TV Comic - Six Of The Best: Christmas Cartoons.

The British Droopy comic strips will appear shortly in the New Year, but in the meantime, here's six festive comic strips featuring Tom & Jerry, Bugs Bunny, and Barney Bear. Happy holidays, everybody!

Tom & Jerry #1098 30th December 1972. Artist: Bill Titcombe

Barney Bear #1254 29th December 1978. Artist: Bill Mevin

Bugs Bunny #1254 25th December 1981. Artist: Bill Titcombe

Tom & Jerry #1669 16th December 1983. Artist: Bill Titcombe

Barney Bear #1254 27th December 1975. Artist: Bill Titcombe

Bugs Bunny #1254 27th December 1975. Artist: Bill Mevin

TV Comic - Six Of The Best: Tom & Jerry

Tom & Jerry first made their debut in the weekly TV Comic on 17th May 1969, issue 909. However, they were not the first classic cartoon characters who appeared in the comic, that honour belonged to Bugs Bunny (with Sylvester) 14 editions earlier. Unfortunately, I don't have that very first strip (it will be posted here as soon as I obtain that elusive edition), but here's the advert that announced their forthcoming arrival in the preceding issue: 

The feuding cat-&-mouse duo not only replaced Ken Dodd's Diddymen on the front cover, but also occupied the second page too (oddly, only in B&W, while the first page was in full colour). A rare luxury for a comic strip to occupy two pages, but considering they were the best-loved classic cartoon characters in Britain (they just missed out of the #1 spot on Channel 4's recent 100 top cartoons list, beaten only by The Simpsons), this was not surprising. They would occupy both pages until mid-1975, when they were given both front and back pages, both in colour. When TV Comic made their ill-fated move to a larger tabloid format in September 1976, they would mostly occupy one very large colour page (but the number of panels did not increase, only blown-up a bit bigger), with the occasional additional grace of the front cover. This arrangement continued when the comic reverted to its original size shortly afterwards, but was now printed on cheaper paper and a limited colour palette (sometimes the strip was even devoid of the latter). The strip also became a victim of the publication's new policy of reprinting old material towards the end of the decade, so hardly any fresh adventures were published. New two-page colour stories were commissioned around 1982, but the damage was already done. It was already losing readers, and the comic eventually ceased to be in mid-1984. Despite the turmoil, Tom & Jerry still remained one of TV Comic's most popular strips, alongside Doctor Who and The Avengers.

Differences between the American comic strips, apart from the limited 2-page format, was that Tom was much more of a bully, dishing out physical violence towards Jerry to the point where it even becomes Deitch-esque, but Jerry still gave as good as he got. Also, after the first few years, the strip would also be littered with puns, but thankfully not as painful as you would expect. The Maid makes regular appearances throughout this run, but became more of a white English suburban housewife. Spike also gained regular exposure, but not only without his son Tyke, but he is also referred to by his original name Butch (presumably because it sounded more appealing to British readers). Tuffy would only make a handful of appearances.

Throughout the 15-year run, the T&J comic strip was drawn by virtually the same artist: Bill Titcombe. A prolific and talented cartoonist, Titcombe drew countless number of comic strip between the 60's and 90's not only for TV Comic, but also for sister publication Pipkin and its closest rival Look-In. His work includes such cartoon adaptations as Bugs Bunny, Barney Bear, The Inspector, and Scooby-Doo. He also drew strips based on live-action shows, such as Dad's Army, Benny Hill, Man About The House, and Charlie's Angels. Out of all his work, he always regards Tom & Jerry as his all-time favourite strip. A further mini-bio and examples of his work can be found here and here.

Below are six of Titcombe's T&J comic strips, drawn during its golden period (1969-76). It is somewhat difficult to pick out of hundreds of strips not only to present some of the funniest, but also to show how Titcombe's drawing style would evolve during that time. But I hope you enjoy reading these nonetheless:

#930, 11th October 1969

#999, 6th February 1971

#1032, 25th September 1971

#1126, 14th July 1973

#1210, 22nd February 1975.

#1239, 13th September 1975

Coming-up next: TV Comic's The Bugs Bunny Show.

