Comics UK

On my blog I posted a cover of Playhour with Sooty, and I was wondering if Sooty had a comic on his own before being merged into Playhour, or if the character was already in Playhour, how long did Sooty appear on the masthead? Any answers would be appreciated.

Sooty would've been gone from the comic by the end of 1967, as he was the cover star of the new Playland comic in January 1968.
http://www.comicvine.com/playland-1/4000-357028/
He was already gone from the cover by June 1967 due to a merger with TV Toyland.

Earlier, in 1955, he had been the cover star of TV Comic, where he deposed Muffin the Mule.
http://www.comicvine.com/tv-comic-200/4000-176248/
Perhaps he moved when TV Comic refocused to target older readers?

blaing wrote:On my blog I posted a cover of Playhour with Sooty, and I was wondering if Sooty had a comic on his own before being merged into Playhour, or if the character was already in Playhour, how long did Sooty appear on the masthead? Any answers would be appreciated.

'Sooty' first appeared in 'Playhour' in early 1960 on the cover, and stayed there until late 66 early 67, as Digi has already mentioned when 'Magic Roundabout' first appeared.
Sweep was also introduced to the title in 1965 for a while.
In respect to 'Sooty' on the masthead, that first appeared late February, early March 1966 until 'Magic Roundabout' appeared as mentioned.
Hope that helps.

Thanks for the update, Matrix and Digifiend.

I'm puzzled over the dates of the Sooty Annuals. The balloon-cover Annual was published in 1967, but there's no copyright dates on the Third and Fourth Annuals.

The first six Sooty annuals, published by the Daily Mirror from 1956/7 to 1962, were numbered rather than dated, but this sequence was dropped when Purnell took over.

The 1967 Annual was also published by the Daily Mirror; it has "DM" on the spine, "A Daily Mirror Book" on the title page, and is copyright 1967 Sooty Concessions Limited. There's no mention of Purnell. The Third annual was published by the Mirror but PRINTED by Purnell. The Fourth annual was published by the Mirror, with no mention of Purnell. I'm even more confused now! And to top it off, I'm sure my brother got the Fourth annual for his birthday in 1964. Perhaps they left the dates off so they could keep selling each book until stocks ran out?

Sorry Sue - I was going by the details given on the Comic Vine site. I still get confused about the different publishers of the 1960s, many of whom seemed to fit together like Russian Dolls. As far as I'm aware Fleetway, Longacre, Odhams and IPC were all ultimately owned by the Mirror group - though I'm not sure how Purnell was related to any of them.

Here's another couple of Sooty Annuals. The First is published by the Mirror and printed by Purnell. This copy has the inscription "Xmas 1957". No mystery there. The Fifth is published by the Mirror, and printed by Robinson. Now, this one may have been first published in the early Sixties, but it's from someone who is several years younger than me, and I'm sure it was bought in the latter part of the decade. In this part of the world, the Fourth annual is the most common.

I've got one or two Sooty Annuals somewhere, I'll see if I can dig them out. As with Andy Pandy and Pinky and Perky a number of these popular children's TV characters had surprisingly long runs of their own annuals, in addition to appearing in comics such as Robin, Playhour and TV Comic.

I like the Sooty annuals, as you've probably guessed! They try to look like the Beek-illustrated Noddy stories, but they're much more fun, something like the Hulme-Beaman Toytown books. They generally have four or five comic strips in them, too.

I've identified the main artist in the 1967 Sooty Annual as D. E. White, who also drew Pinky and Perky for Purnell. So there's the Purnell connection again, even though it's not mentioned in the annual.

Phil, if you find dated inscriptions in your Sooty annuals let me know.

I wonder if that's Doris White who drew a number of Noddy stories and ran the Link agency that comic artists such as John Burns worked for?

...Come to think of it Doris White was also associated with the character Toby who had his own comic during the 1970s.

Could be that D. White, Phil; the artist of the 1967 Sooty annual was good at the typical Beek Noddy facial expressions, though overall the art in this book isn't a close imitation of Beek.

Funnily enough I picked up a copy of the 1967/8 Pinky & Perky Annual from a boot sale this morning and I agree that the artwork is quite similar in style to Toby. I guess it would make sense that an artist who'd specialized in drawing other people's characters for years might want to create one of her own, thereby benefiting personally from any possible licensing or merchandising spin-offs. It's a shame Toby didn't become more popular as the stories were surprisingly imaginative (though perhaps slightly old-fashioned by the late 1970s).