TV Comic

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TV Comic
TV Comic, Issue 1.jpg
TV Comic, issue 1, published November 1951
Publication information
Publisher News of the World (1951–57)
Beaverbrook (195760)
TV Publications/Polystyle Publications (1960–1984)
ScheduleWeekly
Format Ongoing series
Genre Adventure, Children's, Science fiction
Publication date9 November 1951 29 June 1984
No. of issues1,697
Creative team
Artist(s) Martin Asbury, Geoff Campion, John Canning, Ron Embleton, Hal Foster, Gerry Haylock, Gerry Haylock, Chick Henderson, Mike Lacey, Steve Maher, Neville Main, Bill Mevin, Mike Noble, Bill Titcombe, Keith Watson, H. Watts, Pat Williams
Editor(s) Dick Millington, Robin Tucheck, John Lynott

TV Comic was a British weekly comic book published from 9 November 1951 until 29 June 1984. Featuring stories based on television series running at the time of publication, it was the first British comic to be based around TV programmes [1] and spawned a host of imitators.

Contents

Publication history

Originally started by News of the World , TV Comics was later sold to Beaverbrook Newspapers, and then to TV Publications in 1960 (which became Polystyle Publications in 1968). [2] [1]

The first issue ran to eight pages, with Muffin the Mule on the front cover. It also featured many other TV favourites of the day, including Mr. Pastry , Larry the Lamb , Tom Puss , Prince Valiant (Hal Foster reprint), Jack & Jill and Prudence Kitten .

In common with other British children's comics of the time, TV Comic absorbed other, less successful titles (including those of its competitors) during its run. These included: TV Land and TV Express (City Magazines) in 1962; TV Action (formerly Countdown) in 1973; Tom and Jerry Weekly (Spotlight Publications) in 1974, which unusually didn't change the contents of the publication at all, given that Tom and Jerry already featured on the front page of TV Comic at the time; and the short-lived Target in 1978.

Editors of TV Comic included Dick Millington (who also edited Pippin and created long-running TV Comic character Mighty Moth ), Robin Tucheck, and John Lynott. Artists included Bill Titcombe, John Canning, Neville Main, H. Watts, Gerry Haylock, Mike Lacey, and Steve Maher.

Title changes

Content

For the first decade of its existence, the publication was aimed explicitly at younger children. As well as Muffin the Mule (which ran for nearly 10 years—as the cover feature until 1955, then later as a half-page in black and white), other favourites from the 1950s that made appearances were Sooty , Coco the Clown , Noddy and Lenny the Lion . As the decade passed, so the comic began to acquire a slightly more "grown-up" feel, with stories such as Treasure Island , The Lone Ranger and Black Beauty all appearing for a time. Text stories also began to be featured, with religious themes such as "Jesus and the Bible".

TV Comic printed Doctor Who stories from 1964 to 1979 (except for the period between 1971 and 1973, when the strip was instead published in another Polystyle title, Countdown/TV Action ). It also featured strip cartoons for the early puppet TV series produced by Gerry Anderson and AP Films Four Feather Falls , Supercar and Fireball XL5 —until Anderson's shows became the focus of a rival publication, TV Century 21 .

The issues published in the 1960s are generally considered the most collectable in the comic's history. As well as Doctor Who and Anderson strips, other highly collectable material included Telegoons (which ran from 1963 to 1967), Space Patrol (from 1964 to 1965) and The Avengers (based on the TV series featuring John Steed; initially from 1965 to 1966 and again from 1968 to 1972).

A number of annuals and holiday specials were also issued over the years, including special editions concentrating on characters such as the Pink Panther and Tom and Jerry.

The only notable, collectable and original strips during TV Comic's latter years are arguably Battle of the Planets (drawn by former Dan Dare artist Keith Watson); these ran from 1981 to 1983.

Format

From the start, TV Comic featured a mixture of full colour pages (usually the front and back covers and the centre spread) and black-and-white pages, a policy that continued throughout its history.

While generally always a steady seller, TV Comic endured a somewhat tempestuous latter decade. In 1976 (from issue 1,292) Polystyle relaunched the title as New Mighty TV Comic, switching to a large tabloid format on cheaper paper. However, although the pages were larger, the amount of content in each issue actually reduced, with the frames of many strips simply blown up to fit the new size. (A notable example was that the Doctor Who comic strip, previously two standard pages, became a single page with a significant drop in the number of frames.) The first two editions of the New Mighty TV Comic were accompanied by a smaller "Mighty Midget" supplement featuring reprints of previously published Doctor Who and Star Trek strips respectively.

This relaunch clearly failed to attract the sales increases that had been hoped; the comic dropped first "New" and then "Mighty" from the masthead after several months and reverted to a standard size (from issue 1,377) two years later. However, it was still printed very cheaply on newsprint and so appeared a poor offering in contrast to its competitors, especially Look-in. While the overall production quality eventually improved, the comic continued to rely heavily on reprints of older material, or re-using scripts from old strips with new characters.

The publication ultimately closed in 1984, after nearly 33 years, due to declining sales. With no other Polystyle title existing into which it could merge, TV Comic simply ceased publication without any printed warning of its impending discontinuation. The closest to this was that both The A-Team and the Tales of the Gold Monkey strips, which had been running until this point, concluded with frames stating "The End".

Legacy

TV Comic remains the UK's longest-surviving example of an anthology weekly comic featuring licensed strips based on a range of Television properties; it ultimately survived for more than 32 years. Its nearest rival, in terms of longevity, was Look-in, which ran for 23 years, ceasing publication in March 1994.

The challenge always faced by TV Comic, as well as by rivals such as Look-in and TV Century 21 was being able to promptly licence and produce strips based on whichever TV shows and characters were popular at the time. This was not always easy to do or maintain in the longer-term. Occasionally a much-hyped programmes would prove less successful with readers than had been originally expected; alternatively, licenses to particular shows were simply beyond their reach, held by other publishers. For example, in 1978, the nearest TV Comic could get to the successful TV series based on Marvel's The Incredible Hulk was to publish an original spoof strip, The Incredible Bulk.

TV Comic also faced the long-term challenge of serving an often remarkably diverse readership in terms of both age and interests, finding itself running strips about anthropomorphised animals (clearly aimed at younger children, and based on properties already years old at the time) alongside adaptations of action adventure shows more popular with teenagers.

TV Comic was succeeded by Poylstyle's BEEB, a weekly, children's magazine focused specifically on the BBC's most popular programmes at the time and – somewhat belatedly – promoted as a BBC-orientated "answer" to ITV-focused Look-in. Although including far more feature-articles than TV Comic had ever done, the publication was still dominated by a diverse range of comic strips: from older-children's favourites such as Grange Hill and The Tripods to cartoons based on Bananaman and The Family-Ness. However, it appears that, by this point, Polystyle simply didn't have the commercial resources to continue publishing BEEB long-term. The title only survived 20 issues and, like TV Comic before it, disappeared without any warning.

Similar BBC tie-in magazine Fast Forward (magazine), published directly by the BBC themselves from 1989, survived somewhat longer—long enough, in fact, to incorporate sister title Number One (magazine), a pop-music magazine chiefly aimed at younger teenage girls. However, its six year run rather suggested that TV-based anthology comics were no longer sustainable.

Although numerous weekly, fortnightly and monthly comics based on television properties remain a significant area of magazine publishing in the UK today, most of the titles focus on specific properties, rather than many. Any remaining anthology titles opt to focus on similar shows, and are also aimed at very specific (usually younger) age-groups.

Features

TV programmes

Others

Notable issues

See also

Notes

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References

Comic strip information