Valiant and Smash Summer Special 1971

The summer of 1971. Two great boys comics had combined and the Summer Special was duly released. The only one as it happens, the next two were Valiant & TV 21 after those two titles merged.

Kicking off with the obligatory Captain Hurricane story (there are two in this issue), this exiting adventure where our Captain rescues a fair maiden from the Japs courage is quickly followed by His Sporting Lordship. I'm not usually a fan of sports related stories but this was a little different and amusing.



Then there's some humour from Banger and Masher....



A cracking adventure with Erik the Viking.



And the sole surviving strip from the former Power Comics days of Smash!, The Swots and The Blots.

Presented here in full colour and complete for your amusement.


 

There's more besides these including my personal favourite Kelly's Eye.

If you find copies of any of these Valiant Specials, grab 'em kids they are a cracking good read!

The Hornet (1960's)

DC Thompson was one of the major comics publishers back in the sixties and produced world famous titles like The Beano and The Dandy. They also published Boys adventure comics, the best known being The Hotspur and The Victor (the latter running until 1992). They also produced one, less well remembered adventure title The Hornet.

This was a comic that I'd almost forgotten about, having read just perhaps a handful of issues when I was a child.  Although it lasted 648 issues between 1963 and 1976 The Hornet never seemed to be able to garner the attention it deserved.

I chose to pick up copies from the mid-sixties a period that I was most likely to have read. Whilst my memory isn't that good from that far back, there was one story that did stir the "little grey cells" as Poirot might have put it.

V for Vengeance.

A group of masked men fighting the Nazi's known as the Deathless Men.

I wonder if this strip inspired a certain young Alan Moore later in life?

Most of the other stories are normal fare for a DC Thompson title and some like The Blitz Kid, The Blind Boxer and The Limping Man are worth a read, though you could give Ugg a miss. Like most titles the strips changed over the years and only in later was there a recognisable character Captain Hornet (yeah I know).

 

Some things don't change. All the issues I picked up contained anti-smoking ads. Pity I didn't listen then when I had the chance...

Still you won't be disappointed if you manage to pick up The Hornet. Sadly the comic never produce the usual Summer Specials and Annuals which suggest a lower sale than it's better known siblings.

The first issue contained a Free Gift of a "Magnificent balsa wood glider". I wonder what today's kids would make of that?

What's "balsa wood mum" do I hear.

Sad, but today's comics for the young ones are just packed with plastic. A sign of the times.

Strange Planets #1 (1958)

Strange Planets #1 (IW Enterprises)

Various (w) & (a)

This comic and the company that printed it are new to me, but then I'm sure there's lots of stuff in back issue bins like this that generally get passed over and ignored. I only came across it by chance when one of the guys in my local comic shop was sorting some stuff out. At £3.25 for a comic of this age (and in a quite reasonable condition) what was there to lose?

In fact I rather enjoyed this comic which is itself a reprint of old sci-fi stories from earlier in the fifties which I might never have had the chance to read.

The first story Clean Start is illustrated (and credited to) Wally Wood and is one of those morality tales which were so common in this and other formats back in the day. The alien races of the universe considered us too savage to mix with them and feared our imminent expansion into wider space.

So two protoplasmic creatures or scientists I should say are sent to try and make us more peaceful. They do not succeed and make a choice that leaves mankind wiped out much to their ever lasting horror.

Up next comes Marbles with art by Bernard Krigstein which shows how easy it is for man to lose his marbles or sanity when sent into deep space.

The remaining two features Conditioned Reflex and Barrier contain the same theme as the lead story. Mankind is a threat. However the aliens who try to prepare for conquest in Conditioned Reflex are beaten by a case of simple nicotine addiction. Moral? Do not strike a light in a mainly methane atmosphere.

Barrier is as it seems. There's a force field around Earth that prevents mankind from getting off planet. Only when the two warring sides of man get together can they get through, only to be beaten back by an alien warship which promptly seals the barrier.

I'll be looking out for other issues, and keeping my eye on the stars..... cracking stuff from a different era.

 

Charlton Highlight: Wild Bill Hickok and Jingles #71 (1959)

Wild Bill Hickok and Jingles #71 (Charlton Comics)

Various (w) & (a) (all uncredited)

The Western, a long out of favour genre these days but when I was a child they were all the rage. Everybody seemed to play "Cowboys and Indians" and watch TV shows such as Bonanza, The High Chaparral and Alias Smith & Jones.

Memories flooding back?

There were numerous other Western shows and films many of which became comics.

Wild Bill Hickock and Jingles was one of these.

A TV show that became a short lived comic. The fact this edition is numbered #71 is down to Charlton Comics changing the title from Cowboy Western and continuing with the numbering. This title lasted just 8 issues.



