BVC Flyer

Launched in February 1995, Fleetway obviously had high hopes for BVC (Big Value Comic) because they cancelled Buster Monthly, Whoopee Monthly, Whizzer and Chips Monthly and Big Comic Fortnightly (by now Big Comic Monthly - see previous post) to merge, in a way, into it, in order to attract readers from all four titles.

A four-page flyer was given out to advertise issue one, tucked away in the merging comics and, I'd imagine, also Buster. Strangely pages three and four are only half the width of pages one and two.

The cover of BVC No. 1 on the flyer has a white background but the final published version had a red background. I don't own any issues of BVC but I've found an image of issue one's front cover here:

http://www.comicvine.com/bvc-the-big-value-comic-1/4000-269474/

As you can see the two covers are very different. On the published version, besides the red background, the price has a black circle around it, the strapline was changed, the date and issue number were moved as was "Not On Sale To Adults!" and a star with "1st Bumper Fun Issue!" written inside it was added. Quite a significant number of changes.

Big Value Comic didn't last long, and in November that same year it was cancelled without notice, replaced by Buster Classics in February 1996 (which ended in September 1996).

Big Comic Book 1994

Fleetway, the proud producers of piles of succesful comic titles including Whizzer and Chips, Buster and Whoopee, continued making annuals for comics years after the comics themselves had long ceased weekly publications. For example - Cor! ended it's weekly comics in 1974 but the annuals continued well up until 1986! However, for some reason unknown to me, the company stopped producing any annuals after the 1994 ones had being released (even though Buster hadn't ended, as that would last up until 2000).

Big Comic never had a weekly comic, although it did have Big Comic Fortnightly - which later became Big Comic Monthly. Big Comic Fortnightly had 52 pages, whereas Big Comic Monthly had 100. After that had ended, Fleetway released the BVC (which stands for 'Big Value Comic'), which was a replacement to Big Comic Monthly, The Best of Whizzer and Chips, Buster and Whoopee. It was launched in April 1995 (the month after all 'The Best Of's' ended), and finished 7 months later in November of the same year. Instead of monthly like the comics it took after, the BVC came out fortnightly.

Even if BVC was just too late to have an annual, Big Comic did. The first book was dated 1987, but the 1994 one was the first to have a brand new cover illustration, and was the second to have a full-colour cover! (I used to own all the annuals, but sadly all but one got lost when I moved to New Zealand from the U.K.)

For £4.99 you got 223 pages of pure comics and jokes, including everything from classic favourites such as Lazy Bones, Sid's Snake and Bookworm, to less known characters such as Shrimp, Tub and Nobby and his Hobbies. Of course, it was all reprints, but whoever was putting it together didn't have a small choice, with over 30 years of weeklies to go through!

You may have noticed the 'World' stamp on the front cover (and the one below on the spine), and that's because the book was published by World International Publishing Limited. Strangely enough, this is an Egmont company (Egmont bought the rights to all Fleetway humour comics from 1950+), and yet the material is still copyright to Fleetway Editions Ltd.!! (And let's not forget that the book was printed in Italy!) Mind boggling stuff, so lets just overlook that for now.

It's a shame that Fleetway sold all the rights for their material to Egmont because if they hadn't maybe, just maybe, Buster would still be with us. And apart from a few specials from a two or three years back, Egmont aren't doing anything with, or letting anybody use, their 40 years + worth of stuff!

I feel I may have wandered off the subject a bit, so here's a few pages from the book to make up for it!