It’s 55 years since IPC launched the first issue of their football weekly comic Scorcher. Although IPC had already bought titles from Odhams and Fleetway in 1969 to launch their own comic lineup Scorcher was the first new boys title from the company.
IPC were positive that there was a large fanbase for football material. They’d launched Shoot! magazine some months earlier to big sales and Scorcher was IPC's first single-theme comic, breaking away from the usual mix of adventure/sci-fi/funnies etc. in one comic.
Inside, Scorcher No.1 featured a combination of serial strips and features. A fabulous humour strip, Sub, by Ken Reid…
Bobby of the Blues looked a little strange with its clash of grey wash and blue spot colour.
Paxton's Powerhouse was drawn by John Stokes but from the second issue Barrie Mitchell took over so it’s probable that the original opening episode was produced earlier for a dummy issue, and the original artist was unavailable once it got commissioned.
Lags Eleven was an adventure comedy serial. Here the character of Brilliant Genius is clearly based on the criminal mastermind character that Peter Sellers played in the Ealing comedy Two Way Stretch. Using green spot colour this was a very good strip.
The comic had several other strips but the most famous was Billy's Boots. The Editor must have known that this was something special as he awarded it the full colour centre spread. It's a story that resonated with many readers, as untalented schoolboy Billy Dane found an old pair of football boots that belonged to an old time star footballer, which magically turned him into a pro-footballer himself. Billy’s Boots became such a great success that it continued after the comic’s cancellation in Tiger when the two comics merged in 1974. In 1985, Tiger in turn merged with the relaunched Eagle and the strip moved again. Just a year later, Billy's adventures relocated once more, this time to RoyoftheRovers.
The free gifts were Soccer Wall Charts in each issue, #1 (Your Team records), a #2 (Your Team Progress) and in issue #3 (Road to Wembley).
Scorcher was a good comic, and after 125 issues it absorbed the ailing Score comic to become ScorcherandScore for a further 101 issues before merging into Tiger in 1974. A four year run is pretty decent.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Brish up on your Spanish or get your Spanish-English app working! These are adaptations of the books - so if you are familiar with the plots of those, then following the strips will be relatively easy.
Chilean publisher Zig-Zag acquired the rights to create their own independent James Bond comic which lasted for 59 issues between 1968 and 1971. Titled 007 James Bond, the fully coloured series included original material and adaptations of the James Bond novels. The Chilean series was artistically modelled on the films and utilised the likenesses of many of its performers, including Sean Connery. Whether the actors got any payment for this I do not know.
007 JAMES BOND #23 - Diamantos Eternos (Diamonds Are Forever)
Concludes tomorrow…
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Aw, they've bowdlerised Bond’s first view of Tiffany which is disappointing. Still, apart from a two-handed Felix this is a nice visualisation of the novel and it shows how the film starts off fairly close to it before veering away (until the ending).
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 30,946Chief of Staff
Yes, it’s a pretty close adaptation of the novel, I’m wondering if the artist was aware that Felix had a false hand or maybe they thought it would need too much explanation?
This week sees another Spider-Man title in the 666 issue run (this is the 7th I’ve found, only 8 to go!)…and another Battle title (there were 5 and this is the 3rd posted in this section)…and the second and final Scorcher title before it merged into Tiger, ending its own run…
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Searching my memory, which is definitely not a foolproof method, I don’t remember being aware of so many Spidey titles and guess I must have subconsciously thought of them all as just one.
Well, it is classified as the same comic as when it began as Spider-Man Comics Weekly, but it absorbed a large number of other failing Marvel titles along the way and some title changes when it was “refreshed” a few times. 15 different titles over the course of 666 issues is an all-time British record for a comic.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 30,946Chief of Staff
I remember those wall charts for the football…and especially the cardboard ones that had individual teams on that you could move up and down the league table accordingly 😁
Those free gift League Ladders were very popular back in the day and several titles gave them away at various times. “Un-popped” examples fetch eye-watering prices at auction nowadays.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
DETECTIVE COMICS #328 - June 1964 - Part 2/2 - Gotham Gang Line-up - In which Alfred sacrifices his life and Aunt Harriet turns up at Wayne Manor…
And this was the reaction in the letters page in a later issue…
In 1964, editor Julius Schwartz was brought in to overhaul the world of the Caped Crusader and one of his first decisions was to introduce Aunt Harriet, who was a much more capable and shrewd version than the one later shown on TV.
