Cor!! is launched. Popular stories include Gus the Gorilla (“You can’t make a monkey out of Gus!”) and The Slimms. One story, Ivor Lott and Tony Broke lasts until 2000 (in Cor!! and elsewhere).
Scorcher, Thunder and Wizard (II) are all launched.
1971
Knockout is launched (an earlier Knockout ran between 1939 and 1963). Stories include Joker, Sammy Shrink, Fuss Pot, Dead Eye Dick and Beat Your Neighbour.
Chalky (“he’s quick on the draw!”) debuts in Cor!!
Countdown begins.
TV-themed magazine and comic Look-In is switched on.
Faceache debuts in Jet. Jet merges into Buster soon after.
Tammy begins.
Other mergers: Thunder merges into Lion. TV21 merges into Valiant.
1972
Babyface Finlayson, (“The Cutest Bandit in the West”) debuts in The Beano.
Rent-A-Ghost Ltd. debuts in Buster. It’s arrival predates TV’s Rentaghost by three years and they are unconnected.
Nutty is launched. It’s most memorable story, Bananaman quickly moves to the front page.
The first Judge Dredd annual is published. In 2000AD, Judge Death and Judge Anderson both appear as characters in the Dredd strip.
Speed comes and goes, merging into Tiger.
Mergers: Misty merges into Tammy. The Crunch merges into Hotspur. Penny merges into Jinty.
Doctor Who Weekly goes monthly
Buddy begins.
Smudge debuts in The Beano.
1981
A new version of Girl is launched.
The TV-themed Tops begins.
Mergers: Scoop merges into Victor. Jinty merges into Tammy. Hotspur merges into Victor.
The Nemesis the Warlock saga begins properly in 2000AD. The war also begins for Rogue Trooper.
1982
High quality monthly Warrior begins. It is not especially war-like and features V For Vendetta, Marvelman (later Miracleman) and Laser Eraser and Pressbutton.
A new version of The Eagle begins. Dan Dare (or rather his great-great-grandson) appears as…
Judge Dredd The Megazine begins. It is still going today. Early stories include America and Young Death: Boyhood of a Superfiend.
In 2000AD itself, Judge Dredd faces Necropolis. Rogue Trooper appears in his own annual for the first and, to date, only time.
Edgy monthly Revolver featuring a dark new version of Dan Dare as well as Rogan Gosh and Happenstance and Kismet launches.
With many comics now struggling, adult comic Viz is thriving. Billy the Fish gets his own TV series, voiced by Harry Enfield.
Dennis the Menace TV cartoon on the Cartoon Channel. The Beano celebrates its 2,500th issue
After 34 years, The Beezer joins The Topper (by this point rebranded as Topper 90). The Beezer and Topper is formed.
After 21 years, Whizzer and Chips merges into Buster. Sid’s Snake, Sweeny Todd, Joker and Sweet Tooth are amongst those moving in.
1991
Viewed as a 2000AD for the 1990s, Toxic! featuring Accident Man and The Bogie Man appears. It folds within the year.
A short-lived TV version of Viz’s Roger Mellie The Man on the Telly appears. Roger is voiced by Peter Cook.
Lord Snooty, at this point the longest running Beano story ever, having appeared since 1938 ends. He returns later.
Mandy and Judy merge, later becoming M & J.
Starblazer ends. Revolver merges into Crisis. Crisis ends. For many British comcs, the crisis continues.
Dredd meets Batman in graphic novel, Judgement In Gotham.
1992
The game begins: Button Man debuts in 2000AD.
A TV film of The Bogie Man starring Robbie Coltrane airs.
1993
The final whistle blows for Roy of the Rovers comic. The second Eagle also ends, after just over a decade.
Beezer and Topper ends. Beryl the Peril joins The Dandy, The Numskulls find a home in The Beano. The Beano Video is released.
The controversial Big Dave appears in 2000AD.
The luckless sailor, Jonah, once of The Beano (as well as the short-lived Buddy), re-emerges in The Dandy.
1994
Look-In switches itself off.
1995
The final Deadline.
Two films, the long awaited Judge Dredd starring Sylvester Stallone and Tank Girl film starring Lori Petty are both released. Both are critical and commercial failures.
