Broons/Oor Wullie albums - what next?

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stevezodiac
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Broons/Oor Wullie albums - what next?

Post by stevezodiac »

They seem to have done everything possible with the Broons/Oor Wullie archive books-war Years, 50s, 60s etc. But in the end its just a random collection of strips. How about calling the next book The Broons/Oor Wullie Archive and reprinting every strip in chronological order year by year? It would save having to come up with new slants on how to present the books and would be the definitive history of these characters.

By the hoary hosts of hogarth what thinkest thou fellow comic fans, dost thou say thee nay? By Odin's beard etc etc...

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Re: Broons/Oor Wullie albums - what next?

Post by dandy mad »

I dont know why thomsons didnt do this when thomsons first released them back in 1996 when the broons/oor wullie celebrated their 60th birthday and why make a big thing about them being 60? The dandy and beano went to town to celebrate their half centuary but the broons and wullie didnt i think there was a mention in the sunday post but that was about it

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Re: Broons/Oor Wullie albums - what next?

Post by stevezodiac »

I think the rough look of the very first strips would make Thomson wary about publishing a whole book of them but it has to be done. One other thing, there is no numbering with the Broons/Oor Wullie strips as with Beano/Dandy. Anyone know how many episodes there have been of these characters? We have probably passed some Landmark numbers and 4000 or 5000 should be the next one. Has the Dandy reached 4000 yet?

BTW a friend reminded me that I had mixed my Dr Strange and Thor oaths together. Never mind.

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Re: Broons/Oor Wullie albums - what next?

Post by dandy mad »

Thomsons go off the the dates they appeared in the sunday post in the yearly broons/wullie compilations so i dont think they have a numbering system for them after all they were and still are newspaper strips so my estimate on how many have been published must be at least 5000 since 1936 was the sunday post fun section published fortnightly like the dandy and beano or has it had a straight run for the last 72 years?

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Re: Broons/Oor Wullie albums - what next?

Post by stevezodiac »

I don't think Newspapers were compelled to go fortnightly as they provided moral boosting propaganda and information to cheer up people at home. They have probably never missed an issue so if anyone knows the issue of the Sunday Post they first appeared in we could work it out to the nearest dozen or so. Only problem is there were a couple of Oor Wullie Summer Fun Specials in the 70s or 80s which must have had some new strips in them. But I suppose we can dismiss them from the chronology same as with Beano/Dandy Summer Specials. In the 70s I used to get my Sunday Post on Mondays as I live in London and I do remember a 25th December issue! Don't know how many times Christmas Day has fallen on a Sunday since 1936 but Post was published on that day at least once.

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Re: Broons/Oor Wullie albums - what next?

Post by colcool007 »

Oor Wullie and The Broons first appeared in the Sunday Post on 8 March 1936 and I would be loathe to say that DC Thomson's has missed a Sunday since (that's my long-winded way of saying that you're right Steve!). While I am sure that the Sunday Post has missed a few due to either New Year's Day or Christmas Day (up until the late 80's, papers were traditionally not printed on either day if that was a Sunday) falling on a Sunday, I would be loathe to say which ones have been missed.

But as a rough calculation on how many original Oor Wullie/The Broons there have been, we have 52 Sundays (on average) in a year and the Broons/Oor Wullie have now been going for 72 years, so we are looking at around 3750 Sundays since then. Now, you have to take out the re-prints from the 5 years after Watkins sadly passed away and the various times when the material has been re-used, so I would say that we are looking at around 3500 issues of the Fun Section, not to mention how many original strips have appeared in the books. With about 120 pages a book, we could easily be looking at another 1200 (with each book coming out on alternate years) or so originals, if not more.

The actual total sounds like a job for either Kashgar or DCT Central! :)
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Re: Broons/Oor Wullie albums - what next?

Post by Kashgar »

I think we've been over this ground before or something very like it. Still, give me a few days and I'll try to come up with something like a definitive list of how many Broons and Oor Wullie strips there have been since Mar 8th 1936. i.e how many issues of the Sunday Post there have been (The Broons and Oor Wullie have missed only one issue since 1936) minus all those issues which contained reprints of Watkins strips in the 1969-1974 period and plus all those new strips that appeared in the Summer Specials. It probably won't be totally exact but it should give us a fair ball park figure.
BTW Col the books only contain reprinted material so there is nothing in them that will add to the final total.

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Re: Broons/Oor Wullie albums - what next?

Post by Kashgar »

It was in the Sunday Post numbered No 1593 (8/3/36) that the Fun Section first appeared and this weeks issue, dated 12th Oct 2008, was No 5374. Subtract 1592 from 5374 and you get 3782 which is the number of issues that have been published since the Fun Section first appeared. Then subtract from this 1 to account for the one week that the Fun Section failed to appear and you have both the Broons and Oor Wullie having appeared in the Sunday Post for a total of 3781 weeks.
When it comes to original strip appearances in the Sunday Post in both cases you have to subract those reprint strips that appeared in the Fun Section after Watkins' death in the years 1969-1974. In the Broons case this means deducting 266 from the overall total giving you final total of 3515 Broons strips having appeared in the Sunday Post since Mar 1936, while in Oor Wullie's case the reprint figure is 264 and the final total 3517.
You can then add to these totals the number of new strips that appeared in the Oor Wullie Summer Specials (14 editions) and the single Broons Summer Special, giving a total of 3519 original strip appearances for the Broons and 3588 for Oor Wullie.
There may have been a few other strips here and there, the Broons fire safety magazine springs to mind, but nonetheless I think this is a fair ball-park figure.

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Re: Broons/Oor Wullie albums - what next?

Post by stevezodiac »

Bloomin' Ada what a great piece of research. Well done for your efforts. Is there any explanation as to why Fun section didn't appear for one week?

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Re: Broons/Oor Wullie albums - what next?

Post by dandy mad »

Who needs google when kashgar is around i take my hat off to you sir

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Re: Broons/Oor Wullie albums - what next?

Post by Kashgar »

stevezodiac wrote:Bloomin' Ada what a great piece of research. Well done for your efforts. Is there any explanation as to why Fun section didn't appear for one week?
Thanks for the kind words guys, much appreciated. The week that the Fun Section failed to appear was in the Sunday Post dated 10th Sept 1939, the first week of WWII. As Thomsons wanted the Broons and Oor Wullie to immediately reflect the countries response to the war they decided to shelve the peace-time strips that Watkins had already prepared and get him to draw strips with reference to the immediate effects that the declaration of war had had on the country instead. This took the extra week to put into effect.

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Re: Broons/Oor Wullie albums - what next?

Post by colcool007 »

Kashgar wrote:
stevezodiac wrote:Bloomin' Ada what a great piece of research. Well done for your efforts. Is there any explanation as to why Fun section didn't appear for one week?
Thanks for the kind words guys, much appreciated. The week that the Fun Section failed to appear was in the Sunday Post dated 10th Sept 1939, the first week of WWII. As Thomsons wanted the Broons and Oor Wullie to immediately reflect the countries response to the war they decided to shelve the peace-time strips that Watkins had already prepared and get him to draw strips with reference to the immediate effects that the declaration of war had had on the country instead. This took the extra week to put into effect.
Now that is a great little nugget of information to have. As said before, who needs Google! :D
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