What was inside Playhour pictures...? Playhour chat

[philcom55]

Wonderful! To be honest I think I prefer Peter Woolcock's use of greytone to his full-colour art.

In some ways I guess that Harold Hare Weekly was always going to be an awkward fit with Playhour since Harold himself already had a regular slot in Jack & Jill. On the other hand, if HHW had been combined with the latter title instead, Freddie Frog and Mr. Toad would have probably been deemed too similar to appear alongside each other.

Incidentally, that 'Magic Book' reminds me how attractive (and frequent) the free gifts given away with Playhour and Jack & Jill were during the early years. Here are a couple more examples from the 1950s, as advertised in AP's popular magazine Everybody's.





(...Come to think of it that must be the first-ever issue of Playhour!)

- Phil Rushton

[matrix]

Phil no 1 is on Peter's first post, with the Indian headset free gift. I didn't see your exclamation mark.

They are nice adverts, and how the strips in those two changed especially 'Playhour'.

[philcom55]

You're right that I'd forgotten about the first first issue Matrix! (no need to be embarrassed - my exclamation mark was entirely incidental). The confusion comes from Denis Gifford's Comic Catalogue which listed Playhour Pictures and Playhour as two separate series.

By the way, looking at those ice creams on the cover of the free 'Seaside Book' I can't help being struck by their diminutive size. Either the 'stop-me-and-buy-one' man is a real cheapskate or this is an example of postwar austerity at its most blatant!

- Phil R.

[matrix]

No, I think in this day and age every one is spoilt and that was the normal size!

I can't help but think that 'Playhour Pictures' and 'Playhour' had not really found their way in the early issues, 'The Gay Gordons', one story mentioned in the advert example Phil posted, would not have looked out of place in a 'Beano' annual of the time?

Could they have been influenced by some of the 'Beano' and 'Dandy' material, or am I way off?

[Digifiend]

Huh, look at the A in those mastheads... Jack and Jill and Playhour's logos are using the same typeface! Remarkable that they did such a thing in the days before computer typography.

[philcom55]

Funnily enough I just came across a 1960 edition of the Italian version of Jack & Jill and, while there are some variations, it's clear that the lettering for that was partially based on Fleetway's original typface.



Though I don't have any issues of Playhour Pictures Matrix I'm inclined to agree that it seems to have been pitched at a slightly older readership than Playhour proper. My own guess is that Leonard Matthews had Hulton's Swift in mind to begin with, then switched to compete with the more successful Robin instead. It's certainly noticeable that Septimus Scott, Ted Drury and Fred Holmes (artists on Prince the Wonder Dog, Children of the Queen and the Gay Gordons) subsequently became better known for historical adventure strips that were aimed at older readers.

On the ice cream sizes I'm also in agreement (though, if memory serves, it's worth noting that 1950s ice cream tended to be much more solid and long-lasting than the later 'whippy' variety! ).

- Phil Rushton

[matrix]

Still on the subject of ice creams here are a couple of scans showing where the size has certainly grown, (albeit Sooty had a hand in his!) ten and twenty years later from Phil's example.

[philcom55]

...Of course, when King Ivor Ice-cream invited Edward and the Jumblies to his kingdom in the Ice-cream mountains, they didn't need to bother with cornets at all! (Art by Jesus Blasco from the 1972 Teddy Bear Annual)





- Phil Rushton

[Phoenix]

I had an uncle called Ivor, but he never bought me any ice-cream. Mind you, he and my dad took me frequently from the age of seven to Ewood Park to watch Blackburn Rovers' matches, so instilling in me a lifetime love of the game, so I suppose I should let him off. Perhaps he knew though, even that early, that despite all his generosity in other ways, after a couple of years without ice-creams I would transfer my allegiance to Bolton Wanderers. I do like ice-cream but it's not good for me. Apologies for this stream-of-consciousness post, and please see Ulysses for many better examples.

[matrix]

I don't think we can top that Phil! Nice piece, Blasco did some lovely work for these nursery comics.

I don't think I had an uncle called Ivor? But as discussed before like many on here, I really enjoyed Oliver Postgate's work, especially 'Ivor', in the scans below.

[matrix]

Still on the subject of Blasco, and I know there are a few of his examples on the forum, but thought it wouldn't hurt to scan a couple more, these he did for 'Playhour' in the late fifties. As he did so many these are three different pages being pinocchio, Donkey skin, and Snow white.

What a classy comic!

[philcom55]

Classy indeed! It's interesting that Fleetway continued to get their money's worth from this artwork by cutting it up and reusing it years later in books like Playhour Fairy Stories - often with additions by other artists, such as the extended landscape on this scene from Snow White:



- Phil Rushton

[matrix]

cutting it up

- Phil Rushton

Gosh, that sounds terrible!

How much from this era survives? Was a lot of it destroyed or is it stored away somewhere?

[Marionette]

Looks like he got the wrong outfit in the parcel...But he wore it and everyone had fun anyway...wearing the wrong clothes..

It is very funny though

It must be by Gordon..

love the extra details in each picture..

Nothing like a little harmless cross-dressing.

[philcom55]

Nothing like a little harmless cross-dressing.

I don't know - it was pretty traumatic for poor Robert Rabbit in this previously-seen strip!

How much from this era survives? Was a lot of it destroyed or is it stored away somewhere?

Book Palace have quite a few highly-priced Blasco pieces from this era advertised on their website, though they tend to have been cut up into single panels when they were reprinted in a storybook format.

http://www.illustrationartgallery.com/a ... o_Art.html

Unfortunately I don't think there is any central archive of Fleetway's old nursery art and a lot would have almost certainly been chucked away in skips to save space during the 1970s and 1980s!

One other example of recycling that has puzzled me for a while is the numbered run of small 'Jack & Jill' books that were published during the early 1960s in the style of the popular 'Ladybird' series. As you can see from the 'Gulliver Guinea-Pig' examples shown below the majority of these were based on earlier centrespreads from Fleetway's weekly comics:













However, these are clearly not straightforward reprints as a great deal of redrawing was required (presumably by the original artist) in order to fit the new page format. Of course it could be that Mendoza et al simply redrew their panels from scratch, but I strongly suspect that the original panels were remounted and painted over instead.

- Phil Rushton