Judge Dredd: Lawman of the Future is launched. It s intended to capitalize on the hoped for success of the new Judge Dredd film. Sinister Dexter first appears in the regular 2000AD.
1996
Judge Dredd: Lawman of the Future fails. 2000AD (now struggling) reaches its 1,000th issue.
1997
M & J ends.
The Dandy turns 60.
1998
The Beano turns 60. The Beano Club replaces the Dennis the Menace Fan Club. Dennis’s sister Bea is born.
Nikolai Dante begins in 2000AD.
1999
Buster ends after forty years. Both the Buster story itself and many stories which have been running in Buster and other now long defunct titles such as Whizzer and Chips, Whoopee! and Wow! and Knockout since the 1960s and 1970s such as Sid’s Snake, Joker, Ivor Lott & Tony Broke and Sweeny Todd all come to an end.
2000
After a tough decade, 2000AD, appropriately enough, enjoys a big comeback from this year onward.
As of June 2020, it, Viz, Judge Dredd The Megazine, Doctor Who Monthly, Commando and The Beano are the only titles mentioned in any of these timelines which are still going today.
Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines including Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle and Alan Moore’s Watchmen (amongst other things). He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and wrote A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He was also wrote the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars annuals as well as the 2015 Transformers annual.
Nutty is launched. It’s most memorable story, Bananaman quickly moves to the front page.
The first Judge Dredd annual is published. In 2000AD, Judge Death and Judge Anderson both appear as characters in the Dredd strip.
Speed comes and goes, merging into Tiger.
Mergers: Misty merges into Tammy. The Crunch merges into Hotspur. Penny merges into Jinty. Cheeky merges into Whoopee!
Doctor Who Weekly goes monthly
Buddy begins.
Smudge debuts in The Beano.
1981
A new version of Girl is launched.
The TV-themed Tops begins.
Mergers: Scoop merges into Victor. Jinty merges into Tammy. Hotspur merges into Victor.
The Nemesis the Warlock saga begins properly in 2000AD. The war also begins for Rogue Trooper while Judge Dredd battles an outbreak of Blockmania.
1982
High quality monthly Warrior begins. It is not especially war-like and features V For Vendetta, Marvelman (later Miracleman) and Laser Eraser and Pressbutton.
A new version of The Eagle begins. Dan Dare (or rather his great-great-grandson) appears as do the photo stories Doomlord and Joe Soap.
Judge Dredd fights the Apocalypse War.
Wow! begins.
Jackpot merges into Buster. Milly O’Naire and Penny Less merge with Buster’s Ivor Lott and Tony Broke strip (as the duo’s girlfriends) disappearing from the story in the late 1980s.
Cheeky merges into Whoopee!
The first Beano comic libraries (smaller, monthly comics, featuring one extended story) appear. Other comics follow suit.
1983
Nutty’s Bananaman gets his own TV series.
School Fun begins lessons (briefly).
Spike kicks off.
Mergers: Buddy merges into Spike. Wow! merges into Whoopee! (becoming Whoopee! and Wow!). Debbie (est: 1973) merges into Mandy.
Slaine goes into battle in 2000AD. Extra-terrestrial Skizz also debuts.
The galaxy’s greatest computer comic, Load Runner begins and ends after a short run.
What will happen next? Cliff Hanger begins in Buster.
1984
High profile horror comic Scream! begins and ends. It merges into Eagle. The Thirteenth Floor is amongst the stories to move across.
Champ begins.
The Ballad of Halo Jones begins in 2000AD (it ends in 1986). Female-led strips are still a rarity in the Galaxy’s Greatest Comic. Nemesis is joined by the ABC Warriors in The Gothic Empire.
Mergers: TV Comic (est: 1951) switches itself off. Tops merges into Suzy. Tammy (est: 1971) merges into Girl. Spike merges into Champ. School Fun merges into Buster. School Belle is amongst those joining Buster.
Dennis’s pet pig, Rasher gets his own strip in The Beano (until 1988).
1985
Adult comic Viz featuring Roger Mellie the Man on The Telly, Billy The Fish and Sid the Sexist goes nationwide.
Whoopee! (est: 1974) merges into Whizzer and Chips. Warrior gives up the fight. Tiger (est: 1954) merges into The Eagle. Some strips move into Roy of the Rovers. Champ merges into Victor.
