The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
100 YEARS OF COMICS
issue, a delighted Harold Thomson wrote to his London office manager: “We issued 220,000 of Adventure last week and were unable to execute quite a lot of orders. This week the number is 279,000 and we are now sold out.”
The new paper was a runaway success. Adventure had 28 pages and was the standard 11in x 15in comic size. It cost 2d and came out on Tuesdays. It was filled with six or seven fiction stories, a jokes page and often a competition. Tales included The Wireless Kid and Non-Stop Ned, the dashing motorist.
Ace detective Dixon Hawke transitioned to the paper and, by mid-decade, the nowfamous comic artist Dudley D Watkins was illustrating text stories and serials for the paper. Watkins’ work for Adventure included his first regular comic strip, Percy Vere and His Trying Tricks, about an inept magician.
Come the 1950s, he completed a unique comic achievement when he drew Biffo the Bear for the front cover of Beano, Mickey the Monkey for the front of Topper, and Ginger for the front of Beezer… not to mention Oor Wullie and The Broons for the Sunday Post.
Adventure’s first issue carried the topline “Lively, Healthy and Up-to-Date” and its ripping yarns soon edged out its rivals.
While Magnet and Gem dwelled almost exclusively on school stories, Adventure lived up to its name; covering sport, war, exploration, science fiction – anything with thrills and spills. And boys, and their sisters, could not get enough of it.
Adventure is celebrated today as DC Thomson’s first boys’ comic – but before a year had passed, Rover and Wizard were launched in March and September 1922 under the guiding hands of R D “Bert” Low and Fred Tait respectively.
Robert D Low is often credited as the creative genius behind the Big Five. In 1922, however, he was still a young man who had recently joined the juvenile department.
The editorial direction came from David Couper Thomson and his nephew Harold, and it was Harold, with a journalist’s instinct that never left him, who realised that the first boys’ papers had to be different, adventurous and thrilling.
When Rover No 1 was issued in 1922 with a huge launch run of 374,517 copies, on its way to smashing Amalgamated Press’s monopoly of the boys’ market, it was Harold who could tell founding editor Low, “Remember, it is the matter in the paper that really counts”.
The first issues of Rover were printed in Glasgow, which required a special delivery of 130 tonnes of paper, carried on the SS Cremona from Gothenburg. Pages for the first issue went to press on February 7 and it appeared for sale on March 2.
Over three columns of tightly-set text, Rover introduced the working-class heroes Alf Tupper, the Tough of the Track, and the Second World War flying ace Matt Braddock.
Both Tupper and Braddock were the creations of Low’s chief sub-editor Bill Blain, whose creative antennae shaped a stream of classic characters and plots. Blain eventually led the Wizard for 20 years, during which time he also created Wilson the Wonder Athlete and the Wolf of Kabul.
By May 1922, the combined sales figure for Adventure and Rover was an astonishing 848,000 copies weekly. The new titles were a triumph for the company and thoughts quickly turned to expanding the department. Next came the Wizard, which appeared on September 23, 1922. This time the initial print
WE ISSUED 220,000 OF ADVENTURE LAST WEEK AND WERE UNABLE TO EXECUTE QUITE A LOT OF ORDERS. THIS WEEK THE NUMBER IS 279,000 AND WE ARE NOW SOLD OUT
was split – with 100,000 planned for Glasgow and the bulk, between 350,000 and 400,000, from Manchester’s four presses. Launches frequently took place in the autumn, taking advantage of darkening evenings during pretelevision days.
Wizard came out on Saturdays. This allowed the trio of titles to begin a rotation of “house” adverts to encourage boys to try Adventure on Tuesdays, the Rover on Thursdays and the Wizard at the weekend.
The new paper reached a circulation high of 467,518 in March 1950.
The Skipper, the fourth of the Big Five, arrived on September 6, 1930, edited by R D Low. The new title had few mainstream characters during its short run, but regulars included cowboy Red Rock Baxter, Napper the Scrapper and Wembley Bill, the Football Doctor.
The Harry Potter idea of invisibility was as popular then as it is today. In 1922, Rover introduced Invisible Dick, the boy who could disappear at will. With a less beguiling title, Skipper conjured up its own vanishing character in the bow-tied Puck McLean.
Skipper was discontinued after 543 issues on February 1, 1941, by which time its circulation had fallen to 160,000. Its suspension was due to paper and ink rationing, and wartime staff shortages across the second-floor titles.
Meanwhile, the Adventure’s 1000th issue appeared on December 28, 1940, by which time war restrictions had seen the paper reduced to 18 pages. As the conflict continued, it was further reduced to 14 pages and issued fortnightly. Weekly publication did not resume until April 1949.
Next from the Second Floor came one of the most famous and enduring boys’ comics of all – the Hotspur.
Launched on Fridays with an impressive run of 344,000 for its first issue on September 2 1933, Hotspur followed the by-then familiar and successful action story template; letterpress printing, 11in x 15in format, colour covers and the innocent escapism of seven or eight text stories or serials surmounted by a title and illustration.
The paper was initially filled with
school-related tales, the only one of the Big Five to do so, but gradually expanded to
include adventure, detective, science fiction and war stories, with its fair share of giant monsters, robots and extra-terrestrials.
Top characters included the superhuman runner Wilson, who had previously appeared in the Wizard, Braddock of the Bombers from the Rover, who later proved popular in Victor, and Union Jack Jackson, who subsequently battled through series after series in Warlord.
When Hotspur hit the streets in 1933, DC Thomson had 1700 staff in Dundee and major offices in Glasgow, Manchester and London.
It was printing five million newspapers and magazines every week, requiring 300,000 miles of paper annually and 600,000lbs of ink. In other words, in just 50 years it had evolved from a two-newspaper partnership run by a trio of brothers into a major UK publisher with a stable of daily, weekly and Sunday newspapers, women’s magazines and, of course, the Boys’ Big Five.
And, by the 1940s, around 2.4 million boys read the titles – two out of every three in the country.
But the tide was on the turn. Most of the boys’ papers declined in popularity after the Second World War, due in part to the growth of television, the appearance of the millionselling Eagle comic in 1950, and the falling population of young people across Britain.
The final copy of Adventure was dated January 14, 1961 and numbered 1878.
The following week it merged with Rover and became Rover & Adventure.
This title survived until October 1963, when the title reverted to Rover.
But as the boys’ papers began their slow decline, the DC Thomson “Fun Factory” – its creative and mischievous second floor unit – continued to champion children’s publishing through household name comics such as Dandy, Beano, Topper, Beezer, Sparky, Buzz, Cracker and Nutty, winning a huge new audience of youngsters.
Through their stories and the characters’ adventures, generations of children have come to realise the pleasure gained from reading, often leading to a lifetime’s love for, and interest in, the written word.