An Introduction To TV Comic's Classic Cartoon Strips

I always loved reading UK classic cartoon annuals (full of reprinted American cartoon strips), but during the last few years I have developed a special fondness for the UK comic strips versions of our fave cartoons, which were a feature of a long-defunct weekly publication:

TV Comic first started publishng in November 9th 1951 until June 22nd 1984, resulting in a total of 1696 issues. It focused mainly on comic strips adapted from television shows broadcast at the time of publication (including Doctor Who, The Avengers, and Basil Brush), alongside original creations (such as TV Terrors, Mighty Moth, and Texas Ted - big hat, big head!). Cartoon adaptations were also included, but the first comic strips based on the Golden Age Cartoons were not published until issue #896 on 15th February 1969, when Bugs Bunny made his debut, followed by Tom & Jerry some 14 editions later. Its publisher, Polystyle Publications, gained licenses to use the classic cartoon characters from Warner Brothers and MGM via the Western Publishing Company. But rather than reprint the Western-drawn comic strips (like the UK annuals did at the time), TV Comic opted to draw their own using their own talented team, who adapted the format and humour of the strips to more British tastes.

One reason was the amount of pages allowed for each cartoon strip. While the American comic strips ran generally between 4-8 pages (even longer), British comics would only allow one page per show/character (only a few were given the luxury of having two pages!) and the content would be very much situation-based rather than in story.  The extra pages afforded for the American strips did allow for an actual story to develop, but the humour and slapstick were somewhat more restrained when compared to the British adaptations, where our fondness for (violent) slapstick is more apparent.

The artwork is also different:: the American comic strips were down by artists (and even animators) and certainly has more beautiful (and on-model) art, while the British versions were done by cartoonists, and while the artwork is more "loose" (which did not necessarily suit the look of the character), it is that cartoonist's approach that makes the visuals gags more funny.

This series will feature "six of the best" comic strips from each classic cartoon characters featured below (not necessarily in the following order), including (where possible) the first-ever strips and the cartoonists who drew them (which includes Bill Titcombe, Barry Glennard, and Bill Mevin):

 

 

To kick-start this new series, we will take a look at the Tom & Jerry comic strips, featuring Tom's attempts to be a glam-rock superstar, Jerry being an unwilling participant in polo, and the tatty cat being blown-up by torpedoes!

Retro UK Annuals: Tom & Jerry 1967

The year was 1966: America was gripped by Beatlemania, the England football team won the World Cup, and the first Tom & Jerry annual was launched a few months before Xmas. Ah, it was a good year to be English (or so I imagine, being born 11 years too late!).
This was published by World Distributors, who were already publishing annuals based on classic American cartoons years before, with Bugs Bunny in the 50's and the Flintstones, Huckleberry Hound, and Top Cat annuals during the early 60's. Before then, publishers Dean launched the first Mickey Mouse annual in 1930, and Felix annuals popped up a decade before. It's a wonder why Tom & Jerry annuals arrived much later than their fellow animated stars.
World would only publish one T&J annual in the 60's, before embarking on a regular yearly run during 1970-83. Throughout the series (and indeed like the vast majority of these annuals), these books consisted mostly of reprints of American comic strips (published by Western Publishing), with some original illustrated stories and jokes/puzzles/activity pages.
To kick-start this new series, let's take a peek at some of the select pages from this annual, starting with the front cover:

Back cover:

Title page:

Four T&J comic strips appeared in this annual, the following are the first pages from each strip:




To complement the T&J strips, Barney Bears appears (with his nephews Fuzzy & Wuzzy) in a couple of his own:


Not to be outdone, T&J stalwarts Spike & Tyke get their own couple of adventures:


Another twin set of strips feature a character who is relatively unknown in Blighty: Wuff the Prairie Dog, specially created for the T&J comics in the US:


But there is more T&J stuff to come: Four illustrated stories are featured, and here are the openings from three of them:



However, here is a complete story, in which even Tom & Jerry themselves were influenced by the British music invasion (check out their moptops!):







There will be more selected Tom & Jerry annuals appearing in the future, alongside others (watch out for Looney Tunes, Pink Panther, Top Cat, and more). Unfortunately, due to a HUGE collection, I'm unable to show them all, but I do hope you enjoy viewing my selections and inspire you to collect these gems, whether they are British annuals or classic American comics.
And if you can identify the artists and/or original publishing dates, feel free to post a comment. Share it to the world!