Halfpenny Marvel

"The Halfpenny Marvel" was a story paper of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For the American comic company, see Marvel comics

Overview

"The Halfpenny Marvel" was the first of Alfred Harmsworth's storypapers aimed at putting the "Penny dreadfuls" out of business by producing "pure, healthy literature" at a cheaper price. Begun in 1893, Early issues contained a long, complete tale and as many as three or four shorter ones (of very short length). These short stories would later be replaced by instalments of serial stories. An editorial page also appeared in most (but not all) issues, and dealt with upcoming stories as well as providing the reader with interesting facts. In the late 1890s the editorial page was used by "Pimple the orfis boy", providing comic releif with his badly-written tales.

The stories where in the "Boys Own" genre, and often involved travel in foreign lands and the British Empire, often with quite Jingoistic content, even by the standards of the day. Occasional issues featured detective stories, and Volume 1, Issue 6, published in December 1893 introduced Sexton Blake to the world in a story named 'The Missing Millionaire'. However the character was quickly moved to the Union Jack and it is there that his character was properly developed. Stories most often stood alone, but occasionally a character would recur in multiple issues, though the stories would be complete in each one.

Early covers where two-colour, often orange and black. However before long only one colour was used on the cover, most often dark blue.

By the late 1890s the paper had been re-named "The Marvel", though still cost a halfpenny. In 1904 the paper was re-launched (with a new issue 1) as a one-penny paper, still named "The Marvel".