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| Copyright relevant owner |
Back in the mists of time - well, around 1971 at least - some unidentified person or persons tried to get the LYONS company interested in producing a new comic called WHACKO! (Or did Lyons approach a publisher like IPC with the idea?) It may have been only a provisional name, but it was never published - though a single homemade 'dummy' was cobbled together by someone to show the company what it might look like. Whoever came up with the idea - whether a Lyons employee or an outsider - is currently unknown, but the pages were discovered in a second-hand bookshop by someone (see last paragraph) quite a number of years ago.
If I rightly understand what I've read elsewhere, none of the strips used were specifically produced for the actual dummy, but culled from other sources. Note that the concept of JOLLY ROLLO And His MAGIC FLUTE echoes that of PHIL The FLUTER (should actually be Flautist, but Fluter is 'smoother') from THUNDER (1970). Was Jolly a rip-off of Phil, or an early 'prototype' that was later pressed into service for the dummy? Perhaps we'll just never know. ZOOM The SPACE DOG (a renamed HAPPY) seems similar in theme to strips like GALAXUS, BARRY & BOING, and, in particular, PADDY McGINTY'S GOAT, being a bit of a mix of them.
No original art was used in the dummy, the pages being merely boards with photocopies of strips stuck to them. It's entirely possible that they were rejected proposals (with completely different strip titles, as Zoom/Happy seems to confirm) for IPC/FLEETWAY, which were then renamed to make the characters seem unique to Lyons & Co. (I've digitally 'diluted' the shadows of the new logos pasted over the originals.) The late and legendary cartoonist TERRY BAVE drew all the humour strips, so could he have been responsible for trying to interest Lyons in producing their own promotional 'custom comic', or was he called upon because he drew for IPC, who might've been the potential publisher on Lyons' behalf?
Or maybe it was an outside freelance project by an IPC editor, who asked Terry to come up with some ideas - or simply used some rejected strips of his. Whichever of those scenarios it was, Terry never mentioned the comic in his autobiography, but if it was the latter, it's possible he never even knew that strips he'd submitted to IPC - possibly to try and drum up some extra work - had been renamed and included in the proposal for Whacko! It may have been the same situation for the adventure strip artists, TOM KERR and JOHN RICHARDSON, to say nothing of the writers, whoever they were.
Would a comic priced at one new pence been a viable proposition for Lyons (or anyone) back in 1971? Given the cost involved in producing a comic, it's doubtful it would ever have been intended as a 'giveaway', but perhaps the possibility of it being part of a promotional offer that readers could send away for, enclosing a penny (plus p&p?) along with several coupons cut from the wrappers or boxes of Lyons products was considered? Again, the facts are probably lost to history, but isn't it fascinating to speculate?
Anyway, the pages have been shown before several years back on other blogs, but I suspect they're new to most Crivvies. So thanks to STEVE HOLLAND from BEAR ALLEY BOOKS for permission to reproduce the pages (with a little mild enhancement by me for this presentation), to DEZ SKINN who produced an improved version of the cover (at the foot of the post), and to RICHARD SHEAF for finding them in a second-hand bookshop all those years ago. What a discovery.
Does this look like the sort of comic you'd have bought as a kid? Say yea or nay in the comments section - if you'd be so good.
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| FISHBOY, BIRDMAN Of BARATOGA, and KID CHAMELEON spring to mind |
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| A page from VALIANT by the look of it, suggesting an IPC person's involvement in some capacity |
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| DEZ SKINN wasn't too impressed by the cover logo, so digitally reworked it to better effect |
13 comments:
Interesting stuff Kid. Lovely Tom Kerr art I wonder where that was taken from. Based on the cover and logo alone I don't think that I would have bothered with this comic as a kid. I actually picked up a similar type of comic in a jumble sale in Glasgow about 10 years ago that had all new characters and art (think it was called "Oh no!) so these things are (occasionally) out there.
Yeah, but unlike your jumble sale find, McS, this was never an actual published comic, just an idea for one. What interests me most, however, is whether Jolly Rollo became Phil The Flutist - or was it the other way around? Makes you wonder just how many versions of an idea were considered before one was finally chosen, eh?
Incidentally, you never did say what you thought of the Smash! Special. Did you like it?
I had mixed feelings about the Smash! Special. I thought Thunderbolt was very poor as they tried to do to much in very few pages,and I wasn't to keen on the Missing Link. The Steel Claw was good but nothing like the original and I felt the humour didn't fit the character. House of Dollman was head and shoulders the best strip imho. Overall the page counts were too low to tell any decent story but it was great to see the title and characters again.
Yeah, I'd agree about the page count for each story, McS. I also wish they'd just give us the characters we remember, and stop 'tweaking' them into ones that bear only a passing similarity to the originals. It's no coincidence that the strip which most resembled its original incarnation was also the most popular - House Of Dolmann.
I’m drawn to these “failed to launch” comics. At 1p it could never have survived as a regular newsstand title given The Beano and The Dandy were 2p on mass circulations.
Very interesting post. Whacko looks decent, but there's not really much to distinguish it from other UK comics of the time.
Still, it's lovely to see the 1p price- a nice reminder of the days when comics were affordable fun!
Had it been launched, CN, and sold in newsagents, I suspect that the actual price would've been more than 1p. As you say, it wouldn't have lasted at that price - unless, of course, it sold in the millions.
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Well, it was just a one-off homemade 'dummy', DS, utilising whatever unused strips were to hand. Had it been given the go-ahead, new strips would likely have been commissioned, tied in to Lyons products. On the pages here, only the titles have a Lyons connection, not the strips themselves. As I said above, I doubt it would ever have gone on sale for 1p.
Have you bought that Epic Conan collection yet, Kid? I'm looking forward to your opinion of it.
Not yet, CJ, as the print edition only became available on the 18th. However, going from the cover I saw on ebay, and what I know the contents are ('cos I've got them in the Omnibus), I think it's a cracker. I'll be getting it next week probably.
1 p! Wasn't Mighty World of Marvel 8p? I dunno there's nothing that leaps out at me. 1p they wouldnt have made it and the material looks like the same stuff which was going to be bulldozed by Marvel and 2000 AD as the decade wore on.
On the other hand cross promotion with a sweet or lolly manufacturer as regular sponsor - I could see that.
As you recall, many US comics had regular advertising for decades from the same people . Charles Atlas bodybuilding, those ads for strange toys like ant farms and sea monkeys.
MWOM started of at 5p, PS, then went to 6p, 7p, 8p, 9p, and, I think 10p. I'm not sure whether it got any higher than than without checking to see. Whacko, of course, was never published, nor was the dummy ever printed in limited quantities and made available to schoolkids to gauge the reaction. What you see in the post was a one-off, hand-made 'dummy' to show some executive or other (I suppose) what the comic might look like if given the 'go-ahead'.
Remember also that none of the Whacko stories were written and drawn specially for the dummy. They seem to be rejected IPC try-out strips that were retitled to suggest a Lyons tie-in. Again, it was just to kick-start the imagination of executives with no imagination.
So if you’re asking could a British comic sponsored by a good company ( or any company ) make it as a concept? Sure! Just give me Brian Bolland and Matt Wagner etc and it’ll make it know what I mean . A regular advertiser just means more stability and less worry about sales.
It's unlikely that any company would continue to spend money on it though, PS, if it wasn't selling, as that would mean it wasn't reaching enough potential customers who might buy the products advertised.
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