Schwartz said “Now at the time that I was asked to take over Batman, DC had already taken a lot of heat from Dr. Fredric Wertham with his book Seduction of the Innocent,” Wertham maintained that comics were harmful to kids, and one of the things that came up was about how ‘unnatural’ the living arrangements were at Wayne Manor — what he construed as basically a household of three unmarried males — and the self-proclaimed expert raised unfounded questions about what might really be going on. So I decided to bring a woman into the household, a spinster aunt of Dick ‘Robin’ Grayson, who could possibly be seen as a sort of chaperoning den mother… and to provide an excuse for this, I decided that I would have Alfred the butler killed off,” Schwartz added. “Now, I probably could have brought a woman into the mix some other way — a marriage, a sister, another ward, or something — but, honestly, the first idea that crossed my mind was to kill off Alfred. And as was usual for me, my first inclination always seemed to be the best way to go.”
There was no “usual” last-panel trickery, no deux ex machina. Death had come to Batman’s inner circle for the first time since Dick Grayson’s parents were killed almost 25 years earlier.
For me, Dr. Fredric Wertham is the one with the problem. How anyone can accuse innocent comic book stories to be what he construed as basically a household of three unmarried males and what might really be going on behind closed doors says a lot more about the warped mind of the doctor than anything else. Holmes/Watson and Biggles/Algy/Ginger are two more instances where male characters have been accused as being homosexual with absolutely no corresponding evidence in the stories whatsoever. What he’s basically saying is that two or males (and presumably the same for females) cannot share living accommodations without being gay. A very strange point of view.
More Batman next week…
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Comments
Yes, me too. Love these mixtures of fact and fiction.
WARNING: Contains language and scenes that may cause offence - proceed at your own caution.
MINISTRY OF SPACE (2001-2004) Chapter 1 Part 2/3
To be continued next weekend…
Good one. And not impossible, at least so far.
Hugely entertaining 👏🏻
It’s 55 years since IPC launched the first issue of their football weekly comic Scorcher. Although IPC had already bought titles from Odhams and Fleetway in 1969 to launch their own comic lineup Scorcher was the first new boys title from the company.
IPC were positive that there was a large fanbase for football material. They’d launched Shoot! magazine some months earlier to big sales and Scorcher was IPC's first single-theme comic, breaking away from the usual mix of adventure/sci-fi/funnies etc. in one comic.
Inside, Scorcher No.1 featured a combination of serial strips and features. A fabulous humour strip, Sub, by Ken Reid…
Bobby of the Blues looked a little strange with its clash of grey wash and blue spot colour.
Paxton's Powerhouse was drawn by John Stokes but from the second issue Barrie Mitchell took over so it’s probable that the original opening episode was produced earlier for a dummy issue, and the original artist was unavailable once it got commissioned.
Lags Eleven was an adventure comedy serial. Here the character of Brilliant Genius is clearly based on the criminal mastermind character that Peter Sellers played in the Ealing comedy Two Way Stretch. Using green spot colour this was a very good strip.
The comic had several other strips but the most famous was Billy's Boots. The Editor must have known that this was something special as he awarded it the full colour centre spread. It's a story that resonated with many readers, as untalented schoolboy Billy Dane found an old pair of football boots that belonged to an old time star footballer, which magically turned him into a pro-footballer himself. Billy’s Boots became such a great success that it continued after the comic’s cancellation in Tiger when the two comics merged in 1974. In 1985, Tiger in turn merged with the relaunched Eagle and the strip moved again. Just a year later, Billy's adventures relocated once more, this time to Roy of the Rovers.
The free gifts were Soccer Wall Charts in each issue, #1 (Your Team records), a #2 (Your Team Progress) and in issue #3 (Road to Wembley).
Scorcher was a good comic, and after 125 issues it absorbed the ailing Score comic to become Scorcher and Score for a further 101 issues before merging into Tiger in 1974. A four year run is pretty decent.
This weeks birthday comic covers 12-18 May…
The football comics were just invisible to my eyes when I looked at the shelves, a bit like the girls' comics.
You covered the story of the Lady Penelope comic earlier, and it's interesting to see 2 stages of it above.
I saw Scorcher but I got Shoot! for awhile, before switching to Roy of the Rovers…from where I remember Billy’s Boots 😁
DETECTIVE COMICS #328 - June 1964 - Part 1/2 - Gotham Gang Line-up - In which Alfred sacrifices his life and Aunt Harriet turns up at Wayne Manor…
Concludes next Wednesday…
Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!
UFO FLYING SAUCERS #1 - 1968 - Part 2
A look at another comic title next Wednesday…
Thanks, CHB, that was a good one.
Brish up on your Spanish or get your Spanish-English app working! These are adaptations of the books - so if you are familiar with the plots of those, then following the strips will be relatively easy.
