his Beano strips, Davey Law drew 184 Dennis comics for The Weekly News which were published from 7th November 1953 - 17th August 1957 (197 strips were published in total, 184 new ones by Law, one Beano reprint and 12 by another artist). It was probably a smart idea reprinting these in the book as I imagine most readers would be more familiar with his Beano appearances.

Dennis the Menace books were bi-annual affair up until 1978, when they were paused until 1983. A book was then published every year from 1987-2011, with 39 editions published all up. I understand that instead of producing an annual for 2012 D.C. Thomson published The Beano and The Dandy celebrate Dennis the Menace. Published as part of Dennis' 60th birthday celebrations, this book was marketed as a history book however text throughout is short, instead allowing the strips themselves to tell the story.

For whatever reason the books were not resumed again after this, but it goes without saying that Dennis' popularity continues to reign in The Beano every week. I doubt he'll ever be replaced.

Comic Branded Clothing

While doing some research for my series on the free gifts given away with Whizzer and Chips (link to part 1 here) I came across the above image from Phil-Comics of a Whizzer and Chips hat, apparently a competition prize from 1974. Whizzer and Chips gave away all manner of clothes throughout its 21-year run, most notably t-shirts that depicted various designs throughout the years promoting either Whizz-Kids or Chip-ites, depending on which half of the comic the prize was from.

Promotions for the shirts from 1978. There were
many different shirt designs over the years.

I've been looking for images of such clothes for years to share on the blog as I find comic-related promotional items an interesting part of their history. But so rarely do they come up that I seriously doubt many, if any, survive. It's not hard to see why - you can tell from the above photo the production quality of the hat isn't exactly that of Prada. Nonetheless, if you have a photo of the shirts or any other comic related clothing please do get in touch. It could be a photo taken yesterday or in 1984 - a photo is a photo and I'm keen to see!

Whizzer and Chips wallet 1986

Whizzer and Chips bag 1987

Meanwhile, here's another cap, also from of Phil-Comics. This one is an Action cap, apparently a runner-up prize in the Action Superstars Competition from 1976.

Dudley Watkins' Final Page

What you see above may look like any other old 1960s Beano cover, but it is in fact the last page illustrated by legendary artist Dudley Watkins. Watkins was working on the page at his home on the morning of 20th August 1969 when he suffered a fatal heart attack and collapsed over his desk. The Biffo the Bear strip was only part-done, and was later completed by David Sutherland for Beano #1423, dated October 25th 1969.

I've always found it interesting to see the last comic strip of an artist, as sad as the context surrounding them may be. I've posted a few such pages on this blog before, such as this one by Ken Reid, who passed away half way through his final Faceache strip. I do hope that artists passing away while still drawing speaks more to a love of the craft than anything else.

Whereas 99% of what I post on this site is taken from my own collection, this comic is not one of them. Instead, I came across the image during a reread of The Art and History of The Dandy, published in 2012. If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, you absolutely should. It's a wealth of knowledge and definitely a book worth seeking out.

Every Whizzer and Chips Free Gift (Part 3 of 3)

As we move into the final years of Whizzer and Chips, the free gifts became a little more frequent. I left off in 1984 (there's a link to parts 1 and 2 at the bottom of this post), and the next free gift came with issue dated June 11th 1985. It was another badge from Heinz, this time of a Haunted House! Although I'll be honest in saying that I quite like the artwork of this badge (halloween is probably my favourite comic theme, when done well), the fact that it's promoting spaghetti is a little less exciting. Here's a picture of the badge, along with an image of the cans found elsewhere on the internet (although to be fair, those cans do have a cool spooky design too).

The next gift was another Weetabix badge with issue dated 8th June 1985. In similar vein to the previous Weetabix badge giveaway in 1982, four badges were created for four comics - Whizzer and Chips, Buster, Eagle and Tiger. Here's a photo of the badges, as well as a promotional advert taken from Eagle. 

Now here's a gift that I like a bit more - a free zoom balloon! I'm sure you're familiar with the concept, but if not it's basically a super noisy balloon that when released flies quickly and directionless around the room. Great fun, it came with issue dated 28th September 1985. This issue also came with a J.R (Junior Rotter) cut-out story book - it was definitely the comic to have that week.

Issue dated 25th October 1986 came with a "Sssuper free gift" - the Whizzer and Chips quiz wallet. This was essentially a piece of card that could be folded up with various questions and answers printed on it - thus creating a quiz. This issue contained the wallet and the first "quiz strip", and three more were given away in issues dated November 1, 8 and 15.

Tom Paterson drew a wonderful front cover to promote the free stickers that came with issue dated 7th November 1987. As you can see, one set of stickers was for the Whizz-Kids, and the other for the Chip-ites. Good fun.

I think there might be something poetic in the final gift ever given away with Whizzer and Chips being a set of stickers, given such a gift was also used to promote the first issue back in 1969. The free "snappy stickers" came with issue dated 18th March 1988, with an issue that also included a Chip-ite mini mag drawn on a computer. Oh, how times (and technology) have changed. This was actually the second set of snappy stickers, the first set of seven were given away the previous week.

That wraps up this three-part series on every gift given away in Whizzer and Chips over its 21 year run. The comic certainly gave away quite the variety of stuff, no doubt all of which were very quickly lost and few survive - I'd say we are lucky to even have these photos of them!

Whereas I'm fairly certain I've mentioned all the gifts that were given away, if you're an eagle-eyed reader and know of any that I've missed please comment below and let me know. Even better if you can provide a picture, and I will of course update the post.

Part 1: http://whackycomics.blogspot.com/2023/05/every-whizzer-and-chips-free-gift-part.html

Part 2: http://whackycomics.blogspot.com/2023/07/every-whizzer-and-chips-free-gift-part.html