What was inside Playhour pictures...? Playhour chat

[Peter Gray]

http://petergraycartoonsandcomics.blogs ... nside.html

Harold Hare's own comic blog post..

[matrix]

That Fred White colour work looks like two scenes in one, with the English village in the background and an almost American looking zoo filling the rest of the scene, most unusual!

In respect to 'Harold Hare' comic, if I may add some more details. The comic started off as you say fifteen inches long by just under eleven inches wide, with a white border, (as per Peters blog photo) this size lasted until about March 1960 when the white border was cropped, reducing the size to approx thirteen and a half inches long, by ten inches wide, this lasted until (I think) the 29th April 1961 when 'Walt Disney weekly' joined, reducing the size again, to thirteen inches long by nine and three quarter inches wide, this size lasted until the end of 1963, possibly until the end in 1964?

The last time it was called 'Harold Hares own paper' was 20th July 1963.

The scans below are the three different covers from 1960-1963.

[philcom55]

Though it only ran for about four and a half years Harold Hare's Own Paper featured some memorable strips, including Harold himself, Flopsy, Wendy and her Toby Jug, Mr. Toad, Katie Country Mouse, Gulliver Guinea-Pig, Dagwood Duck, Pinky & Perky, Torchy the Battery Boy. Pinocchio, the little horses, Snuggles and the Wonderful Island of Yum.

However, my personal favourite had to be the shape-changing alien Moony from the Moon - originally drawn by the Italian Antonio Lupatelli (aka 'Tony Wolf'), and then by Manchester's own John Donnelly. Unfortunately I don't have any original artwork from the actual strips but here's a nice, one-off drawing of the character by Donnelly:



...It's a matter of enduring regret to me that I didn't pump John for details of his career in British comics when I went to art college with his son during the 1970s! Sadly, I only really cared about American superhero comics at the time!

- Phil Rushton

[matrix]

That's great Phil! As I had been wondering who T.W. was, he did a nice 'Katie country mouse' in 'Jack and Jill' for a few years in the mid sixties.

[philcom55]

I think that 'TW' was Harold Tamblyn-Watts rather than Lupatelli's 'Tony Wolf' pseudonym Matrix.

[matrix]

Thanks for the correction Phil! What makes it more embarrasing is all the details are on your 'wee willie winkie' post!

[Peter Gray]

http://petergraycartoonsandcomics.blogs ... -with.html

the fruit he produces when he is a basket...are they eating his tail?

[philcom55]

Moony regularly turned into a fridge full of food, a bottle of milk or an easter egg filled with sweets - the contents of which were duly consumed by the little moonman and his friends, and like you I also wondered where these foodstuffs came from if they weren't made of reconstituted body parts. The answer seems to lie in a magical ability to defy the law of conservation of matter by creating spare mass out of thin air. This remarkable power is displayed on a grand scale in the following episode where Moony casually turns himself into a giant.



Fortunately for the Planet Earth this giant Moony only wants to help people - otherwise one could easily imagine him crushing whole armies underfoot as an unstoppable alien menace!

- Phil Rushton

[Peter Gray]

Someone has asked at the blog post on Moony if he appeared or reprinted in other junior comics? he thought he saw him in Bimbo? which I'm sure is wrong being different companies...

[Raven]

Of a bunch of old annuals I bought at an antiques centre this weekend, I think I was most pleased with the Playhour one. It's the 1980 Annual, and, though quite late in its day, it's packed with lovely illustrations; I don't know if some are reprints or not.

There's one eight page story which is especially nicely illustrated and coloured: The Search for the Swan Queen. I'd like to see more from this artist.

[matrix]

'The search for the swan queen' originally appeared in a 1969 'Jack and Jill' annual Raven, drawn by Ron Embleton. Very nice!

You can see them on the 'Look and Learn' site.

[Raven]

'The search for the swan queen' originally appeared in a 1969 'Jack and Jill' annual Raven, drawn by Ron Embleton. Very nice!

Thanks for that - I knew I recognised the art style and, of course, there's been some posting about Embleton and his nursery comic work of late.

[matrix]

Phil, has already posted a Bert Felstead, 'Leo the friendly Lion' example earlier from an annual originaly drawn in 1966.

For the record on here with info from Look and learn, and Bear Alley, as far as I can tell there were three artists that worked on Leo, first was good frog artist Antonio Lupatelli who drew some lovely examples for 'Playhour' annuals in the late 1950s, then the first artist for the weekly 'Playhour' comic was Virginio Livraghi in 1960, (who also drew those fantastic Brer Rabbit examples for 'Once upon a time'), then with info from Bear alley, Bert Felstead took over on the 25th Feb 1961.

The examples below are an early Livraghi, a change from him in about the middle of 1960, and the first Bert Felstead example from Feb 61.

Can anyone add any more to this how long did it run for, were there other artists?

[philcom55]

Thanks for showing those fascinating examples Matrix. I could be wrong but I suspect that the second page was drawn by Ron Nielson rather than Livraghi. Here's a strip from the 1962 Playhour Annual which he actually signed.







Going by the fact that Nielson's version of Leo has very distinctive 'starey' eyes I'm inclined to think that Steve Holland (or whoever provided the artist credits for the Look & Learn website) must have confused him with Livraghi on a number of occasions!

- Phil Rushton

[matrix]

Phil, I only got the Bert Felstead info from Steve's site the rest from Look and Learn.

The second example is definately by Livraghi it is signed although not very clear in the bottom right panel, very interesting seeing that Nielson strip looking the same.

To be fair to Look and Learn Livraghi did seem to be experimenting with the Leo look early in 1960, as per the bottom scan below before he settled on the style from the scan from previous post which lasted until Felstead took over, although all are not signed. The earliest Leo example I have is from feb 1960 (top scan) who looks different again so really not sure if that is again Livraghi or someone else? Who do you think the early one might be by Phil, or anyone?