Nostalgic For My Childhood - Christmas Annuals (part 6)

"Christmas is coming!"

Me & Tracy, Christmas 1977 - look at how chuffed I am, I've got the new Look-In annual AND the Starsky & Hutch Gran Torino!

Welcome to the sixth post (you can find the others on these links here - 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021) showcasing one of the Christmas highlights from when I was a kid (beyond the catalogues I wrote about in 2016), seeing which annual I got that particular year.  For those who don't remember them, annuals were (and still are) large size hardback books, designed for children and based on existing properties, generally comics and popular TV shows, as well as the occasional film and sport and pop round-ups.

The ones based on comics featured the same cast as the weekly editions, while the TV and film ones had comic strips, the occasional short story, fact files and interviews and - brilliantly - in the case of The Fall Guy, behind the scenes information on stunts and how they were filmed.

Published towards the end of the year, annuals are cover-dated as the following year to ensure shops don't take them off the shelves immediately after the new year (though, by then, unsold copies are often heavily reduced).  Still as popular now, though kids today don't have the choice of comics we did, the only real difference seems to be that they're skinnier (and that's not me being all nostalgically misty - my ones from the late 70s and early 80s are substantially chunkier than the ones I’ve bought for Dude over the past few years).

Here, then, is another selection of old favourites, ones I received and ones I remember my sister Tracy having.  I hope some of them inspire a warm, nostalgic trip down memory lane for you...

1968

One of my favourite TV shows as a kid and this was a favourite annual (though I'm not sure either when Mum or Dad bought it - I wasn't born until 1969 - or I was given it).  Cracking book though.

1977

My sister Tracy (who I wrote about here) loved horses for as long as I can remember and went on to be an accomplished rider and tutor.

1977

 That theme music!  Gambit!  Purdey!

1978

1978

1979

1979

Sing it - underground, overground, Wombling free...

1980

1980

If we were out on bikes around this time - my friends, or me and TJ - we'd ride two-abreast and pretend we were Jon and Poncho.

1980

1981

1981

1981

My favourite "funny" comic when I was growing up, Cheeky Weekly actually finished in 1980 (it was incorporated - "great news for all readers!" - into Whoopee in February)

1981

 Sir Roger Moore as James Bond.  Do you need any more reason to own this?

1984

I'd moved on from annuals by this time, though I was a huge fan of The A-Team (and still am, as I wrote about here and here).  I didn't pick this up until much later.


Happy Christmas!


scans from my collection, aside from the girls titles (thanks to the Internet for those)

You can read more of my nostalgia posts here

Yet More Look-In Cover Art

In 2016 I wrote a Nostalgic post about Look-In (which you can read here), a much loved magazine (‘the junior TV Times’) of my childhood.  Designed and written for kids, it featured the major film stars, pop acts, sports people and TV stars of the day with comic strips, posters (most of the Six Million Dollar Man ones ended up on my bedroom wall) and behind the scenes articles.  It also had, through the late 70s and into the early 80s, painted covers by Arnaldo Putzu, an Italian artist working in London who made his name creating cinema posters in the 1960’s for the likes of Morecombe & Wise, Hammer (Creatures the World Forgot and The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires), the Carry On series and Get Carter (which I wrote about here).  Though other artists sometimes contributed artwork (including Arthur Ranson), his cover reign from 1973 through to 1981 still looks glorious today.

I’ve posted about the covers before (you can read previous posts here, here and here) and so, with a focus on those from 1981 (all of forty one years ago), here’s another small selection of that wonderful artwork.

Enjoy.

It was clearly a big deal for Bond to be on TV then (Dr No was released in 1962, 13 years prior to this edition.  As of today, we're 47 years after this edition, which doesn't feel right at all...)

Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man, a major hero of my childhood

I didn't realise Just William was this old, to be honest - my sister-in-law still jokes about 'scweaming until she maketh herself sick...'

"Heeeyy"

At the time I didn't realise The Latchkey Children was based on the novel by Eric Allen, but I discovered and read it in 2013 (and blogged about it here)

My favourite film of 1981, I blogged about Raiders Of The Lost Ark here

for more, there's a great Look-In archive on Facebook here

Nostalgic For My Childhood - Some More Summer Specials

A couple of years ago I had a conversation with Dude where he expressed amusement over what I had to put up with when I was his age, namely (but not limited to) very few video games, cameras that were only cameras and phones that were wired to the walls in your house.  This led to me blogging about one terrific thing I had that he didn't, the Summer Special!