Judge Anderson gets a story of her own in 2000AD.
Nutty merges into The Dandy. Bananaman continues on TV until 1986 and continues to thrive in The Dandy. Bananaman appears in several of his own annuals in this decade too.
Ivy the Terrible debuts in The Beano.
Computer Warrior goes into battle in The Eagle.
Captain Britain Monthly, Hoot and Nikki all debut.
Beeb begins (and ends).
1986
The anarchic Oink! launches. ‘Edited’ by Uncle Pigg, stars include Pete and his Pimple, Burp The Smelly Alien From Outer Space and Hector Vector and his Talking T-Shirt.
Diceman, an RPG version of 2000AD runs out of luck quickly and ends.
Hoot merges into The Dandy. Cuddles and Dimples unite in one strip.
Captain Britain Monthly ends.
Warlord (Est: 1974) merges into Victor.
Calamity James begins in The Beano. Gnasher briefly goes missing in a high profile Dennis the Menace storyline. He soon returns with a litter of puppies including Gnipper. Gnasher and Gnipper now replaces Gnasher’s Tale as a story.
1987
Nipper begins then merges into Buster.
Zenith begins in 2000AD. Now ten years’ old, the comic adopts a more ‘mature’ approach.
The Dandy’s 50th birthday.
1988
Crisis, a more political and grown-up sister title to 2000AD begins featuring Third World War and The New Statesmen.
Deadline comic/magazine starring Tank Girl begins.
The Beano’s 50th birthday.
Mergers: Battle (est: 1974) merges into Eagle. Oink! merges into Buster.
1989
Nikki merges into Bunty. It’s Wicked! begins and ends.
The ‘original’ Dan Dare returns to The Eagle.
Fast Forward, a much-publicised TV-themed comic/magazine launches.
Whizzer and Chips (now struggling) celebrates its 20th birthday.
Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines including Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle and Alan Moore’s Watchmen (amongst other things). He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and wrote A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He was also wrote the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars annuals as well as the 2015 Transformers annual.
Cor!! is launched. Popular stories include Gus the Gorilla (“You can’t make a monkey out of Gus!”) and The Slimms. One story, Ivor Lott and Tony Broke lasts until 2000 (in Cor!! and elsewhere).
Scorcher, Thunder and Wizard (II) are all launched.
1971
Knockout is launched (an earlier Knockout ran between 1939 and 1963). Stories include Joker, Sammy Shrink, Fuss Pot, Dead Eye Dick and Beat Your Neighbour.
Chalky (“he’s quick on the draw!”) debuts in Cor!!
Countdown begins.
TV-themed magazine and comic Look-In is switched on.
Faceache debuts in Jet. Jet merges into Buster soon after.
Tammy begins.
Other mergers: Thunder merges into Lion. TV21 merges into Valiant.
1972
Babyface Finlayson, (“The Cutest Bandit in the West”) debuts in The Beano.
Rent-A-Ghost Ltd. debuts in Buster. It’s arrival predates TV’s Rentaghost by three years and they are unconnected.
School swot and teacher’s pet, Cuthbert Cringeworthy takes his place in Class 2B of Bash Street School.
Countdown turns into TV Action.
Sweet Tooth debuts in Whizzer and Chips.
1973
Supernatural comedy title, Shiver and Shake materialises, attempting a similar double-headed format to Whizzer and Chips. Enfant terrible, Sweeny Toddler is a highlight, long outlasting the comic itself.
Buzz starts as does girls’ title, Debbie.
Mergers: TV Action merges into TV Comic. Knockout merges into Whizzer and Chips, bringing Joker, Fuss Pot and Sammy Shrink with it.
Timothy Tester joins Whizzer and Chips.
1974
Dennis the Menace moves to the front-page of The Beano, ending Biffo the Bear’s 26-year reign there. Dennis has remained there ever since.
Whoopee! begins, featuring Clever Dick and The Bumpkin Billionaires (and soon, Sweeny Toddler).
Jinty and Warlord both begin.
It is a tough year economically with a number of titles old and new folding: June (est: 1961) merges into Tammy. Lion (est: 1952) merges into Valiant. Romeo (est: 1957) merges into Diana. Scorcher merges into Tiger. Shiver and Shake merges into the new Whoopee!
