Comics UK - Buster

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First Issue

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Buster was introduced to us on the 28th May 1960. It was the first 'new' comic published by Fleetway since it took over the business reigns of Amalgamated Press at the end of 1959. It was produced as an answer to D.C.Thomson's Topper comic, even down to it's large size (1" shorter though). The current crop of Fleetway 'funnies' at the time were Knockout, Film Fun and Radio Fun. These were up against Thomson's Dandy, Beano, Beezer and Topper. Also the TV Comic was gaining in popularity.

Buster is generally thought of as a humour comic, and indeed, towards the end of its life it was wholeheartedly a humour comic. But in those early days it was arguably a boys adventure comic with humour stories thrown in for light relief. As a quick look at a Buster from 1962 reveals, of its 16 large pages, 10 were adventure stories, 4 were humour and two were full page adverts. However, Buster was the name of the main character, as well as being the comics title, and he was always of the front page. This may have given rise to the misconseption that Buster was a humour comic. As time passed, Buster (the character) became the most recognised character of the comic. Of course, that's to take nothing away from the many successful stories which appeared over the years like The Shrinker (later to appear in Valiant), Charlie Peace, Toys Of Doom, Bonehead, Faceache, Dinah Mite, Elmer and the very popular Maxwell Hawke. Buster himself, was originally billed as the 'Son Of Andy Capp', and a quick look at the two of them side by side, makes it easy to see why this was so. However, this billing was soon dropped and when Hugh McNeill took over the Buster strip from Nadal in 1961, Buster became the character that we know and love.

Buster was involved in a record breaking '12' incorporations of other comic titles, as it made its way to being the last of the old Fleetway comics to get cancelled (remember, 2000AD started with IPC). I often wondered how long it would have lasted if it wasn't for all these mergers.

On the 25th February 1961, after just 8 months, Buster incorporated it's first comic. The very long established Radio Fun, which was born in 1938, had finally succumbed to external challenges. Radio was losing popularity and TV was hot. Even the style of the comic was considered passe. But this was no great shame. Radio Fun had left its mark in comic history, and time simply marches on.

Seventeen months later, on the 15th September 1962, and after a very impressive run of 42 years, that other great Amalgamated Press media comic, Film Fun, teamed up with Buster. Film Fun seemed to lose a lot of its appeal after it dropped the Laurel & Hardy strip, following the death of Oliver Norville in 1957. Film Fun brought with it, Bruce Forsyth and Nick Shannon.

My personal collection jumps from 1962 to 1965, and the difference in production quality becomes apparent. The 1965 copy, now called Buster And The Big One, shows a reduction in length by 1.25" and more importantly, a reduction in the number of coloured pages from 4 to just 1. This being the front cover with Buster's Diary on it. Humour stories were now starting to take prominence over adventure strips, with 13 to 9 pages. Also, during 1965, D.C.Thomson had released another humour comic in the shape of Sparky, while Fleetway's offerings of Film Fun & Radio Fun had already been absorbed by Buster, and Knockout had been incorporated into Valiant back in 1963. The humour comic section for Fleetway was looking decidedly shaky and really, it remained that way until the International Publishing Corporation (IPC) bought out Fleetway in 1969. Which is when Whizzer And Chips and co. were let loose.

In 1966, the adventure stories re-asserted themselves, and started to outnumber their humour counterparts by 17 pages to 16. By now, the comic size had reduced in length by another inch, but it still had that one colour page. Among the adventure stories running at the time were Champion The Wonder Horse (3 pages), Toys Of Doom (2 pages) Charlie Peace - the lovable rogue (3 pages), the Skid Kids - race driver story (2 pages) and Maxwell Hawke (2 pages). Buster's Diary was still going strong, James Pond (Agent 008½) was sort of solving crimes and the gentile Dinah Mite was being as helpful as ever. Whacko, Charlie Drake and Benny Hill from the old Radio fun days were still in full flight. The jokes section could be quite rewarding. If you were fortunate enough to get your joke printed, you would receive £2. Remember, this was the early 1960's. However, by 1968, when the comic was called Buster And Giggle, prizes were just 10/- for each joke published (that's 50p for you 'new' people) and £1 for the Joke Of The Week. It stayed that way for years.

Over the next two and half years, Pete's Pocket Army and Leo Baxendale's Nellyphant started. Drifter Long was a football story about a very superstitious fourth division (remember that?!?) player with a tremendous shot. October 1971 saw the incorporation of the Jet comic which actually encompassed more Jet stories than Buster ones. One of these was Ken Reid's ever popular Face-Ache. 1973 even saw some reprints. Bluebottle And Basher, Blarney Bluffer and Nits Of The Round Table. It was time for an amalgamation, and on 22nd June 1974 Cor!! was absorbed by Buster (that's 6). Cor!! brought with it six replacement stories (all humour) and a pull out section called Cor-Mic, which had reprints of six pages of Charlie Peace stories. The humour-adventure ratio was now 14-13 to humour. Ivor Lott And Tony Broke, Chalky and Val's Vanishing Cream all came over from Cor!! and were destined to go on for many years. There were no Buster's of any kind between 6th July 1974 and 3rd August 1974 (inclusive), due to industrial action. Remember, the early 1970's was infamous for all its picket lines and strikes?

