Richly comic

COMICS were condemned as “trash” and banned from the house when I was a boy. I should be reading something far more educational, my parents decreed. That did not, of course, stop me sneaking a look at friends’ copies to follow the adventures of Dan Dare (“pilot of the future”) in The Eagle, Dennis the Menace in The Beano and Desperate Dan in The Dandy.

People who kept hold of their twopenny comics are still laughing today – because values, especially of those from the ’30s to the ’50s in pristine condition – have risen dramatically. A mint copy of The Dandy’s first edition, on December 4, 1937, complete surviving free gift of an Express Whistler, sold for a record £20,350 in 2004, while the first Beano, published on July 30, 1938, with Big Eggo the Ostrich on the front cover, made £12,100.

The Dandy and The Beano arrived just in time – because paper shortages meant no new comics were launched during the war and of those already on the market, most were recycled to aid the war effort. Both comics appeared fortnightly instead of weekly and a third D C Thomson publication, The Magic Comic, launched in July 1939, closed.

The ’20s and ’30s had seen the birth of D C Thomson’s “big five” - Adventure, The Hotspur, The Rover, The Skipper and The Wizard, but The Dandy and The Beano were the first mainstream British comics as we know them today. I wonder how many of these ’50s and ’60s launches that readers can recall.... Eagle, Swift and, if you’re Scottish, Oor Wullie? Very probably. Robin, Girl, Bunty and Jackie? Perhaps. Jack and Jill, The Hornet, Smash, The Topper, The Beezer, Sparky, Valiant, Victor, Wham!, Lion, Smash, TV Century 21, Lady Penelope, Whizzer and Chips and Mandy? I doubt even the most avid comic-lover can recall more than a few.

Nevertheless, many early copies of these comics are worth decent money and Malcolm Phillips has seen prices rising since he launched Comic Book Auctions 20 years ago, with ’60s comics, particularly, growing in popularity recently. His latest catalogue includes Lady Penelope No.1 (after the Thunderbirds character, 1966), guide price £60 to £80; several early ’60s Commando war comics, including the first copy (£300 - £350); the first edition of Lion in 1952, complete with free gift (£80 - £100); the inaugural edition of TV Century 21 in 1965 with free gift (£200 - £250); and a 1944 propaganda war isue of The Beano (£70 - £90). Annuals include Eagle volume 1 from 1950 (£400 - £450) and the 1946 edition of Knockout (£90 - £120). Says Mr Phillips: “People are nostalgic about the comics of their youth. The rarer the edition and the better the condition, the higher its worth. If it comes with the original free gift, all the better.”