Cor!! merges into Buster. Although the weekly comic proved short-lived, Cor!! annuals continue to appear until 1986.
1975
War comic Battle begins.
Cracker is launched.
X-Ray Specs debuts in Buster.
Monster Fun featuring Gums and Kid Kong appears. It is ‘edited’ by Frankie Stein, formerly of Shiver and Shake.
Ball Boy kicks off in The Beano.
Pete’s Pocket Grandpa fits comfortably into The Dandy.
Buzz merges into The Topper.
1976
The Dennis the Menace Fan Club is launched.
Action, the most controversial title of the 1970s, launches.
Krazy begins featuring The Krazy Gang and Birdman and Chicken. Pongalongapongo later Pongo Snodgrass makes his first appearance in The Krazy Gang.
Bullet, Captain Britain and Spellbound are launched.
Roy of the Rovers from Tiger gets his own comic. Tiger continues.
The Leopard of Lime Street creeps onto the pages of Buster.
Mergers: Monster Fun merges into Buster. Cracker merges into The Beezer. Diana (est: 1963) merges into Jackie. Hornet merges into Hotspur. Valiant (est: 1962) goes into Battle.
1977
The ‘Galaxy’s Greatest Comic’ 2000AD is launched, ‘edited’ by alien, Tharg the Mighty. A new Dan Dare strip features but the real star is futuristic lawman Judge Dredd who debuts in the second issue.
Plug, centered round the character from The Bash Street Kids is launched. Cheeky, based around a similar looking character previously in Krazy is launched a month later.
Sparky (est: 1965) merges into The Topper. Captain Britain ends.
Action ends. Contrary to legend, it is not banned but merges into Battle.
Spin-off strip Gnasher’s Tale begins in The Beano.
Tricky Dicky debuts in Topper. A different character with the same name previously appeared in Cor!!
1978
High quality 2000AD sister title Star Lord is launched. Sadly, it fails and merges into 2000AD quickly bringing Ro-Busters (featuring Ro-Jaws and Hammerstein) and Strontium Dog with it. All of these characters prove to be popular and enduring.
Sam Slade: Robohunter debuts in 2000AD.
Lazy Bones begins dozing away on the pages of Whizzer and Chips.
Book Worm debuts in Whoopee!
Emma begins as do the titles, Scoop and Misty.
Krazy merges into Whizzer and Chips bringing with it Pongo Snodgrass and The Krazy Gang. Spellbound merges into Debbie. Wizard merges into Victor. Bullet also misses its target and merges into Warlord. Target begins. It also misses its own target and promptly merges into TV Comic.
1979
Adventure comic Tornado follows a similar trajectory to Star Lord (1978), quickly merging into 2000AD. No titles have merged into 2000AD in the forty years since. Hammerstein from Ro-Busters now joins the ABC Warriors. Ro-Jaws joins him later. Judge Dredd goes into The Cursed Earth.
Jackpot begins. Stories include Jack Pott (originally from Cor!!), Laser Eraser, The Incredible Sulk and Milly O’Naire and Penny Less.
Plug merges into The Beezer. For a short while, Plug thus has his own strip in The Beezer while also appearing regularly as usual in The Bash Street Kids in The Beano.
Rasher, Dennis’s pet pig debuts in Dennis the Menace.
General Jumbo is retired from The Beano after 26 years of service.
The first Bash Street Kids’ Book appears (dated: 1980). Dennis the Menace is the only other Beano character to have got his own annual.
Emma merges into Judy.
Tricky Dicky replaces Danny’s Tranny (ahem) on the front page of Topper.
The Crunch, Doctor Who Weekly, Penny and Starblazer all begin.
Acclaimed strip, Charlie’s War begins in Battle.
Chris Donald begins selling homemade copies of his adult comic Viz around pubs in Newcastle.
The ‘new’ Dan Dare fizzles out in 2000AD. Judge Dredd is now unquestionably the comic’s main strip.
Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines including Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle and Alan Moore’s Watchmen (amongst other things). He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and wrote A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He was also wrote the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars annuals as well as the 2015 Transformers annual.
Buster comic begins. The title character is originally described as ‘the son of Andy Capp’ although this is soon forgotten about.
Pre-teen girls’ comic/magazine Judy begins.
Corporal Clott enlists in The Dandy, just as National Service comes to an end. He serves the comic loyally until 1970.
