"Christmas is coming!"
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| Me, Christmas 1981. The book I'm writing in was the first diary I received and kept up with (I still write a daily diary) and the uppermost annual, by my right arm, is the 2000AD 1982 edition |
As I've written about over the past two years (you can see
2017 here and
2018 here), one of the Christmas highlights when I was a kid (
beyond the catalogues I wrote about in 2016) was 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’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...
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| 1975 |
Follyfoot was a firm favourite for Tracy (who loved horses), my memory of it is very hazy.
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| 1977 |
A Christmas staple, the on-going adventures of Dennis The Menace, Roger The Dodger and the Bash Street Kids!
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| 1977 |
"
...everyone knows his name..."
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| 1977 |
I enjoyed Dr Who as a kid but it scared the crap out of me!
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| 1978 |
War comics (and their subsequent annuals) were a big part of my childhood because, when this was published, the Second World War was still a clear memory for most adults.
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| 1978 |
Getting to stay up late on a Saturday night to watch
Starsky & Hutch was a real treat!
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| 1978 |
Monster related mayhem, another Christmas staple...
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| 1978 |
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| 1979 |
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| 1979 |
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| 1979 |
I remember reading my friend
Claire's Jackie comics and annuals and not quite understanding why they didn't have war strips in them...
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| 1979 |
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| 1979 |
It took me a long, long time to realise that the dinosaur (bottom left)'s name - Posh Paws - was an anagram of Swap Shop...
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| 1979 |
My hero and a marked improvement on the previous years annual (which I still feel suffers with poor artwork). Alas, this would be the last Steve Austin annual for me, I didn't even realise there was a 1980 edition until fairly recently.
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| 1980 |
Starlord was a favourite comic of mine (
I wrote about it here) though it only actually lasted for 22 issues during 1978. This, the first annual, came out a year after it had been absorbed into
2000AD and further annuals appeared in 1981 and 1982.
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| 1980 |
The Junior TV Times, Look-In was a big favourite of mine (
as I wrote about here).
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| 1980 |
Everyone of a certain age, seeing this, has just performed the theme tune riff. Another favourite TV show of mine (
which I wrote about here).
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| 1981 |
With one original Angel left (Jaclyn Smith, just in case you're too young to remember this...)
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| 1982 |
Thrill Power overload (and another fantastic Brian Bolland cover), as seen in the picture of me at the top of the blog!
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| 1982 |
Happy Christmas!
scans from my collection, aside from the girls titles (thanks to
comicvine for those)
You can read more of my nostalgia posts here
