Comics UK

What is your favourite comic of all time?

Oh difficult one, a bit like asking your favourite CD or song - I would say it would be between the following:

Mighty World Of Marvel (UK Marvel 1972 - 75) the most influential for me in a comic fanboy sense, loved the first 3 years off it solid classic stories and artwork - later issues were awful at times
Wham! 1960s( mostly as the flagship of my favourite UK comic company, Odhams - had its faults but boy when it ws good it was amazing and so out there for a childs comic)
Smash 1970-1972ish (the IPC version of the Odhmas title - just a brilliant read)
Valliant (the classic boys comic- let down for me by 4 pages of Capt Hurricane really bad idea - nice art though)
Lion 1970 onwards revamp version (some great stories and art)
Buster 1966- 1972( I just loved this as a kid - humour sport adventure what a comic should be)

Sorry I ve just ended up making a list of comics if I had to choose it would (just) be Mighty World of Marvel (or Wham, or Buster or... ohh I forgot to add Thunder arghhhhh) My favourit single is easier (its Starman by Bowie!

Starlord for me. It had the right mix of intelligent but action-filled. It looked great with the shiny paper, terrific covers and colour interior. Too beautiful to survive.

As for song, 'Snowbound' by the Razorcuts. Not exactly the most famous band there ever was but it's the greatest song ever written.

Smash! (Odhams 1966-69).

I used to get quite a few comics at different times in the late 60s/70s - TV21, Look-in, Countdown, Whizzer and Chips, Mighty World of Marvel and the other British Marvels, Warlord, 2000AD - but have no hesitation in naming Valiant as my favourite. I started getting it in October '69 aged six and had it delivered every week right up until the end, although it was never the same for me after the meger with Lion. I used to love seeing the reprints of earlier stories in the annuals and summer specials or, better yet, tracking down earlier issues. Favourite strip - Kelly's Eye.

What's so good about Smash and Valiant then?


I don't go too far back on knowledge of comics.

Starlord....simply the best ever!

The Cap.

p.s. And as we all know,2000ad was the comic that should have been merged into Starlord or discontinued altogether ( really quite terrible in its early years ).

Shine on Starlord,we'll never forget you!

Captain Storm wrote:Starlord....simply the best ever!

The Cap.

p.s. And as we all know,2000ad was the comic that should have been merged into Starlord or discontinued altogether ( really quite terrible in its early years ).

Shine on Starlord,we'll never forget you!

Starlord was great but I felt it lacked the raw energy that 2000AD had in its early years. I thought the early 2000AD's were fantastic and compared to other comics of its time it was like a scruffy kid arriving in the posh kid's school.

As for Smash, Serai, the 1966-69 first series had a great mixture of genuinely funny humour strips, exciting UK fantasy strips, and early Marvel reprint. (Plus the Batman newspaper strip.) All tied into a package with a friendly letters page and editorial "mateyness". in other words a good variety comic that was perfect for its time.

The Beano when I was a kid, although I still collect the odd issue I collect The Viz and have done non stop for longer than the period I collected The Beano for.

Smash and Valiant were just really good comics with strong characters , great artists and qualtiy stories and art - both comics merged at one point (1971) so there's a link there, but IMHO both comics contained some of the best/strongest characters in UK comics from Janus Stark, Raven on the Wing, Eric the Viking, Swots and Blots, Adam Eterno,Kellys Eye, House of Dollmann, Steel Claw, Billy Bunter etc etc a great reaD (and around 36 pages an issue it was good value). Also both Comics featured art by true greats of UK comics such as Leo Baxendale,Carlos Cruz (so underated, a fantastic artist) , Solanos Lopez, Don Lawrence ,Ken Reid, Mike Western etc etc .

Smash was my favourite as it was originally published by Odhams (my favourite UK comic company).Along with Pow and Wham, Smash contained some of the greatest humour strips ever (UK or anywhere...IMHO) for kids along witht he US Marvel reprints (with Smash also having Batman US Newspaper strip being reprinted as Lew states). Baxendales strip Swots and Blots made the move to the new IPC Smash but sadly Reids main Smash (under Odhams) contributionThe Nerves never made it (if you've not seen this strip look it out its stunning, wierd and very very strange) - SMASH was totally different at IPC but still a great comio so the combined title under 2 publishes makes it my favourite UK kids/boy comic of all time (not including the 100% Marvel reprint MWOM that is... along with Wham and Buster gawd I still cant decide)

Hard to choose..

Beano probably first..


Dandy..Buster..Whoopee..Beezer..Whizzer and chips..Sparky..Cheeky..etc.. not far behind..

Slightly predictable but it was Buster for me.

By the time I got to comics all the Fleetway ones had gone, so it was Buster at 32 pages, or the Dandy/Beano which always seemed so thin in comparison.

That said I did like BVC & Buster Classics when they came along too. And as a slightly older kid I picked up Disney's Big Time for a number of years too!

STARBOY wrote:Baxendales strip Swots and Blots made the move to the new IPC Smash

Just a very pedantic point but to correct a common misconception (and one which I've also made in the past) Baxendale didn't draw Swots and Blots until a few towards the end of Odhams' run. He was the main artist on the IPC version though as you say (and made it his own with brilliant work).

Years ago (not on this forum) I remember someone saying they didn't think Baxendale was that special when all the time they'd been looking at the work of his ghost artists. Sorry to be so pedantic but I feel we might as well get the facts right, than wrong. Not that I'm having a go. I used to get Mike Lacey and Ron Spencer's work confused when I was younger, and when I was a kid I thought Graham Allen's work was Baxendale's.

bustercomic wrote:Slightly predictable but it was Buster for me.

By the time I got to comics all the Fleetway ones had gone, so it was Buster at 32 pages, or the Dandy/Beano which always seemed so thin in comparison.

Beano and Dandy would've been 24 pages at that point. They matched Buster by going up to 32 pages in 1998, which remains Beano's page count to this day.

My answer to the original question will be predictable as well. The Beano. Like bustercomic, I started buying comics in the 90s. Always The Beano, and an occasional Dandy.

No your quite right Lew I should have noted the Swots & Blots were not Baxendales work for most (almost all) of its run in Odhams Smash - I keep associating Leo Baxendale with the entire run on the strip as his SMASH (IPC) version was just so good and genuinely funny.