1961
Winker Watson ‘the world’s wiliest wangler’ debuts in The Dandy.
The Dandy and The Beano both celebrate their 1,000th issues.
The Victor is launched.
Commando War Stories in Pictures is launched, later known as Commando. It is still going today.
June comic begins.
Send For Kelly (about an inept special agent) begins in The Topper.
1962
The Numskulls debut in The Beezer.
Valiant begins.
Film Fun (est: 1920) ends. Radio Fun (1938-61. merges into Buster) and TV Fun (1953-59) all end during this period.
1963
A Dandy-Beano joint Summer Special appears. The first separate Dandy and Beano Summer Specials appear in 1964.
The original Knock-Out ends. having started in 1939. The title is revived in the 1970s.
Swift merges into The Eagle.
The Hornet begins.
1964
Billy Whizz races onto the pages of The Beano.
‘Rollicking robot’ Brassneck debuts in The Dandy.
Girls’ comic/magazine Jackie is launched.
The Big One is launched, merging into Buster the following year.
Girl ends, after fourteen years, merging into Princess (1960-67). It is revived in the 1980s.
1965
Sparky comic ignites. Keyhole Kate (once of The Dandy) is amongst those appearing.
TV21 begins.
School Friend (est: 1950) merges into June.
1967
Bully Beef and Chips first clash in The Dandy.
Pup Parade, a canine version of The Bash Street Kids, arrives in The Beano.
The long-running Mandy begins.
Giggles starts. Like an actual giggle it only lasts briefly, merging into Buster in 1968.
TV Tornado comes and goes quickly, becoming absorbed by TV21 in 1968.
The Eagle is by now in clear decline. New Dan Dare stories stop appearing in the weekly comic.
1968
Dennis the Menace gets a new pet dog, Abyssinian wire-haired tripe hound, Gnasher
Twinkle is launched.
Jag is launched. It merges into another big cat, Tiger in 1969.
Buster’s Diary is replaced by Buster’s Dream World.
1969
‘Two-in-one, two times the fun!’ Whizzer and Chips launches with an unusual double-headed format. Sid’s Snake stars in Whizzer, amateur pugilist Shiner in Chips. Wear ‘Em Out Wilf, Champ and the long-running Odd Ball are all in the first issue.
Robin ends, after sixteen years. It was the most enduring of The Eagle’s sister titles.
After a decade of decline, The Eagle itself ends, merging into Lion. It is the end of an era.
Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines including Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle and Alan Moore’s Watchmen (amongst other things). He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and wrote A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He was also wrote the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars annuals as well as the 2015 Transformers annual.
The Eagle launches featuring the futuristic Dan Dare – Pilot of the Future on the front page. His first story-line sees him traveling to Venus where he encounters the Treens led by the malevolent Mekon. Other early Eagle stories include PC49, Luck of the Legion and Riders of the Range.
Canine hero, Black Bob becomes the first Dandy character to star in his own annual.
1951
Dennis the Menace makes his debut in The Beano. Biffo the Bear remains on the front page.
Girl, a sister comic to The Eagle is launched.
1952
Dan Dare embarks upon The Red Moon Mystery.
Adventure comic, Lion, a potential rival to The Eagle is launched. Memorable characters include Robot Archie (initially referred to as The Jungle Robot).
Gerald Campion debuts in the title role in TV’s Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School. The character first appeared in Magnet in 1908.
Some might balk at the inclusion of popular mainstream favourite Miranda on this list. But while Miranda the series, like the character of Miranda herself, may be less obviously ‘cool’ than some of its contemporaries, it is extremely likeable and often very funny.
Writing a self-titled sitcom can be a risky business. The sitcom ‘Josh’ for example, has never really fully demonstrated the excellence of its creator Jpsh Widdecombe while comedian Rhona Cameron never really recovered from the failure of her own vehicle, ‘Rhona.’ But the huge success of Miranda transformed Miranda Hart from supporting roles in Hyperdrive and Not Going Out into a household name who now occasionally appears in Hollywood films.
