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Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 25 Apr 2009, 17:33
by Peter Gray
Just catching up...love seeing The Moonsters ealy adventures..
Dreamy Dave and Dozy Dora has to be one of the best..
great reading and seeing..
Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 27 Apr 2009, 07:13
by ISPYSHHHGUY
Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 27 Apr 2009, 15:02
by alanultron5
That captive Kidds story belies the claims by Mr Kibble-White that Sparky was full of `gentle` stories! Since getting quite a few 1960s Sparky's, it is Animal based stories rather than `Alice-in-Wonderland` fantasy that dominates!
Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 27 Apr 2009, 15:05
by alanultron5
Just a one issue jump now!
SPARKY No 26 (17 July 1965, 5d)
Page 1
`Sparky` joins an orchestra.
Page 2
`The Slowdown Express`
Page 3, 4 & 5
`New Story` `Lonely Wood`. This strip featured the adventures of a family, whose father worked on a nature reserve. It often tried to educate readers by knowledgeable stories that concerned rare wildlife species.
Page 6
`Hungry Horace`
Page 7
`Winnie the Witch`
Pages 8 & 9
`Watch`
Page 10
`Write to Sparky`
Page 11
`Cuckoo in the Clock`
Pages 12 & 13
`Dreamy Dave and Dozy Dora`. They find themselves in `Bubbleland`.
Page 14
`Keyhole Kate`
Pages 15 & 16
`McGinty the Goat`
Page 17
`Sparky’s Puzzles`
Pages 18 & 19
`Kipper Feet`
Pages 20 & 21
`Riddle of the Roughlands`
Page 22
Top Half `Nosey Parker`. The comic adventures of an elderly busy body. Bottom half `Pansy Potter`
Page 23
`Minnie Ha-Ha and Running Kick` At the bottom of the strip it says “Next week-adventures with `Flubberface`. So the story rotation was still ongoing!
Page 24
`The Moonsters`
Finally, the last of the old reprints `Hairy-Dan` had been dropped. How the Editor and staff thought such strips could ever appeal to 1960s children is beyond me! It shows just how out of touch the Thompson people could be.
Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 28 Apr 2009, 07:20
by ISPYSHHHGUY
Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 28 Apr 2009, 08:20
by Raven
ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:the following are from issue 45 [17 NOV, 1965];
Ooh, a canal barge serial - I'd like to see more of that!
Some of these early adventure serials in Sparky look very nice, and more interesting and varied than the 70s double-pagers which were always Mr. Bubbles and Invisible Dick.
The Riddle of Roughlands looks nice, too - quite Enid Blyton!
Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 28 Apr 2009, 15:11
by alanultron5
And now! The line up for issue 30.
SPARKY No 30 (14 August 1965, 5d)
Page 1
`Sparky`. He becomes a window cleaner.
Page 2
`Keyhole Kate`
Page 3
`Peter Piper`
Pages 4 & 5
`New story` `Raiders from the red planet` This story was a sci-fi adventure which; as the title stated, featured a Martian invasion. The aliens looked very similar to humans. They were armed with gas guns and a heat ray. It was drawn by the current `Peter Piper` artist and was in all probability the briefest story in the history of the comic, lasting only five issues! It was a very short-lived invasion.
Page 6
`Hungry Horace`
Page 7
`Winnie the Witch`
Page 8
`Write to Sparky`
Pages 9 & 10
`Watch`
Page 11
`The Slowdown Express`
Pages 12 & 13
`Dreamy Dave and Dozy Dora`. This has to be one of the very best Dave and Dora stories ever! They are in bed and cannot get to sleep. Everything they imagine to try and help them to sleep appears in the bedroom! They find they can control the images (shrinking a full grown Elephant down into a porcelain figure).
They imagine themselves on a beach and make the people on the beach disappear for laughing at them. They are finally woken up by their mother and realise they had both been dreaming about `not` being able to get to sleep! True surrealism! This particular story was possibly the finest `DD & DD` story of all time.
Page 14
`Cuckoo in the clock`
Pages 15 & 16
`The Riddle of the Roughlands`
Page 17
`Sparky’s Puzzles`
Pages 18 & 19
`Kipper Feet`
Pages 20, 21 & 22
`Lonely Wood`
Page 23
`Jeff Ye Jolly Jester`
Page 24
`The Moonsters`
Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 29 Apr 2009, 07:17
by ISPYSHHHGUY
Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 29 Apr 2009, 22:23
by Raven
ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:there's a lot more varied stuff coming up, Raven, I wasn't so familiar with much of the earlier strips, so a lot of this is quite new to me as well. DAVEY SPACER in GIANTLAND will be on here at some stage.........
I did get the 1970 Sparky Book, incidentally, Mr. HHHGUY, though it's a little too original style Sparky for me. There seems a big difference between the early much more juvenile title and the comic as it got wackier and edgier and aimed a bit older in the '70s.
