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| Images copyright REBELLION |
BUSTER comic first appeared in May of 1960, cover-dated the 28th - meaning it actually came out on or around the 21st of the month. The star of the comic was Buster, initially billed as the "SON Of ANDY CAPP", the boozing, smoking, wife-beating, cloth-capped Northern working-class layabout from the DAILY and SUNDAY MIRROR, as immortalized by cartoonist REG SMYTHE.
The tag-line was soon dropped, but - interestingly - on the 35th anniversary of the comic in 1995 - a framed pic of Buster appeared on Andy's wall in the newspaper strip*, seemingly reaffirming the connection. (Though it was obvious that it had been added and wasn't part of the original art.) Andy had even appeared in the Buster strip itself back in 1960 - in the June 18th and July 2nd issues, so now his son was returning the favour. (In some early issues of the comic, Buster was referred to as Buster Capp.)
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| DAILY MIRROR, Saturday, May 27th, 1995 |
I'll be taking a look at a 1968 copy of Buster in an upcoming post, which will contain the first instalment of the complete issue (give or take a couple of ads). Stay tuned - same Buster time, same Buster channel...
(Now where have I heard that before?)
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*Thanks to ALLEN CUMMINGS (Buster Editor from 1981-'99), who sent me the Buster strip from the Daily Mirror back in 1995. Good man, Al.
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For those of you who can tolerate my self-indulgent reminiscences, May 28th, 1960 was the official tenancy commencement date for our new house in a new town all those years ago. (Doesn't mean we necessarily moved in on that exact day, though it's possible.) Previously, in the late '50s, we had lived in the West End of Glasgow. I perhaps didn't see Buster until 1966 or '67 and, although then living in our third house in the town, it was in a house across the street from our first one that I became aware of the comic when we were visiting friends in our 'old' neighbourhood. I likely saw VALIANT, LION and various ALAN CLASS comics there also (that's where I associate my first sight of them), as WILLIAM NODWELL, the son of my mother's friend and someone with whom my brother had once palled about when we lived there, always had a stack of them lying around.
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See Part Two here.