In the sitcom, Miranda is a tall, awkward thirty-something who runs a joke shop with her business-minded, Heather Smalls-loving friend Stevie (Sarah Hadland) and who pines after her old Uni friend, Gary (Tom Ellis), a good looking…
The Eagle launches featuring the futuristic Dan Dare – Pilot of the Future on the front page. His first story-line is set in the 1990s and sees him traveling to the planet, Venus where he encounters the Treens led by the malevolent Mekon. Other early Eagle stories include PC49, Harris Tweed and Riders of the Range.
Canine hero, Black Bob becomes the first Dandy character to star in his own annual. Seven more Black Bob books appear before 1965.
School Friend begins. Stories include The Silent Three At St Kit’s. It is reportedly the biggest selling girls’ comic ever, at one point selling one million copies a week.
1951
Dennis the Menace makes his debut in The Beano. Biffo the Bear remains on the front page.
Girl, a sister comic to The Eagle is launched. Early stories include Kitty Hawke and Her All-Girl Air Crew, Lettice Leefe: The Greenest Girl In School and nautical adventure, Captain Starling.
Dan Dare embarks on The Red Moon Mystery.
1952
Dan Dare is Marooned on Mercury. Luck of the Legion also debuts in the comic this year.
Adventure comic, Lion, a potential rival to The Eagle is launched. Memorable characters include Robot Archie (initially referred to as The Jungle Robot).
Gerald Campion debuts in the title role in TV’s Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School. The character first appeared in Magnet in 1908. Campion is already in his thirties.
1953
The Topper first appears. Mickey the Monkey appears on the cover but the most memorable character proves to be Beryl the Peril.
A new comic, Robin is launched. It is intended to be a companion paper to The Eagle. It is aimed at the under-eights and features TV’s Andy Pandy as a regular character.
A vintage year for The Beano with Little Plum, Minnie the Minx, General Jumbo and Roger the Dodger all making their first appearance.
Dan Dare launches Operation Saturn.
TV Fun is launched, accompanying the long-running Film Fun and Radio Fun.
1954
Yet another companion to The Eagle appears. Swift is aimed at even younger readers than Robin. Tarna: Jungle Boy, Mono the Moon Man and a comic version of radio’s Educating Archie all appear.
Tiger comic arrives. The first issue features footballing legend, Roy of the Rovers.
The first Desperate Dan ‘annual’ appears. Only four more appear in 1978, 1990, 1991 and 1992.
School-based story, When The Bell Rings begins in The Beano. It later becomes The Bash Street Kids.
The Dan Dare story, Prisoners of Space begins.
1955
The first Dennis the Menace Book is published. Dennis is the first Beano character to get his own annual. He now appears in colour on the back page of The Beano every week.
Keyhole Kate leaves The Dandy. She will return.
Dan Dare appears in The Man From Nowhere.
1956
New arrival The Beezer joins The Topper on newsagent shelves. Ginger dominates the front page.
When The Bell Rings formally changes its name to The Bash Street Kids in The Beano.
1957
Much-loved children’s TV series Captain Pugwash begins. It was originally a short-lived story in The Eagle in 1950.
Jonah, the hopeless sailor, sets sail in The Beano.
Amnesiac Mark Question (‘The Boy With A Future But No Past!’) debuts in The Eagle. The Reign of the Robots begins in Dan Dare.
1958
Bunty begins. Strips include The Four Marys (‘Fun at boarding school with a frolicsome foursome’).
Colonel Blink, the Short-Sighted Gink stumbles onto the pages of The Beezer.
Topper’s Beryl the Peril appears in her first annual, this Christmas.
1959
The Three Bears blast off in The Beano.
The long-running Hotspur folds. A text-based story paper rather than a comic, it is replaced by The New Hotspur which is most definitely a comic as we know it.
Chris Hallam is a freelance writer. Originally from Peterborough, he now lives in Exeter with his wife. He writes for a number of magazines including Yours Retro, Best of British and Comic Scene – in which he wrote about Judge Death, The Ballad of Halo Jones, Dan Dare, The Eagle and Alan Moore’s Watchmen (amongst other things). He co-wrote the book, Secret Exeter (with Tim Isaac) and wrote A-Z of Exeter – People, Places, History. He was also wrote the 2014 annuals for The Smurfs, Furbys and Star Wars Clone Wars annuals as well as the 2015 Transformers annual.
