By the 1960’s the superhero fad had well and truly reached the shores of the UK propelled in no small way by the success of the Batman television show in 1966. Although American comics had long been established in the UK the success of the Batman TV show resulted in an obsession in these costumed characters that was fueled in no small part by an increase in the number of new US superhero comic books and US strips being reprinted in UK comics. Along with these new comics came other merchandise such as colouring books, toy cars, models and trading cards. Out of all these items my favourites were the DC Comic Book Foldees trading cards by Topps.
DC Foldees were bubble gum cards about 2 ½ x 4 inches (approx. 6.5 x10 cm) with three perforated panels that could be folded over with a picture of a DC super-hero on one side, and a humorous generic character (an animal, woman, old man etc) on the reverse that could be folded over, in various combinations, to produce funny pictures. Looking at these cards today they are tame but in 1966/7 this 6-year-old thought they were borderline hysterical. There were 44 cards in this set with art by Wally Wood. Although Superman and Batman featured most prominently on these cards they also featured other characters including the Elongated man, Saturn Girl, Green Lantern, Jimmy Olsen, the Flash, the Golden age Flash, The Joker, Riddler, Green Arrow, Bizarro, and the Spectre.
I first encountered the DC Foldees on a trip to the ice cream van to pick up my Friday treat. I was usually given around 1 shilling (5p) by my parents to buy sweets for myself. On this particular day (it would have been summer 1966/67) as I reached up on my tip toes to place my order at the ice cream van serving hatch I spied in the corner of the window a brightly coloured yellow box with picture of characters I recognised (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman etc.) . I immediately knew I had to have one of these, I can’t recall the price ( it was probably around 3d / 1 ½ p) or the card I bought but within a few weeks these were collected and traded by all my friends (and my brother) so I had lots of these cards in no time at all. On the downside, like all trading cards at this time the chewing gum was a thin pinky / red rectangle that was usually brittle, tasted awful, and was almost always immediately binned.
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Used to have loads of them back in the day, but have only one now, given to me by Grant Morrison at a comic mart a good number of years ago. I hated the accompanying 'confectionery' with a passion - never tasted it or even tried eating it, but it repulsed me so it was binned faster than a fart from The Flash. The 'lumbers' I passed on because the bint was eating it were many.
ReplyDeleteThe gum was indeed terrible but I can't say I had any interest in kissing girls when I was six or seven myself Kid. Saying that I had my first kiss ( well peck on the lips) at that age and was horrified as my brother said my teeth would fall out. I remember girls were into things like scraps back then but if they were into cards or comics when I was perhaps eleven upwards I would have braved a bubblegum flavoured kiss from them lol
ReplyDeleteOh, I wasn't kissing girls either when I was that age, McS, but I've hated the stuff all my life and was referring to when I was a late teenager and girls were throwing themselves at me. (Or did I hallucinate that bit?)
DeleteAh, the Foldees. Until recently I thought that these only existed in a faulty part of my memory. Like you, I thought they were hilarious, although I was also disappointed that Batman cards were no longer being produced after 5 series and would have liked to have seen a further set of paintings by Norm Saunders after the "Blue Bat" set. Did Topps distribute them in the UK instead of A&BC?
ReplyDeleteRe the pink gum...I never liked the taste and I was naff at blowing bubbles. However, if I'd stored all of those flat bits of gum, I could probably make a fortune selling them individually to collectors on eBay.
It's probably my memory playing tricks, but did the Foldees also come with a superhero water-transfer tattoo? Or were the tattoos with something else?
As A&BC had a licensing agreement with Topps to print their cards in the UK ( including the highly successful Beatles series) I’m sure it was only the A&BC series that we got here in the UK . I don’t think the Foldees came with a tattoo although like yourself I do recall there being superhero a water based tattoo gum card sets (or “dabbaties” as we called them) where the superhero tattoo was contained within the actual wrapper itself so you could rip your tattoo if you weren’t careful opening it up. I also have a vague memory of there being a set of cards or stickers from the late 1960s or early 1970s that showed the covers of comics but no one I have spoken to recalls these and I can't see any mention of them on the internet . ☹
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