After a lot of thought and soul searching (good grief this is only a comic before I forget) I chose Smash! as my favourite comic rather than the first of the line Wham! because it was frankly the better and more varied title that went through so many transformations it eventually ended up almost but not quite a "normal" "boys paper"!
Like it's sister title Wham! this was a comic I read from the beginning dipping in and out over later years but becoming enamoured with it's second leaf of life in the more mainstream format. I used to rush out to to try and get Smash! and Wham! most weeks at the very start but as there was so much else I liked reading frequency did drop off though it's relaunch did get me back to the newsagents for a while.
Smash! was launched in February 1966 and was published by Odhams whose line became known as "Power Comics" and emulated Marvel in a very British way since humour dominated these comics with super-hero fare being mostly American fare. Smash! is the only comic I recall that had both DC and Marvel stories in it's pages as the Batman newspaper strip (which occasionally featured Superman and others) along with The Hulk.
There were also The Swots & The Blots an anarchic group of schoolboys loosely based on the Bash Street Kids format, The Man From B.U.N.G.L.E., Bad Penny (think Minnie the Minx), The Nervs and Percy's Pets.
Sadly Odhams line of comics which once expanded to 5 titles started imploding. Smash! absorbed Pow! which had already absorbed Wham! Fantastic took over Terrific and eventually Smash! absorbed Fantastic! The end of the line was apparent. Even the famous Eagle faced cancellation.
The titles were taken over by IPC who merged The Eagle with Lion and revamped Smash! into a comic bereft of most of it's anarchic humour and ended the Marvel reprints. This however gave rise to some great strips. Janus Stark, Bunsen's Burner, Cursitor Doom and Master of the Marsh amongst others. All fondly remembered and the very popular Janus Stark survived the comic's demise in the pages of Valiant.
Sadly all good things come to an end and Smash! after 247 issues merged with the long running Valiant in 1971. This comic is worth collecting as are it's annuals and if you can get them the summer specials. In my view one of the best, if not the best comic ever to appear on British newsstands!
And an excellent choice it is as Smash! is also my favourite UK comic . Both the quirky anarchic Odhams Power comic version and the more traditional IPC rebranded version were great reads full of excellent art, stories and characters. A personal favourite was the introduction of Leo Baxendales new art style (to me at least)on the excellent Swots and the Blots strip in the new SMASH!
ReplyDeleteMy personal top 10 would be:
1. SMASH!
2. Buster
3. Valliant
4. WHAM!
5. Scorcher
6. Pow!
7. Lion
8. The Beezer
9. Roy of the Rovers
10. The Dandy
With honourable mention to Thunder, The Beano and the Victor comics
Lion was a good read and so was Thunder. Prefer The Beano to the Dandy but we were both Beezer Geezers it would seem. The only difference in our choices is over sport. Never had any interest. Thanks for sharing!
DeleteSmash wins my vote as no 1 in both incarnations, the 1969 revamp suited me as i was getting older and drifting away from the swots and blots, bad penny strips , cursitor doom ,master of the marsh , rebbels on the run his sporting lordship were a great read .
ReplyDeletemy top 10
1 smash
2 tv21
3 wham
4 tv tornado
5 beano
6 beezer
7 tiger
8 scorcher / score & roar ( a draw)
9 buster
10 fantastic.
all subject to change of coarse.
Since we appear to be of more or less the same generation I concur with you over the changes to Smash coinciding with changes in my tastes. However a bit of me never really grew out of that kind of humour. Like McScotty above you've chosen some sports related titles. Not my thing. TV Tornado was a surprise choice though but we used to have so much more choice back then. Thanks for your list, lots of good comics there!
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