General

British comics usually differ from the American comic book in a variety of respects. Until the 1990s the British comic was usually partly in black & white with some colour sections (especially the cover). The stories are most often intended for children and usually only one or two pages. Comics intended for teenagers or adults are considered to be more or less stretching the medium beyond its primary audience. Some publications have had a slightly different focus, though, providing readers with articles about and photographs of pop star s and television/film actors, plus more general articles about teenage life and throwing in a few comic strips for good measure. These older orientated publications have always managed to maintain a niche in between the comics world and that of grown-up magazines.

The most popular comics have annuals (usually published just in time for Christmas) and summer special editions.

In British comics history there are some extremely long-running publications such as The Beano and The Dandy published by D. C. Thomson & Co. Ltd, a newspaper company based in Dundee, Scotland. The Dandy began in 1937 and The Beano in 1938. They are both still going today. The Boy's Own Paper lasted from 1879 to 1967.

During the 1950s and 1960s the most popular comic magazine for older age-group boys was The Eagle published by Hulton Press .

From the 1970s onward that position of popularity was taken over by 2000 AD, a comic for older boys and girls but also for teenage or even grown-up readers published by IPC Magazines Ltd.

The intellectual span of British comics over the years has stretched all the way from the cheerfully moronic obscenities of VIZ (adult) to the political awareness of Crisis (adolescent to adult) and the sound educational values of Look and Learn (children's).

There has also been a continuous tradition of black and white comics, published in a smaller page size format, many of them war titles like Air Ace inspiring youngsters with tales of the exploits of the army, navy and RAF mainly in the two world wars, also some romance titles and some westerns in this format.

Then we come to the reprint market. The comics reading public in Britain were not always able to get reliable supplies of American comic books and yet have always enjoyed the different approach to comics writing from the other side of the Atlantic. So the lack of reliable supplies was supplemented by a variety of black and white reprints of Marvel's 1950s monster comics, Fawcett 's Captain Marvel, and some other characters such as Sheena, Mandrake the Magician, The Phantom etc.

When Captain Marvel ceased publication in the United States because of a lawsuit the British reprint company, L. Miller & Son , just copied the entire Captain Marvel idea in every detail and began publishing their own knock-off under the names Marvelman and Young Marvelman , taking advantage of different copyright laws (after all, Eagle had gotten away with Dan Dare, a rip-off of Buck Rogers). These clone versions continued for a few years and were revived years later, in the 1980s by Alan Moore as an "adult" style superhero. The new version of Marvelman was published in Warrior, a sort of British equivalent of Heavy Metal magazine. They were later reprinted and the story continued in an American full-colour comic, but with the name changed from "Marvelman" to "Miracleman" to avoid the lawsuits which would've followed.

A oddity of the trans-atlantic comics trade is Sheena, Queen Of The Jungle . This female version of Tarzan (with an element of H. Rider Haggard's "She who must be obeyed" - She... Na!) was created in New York by Will Eisner's Eisner-Iger studio for a British tabloid, Wags in 1937, but, when Sheena became a success in Wags the British newspaper got a contract to supply the character for publication by Fiction House magazines in the United States, thus exporting the character back to her country of origin.

List of British Comics

There have been thousands of comics in Britain over the years, including:

• 2000 AD (1977-current)
• Action (1976-1977)
• Adventure (1921-1961)
• Air Ace Picture Library (1960-1970)
• Battle Picture Weekly (1975-1986)
• The Beano (1938-current)
• Beezer (1956-1990) and (to 1993 with Topper)
• The Boy's Own Paper (1879-1967)
• Boys' World (1963-1964)
• Bullet (1976-1978)
• Bunty (1958-2001)
• Buster (1960-1999)
• Buster Classics (1996)
• Buzz (1973-1975)
• BVC (1995)
• The Chatterbox
• Cheeky (1977-1980)
• Comic Cuts (1890-1953)
• Commando Comics (1961-current)
• Cor!! (1970-1974)
• Cracker (1975-1976)
• Crisis (1988-1991)
• The Dandy (1937-current)
• The Eagle (1950-1969) and (1982-1994)
• Fantastic (1967-1968)
• Film Fun (1920-1962)
• Funny (1989-early 1990s)
• Giggle (1967-1968)
• Hoot (1985-1986)
• Hornet (1963-1976)
• Hotspur (1933-1981)
• Illustrated Chips (1890-1953)
• Jackpot (1979-1982)
• Jack and Jill (1885-1887) and (1954-1985)
• Jackie (1964-1993)
• Jinty (1974-1981)
• The Judge Dredd Megazine (1990-current)
• Knockout (1939-1963) and (1971-1973)
• Krazy (1976-1978)
• Lion (1952-1974)
• Look and Learn (1962-1982)
• Mandy (1967-1991)
• Mickey Mouse Weekly (1936-1955)
• Mirabelle (1956-1977)
• Misty (1978-1980)
• Monster Fun (1975-1976)
• Nipper (1987)
• Nutty (1980-1985))
• Oink! (1986-1988)
• Picture Politics (1894-1914)
• Picture Fun (1909-1920)
• Pippin (1966-1986)
• Plug (1977-1979)
• Pow! (1967-1968)
• Puck (1904-1940)
• Radio Fun (1938-1961)
• Rainbow (1914-1956)
• Robin (1953-1969)
• Romeo (1957-1974)
• Roy of the Rovers (1976-1993)
• School Fun (1983-1984)
• Shiver and Shake (1973-1974)
• Smash (1966-1971)
• Sparky (1965-1977)
• Star Wars (Weekly) (1978-1986)
• The Big One (1964-1965)
• The Swift (1954-1963)
• Terrific (1967-1968)
• Tiger Tim's Weekly (1920-1940)
• Topper (1953-1990) and (to 1993 with Beezer)
• TV Century 21 (1965-1971)
• TV Comic (1951-1984)
• Twinkle (1968-current)
• Valentine (1957-1974)
• Valiant (1962-1971)
• Victor (1961-1992)
• Viz (1979-current)
• War Picture Library (1958-1984)
• Wham! (1964-1968)
• Whizzer and Chips (1969-1990)
• Whoopee! (1974-1985)
• Wonder (1942-1953)
• Wow! (1982-1983)

See also: List of DC Thomson Publications, List of comic creators

External links:

• Comic collections in the British Library http://www.bl.uk/collections/comlist.html
• A British comics fanpage http://www.britishcomics.20m.com/HOME.htm
• 26 Pigs - Comics auction and interest site http://www.26pigs.com
• Comics UK http://www.comicsuk.co.uk
• Oink! online http://www.notbbc.34sp.com/
• Piggybank http://www.piggybank.co.uk/oink/
• Comics Picture Gallery at bookpalace.com http://www.bookpalace.com/comicsgen.htm
• BBC cult comics page http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/comics/

This article is part of WikiProject Comics, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to comics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion .