It's time to return to Sun comic in the second part of looking at it's constantly changing style. Last time we left off at #101 and as we can see below only a small number of issues later Alfred the Great had vanished from the cover. This is #130, but he had gone by at least #112.
Here's a strip from inside that issue, called The Alley Cat.
Only weeks later had he being christened "Ollie", and appeared on the front cover, under the new title of Ollie: Our Playful Puss!
He was replaced all too soon though by Moko: The Mischievous Monkey, who appeared in full colour! This version was the first time Sun had ever had a full colour cover. Below is the cover to #164, one of Moko's earliest appearances (but not his first).
Ollie still appeared on the cover though - the back cover. Except they made the back cover look like the front cover, which is a little confusing.
This was sorted out by #165.
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| Back cover to #165. |
As we know, nothing lasted long on Sun and it quickly changed back to having an adventure strip on the cover!
And, after changing to one full-page image of Billy the Kid, and then him on a red background, it stayed that way for five years until 1957.
It then went down in quality to a black, white and red colour again, before folding for good. I don't have any of these later issues and the only images I could find were these, the photo from Ebay Australia and the scan from Denis Gifford's International Book Of Comics.
This was the last change for Sun and it folded in 1959, never gaining popularity throughout the country, and not even been sold in a lot of it! Hopefully you've enjoyed a look at this interesting comic, which just couldn't sit still for long without having a facelift. You can read the first part of this post here:
http://www.wackycomics.com/2013/08/the-changing-face-of-sun-part-1.html
Today we take a journey through the 1940's and 1950's and take a look at the changing face of Sun comic. I mentioned in a post last week that Sun had undergone a lot of changes in its early years, before finally finding its audience. The front cover to the first issue (below) featured a Swiss Family Robinson strip by Bob Wilkin, an artist who illustrated many one-off comics in the 1940's. This strip proves he could also draw adventure strips, as well as his humour ones. It cost two pennies and came out on 11th November 1947, with a new issue coming out every fortnight.
Issue six saw the first revamp to the cover, but it was nothing major. The logo had simply been redrawn and placed horizontally across the top, instead of vertically down the left-hand side. I think this change made the comic look far better.
Soon The Swiss Family Robinson had ended, and was replaced by Voyage To Venus. I don't know who drew this strip, but it was always signed 'POS'.
The logo soon changed to having a blue background, and by June 1948 was completely different. John and Joan: On the Spot had also taken over on the front cover. You may have noticed that they also appeared in Voyage To Venus!
Joan and June were swiftly replaced on the cover by Sitting Bull - Fighting Indian. Sitting Bull had been inside Sun since 1959, and #50 (seen below) was the strip's first cover appearance.
This was replaced by the cover's first humour strip - Young Joey: Always Late For School, illustrated by Hugh McNeill. He shared his cover spot with Professor Peanut.
The stories of Young Joey always being late for school must have been very limited (although Slowcoach in Whizzer and Chips managed it for years, even using Joey's catchphrase - "Sorry I'm late, Sir, but I've got an excuse!") and Joey's strip was renamed Young Joey In Story Book Land. The title says it all really. As you can see, it now says "Every Monday" on the cover, and by this point Sun had gained popularity and now came out every week instead of every fortnight.
Joey had a good run on the cover but by the time Sun came to celebrating it's grand 100th issue he had been replaced by Alfred The Great. A large panel took up half the cover every week at this point, advertising the western adventure inside.
And here is the western story for this issue, entitled The Law of Wild Bill Hickok, a text story written by Barry Ford.
And going a bit off topic, here are a few strips from inside a couple of different issues we've seen so far.
We've passed the halfway point in the tale of Sun's changing face, and I don't want this post to get too lengthy so I've decided to break it into two parts. I'll be posting the second part soon, so don't go anywhere!
Once again, due to lack of time thanks to a big project I am working on, I bring you a short post today, but hopefully it will be of interest to most of you. As I suspect you all know, Eagle was originally launched in 1950 with immediate sales of close to 1,000,000 copies per week! In the 1960's it quickly went downhill when the comic was sold to Fleetway, and as a result it folded in 1969. Then, in 1982, it was relaunched, with a new modern look in hope to appeal to the next generation. After almost nine years in this new format, it was changed from weekly to monthly. It boosted its page count to 68 pages and cost 95p, but it couldn't have helped the already falling sales. It folded for good in 1994.
Below is an advertisement for the first issue of Eagle Monthly, from the Buster dated 13th April 1991.
I'll be taking the comics time machine back to the 1940's and '50's soon, so stay tuned!
Do you want to read some British comics from the Golden Age? Of course you do, and thanks to Terry Hooper-Scharf you can! His blog, entitled 'British Golden Age Comics 1939 - 1951', is regularly updated with many pages from different comics from those years! Personally, I'd expand the Golden Age of British comics to 1930 - 1951, but that's just my opinion.
You can go and check out the site right now at:
http://britishgoldenagecomics.blogspot.com
Also, Terry has published a book called 'The Ultimate British Golden Age Collection'. Here's the description, in his own words:
"Combining volumes 1 - 6 of the BT Golden Age British Comics Collections (minus adverts) this is the ultimate for any Golden Age collector or historian or just plain comic lover. Features Ace Hart, TNT Tom, Electrogirl, Wonderman, The Phantom Rider, Captain Comet, Acro Maid, Phantom Maid, Dene Vernon, The Iron Boy, The Boy Fish, Professor Atom and MANY others!"
You can read a preview of the book and buy it by clicking the link below. It costs $32.95 (in USD), and that includes worldwide postage.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-hooper-scharf/the-ultimate-british-comics-gold-collection/paperback/product-20994399.html
