ROBIN #1 (1985)...

Images copyright relevant owner

Here's a comic I picked up in Portsmouth in 1985 when I was staying down there for a few months.  I bought it purely because it was a number one, recognising it as a revival of an earlier version which had come out in 1953.  The original ROBIN was published first by HULTON PRESS, then ODHAMS PRESS, and finally IPC MAGAZINES.  It lasted 836 issues until 1969 and was then incorporated into PLAYHOUR.

This second incarnation of the comic was far less successful, lasting, I believe, only two issues (plus an Annual for '86, likely prepared at the beginning of '85) before vanishing forever.*  I really must track down that second ish someday, then I'll be able to boast having the complete 'set'.  In the meantime, whenever I want to remember my time in Fratton, Portsmouth, in the first few months of 1985, one of the comics that brings it all back to me is this 30-year-old nursery title.

Here are a select few pages to give you a taste of it.

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(*Update November 2024: I've just learned that it actually lasted for around five months, the final issue being cover-dated 29th June 1985, so it did better than I thought.)

And, as a bonus, here's the cover to the first version from 1953.

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