Chilean publisher Zig-Zag acquired the rights to create their own independent James Bond comic which lasted for 59 issues between 1968 and 1971. Titled 007 James Bond, the fully coloured series included original material and adaptations of the James Bond novels. The Chilean series was artistically modelled on the films and utilised the likenesses of many of its performers, including Sean Connery. Whether the actors got any payment for this I do not know.
007 JAMES BOND #23 - Diamantos Eternos (Diamonds Are Forever)
Concludes tomorrow…
Aw, they've bowdlerised Bond’s first view of Tiffany which is disappointing. Still, apart from a two-handed Felix this is a nice visualisation of the novel and it shows how the film starts off fairly close to it before veering away (until the ending).
These foreign translations are great - thanks 😁
Yes, it’s a pretty close adaptation of the novel, I’m wondering if the artist was aware that Felix had a false hand or maybe they thought it would need too much explanation?
Thank you, Sir Miles, good to see that you’re enjoying them.
007 JAMES BOND #23 - Diamantos Eternos (Diamonds Are Forever)
That was very enjoyable, an excellent idea CHB.
WARNING: Contains language and scenes that may cause offence - proceed at your own caution.
MINISTRY OF SPACE (2001-2004) Chapter 1 Part 3/3
Chapter 2 begins tomorrow…
Good one, looking forward to more.
@CoolHandBond these foreign language strips are great…interesting artwork…
Ministry of Space is extremely enjoyable 🍸
WARNING: Contains language and scenes that may cause offence - proceed at your own caution.
MINISTRY OF SPACE (2001-2004) Chapter 2 Part 1/3
Continues next weekend…
First few panels to be read while listening to Strauss music.
It nowadays seems so wrong to casually light a cigarette in a hospital.
Enjoying this story very much.
Getting darker…just my thing 😁
This weeks birthday comic covers 19-25 May…
This week sees another Spider-Man title in the 666 issue run (this is the 7th I’ve found, only 8 to go!)…and another Battle title (there were 5 and this is the 3rd posted in this section)…and the second and final Scorcher title before it merged into Tiger, ending its own run…
Searching my memory, which is definitely not a foolproof method, I don’t remember being aware of so many Spidey titles and guess I must have subconsciously thought of them all as just one.
Well, it is classified as the same comic as when it began as Spider-Man Comics Weekly, but it absorbed a large number of other failing Marvel titles along the way and some title changes when it was “refreshed” a few times. 15 different titles over the course of 666 issues is an all-time British record for a comic.
I remember those wall charts for the football…and especially the cardboard ones that had individual teams on that you could move up and down the league table accordingly 😁
Such as these…
Those free gift League Ladders were very popular back in the day and several titles gave them away at various times. “Un-popped” examples fetch eye-watering prices at auction nowadays.
DETECTIVE COMICS #328 - June 1964 - Part 2/2 - Gotham Gang Line-up - In which Alfred sacrifices his life and Aunt Harriet turns up at Wayne Manor…
And this was the reaction in the letters page in a later issue…
In 1964, editor Julius Schwartz was brought in to overhaul the world of the Caped Crusader and one of his first decisions was to introduce Aunt Harriet, who was a much more capable and shrewd version than the one later shown on TV.
Schwartz said “Now at the time that I was asked to take over Batman, DC had already taken a lot of heat from Dr. Fredric Wertham with his book Seduction of the Innocent,” Wertham maintained that comics were harmful to kids, and one of the things that came up was about how ‘unnatural’ the living arrangements were at Wayne Manor — what he construed as basically a household of three unmarried males — and the self-proclaimed expert raised unfounded questions about what might really be going on. So I decided to bring a woman into the household, a spinster aunt of Dick ‘Robin’ Grayson, who could possibly be seen as a sort of chaperoning den mother… and to provide an excuse for this, I decided that I would have Alfred the butler killed off,” Schwartz added. “Now, I probably could have brought a woman into the mix some other way — a marriage, a sister, another ward, or something — but, honestly, the first idea that crossed my mind was to kill off Alfred. And as was usual for me, my first inclination always seemed to be the best way to go.”
There was no “usual” last-panel trickery, no deux ex machina. Death had come to Batman’s inner circle for the first time since Dick Grayson’s parents were killed almost 25 years earlier.
For me, Dr. Fredric Wertham is the one with the problem. How anyone can accuse innocent comic book stories to be what he construed as basically a household of three unmarried males and what might really be going on behind closed doors says a lot more about the warped mind of the doctor than anything else. Holmes/Watson and Biggles/Algy/Ginger are two more instances where male characters have been accused as being homosexual with absolutely no corresponding evidence in the stories whatsoever. What he’s basically saying is that two or males (and presumably the same for females) cannot share living accommodations without being gay. A very strange point of view.
More Batman next week…