It's a very nicely and carefully compiled annual with a few interesting things to look at (like the odd Granny Cupp and Her Flying Saucer) but not much that really grabs me. Davey Spacer seems a bit lame, visiting a planet of puffballs and fluffy rabbits (as youthful space explorers go, Young Starhawk looks like a more exciting alien-bashing proposition than Davey in my new big batch of Buddys.)
But I found myself wanting Puss 'n' Boots, Snip 'n' Snap, The Sparky People and the rather more manic and aggressive Sparky I grew up with .
Didn't you say you thought the 1971 Sparky book was your favourite? Was this more old style or latterday style?
Thing is, though, this thread has been quite a revelation. It's old style Sparky through and through but some of these more juvenile strips are lovely. I'd love to see more of the canal serial, and the Year of the Vanaks (this one's great to look at - lovely art and colour, such old-fashioned looking Brits and it looks like a comic strip adaptation of a 1960s or early 70s Children's Film Foundation film) and I will indeed look forward to the weekly version of Davey Spacer, which I hope will be the mind-blowing, psychedelic space freakout I was anticipating.
The Young Castaways must have seemed quite exotic to readers in the mid-Sixties when beautiful islands may as well have been on other planets, and holidays probably meant a week in some rainy English seaside town.
Makes you wonder why some of these serials don't tend to turn up in Classics rather than the blander, less distinctive adventure fare that usually tends to be chosen - they have real 'retro appeal,' some seem quite quirky and inventive, and several of them look great.
The kids in them tend to look younger than you normally get in adventure serials which give them a slightly gentler, more innocent and charming feel - maybe more like what you'd expect to see in an old title like Treasure.
The Moonsters strips are really sweet too (though the Sparky strip is just horrible!)
There really do seem to be some lost gems here ...
Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 29 Apr 2009, 22:52
by Lew Stringer
Thanks for those look backs at the early Sparky. I had the comic for a while when it was first launched but didn't keep my comics until 1967, by which time I'd dropped the title. (I came back to it in 1969 though and loved the changes.) I think my favourite early Sparky page by far was The Moonsters.
I was five when Sparky was launched, so probably just the right age for that younger version then. I must confess I always preferred TV Century 21 though, (even though it was obviously for older kids) which launched in the very same week as Sparky! (Most of us kids growing up in the Sixties were fascinated by anything to do with space exploration and the optimistic techno-future we we led to expect.)
Lew
Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 30 Apr 2009, 02:25
by ISPYSHHHGUY
Yes, Lew, growing up in the 60s, with the SPACE RACE in full throttle---coupled with the far-future hi-jinks of GERRY ANDERSON ------it really seemed at the time that the future was going to be a radically different, exciting place! How much of a let-down the 'future' has turned out to be so far.....
I have the 1970 and 1971 SPARKY annuals, Raven, and there's a big difference in the content: the comic, to me, was at it's peak in 1969, when it was exploring new avenues of often anarchic comedy [and watching it flourish in 'real time' ] was the highpoint of the comic for me; by 1972 or so, the familiar elements were well in place and well-oiled, but after this I started becoming a bit too familiar with the winning formula [familiarity breeds contempt, and all that], and the artwork prepared for the '71 annual contains the FEB '69 and beyond strips [I SPY, ALI'S BABA, a prehistoric 'PUSS n' BOOTS, L CARS etc] and should be much more recognizable to you.
This early stuff is often pretty good, though, and there is a lot of high-quality artwork coming up here soon, also the comic spawned one bona-fide atmospheric classic I am sure grateful to have discovered: the Lonely Boy of the Blue Lagoon.
Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 30 Apr 2009, 06:59
by ISPYSHHHGUY
I'm re-running this story large-scale, as it's quirky qualities deserve a decent airing:
Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 30 Apr 2009, 07:07
by ISPYSHHHGUY
MEDIEVEL MELODRAMA that seems to draw inspiration from the 'BRAVE LITTLE TAILOR':
more familiar fare from ALBERT HOLROYD:
last two pages from issue 60/12 MARCH 1966.
Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 30 Apr 2009, 09:19
by Kashgar
This early stuff is often pretty good, though, and there is a lot of high-quality artwork coming up here soon, also the comic spawned one bona-fide atmospheric classic I am sure grateful to have discovered: the Lonely Boy of the Blue Lagoon.[/quote]
Not spawned Rab but reprinted. As the whole saga had originally aired in the pages of New Hotspur/Hotspur earlier in the decade.
Re: The Sparky File 1965 to January 1969.
Posted: 30 Apr 2009, 11:23
by ISPYSHHHGUY
I stand corrected, kashgar; that's what I get for typing very early in the morning! Afantastic strip though, and well worth repeating.