Prime Minister, David Cameron today gave his strongest hint yet that he intends to step down as Prime Minister within two years of winning the forthcoming General Election. Speculation has been mounting that Mr. Cameron is close to announcing the date of the next election as May 22nd. This would coincide neatly with the forthcoming elections to the European Parliament.
The last General Election in May 2015, resulted in a surprise overall majority of 12 for the Conservatives. This has since fallen as a result of recent by-elections although Mr. Cameron has resisted calls to strike any sort of deal with either Tim Farron’s Liberal Democrats or the similarly-sized Democratic Unionist Party.
Having entered Downing Street in June 2010, Mr Cameron is now the third longest serving Prime Minister since 1945, after Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. At 52, he…
The answer lies within Chris Mullin’s excellent 1982 novel, A Very British Coup. Written in the dark days of early Thatcherism, Mullin envisaged a future (the late 1980s), in which Perkins, a working-class hero and onetime Sheffield steelworker leads the Labour Party to an unexpected General Election victory on a manifesto not dissimilar to the one Labour lost on in 1983. Perkins’ Labour Party is thoroughly socialist and the new government quickly embarks on fulfilling the radical agenda it has been elected on: dismantling Britain’s nuclear deterrent and leaving NATO, breaking up the newspaper monopolies, redistributing wealth and more.
Needless to say, the establishment: the civil service, the media and the security services are horrified. They immediately begin conspiring with the US (who, viewing things through a Cold War prism, see Britain as having “gone over to the other side”) in a bid…
Following the sudden death of family patriarch Colin (Simon Greenall), the Walcott family are soon in for another rude shock. For, it soon emerges that in addition to his union with the now bereaved wife, Tess (Rebecca Front) and their grown-up daughter Cathy (Ellie White), Colin was conducting a secret affair. He has thus also left behind a chain-smoking mistress, Marilyn (Siobhan Finneran) and another daughter, also called Catherine (Lauren Socha), known as ‘Cat.’ Cat is almost exactly the same age as her twenty-something half-sister.
Understandably furious, middle-class Tess embarks on a series of ill-considered relationships with men, often played by actors from Drop the Dead Donkey. The already highly-strung Cathy, meanwhile, continues with her career and her unpromising engagement to the nice but fatally weak-willed Marcus (Amit Shah). Much to her mother’s horror, she soon also develops a close friendship with her more confident, wrong-side-of-the-tracks half-sister.
It is this essentially good-natured heart to Holly Walsh and Pippa Brown’s series, (which picks up from where the pilot first aired in 2017 left off), which really elevates it to the level of one of the best new British sitcoms of recent years. The cast, particularly Ellie White, are all brilliant and there are a number of excellent supporting characters, notably Stephen Tomkinson’s sinister climate change denying ex-Geography teacher and Caroline Quentin’s barmy but eternally optimistic auntie. Quentin’s character indeed, would warrant a spin-off series on her own.
And despite all the jokes about class, Marcus’s disastrous ‘dick pics’ disaster and the essential betrayal at the heart of the Walcott’s marriage, there’s a real sweetness to the developing relationship between the two Catherines which makes this a joy to watch.
Could you then imagine spending twenty-three years there, beginning your journey just as you are about to leave your teens, only to end it just after the point you’ve entered middle age?
And could you do all this, knowing even then that you won’t be returning to Earth? That instead of being reunited with your surviving loved ones, you will be charged with a new mission: setting up a colony on a new planet, a planet identical to our own which has been discovered in space but is as yet uninhabited? Namely, Terra-Two?
This is the fate the group of teenagers in Temi Oh’s first-class debut novel have keenly volunteered for, having being whittled down to a select few who will join a number of older, more experienced crew members for an epic journey on the Damocles to the new world. The name of the ship is only one of a number of indicators which – rightly or wrongly – suggest the crew are in for a difficult journey. They are a mixed bunch of characters and despite vigorous psychiatric screening during their years of training, it soon becomes clear they are as prone to human flaws as anyone else.
The mission begins in 2012, suggesting the ship will reach its destination in the mid-2030s. But despite references to the London Olympics, the 2008 financial crash and Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVD box-sets, this is not quite the year 2012 as we may remember it. Clearly, the course of human history has diverged from own own at various points. Space technology has clearly advanced way beyond anything achieved in the first fifth of the 21st century while Britain is for once at the forefront of the global space programme.
