LAST GASP FOR WHAM! & POW!

Copyright REBELLION

WHAM! & POW! Annual 1974 is a curious entry in the world of yearly book publishing for kids.  Firstly, Wham! had only just managed to get one issue over the doorstep of 1968 before merging with Pow!, and secondly, Pow! itself merged with SMASH! only eight months later.  So, both weekly titles had been extinct for around five years when the Annual for 1974 made its debut in newsagents in '73.

However, that's not what makes it a 'curious entry', because previous Annuals for both comics had been issued in the wake of their demise.  There were Wham! Annuals for '69-'72, although the contents of the last one bore no relation to the weekly it represented, and Pow!, too, had Annuals for the years '69-'72, the last two again failing to include any content recognisable to former readers of the weekly.  As the '71 Annual still bore the name of ODHAMS as publisher, the absence of familiar strips was even more of a mystery.

However, all the books issued after the demise of the comics retained the same masthead design of their weekly counterparts - apart from the Wham! & Pow! one for 1974, which had new versions (although they retained something of the spirit of the originals).  Surprisingly, the book featured strips of characters that had actually appeared in the weeklies, so the tweaking of the masthead design seems odd under the circumstances - especially as the previous combined book for 1973 sported the original logos, but no familiar content.

As well as filler material from other sources, the 1974 book had SAMMY SHRINK, FOOTSIE The CLOWN, GEORGIE'S GERMS, PEST Of The WEST, BABY WHAMSTER, KICKS, The CLOAK, and The TWO FACES Of JANUS.  I'm left to wonder why the Annual should return to its roots so long after abandoning them.  Had IPC perhaps received complaints from buyers of some of the previous Annuals who'd been disappointed by the absence of their once-favourite strips?  It makes sense, in that former readers who bought the books would surely expect to see characters they knew, not strangers.

When I freelanced for IPC, they had a policy regarding reprints that meant they wouldn't re-use a strip until it was at least five years old.  (I think this was later changed to three.)  As the '74 Annual was all reprint (as far as I'm aware), this would explain the presence of the strips included therein, as they were now eligible for reprinting.  Perhaps IPC had decided that this was going to be the 'last gasp' for Wham! and Pow! and they wanted to draw things to a close as they'd began - with strips that actually represented the two comics at their finest.

Unfortunately, I can't scan any of the interiors without cracking the spine, apart from these two colour pages at the end of the book (by CAPTAIN PUGWASH creator JOHN RYAN).  Ironic, eh?  The only strip I can show you isn't one that summons the spirit of what either comic was actually like.