Where's Dennis (and Gnasher?)

You've all heard of Where's Wally, and now it's time to find Dennis the Menace (and Gnasher)! Coming out with the annuals in August is Where's Dennis (and Gnasher), a Where's Wally style book illustrated rather wonderfully by Will Dawbarn. Will's artwork is fantastic - I loved his stuff in the latest Dandy annual so I'm sure this book will be beautiful.

It comes out on 7th August 2014 and will cost £8.99.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0141352094/ref=s9_simh_gw_p14_d8_i1?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0GJ4C89MEM6XFH7AFK7G&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=455344027&pf_rd_i=468294

Joker's Missing Gift

The cover advertising the replacement gift. Does this mean
that there is a Whizzer and Chips front cover that was never seen?

The issue of Whizzer and Chips dated 8th March 1975 came with a free Superjet Joke Camera. A great promotional piece - except that it was actually supposed to come with Joker's Plate-Wobbler. The editor claims that there was simply a delay but no plate wobbler was ever given away in the title's run so I suspect they simply ordered it wrong or got an incorrect delivery. That week also came with part one of the Slippy Measuring Chart, which was given away as a pull-out on the center pages over four weeks. The Sid's Snake strip below the letter advertises this poster.

The replacement gift for the plate wobbler was, as the name states, a joke camera that squirted water when you pressed the button to pretend to take a photo.

Joker used the intended free gift in his strip on the back page. If you look closely you can see that a few words have been wiped out in several panels. I suspect the words "free gift" or something similar have been poorly erased from the top right panel.

Art by Sid Burgon.

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 Fortnightly

Information on Fleetway's Big Comic Fortnightly seems rather difficult to find, so I've decided to write a brief summary of the information I know. Big Comic Fortnightly began with the first issue dated 11th/24th June 1988, and was a complete reprint comic using strips from Buster, Whizzer and Chips and Whoopee. As the title suggest, it was on sale for two weeks and every issue boasted 52 pages for 35p - a bargain! The price rose steadily over time from 35p to 40p, and then again to 45p, by 1991 it cost 50p, in 1993 it cost 55p and then a year later it cost 70p!

Occasionally Big Comic came with a free gift such as a badge or a balloon (as advertised above), but these were a rare treat. The first issue didn't come with a gift, unusual for a new Fleetway comic.

Most sources seem to say that Big Comic Fortnightly folded in 1994 but this isn't true, it actually changed to Big Comic Monthly in 1995. I believe there is only one issue of Big Comic Monthly, numbered #170 (to continue on with Big Comic Fortnightly's numbering), before it was replaced by BVC. Unfortunately my copy of Big Comic Monthly has had a sticker placed over the price, but I think it says £1.20. Big Comic Monthly did almost double its page count to 100 though, so the price wasn't too ridiculous.

Big Comic Fortnightly was popular enough to have a series of annuals and summer specials produced. The first of these was the 1987 annual, released for Christmas 1986. The annuals ran from 1987 to 1994, I used to have a full set of these but they got lost when I moved to New Zealand and now all I have managed to replace is the final one. The summer specials ran from 1988 to 1994. The first four had front covers very similar to the fortnightly comic but the last three had lovely full-colour illustrations by Terry Bave.

First Class to Bash Street

Back in 2012 Royal Mail released a set of stamps with British comic covers on them. This was a very nice set and as far as I was aware the only time a British comic set had been made.

The 2012 stamps.

However, back in 1993 Royal Mail issued 'Greetings Stamps', a set of ten stamps that featured illustrations of famous characters including Rupert the Bear, William (from the William books) and Wilfred and Teacher, from The Bash Street Kids!

Yes, Wilfred and Teacher got first class treatment with this stamp, which features Wilfred teasing Teacher with an apple. Artwork is by David Sutherland. I'm not sure if British comics or characters have featured on any other stamps, these are the only two occasions I am aware of but if you do know of any more please leave a comment in the comments section below.

The postcard accompanying the stamp. The actual stamp can be seen at the top of this post.