Despite a surprisingly high number of errors in the Amazon Kindle version of the book, his is a thoroughly enjoyable and gripping debut novel from British author Temi-Oh which is full of believable and relatable characters.
Thirty years ago, the Cold War came to a peaceful end. Germany was reunified. A wave of mostly peaceful uprisings occurred across the so-called Eastern Bloc in 1989 before finally in 1991, the Soviet Union itself disintegrated completely.
Such developments would have seemed unthinkable only a few years earlier. Russian communism had dominated Eastern Europe since 1917 with the intense rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States threatening to destroy humanity following the superpower arms build-up which escalated soon after the end of the Second World War.
As Archie Brown demonstrates in this book the fact that this amazing development was able to occur at all owes itself almost entirely to ‘the human factor,’ namely the unique personalities of three world leaders during the second half of the 1980s. The personality of one of these leaders in fact, was especially critical.
After a long life of pranks and practical jokes, the wealthy Henry Russell (Hugh Griffith) is dead, leaving aside a substantial sum of money to four of his relatives. But old Henry being Henry, things are not going to be quite as simple as that. For each of his relatives are all flawed in various different ways and under the terms of the old rascal’s will, each will have to complete a very specific task before they can get at his money. Each challenge has been perfectly designed to force them to confront their own worst failings.
Agnes (Fay Compton), for example, a dreadful snob is forced to spend a full month in the employ of a middle-class family headed, in this case, by a hypochondriac Scot (played by John Laurie, later of Dad’s Army). For the supremely timid young bank clerk, Herbert (George Cole), however, the task is different. He must stage a hold up at the very bank he works for using a water pistol. Simon (Guy Middleton), meanwhile, is a first-class cad and a womaniser in the mould of the type of characters Terry-Thomas often used to play in films like this. He is obliged to marry the first single woman he speaks to, to get his share of the loot. He actually cheats straight away ignoring the first single woman he meets, a beautiful but presumably penniless young cigarette seller. This very small part is played by Audrey Hepburn in her screen debut.
Finally, there is Deniston (Alastair Sim), a retired army officer, whose life is already pretty complicated even before Henry’s demise. Publicly engaged to an overenthusiastic armed services girl, ‘Fluffy’ (Joyce Grenfell, great as ever), Deniston leads a double life enjoying a secret career dictating the trashy American-style crime novels he has composed to his adoring secretary (Eleanor Summerfield) which are then published under a variety of pseudonyms. Deniston’s task is to commit one actual genuine crime which will seem him incarcerated for precisely 28 days. Sim’s character finds the execution of this, surprisingly difficult.
There are a few extras. Although he obviously hasn’t watched the film that recently, Stephen Fry’s knowledge and genuine love for the film is obvious during his interview. We also get to see Sim hamming it up as the Roman Emperor Nero opposite his frequent co-star George Cole in a wartime short. More dedicated Sim fans might want to listen to his 1949 speech delivered on being elected Rector of Edinburgh University (beating future Prime Minister Harold Macmillan) in full.
Newly restored nearly seventy-years after it first appeared, Laughter In Paradise is still lots of fun. Alastair Sim, in particular gets some marvellous screen moments, self-consciously turning a bust of Shakespeare the other way at one point so as if to prevent the Bard seeing him delivering the particularly purple prose of his latest potboiler (e.g. “she was one hot tomato”). Other brilliant sequences see him make several abortive attempts to throw a brick – for some reason, neatly tied up in string – through a jeweller’s shop window and and a long, drawn out attempt to get caught shoplifting an umbrella in a Piccadilly department store. “The wrong tartan,” he explains, on returning it, embarrassed.
A genuine classic.
Vintage Classics. Studio Canal. Original release: 1951. Cert: U.
Release date: 29 June 2020
Running time: 80 minutes
Directed: Mario Zampi
Cast: Alastair Sim, George Cole, Fay Compton, Guy Middleton, Joyce Grenfell, Hugh Griffith, Audrey Hepburn
DVD/Blu-ray extras:
New Alastair Sim and Laughter In Paradise Interview with Stephen Fry
Ministry of Information short Nero: Save Fuel (1943) starring Alastair Sim and George Cole
Stills Gallery
Alastair Sim’s 1949 Rectorial Address at Edinburgh University (Audio Only)
Chris Hallam's World View 