From The Penny Dreadful To The Ha'penny Dreadfuller

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Phoenix
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Posts: 5360
Joined: 27 Mar 2008, 21:15

From The Penny Dreadful To The Ha'penny Dreadfuller

Post by Phoenix »

I'll start this thread off with just a few comments because the book only arrived this morning, and I have barely had time to do much more than skim through it just to get my bearings, although I have read the author's survey of DC Thomsons' output.

It is certainly an impressive tome, even if we only judge it by its weight. It has 576 pages, essentially comprising a 46-page Introduction, 16 unnumbered pages of coloured covers, and 418 pages of analytical text with a decent number of black and white illustrations within that text. The remaining 110 pages are given over to an annotated Alphabetical Checklist of Boys' Periodicals (1762-1950), a Chronology of Boys' Periodicals, indicating the years of first and final issues of the titles in the Alphabetical Checklist, a Checklist of Juvenile Periodicals [i.e. for boys and girls] (1751-1900) in chronological order, a Bibliography, which includes University dissertations, amateur magazines and websites (Lew Stringer's Blimey! is mentioned), an Index of Titles and an Index of Names.

The only possible mistake I've found so far is the naming of Dixon Hawke's assistant Tommy Burke as Tony Burke. He was certainly Tommy from the first issue of Adventure, but as the pair had had an earlier existence in the Saturday Post from 1912, and the Dixon Hawke Library from 1919, I suppose it is possible that he was originally called Tony, but had his name changed to Tommy before the busy pair appeared in Adventure. I challenge his assertion that the amalgamated Rover and Adventure was a comic, a term he uses for picture papers like The Victor and The Hornet. Text serials comprised the bulk of its content throughout its run. One small but definite mistake relates to his statement that when The Red Arrow bit the dust, unfinished serials were continued in Adventure. There was actually only one, Zorro The Slink. My main criticism though, which I'm sure many other members will agree with, is that just over 6 pages devoted to Thomsons' output as far as 1950, out of a total of 418, cannot possibly do it justice.

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