Boy's World - Unclassified

[Kashgar]

A few note towards an index of a most interesting paper.
Boy's World ran to 89 weekly issues spread over two volumes with the numbering for its run as follows Vol 1 Nos 1-49 (Jan-Dec 1963) and Vol 2
Nos 1-40 (Jan-Oct 1964)
During its run its main picture strip content featured the continuing adventures of seven main characters. These appeared as follows
Pike Mason ( sea adventurer) in
The Sea Ape 1-24
The Curse of Zentaca 25-46
The Monster of Duncrana 47-21
The artist responsible for this strip was Luis Bermejo.
John Brody (scientific investigator) in
What is Exhibit X ? 1-23
The House on Scar Island 24-44
The Fire Creatures 45-12
The Invisible Man 13-17
The Green Men 18-40
Series 1 art Colin Andrew 2-4 Brian Lewis 5 Frank Langford
Arion (ancient Greek adventurer) in
The Wrath of the Gods (This strip title is a constant throughout the 89 issue run although there are 4 individual story strands embedded within it)
The Bow of Delos 1-23 - art Ron Embleton
The Chalice of Apollo 24-45 - John Burns
The Weapons of Ajax - 46-31 - John Burns
The Future-Stone - 31-40 - John Burns
The Boys of Castleford School (this school featured in two seperate tales in the papers first 23 issues 'The Secret of the Tower' (1-17) and 'The Phantom Rider' (18-23) both drawn by Eric Kincaid and then morphed into 'Billy Binns and his Wonderful Specs' for the papers remaining 66 issues with artwork by Bill Mainwaring.
The Iron Man (Four seperate series under this title)
24-34 - art Gerry Embleton, 35-49, 1-28, 29-40 art for last three series Martin Salvador.
Merlo the Magician ( again four series but this time with individual titles)
Men without Faces 24-43
The Army of Crime 44-17
Danger in the Desert 18-27
Operation Rescue 28-40
Art for all four series by Garcia Pizarro
Brett Million ( space adventurer from 5000 AD) in
The Angry Planet 24-45 art Frank Bellamy
The Ghost World 46-17 art Frank Langford
Apart from these strips featuring running characters only two other adventure strips were featured in the paper
Raff Regan (WWII pilot) Vol 2 18-40
What is my Name? Vol 2 22-40
In Oct 1964 Boy's World was merged with Eagle and Wrath of the Gods, Raff regan, Iron Man and Billy Binns were the strips to make the crossover.
A Boy's World annual was published 1964-1972
Of interest to comic fans and fans of Leo Baxendale in particular, and as Phil Shrimpton has mentioned elsewhere on this forum already, Leo's first published work for Odhams appeared in the pages of Boy's World when in issue No4 Vol 2 (25/1/64) he did a tabloid two page 'Boys' World Birthday Party' scene.
Done this in a bit of a rush so apologies for any errors which I'll check out and correct later if I find any.

[Raven]

Thanks for this - what a helpful guide. Very nice of you to list all those. And what a pity the title is so obscure that we're unlikely to ever be seeing any 'Best of Boys World' collections. It sounds like a lot of fun.

[colcool007]

Some Billy Binns was reprinted in Tiger Annual if I remember rightly. The football cover that featured Billy Dane. I willl need to check the Annual section to make sure I say the right year. Picked up a 1969 Boy's World Annual a few years ago and it wasn't too shabby in condition or content.

[Kashgar]

Apologies to Phil Rushton for going to the bother of trying to give him a name check and then getting him mixed up with the lad who runs the Beano and Dandy Collector's Club Phil Shrimpton. Sorry Phil R. Thanks also to Phil Rushton for pointing out that the artists I have listed for the two Brett Million series are the wrong way around and that the early episodes of the John Brody series 'The Green Men' were drawn by Luis Bermejo before Frank Langford took over.

[philcom55]

No problem Kash! For anyone who's interested, some memorable moments from the Boys' World archive - including a detail from just one page of Leo Baxendale's giant two-page celebration of BW's first (and only) Birthday Party:

[img800]http://uk.geocities.com/philcom55/wotga.jpg[/img]
[img:588:774]http://uk.geocities.com/philcom55/brett.jpg[/img]
[img:530:800]http://uk.geocities.com/philcom55/bwbirth.jpg[/img]

- Phil Rushton

[Peter Gray]

loved that....

he he he!! loved to see the other half of Leo boys party.... yours pretty please and a cherry on top...thanks

[colcool007]

No problem Kash! For anyone who's interested, some memorable moments from the Boys' World archive - including a detail from just one page of Leo Baxendale's giant two-page celebration of BW's first (and only) Birthday Party:

[img800]http://uk.geocities.com/philcom55/wotga.jpg[/img]

- Phil Rushton

Now's that what I call fantastic art.