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KNOCKOUT - there were two incarnations of course, the first back in 1939 to '63, the second in 1971 to '73. The first version originally had a hyphen (KNOCK-OUT), but lost it at some stage down the line. KELLY'S EYE started in Knockout, before jumping over to VALIANT when the two comics merged in '63, and it's with Valiant that the strip is nowadays most often associated by former readers of a certain age.
However, it's the second, revived Knockout in which I'm interested in this post - or at least the Annuals and Holiday Specials. Speaking from a personal perspective, this comic has two distinct associations for me. The comic came out when I was living in one house, and the first year's worth had been published by the time I flitted to another in a different neighbourhood halfway through June of '72. Consequently, I not only associate the comic with the previous house, but also the subsequent one because the weekly yet had another year to run before being merged into WHIZZER & CHIPS.
That second association though, has more to do with the fact that the first Holiday Special and Annual that I ever bought after moving into the other house were of Knockout - as I may not have still been regularly buying the weekly at that stage, if at all. While living in my previous house I'd lent a stack of the early issues to a pal, and when he eventually gave me them back, they were in a terribly mutilated condition, with bits ripped off and pages missing. That may well have been my 'jumping-off' point, barring free gift issues and the first three after it was subsumed by W&C.
I only ever bought that first Annual at the time, and picked up another two (for '83 & '84) sometime in the early '80s. I can no longer recall if I bought the '83 one new when it first came out or shortly after, but up until a couple of months or so back, I had only five Knockout Annuals in my collection. There were 13 in all, from the 1973 Annual (released in '72) up to the one for 1985 (released in '84), so I tracked the missing books down on eBay and completed my collection of them - 24 years after the final one was published.
So, not only does that give me the only excuse I need to bore you rigid with my personal history, it also allows me to show you the covers of all 13 Annuals, plus the two Holiday Specials for 1972 and '73. And in case you're interested, I also own all 106 issues of the weekly. Maybe I'll put them on display on the blog sometime, if I ever find the time to scan them.
Incidentally, UK cartooning legend, TERRY BAVE, who drew several strips for Knockout, once told me it was his favourite comic to work on, and that he was sorry when it folded. (He also gave me his very own copy of the first issue, so that exclusive item is one of the treasures of my collection.) Right, enough waffle - on to the covers. (Note that the first eight have a Christmassy or wintry theme, the last five don't. A deliberate editorial decision, or just the way the cookie crumbled from 1980 on?)
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| A giant trick flower on the cover of this Annual... |
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| ...and also on this one the very next year |
I find it irksome when people knock Knockout: 107 issues are a lot more than many other titles achieved. Then again I do feel that it somehow didn’t quite hit the spot. Reading the last few issues from Ebay over a dozen years ago it seemed like a mini version of W&C, with old friends like Fuss Pot, Joker and Sammy Shrink to name only a few … and realised that that was the trouble. It ONLY seemed like a mini version of W&C with nothing terribly remarkable to single it out as a noteworthy comic on its own. Still it gave us those stories in the first place (reintroduced in Sammy’s case, I know) which had long lifetimes in W&C, so let’s give Knockout 7 out of 10 – let’s knock ourselves out!
ReplyDelete106 issues, 2 Holiday Specials and 13 Annuals isn't a bad run, SA, but it's a shame the weekly didn't last longer. If I remember correctly, a comic can take up to 2 years to recover the cost of launching it, so from that point of view Knockout probably wasn't a financial success. As you say, it was like a mini-Whizzer & Chips, but it had its own charm which appealed to me. Though maybe it just seems like that in retrospect because it represents part of my long-vanished youth. (Wish I could have those years back again.)
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