As I explained then (you can read the 2018 entry here, the 2020 one here and the 2021 one here), children’s comics now aren’t a patch on what they were back in the 70s and 80s (and before that, even).  Modern titles, sealed in plastic bags and littered with free gifts, have very little in the way of comic strips or stories (in fact, most seem to consist of quizzes) but back in the day the likes of IPC and DC Thomson produced a raft of weeklies that catered for most tastes (published on newsprint with a splash of colour).

Those weeklies, in turn, gave us the Summer Special to look forward to.  A one-off edition of our favourite title, it was thicker and more colourful and the perfect reading accompaniment to a long car journey or a lazy afternoon in the back garden.

Comics historian Lew Stringer suggests (on his blog) that “today’s retailers dislike them because they occupy valuable shelf space for too many months” which didn’t bother newsagents in the 70s - Summer Specials were especially popular at seaside towns because they were pretty much guaranteed sellers, with a new batch of kids every week who’d need entertaining.

Here are a few more from my golden-era of reading them (the late 70s into the early 80s) - what were your favourites?

1976

1977

1977

1978

1979

1979 - a team-up between Spidey & The Punisher sees people disintegrate in a poisonous gas.  Even read now, the imagery is cheerfully gruesome!

1979 - a real favourite of mine, I wrote a retrospective of Look-In which you can read here

1980

1980

1980

1982

1982

1983

1983

1983

see the other Summer Special posts on this link

Thanks to Lew Stringer for the history and comicvine for some of the scans.  See also David Barnett’s excellent blog piece at The Guardian.

Nostalgic For My Childhood - Christmas Annuals (part 5)

"Christmas is coming!"

Me, Christmas 1975 - Action Man helicopter, Batman, Six Million Dollar Man, Planet Of The Apes annual and a gun that shot darts with rubber tips!  Seriously, how much more excited could a 6-year-old kid look?

Welcome to the fifth post (you can find the others on these links, for 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020) showcasing one of the Christmas highlights from when I was a kid (beyond the catalogues I wrote about in 2016), seeing which annual I got that particular year.  If you don't remember them, annuals were (and still are) large size hardback books, designed for children and based on existing properties, generally comics and popular TV shows, as well as the occasional film and sport and pop round-ups.

The ones based on comics featured the same cast as the weekly editions, while the TV and film ones had comic strips, the occasional short story, fact files and interviews and - brilliantly - in the case of The Fall Guy, behind the scenes information on stunts and how they were filmed.

Generally published towards the end of the year, annuals are cover-dated as the following year to ensure shops don't take them off the shelves immediately after the new year (though, by then, unsold copies are often heavily reduced).  Still as popular now, the only difference (apart from the fact kids today don't have the choice of comics we did) seems to be that they're skinnier (and that's not just me being all nostalgically misty about it - my ones from the late 70s and early 80s are substantially chunkier than the ones I bought for Dude when he was younger - he's 16 now and annuals don't feature on his wish list).

Here, then, is another selection of old favourites, ones I received and ones I remember my sister Tracy having.  I hope some of them inspire a warm, nostalgic trip down memory lane for you...

1976

It's often said you were either a "Blue Peter kid" or a "Magpie kid" but I used to alternate between the two.  Which did you prefer?

1977

I started watching this because of Captain Scarlet and didn't remember a great deal about it, to be honest, until I caught up with it on ForcesTV.  It hasn't aged well, it must be said, though the model work is superb.

1978

1978

 Rupert The Bear makes his statutory appearance...

1978

1979

1979

I was a big fan of The Professionals and still am, the shows holding up remarkably well (as do the novelisations, which I wrote about here).

1979

The Six Million Dollar Man led me to the Bionic Woman, which I watched and enjoyed.  I don't think I've ever seen Max The Bionic Dog though (I wonder if he got his own annual...).

1979

1980

Probably the line-up I remember the most.

1980

1980

The series had long finished by the time this was published and I didn't realise it existed until I started researching these blog posts.  How could I have missed this, from my childhood hero (who I wrote about here)?

1981

1981

1981

Spun off from the TV show (which I remember finding extremely funny), I wonder how much of the humour went sailing over my head?


Happy Christmas!


scans from my collection, aside from the girls titles (thanks to the Internet for those)

You can read more of my nostalgia posts here