Uncle Pete and Gypsy Rose

[RuthB]

Hi everyone!

Would anybody be able to help me with this conundrum? I would like to know for what magazine was Uncle Pete strange stories created and more or less what years he first appear in the publications? It has to be prior to 1970 surely since in Spain it started appearing from then on... it was very popular in the girl's Spanish publications in the 70s and 80s...
I thought it would have been in some type of publication such as Tammy but is not that old, so it had to be maybe in June?

Also Gypsy Rose. There were a coupe of Gypsy Rose stories reprinted in Spain but most of them were published under Uncle Pete's anyway, erasing the Gypsy and putting Pete in her place...

Any info? Thanks!

[RuthB]

oook. I have seen it appears for the first time in Jinty in november 1977. Can't find any reference to uncle pete debut, though

[Tammyfan]

Uncle Pete is actually reprints from The Strangest Stories Ever Told as brought to you by The Storyteller. The Storyteller was renamed Uncle Pete for the Jinty annuals. The Storyteller ran in School Friend, June and Tammy. I don't know when he first started, but he ran from the 1960s at least and did not stop until 1982. Some of his stories were still reprinted, but he himself was removed and replaced with text. A lot of Storyteller stories were also recycled in Gypsy Rose, replacing The Storyteller with Gypsy Rose.

[RuthB]

Thanks Tammyfan!

In Spain it was the oposite: Uncle Pete started there in the magazine Lily in 1970 and was called Uncle Arthur (the whole stories were called The Extraordinary Tales of Uncle Arthur". Gypsy Rose as such appeared in a couple of magazines but her stories actually got converter into the Extraordinary Taes of Uncle Arthur replacing her for the man with the pipe.

[Tammyfan]

Thanks Tammyfan!

In Spain it was the oposite: Uncle Pete started there in the magazine Lily in 1970 and was called Uncle Arthur (the whole stories were called The Extraordinary Tales of Uncle Arthur". Gypsy Rose as such appeared in a couple of magazines but her stories actually got converter into the Extraordinary Taes of Uncle Arthur replacing her for the man with the pipe.

Yes, I was surprised to read that.

[Kashgar]

The Storyteller first pulled up his chair in the first combined issue of 'June & School Friend' dated Jan 30th 1965. A delightful series by and large.

[RuthB]

thanks very much!

[Tammyfan]

The Storyteller first pulled up his chair in the first combined issue of 'June & School Friend' dated Jan 30th 1965. A delightful series by and large.

Thank you for that, I wondered when he first started. So he ran from 1965 to 1982 - that's 17 years!

[Kashgar]

'The Strangest Stories Ever Told' was one of those compendium strips not only in the a different, self-contained, story every week sense but also in the way that so many artists worked on it. For example it could be Mike Hubbard one week and then Robert MacGillivray the next followed by, say, Dudley Wynn with even George Heath, one of the AP's star adventure strip artists from the 1940's and 1950's pitching in on occasion. This meant that the strip did have a certain uneveness artwise as some artists were much better at evoking the mood that the stories often relied upon than others.
Still, a very interesting series nonetheless.

[Tammyfan]

Does anyone have the first Storyteller story from June and School Friend 30 January 1965 please?

Thank you for any help.

[DavidKW]

I do - but I don't have technology/know-how to upload & photo it. But I can describe it:

It is about a banker called Eric Jones who is poorly paid and sends what he can afford to his poor mother in Yorkshire. He's behind on the rent and racing eviction. One day at the bank he sees a bank box full of money and so desperate he plans to steal it. He makes a copy of the bank's key and enters bank - but lights switch on by themselves - and a portrait of the banking founder looks sternly at him, then points a finger. The alarm goes off & Eric flees, feeling guilty. The next morning Eric receives money from an Uncle in Australia; then at the bank everyone is in a jovial mood - a mouse got caught in the electrics which triggered the alarm. Eric sees the portrait now smiling at him. The storyteller then reveals Eric kept the mouse as a pet and went on to be manager of the bank...see you next week.

[DavidKW]

Incidentally, there's a couple of things I've always been curious about in "The Strangest Stories":

Did it run/begin in Girls' Crystal or School friend originally? I have seen some stories in Girls Crystal annuals - and probably reprints as the drawing style looks very early 1960s.

I have the final June annual for 1982: Are these ones reprints of stories originally in Tammy? It's just that I noticed one story shows a front of a Morris Marina which I think didn't come in until 1975 (I used to be a total car nut long ago), which by then June had folded the previous year, but The Strangest Stories continued (with new stories).

[Tammyfan]

Incidentally, there's a couple of things I've always been curious about in "The Strangest Stories":

Did it run/begin in Girls' Crystal or School friend originally? I have seen some stories in Girls Crystal annuals - and probably reprints as the drawing style looks very early 1960s.

I have the final June annual for 1982: Are these ones reprints of stories originally in Tammy? It's just that I noticed one story shows a front of a Morris Marina which I think didn't come in until 1975 (I used to be a total car nut long ago), which by then June had folded the previous year, but The Strangest Stories continued (with new stories).

Yes, I've seen Strange Stories in School Friend annual and wondered if he appeared in School Friend.

[Tammyfan]

I do - but I don't have technology/know-how to upload & photo it. But I can describe it:

It is about a banker called Eric Jones who is poorly paid and sends what he can afford to his poor mother in Yorkshire. He's behind on the rent and racing eviction. One day at the bank he sees a bank box full of money and so desperate he plans to steal it. He makes a copy of the bank's key and enters bank - but lights switch on by themselves - and a portrait of the banking founder looks sternly at him, then points a finger. The alarm goes off & Eric flees, feeling guilty. The next morning Eric receives money from an Uncle in Australia; then at the bank everyone is in a jovial mood - a mouse got caught in the electrics which triggered the alarm. Eric sees the portrait now smiling at him. The storyteller then reveals Eric kept the mouse as a pet and went on to be manager of the bank...see you next week.

Thank you!