Wacky Comics!: Action

Showing posts with label Action. Show all posts

Friday, July 7, 2023

Comic Branded Clothing

While doing some research for my series on the free gifts given away with Whizzer and Chips (link to part 1 here) I came across the above image from Phil-Comics of a Whizzer and Chips hat, apparently a competition prize from 1974. Whizzer and Chips gave away all manner of clothes throughout its 21-year run, most notably t-shirts that depicted various designs throughout the years promoting either Whizz-Kids or Chip-ites, depending on which half of the comic the prize was from.

Promotions for the shirts from 1978. There were
many different shirt designs over the years.

I've been looking for images of such clothes for years to share on the blog as I find comic-related promotional items an interesting part of their history. But so rarely do they come up that I seriously doubt many, if any, survive. It's not hard to see why - you can tell from the above photo the production quality of the hat isn't exactly that of Prada. Nonetheless, if you have a photo of the shirts or any other comic related clothing please do get in touch. It could be a photo taken yesterday or in 1984 - a photo is a photo and I'm keen to see!

Whizzer and Chips wallet 1986

Whizzer and Chips bag 1987

Meanwhile, here's another cap, also from of Phil-Comics. This one is an Action cap, apparently a runner-up prize in the Action Superstars Competition from 1976.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Summer Special Advertisements

I've been looking at a few summer specials over the past months so today I thought I'd do something slightly different and look at the advertisements for various specials. We start off by heading back to 1980 - the 3rd of May to be precise, and take a look inside that week's issue of Jackpot, which contained this nice ad for that year's Krazy Summer Special.

Come forwards 364 days to the Jackpot dated 2nd May 1981, and you may be surprised to hear that it contains no less than three ads for summer specials! The first two of those, the Buster and Monster Fun and Cor specials, share a page...

...with the ad for the penultimate Frankie Stein special appearing later in the comic.

Moving away from Jackpot let's head back to 1968. On this cover of this July edition of The Beano the cover star, Biffo the Bear, rushes around trying to get that year's special.

There was a similar cover a year later.

And here's a half-page ad for the 1970 Twinkle and Beano specials.

Come forwards to the Whizzer and Chips of '76 and here's an ad for the one and only Vulcan special.

Back (or should that be forwards) to 1980 and we find an ad for that year's Beezer special in the pages of Nutty.

And finally, I'll wrap up this post with a half-page ad for the second Action special, found in Krazy comic dated 2nd July 1977.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Two Comic Flyers From The 70's

When looking through various 1970's issues of Whizzer and Chips I came across a couple of flyers promoting new titles. The first appeared in the issue dated 7th February 1976, advertising Action - "the paper of the 70's". The four pages promoted the stories and gifts - a red arrow in the first issue followed by a Hookjaw transfer and then 16 Soccer Superstar Cards.

The next flyer was led up to with no less than five clues over five issues. The first clue appeared in issue dated 10th September 1977; can you guess what it is?

If not, here are the next two clues:

Do you have it by now? If not, I'd be surprised if the fourth clue doesn't reveal all:

And here's the final clue, just in case you still haven't solved it:

Yes, it was of course Cheeky Weekly; the flyer for the first edition appeared in issue dated 15th October 1977. It was very similar in design to the Action flyer the year before; with the centre advertising the stories and the back page the free gifts.

There were many other flyers produced over the years of course, promoting new comics, revamps/upgrades, new characters and free gifts.