The stories and art are pretty average, even for the time. But my copy was quite cheap being in a "well read" condition, not that I'm complaining. It's fascinating to see stuff from this era. I'd have been two years old when this was published.

And no I've never heard of the TV series either, so I've included a video underneath, though be warned it's not a very high quality recording. Pity really.

 
First & last issues

And now your sponsor presents....

Warren Comics: Vampirella #42 (1975)

Warren Publishing aimed it's black and white horror anthology titles at a more mature market, in other words comics for adults and because of this were outside the rather restrictive Comics Code Authority that was responsible for censoring the mainstream publishers such as DC and Marvel.

In addition to their horror anthologies Creepy and Eerie, they also published  Vampirella, the tales of a Vampire from the Planet Draculon who came to Earth to fight vampires and other evils in the skimpiest of costumes possible. As such it did have a certain appeal in those less than politically correct days, but compared to the graphics produced by some modern publishers such as Avatar, the scenes are in fact quite tame.

Like Warrens other comics Vampirella is an anthology title led by tales of the vampire herself  and contained another ongoing series Pantha about a woman who turned into a Panther which could be gruesome. You really didn't want to make her angry.

Subscriptions came with a free gift of the poster below. I have a modern reprint of this and it is in fact life size and will fit on your bedroom door.



In this issue, Vampirella and her companion Pendragon crash land in the Amazon and face The Mountain of Skulls built by cannibal women who eat their victims and then plate the skulls in gold. Whilst Vampi wanders off to try and find help her fellow survivors are captured and the noisy one gets his head lopped ready for dinner.

Vampi manages to locate assistance in the form of some gold hunters so you just know things are not going to end well.

This is followed by an odd tail called ...Just beyond Eternity, best described as a tale of survival and love during and after the first world war. Laugh Clown Laugh! comes next with the downfall of Barnum's most famous clown because of man's mistrust of those who are different. A morality tale if you wish.

Pantha appears in the seedy world of strippers, used and abused by those around her until one ftal advance causes her to turn and tear her harasser apart. This story (which involved lesbianism) did cause some consternation in the letter pages a couple of issues on.

The final tale, The Whitfield Contract is about an assassin with a bit of a twist as he decides to retire and renege on his last assignment.

These comics actually stand up to the test of time and are well worth reading.

Vampirella ran for 113 issues from 1969 to 1988.

However her story does not end there. The rights to this character where first taken over by Harris Comics and today the licence is with Dynamite Entertainment.

Vampirella continues her fight against evil!

 

First and last issues of the Warren run.

Wildcat #1 (1988)

One of the more unusual British comics was the short live Wildcat launched in late 1988. A glossy fortnightly, Wildcat differed from other titles because the whole issue though segmented was not an anthology as most of us were used to. Wildcat was in fact the name of a spaceship containing the last few hundred members of humanity looking for a new home.

The different "strips" inside were about different landing teams on a newly discovered planet that they hope to make their new home....

Readers of other Fleetway titles had been been introduced to Wildcat through a free preview comic inserted in 2000AD, Buster, Whizzer, Oink, Eagle and even Roy of the Rovers in an attempt to give this title a chance of success.

So after picking up my first issue, I now have the problem of tracking down on of those comics with the preview to catch up with the story, which to be fair is abridged on page two.

The art and stories inside are good quality with plenty of aliens, man eating plants and electrified "Tribbles" to keep one occupied.

Wildcat lasted just 12 issues before merging with Eagle, though a Summer and a Winter Special were published after it's cancellation so collecting isn't too daunting.

This copy wasn't too dear costing £12 and did have the free gift, a poster of an "alien zoo" to which stickers were added from future issues.

 

Whizzer & Chips Holiday Special 1970

Judging by the weather the summer is well and truly over but the joys of the holiday specials of old helps cure those rainy days stuck inside. Whizzer and Chips was one of the better humour comics produced by IPC/Fleetway and is well remembered by many from their school days.

The summer always brought on those gigantic magazines we all read during those long holiday breaks. This edition published in 1970 had 96 pages of mirth, laughter and some adventure. Great value for a mere three shillings.

The usual scoundrels appeared in these pages  Champ, Odd-ball, Sid's Snake and others.

There was also Micky Marvel and his Talking Cat a rather charming little feature where after saving a moggy from drowning discovers this is no ordinary cat. It can talk. As a reward Micky gets the power to talk to animals. T

Turns out this was Merlin's cat!

In addition to the normal content there were also reprints of old features from Wham! whose comics had been absorbed by IPC/Fleetway that year. Glugg and Footsie the Clown made several appearances in the 1970 edition.



The summer specials lasted from 1970 until 1993. Pick up a copy if you can find one.