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!