What was inside Playhour pictures...? Playhour chat

[Peter Gray]

Its interesting how the original colours are stonger...and the cutaway cloud blend into the yellow cover..Thanks for showing this..
I'm going to 30th Century comic shop this thursday hopefully..so will look out for some nursery comics..

Those paint brushes are cleverly hidden...hard to find at first...I really love this cover...

[philcom55]

Thanks Irmantas, that looks great! I guessed it must have originally appeared on a cover, though somebody has since remounted it on nasty purple paper for a subsequent reprint!

I noticed the odd colouring of Sooty and Sweep too Peter, and like you I wondered if it was a result of watching them on b&w television. As with Gulliver Guinea-Pig, however, the monochromatic treatment of the main characters meant they didn't clash with the many lavishly coloured backgrounds that were demanded by the scripts.

- Phil R.

[wigwam]

Back to Gulliver Guinea-Pig, the original adventures as written by David Roberts and drawn by Philip Mendoza. The first series started on the centre-pages in Playhour No. 189, dated May 24th, 1958.

More on the artist (Mendoza), the prolific writer (Roberts) and the hero of the series (Gulliver) on Steve Holland's excellent Bear Alley blog.

John

[philcom55]

Thanks for posting Gulliver's historic debut, John. It's remarkable how well this marvelous strip stands up half a century later - so much so, in fact, that I'm convinced it would now be remembered as a children's classic alongside Winnie the Pooh, Peter Rabbit and Rupert Bear if collected editions had been made available.

It's also good to have confirmation that the series was written by the amazing (and criminally neglected) David Roberts. I'd already suspected as much - not least because of the striking physical similarities between this short, fat writer/editor who described himself as a 'crumpled dumpling' and his plucky, world-travelling creation. Indeed, one can't help wondering whether Roberts envisaged Gulliver as a kind of magical alter ego from the very beginning!



- Phil Rushton

[matrix]

Another character worthy of inclusion on here I feel is 'Billy Brock', not a colourful strip like many on here, but a long running strip drawn well by Fred White.

I think another artist takes over in 1961 or does Fred just have a break? Can anyone add to this?

[klakadak-ploobadoof]

I think another artist takes over in 1961 or does Fred just have a break? Can anyone add to this?

It must have been a break - I have a run of Playhour from the middle of 1962 until the end of 1963 and all episodes of Billy Brock are signed Fred White.

[matrix]

Thank you KP, that sorts that out!

For comparison here is a scan of a different looking 'Billy Brock', he looked like this from Febuary 61 until this example in late April 61 after that? Anyone else?

I'm sure this is not Fred White?

As a matter of interest KP do your examples look like my first 'Billy Brock' post?

[klakadak-ploobadoof]

As a matter of interest KP do your examples look like my first 'Billy Brock' post?

Here is an episode from November 1963:

[matrix]

Thanks again, I just wanted to see if he changed the strip but obviously not, so just have to fill the gaps at some stage between April 61 and middle 62.

The main reason I was questioning it was becausce, 'Look and Learn' only have Fred White as the artist.

[philcom55]

Fred White seems to be something of an 'old school' artist who drew cartoon characters in realistically-drawn settings - somewhat in the style of Rupert's Alfred Bestall. This is particularly apparent in his naturalistic treatment of trees, as seen below:



By contrast his temporary replacement drew simplified trees that look almost like cardboard cutouts. Here's an example of the latter from the 1962 Playhour Annual:



And here's another page from the same source:



The funny thing is that I think I actually prefer the unnamed stand-in (possibly one of the Hutchings brothers?), whose characters strike me as having rather more animation - though, as you say, Fred was certainly no slouch in that department himself!

- Phil R.

(...Actually, looking again at Matrix's example from April 1961 I'm beginning to wonder whether it could have been drawn by Peter Woolcock - in which case there might have been more than one stand-in during that year.)

[standby4action]

I just wanted express my thanks Phil for your shared collection and knowledge. I love seeing these things now in my old age of 55. A more innocent time in many ways, the poor little people now are bombarded by licensed characters - see what they're missing!

[Peter Gray]

At 30th Century shop I got a Harold Hare comic..it has a lovely Katie Country mouse back cover a funny Flopsy flufftail doing everything back to front..kids would have loved this strip...never realised Harold hare wa sa big size comic!!.which looks great and a Mickey Mouse 1937 it has one of the characters wearing a Mickey Mouse gasmask!!! I just love the cover...

No Playhours to buy this time..got another Jack and Jill 1961..

[matrix]

I like all of those examples. Have we been here before!!

Which annual is the Fred White example from Phil?

What year is your 'Harold Hare' Peter? The size was reduced in 1961.

[Peter Gray]

Harold Hare 27th Feb 1960...the mice on the cover are tidying him up...one mouse has a lawn mower for his hair!

[philcom55]

Thanks for the kind words Norman - though I have to say that I've also learned a great deal about this fascinating subject from the contributions of forum members such as Matrix, Irmantas, Peter, John and Sue. Compared to other British and American comics of the 1950s and 1960s it seems to me that the nursery field in the UK remains one of the few virgin territories for collectors and researchers - especially as a ridiculous number of the many talented writers and artists who worked for them are still virtually unknown.

That Fred White page with all the trees is from the 1964 Playhour Annual Matrix. Here's the first page:



...And, taking a break from Billy Brock, here's an example of his colour work from the 1969 Playhour Annual:



(Though the scene is considerably more modern than Alfred Bestall's idyllic visions of a perpetually pre-War Britain it seems to me that this too owes a great deal to that artist's work - particularly the amazing endpaper paintings that appeared in his Rupert annuals)

On the subject of Harold Hare's Own Paper it's worth noting that the page size shrank at least twice during its run (in addition to the title itself shrinking to just 'Harold Hare'). At just under fifteen inches tall it wasn't quite as large as DC Thomson's Topper and Beezer, but I remember that the eyes almost popped out of my head when my mother met me after school with a copy of the first issue (complete with free Harold Hare mask and balloon) one sunny Autumn afternoon way back in 1959. To my four-year-old self it seemed absolutely enormous!



I'm not sure when the first shrinkage occurred but I suspect that it may have coincided with the launch of Buster in May 1960, with the newer title taking over HHOP's old printing slot (both first issues were exactly the same size). In many ways this was a great shame as HHOP's giant size was the main compensation for having cheaper paper and printing than it's older companions Jack & Jill and Playhour (though there was also an attempt to make up for this by using lots of expensive Letratone on the artwork).

I don't know about anyone else but one thing that really appealed to me about these gigantic tabloid comics was the way in which they enabled me to imitate my father: both of us settling down after tea with our own, grown-up 'paper'! (Incidentally, I wonder if this was the last example of a children's comic being officially referred to as a paper - something that had been relatively common during the 1940s and 1950s?)

- Phil Rushton