I've been looking at a few summer specials over the past months so today I thought I'd do something slightly different and look at the advertisements for various specials. We start off by heading back to 1980 - the 3rd of May to be precise, and take a look inside that week's issue of Jackpot, which contained this nice ad for that year's Krazy Summer Special.
Come forwards 364 days to the Jackpot dated 2nd May 1981, and you may be surprised to hear that it contains no less than three ads for summer specials! The first two of those, the Buster and Monster Fun and Cor specials, share a page...
...with the ad for the penultimate Frankie Stein special appearing later in the comic.
Moving away from Jackpot let's head back to 1968. On this cover of this July edition of The Beano the cover star, Biffo the Bear, rushes around trying to get that year's special.
There was a similar cover a year later.
And here's a half-page ad for the 1970 Twinkle and Beano specials.
Come forwards to the Whizzer and Chips of '76 and here's an ad for the one and only Vulcan special.
Back (or should that be forwards) to 1980 and we find an ad for that year's Beezer special in the pages of Nutty.
And finally, I'll wrap up this post with a half-page ad for the second Action special, found in Krazy comic dated 2nd July 1977.
Here's an interesting theme - a character reading the comic they appeared in! It has undoubtedly appeared in just about every comic you can name since they were first created - with a character reading it in the classroom or buying a copy and saying something along the lines of "Ho! Ho! Dennis is good this week!". Before I get stuck in showing you some of these I'll show you a twist of the theme in a Bookworm strip. I don't know where it originally appeared, but I found this strip in the February 1988 edition of The Best Of Whoopee Monthly.
Moving on, the first one I dug out was a Tom Tum strip from The Dandy issue dated 4th August 1984. Tom Tum was a spin-off from Tom Thum, the only difference is size - this version of Tom is incredibly fat and thinks of nothing but food, and it was illustrated by Keith Reynolds.
We head back from the 1980's to the 1960's, and dive straight into the 1967 Beezer book. Although not as good as the rest I'm going to show, there are several pages I'll highlight, and the other two are at the bottom of this post! The second is in a Little Mo strip, and whilst her pie is cooling she takes a read of her copy of The Beezer. You might also notice that the comic has her name at the top.
Staying in the 1960's, this next one appeared on the front cover of The Beano, #1355 dated 6th July 1968. This strip is about Biffo the Bear trying to get his copy of The Beano Summer Special 1968, but, typically, all the stores are sold out! The only thing I don't like about this cover is that Biffo looks more like a puppet than a living bear in the last panel
We are also reminded of the summer special in a half page advertisement inside.
Back in the 1980's, issue six of Nipper had not one, not two, but three cases of characters reading the comics they appeared in. The best one is Roy Mitchell's Wonder Boy, who begins to wonder what it would be like to be the editor of the comic.
At the start of Brad Break brad is seen reading a copy of Nipper in the first 3 panels. This strip was illustrated by Steve Bright in the style of Davy Law.
And finally, The Savers are seen with a collection of comics, including a Nipper and a Buster. This was illustrated by Mark Bennington.
Coming forwards to a very recent issue of The Beano, a man is seen reading a copy of The Beano in a newsagents, but things could get very confusing, so I will say no more!
And finally, here is the two two-page spreads from the front and back of the 1967 Beezer book.
Colonel Blink was, in my opinion at least, the best character ever created for The Beezer. The idea was simple, an incredibly short sighted man who always got things mixed up - my favourite adventure was when he stole a top secret government plan thinking it was a newspaper! He first appeared in November 1958, and was illustrated by Tom Bannister, who also illustrated classics such as Figaro, Tiny (The World's Largest Dog) and Desert Island Dick. Above is a look at young Blink, and below is another strip, both coming from the 1967 Beezer book.
The theme for Colonel Blink was a fantastic one, and so of course it was used again! The next most recognisable blind character for many people would be Nick Brennan's version of Blinky who currently appears in The Dandy. Blinky originated in the Beezer and Topper, illustrated by George Martin but was taken over in The Dandy by Nick when that folded.
I'm not going to forget about Erbert, the blindest kid at Bash Street! He always gets up to crazy stuff in the weekly stories, but back in 2009/2010 he was occasionally the star of Singled Out, a strip in which each week a different Bash Street kid was given their own story, illustrated by Tom Paterson. I was actually looking for the issue in which Erbert walks into the fish and chip shop instead of the optometrist which is next door, but I couldn't find it, so here are three other strips instead.
Finally, I'll finish with Squinty McPhee, a one off strip illustrated by Tom Paterson. I don't own the comic he originally appear in, so I borrowed a scan off Two Headed Thingies.
