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Friday, December 17, 2021

Beat of British: Snow covered logos and frozen milk bottles

As a child of the 60’s/70’s there were many signs that Christmas was on its way - Milk bottles would freeze on the doorstep, Blue Peter showed you how to make a Christmas candle decoration out of a coat hanger and tinsel (that had a 50% chance of burning your house down), strange aftershave adverts started to appear on TV showing wimpy men fending off the amorous attack of buxom women, and you started to make miles of Christmas chain decorations at school out of coloured paper. But it was the arrival of the weekly comics sporting festive and snow covered logos that always remind me of my earliest childhood Christmas days. Below is a selaction of some of my favouite British Christmas comic covers.
This 1960 Beezer is before my time but I picked this one up a few years ago just for the excellent cover by the great Tom Bannister.
I would have to admit that "Giggle" was not a great comic. I only added this cover as "Giggle" is not a well known UK comic and it may be of interest to others. From memory only one character "Captain Swoop" (half man, half bird, half wit) moved to the Buster when the two comics merged.
It's hard to believe that this issue of WHAM! from December 1964 is nearly 60 year old. The cover by Graham Allen is one of my favourites just for the sleigh -full of of Wham!" characters on the masthead. I always loved these little touches that the artists used to add back in the day.

3 comments:

  1. Great covers, McS. The Beano's cover hasn't looked as good as any of those you have here in a long time. Speaking of Giggle - I have a publisher's bound volume of the complete run, which an IPC editor gave me back around the mid-'80s. I don't think I was aware of Giggle when it was first released, but I remember buying a single issue from an Oxfam shop in the very early '70s.

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  2. I bought the first issue of Giggle for the free gift ( a balloon that made sounds) and recall not liking the comic at all. That Beano cover is a belter isn't it so much to see in it. My favourite though is the Buster cover love the logo section with the message and the characters faces. Great memories.

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  3. I recently watched a couple of episodes of modern Blue Peter to see if they still feature the "Advent Crown" made of wire coat-hangers, tinsel and candles - and yes, it's still a part of the Blue Peter Christmas but I didn't see anybody demonstrating how to make it.

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