By 1975, Buster had a very good mix of both adventure and humour stories which included the very well drawn two page adventure strip, Marney The Fox. There was also Tomboy and Snooper. There was a 'Spot Snooper' competition, where he was hidden within the pages of Buster every week, and you had to spot him and write on a postcard the page numbers he was on. The winner got £1!

In 1976, Buster absorbed it's seventh comic. After just 72 issues, Monster Fun, that ghoulish comic in the mode of Shiver And Shake, had time called on it. It was a bit of a surprise really, because I thought Monster Fun was a good enough comic to survive on its own. But alas, it wasn't to be, so Gums (the toothless shark), Mummy's Boy, X-Ray Specs and Kid Kong all joined the Buster regulars. By 1978, there were 16 humour and 10 adventure pages and by 1980 this had changed to 22-5 in favour or the humour strips. A good strip at this time was All Humans Tall And Small, which had animals as the rulers and humans as the pets. All very chuckley. Ivor Lott And Tony Broke had two pages now as did S.O.S. Squad the detective agency run by children for children. The jokes page took over the still black and white centre pages, and there was a two page humour story called Faulty Towers - The Oldest School In The Land, where the boys actually loved the old school and were always fighting off council developers who wanted to demolish it. Leo Baxendale's Clever Dick had also reappeared again. I can only assume this was a reprint.

On the 6th February 1982, it was time for another merger, the 8th. This time it was the turn of Jackpot. Jackpot had been going since May 1979 and had lasted for 141 issues, it was no slouch. But now we had entered the 1980's. A time when comic reading was on the wane. Early video games were on the market as were early computers like the Spectrum, Vic, Dragon and Atari. The stories were just as good as ever and would have more than held their own back in the 70's, but now the readership just wasn't there. Jackpot brought with it The Winners, who won nearly every competition they entered, in a roundabout way. Kid King was along the lines of Lord Snooty. He was a young ruler who enjoyed sneaking out of his palace, away from his bodyguard, to play with his working class chums. By now, Buster had just one adventure story in it, Leopard Of Lime Street, the rest were all humour, including Big Daddy (who was Shirley Crabtree the wrestler). It was a bit like the old days, when there was a story about a real life person in it. The comic could also boast of centre and back pages which had the colour red added to its strips. But all in all, this was the start of the downward spiral. Not just for Buster, but for all comics in general, including D.C.Thomson's publications. In 1984, School Fun joined Buster and in 1987 Nipper became Buster's tenth acquisition. By now, many of the IPC strips, in all of it's comics were reprints. Oink, that really quite wacky comic, was merged with Buster after a 2 and a half year solo run, in November 1988. And finally, on 3rd November 1990, that great stalwart, Whizzer And Chips, joined Buster after 21 years on its own.

Buster still went on as a weekly until January 1995, when it became a fortnightly publication. The format had completely changed during this period. All its pages were now in glorious colour, but the stories were hugely, if not totally, reprints. Of course, these old reprints did have to be coloured in, so I assume there were still some artists working at IPC.

My collection goes up to November 1998 and Buster was still a 32 page colour, fortnightly comic with all humour stories in it. These included good old Buster, Tom Thug, X-Ray Specs, Fuss Pot (wow, blast from the past), Odd-Ball, Joker (from the 2nd series of Knockout fame), Bumpkin Billionaires (now they were good), Sweet-Tooth, Chalky, Sweeny Toodler and even Sid's Snake. During 1994, possibly earlier, Buster teamed up with Funny and became a seperate publication called The Best Of Buster And Funny Monthly. which was basically even more reprints from the Buster archives. Finally, just as we entered the 21st century, Buster breathed it's last. With no more comics to merge with, the fortnightly issue dated 22nd December 1999 - 4th January 2000, was its last and the artist Jack Edward Oliver went to town on the very last page. Sweet Tooth's tooth went bad, the Joker was really Jeremy Beadle, Lazy Bones suffered from insomnia and Buster took off his cap to reveal that he was a Dennis The Menace look-a-like. Look in the Covers section to see the very last cover of this excellent comic. A very, very noteworthy chapter in comic history had closed.

Matt Bowen's Buster Fan Site

					First Issue:	28th May 1960
					Last Issue:	4th January 2000
					Copyright:	Fleetway/IPC
					Genre:	Humour (previously Adventure and Humour)
					Incorporated Titles:	Radio Fun (25/2/1961) Film Fun (15/9/1962) The Big One (27/2/1965) Giggle (20/1/1968) Jet (2/10/1971) Cor (22/6/1974) Monster Fun (6/11/1976) Jackpot (6/2/1982) School Fun (2/6/1984) Nipper (19/9/1987) Oink (29/10/1988) Whizzer And Chips (3/11/1990)
					Incorporated By: