TV Comic

TV Comic was a British comic book published weekly between November 9 1951 and June 22 1984 for 1696 issues. With its bright eye-catching covers it featured stories based on television shows running at the time of publication. It is notable for printing "Doctor Who" stories from 1964 to 1979 (except for 1971 to 1973 when he was in "Countdown/TV Action"). It also featured strip cartoons for the first three Gerry Anderson TV shows; Four Feather Falls, Supercar and Fireball XL5. Each issue also featured a page of readers' letters and photographs.

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.

Originally started by Beaverbrook, TV Comic was eventually published by Polystyle for much of its run. Editors included Dick Millington (who also edited Pippin and created Mighty Moth), Robin Tucheck and John Lynott. Artists included Bill Titcombe, John Canning, Neville Main, H Watts, Gerry Haylock and Steve Maher.

TV shows featured

*Adam Adamant
*Animal Magic
*The Avengers
*Barney Bear
*Basil Brush
*Battle of the Planets
*Beep Beep the Road Runner
*Bob Monkhouse's Mad Movies featuring the Keystone Kops
*Bootsie and Snudge
*Bugs Bunny
*The Dickie Henderson Family
*Dad's Army
*Doctor Who
*Fireball XL5
*The Flaxton Boys
*Foo Foo and GoGo
*Four Feather Falls
*How?
*Ken Dodd's Diddymen
*Laurel and Hardy
*Lenny the Lion
*The Milky Bar Kid
*Muffin the Mule
*Orlando
*The Pink Panther Show
*Popeye
*Skippy the Bush Kangaroo
*Sooty
*Space Patrol
*Supercar
*Tales of the Gold Monkey
*Tarzan
*The Telegoons
*Tom and Jerry

Non-TV shows featured

*Arthur!
*The Bakers' Dozen
*Beetle Bailey
*Coco the Clown
*Mighty Moth
*TV Terrors - Cuthbert, Buttons and Monica, and their nemesis Hoppit
*Texas Ted
*The Incredible Bulk

Changing format

From the start, TV Comic featured a mixture of colour and black-and-white pages, and this continued throughout its run. In common with other British children's comics, it absorbed other less successful titles during its run, including TV Land and TV Express in 1962, TV Action (formerly Countdown) in 1973, Tom and Jerry Weekly in 1974 (Tom and Jerry already featured in TV Comic) and the short-lived Target in 1978.

TV Comic had quite a tempestuous history towards the end of its life. In 1976 it was relaunched as "Mighty TV Comic" (issue 1292), switching to a large tabloid format. Although the pages were larger, the content did not increase, with the frames of many strips just blown up larger. The first few issues were accompanied by a smaller "Mighty Midget" supplement. Presumably this didn't achieve the sales increases hoped for, as two years later the comic reverted to an A4 format (issue 1377), on cheap newsprint. Although the paper quality eventually improved, the comic came to rely heavily on reprints of older material, or using scripts from old strips with new characters. It finally closed, after 32 years, in 1984 due to falling sales.

ee also

*John and Gillian (Doctor Who)

External links

* [http://www.comicbookdb.com/title.php?ID=592 Comic Book DB - TV Comic (1951)]
* [http://www.tonystrading.co.uk/galleries/annuals/tvcomic.htm TV Comic annuals]
* [http://www.26pigs.com/tvcomic/ Memories of TV Comic]
* [http://www.drwhoguide.com/tvcomic1.htm TV Comic Strips - First Doctor]
* [http://www.drwhoguide.com/tvcomic2.htm TV Comic Strips - Second Doctor]
* [http://www.drwhoguide.com/tvcomic3.htm TV Comic Strips - Third Doctor]
* [http://www.drwhoguide.com/tvcomic4.htm TV Comic Strips - Fourth Doctor]
* [http://homepage.mac.com/mmtz/stcomix/uktosreprintspoly.html Star Trek Gold Key reprints]
* [http://www.goldmonkey.com/tvcomic/ Tales of the Gold Monkey - TV Comic]
* [http://wingedavenger.theavengers.tv/comics/tvcomic.htm TV Comic guide - The Avengers]
* [http://telegoons.org/bill_titcombe.htm Examples of Bill Titcombe's work in TV Comic]
* [http://lambiek.net/artists/m/millington_dick.htm Dick Millington]
* [http://homepages.tesco.net/~space.patrol/SpacePatrol/TVComic1.htm Space Patrol in TV Comic]
* [http://www.technodelic.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Upload01/4FeatherFalls1.htm Four Feather Falls in TV Comic]
* [http://www.technodelic.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Upload01/FireballXL5Pt01.htm Fireball XL5 in TV Comic]
* [http://www.technodelic.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Upload01/Supercar01.htm Supercar in TV Comic]