TV Comic

British comic book

TV Comic was a British comic book magazine published weekly from 9 November 1951 until 29 June 1984. Featuring stories based on television series running at the time of publication, it was the first British comic to be based around TV programmes; it spawned a host of imitators.

For the first decade of its existence, the publication was aimed explicitly at younger children. As well as Muffin the Mule (which ran for nearly 10 years—as the cover feature until 1955, then later as a half page in black and white), other favourites from the 1950s that made appearances were Sooty, Coco the Clown, Noddy and Lenny the Lion. As the decade passed, so the comic began to acquire a slightly more "grown up" feel, with stories such as Treasure Island, The Lone Ranger and Black Beauty all appearing for a time. Text stories also began to be featured, with religious themes such as "Jesus and the Bible". TV Comic printed Doctor Who stories from 1964 to 1979 (except for the period between 1971 and 1973, when the strip was instead published in another Polystyle title, Countdown/TV Action). It also featured strip cartoons for the early puppet TV series produced by Gerry Anderson and AP Films—Four Feather Falls, Supercar and Fireball XL5—until Anderson's titles became the focus of a rival publication, TV Century 21. The issues published in the 1960s are considered the most collectable in the comic's history. As well as Doctor Who and Anderson strips, other highly collectable material included Telegoons (which ran from 1963 to 1967), Space Patrol (from 1964 to 1965) and The Avengers (based on the TV series featuring John Steed; initially from 1965 to 1966 and again from 1968 to 1972). A number of annuals and holiday specials were also issued over the years, including special editions concentrating on characters such as the Pink Panther and Tom and Jerry. TV Comic also carried a series of Star Trek strips some months before the original series began to be broadcast by BBC television in the UK from Summer 1969. (The Star Trek strip also migrated to the rival TV21 (formerly TV Century 21).

From the start, TV Comic featured a mixture of colour and black and white pages, a policy that continued throughout its publication. TV Comic had quite a tempestuous history towards the end of its life. In 1976 (from issue 1,292) it was re launched as Mighty TV Comic, switching to a large tabloid format. Although the pages were larger, the amount of content did not grow, with the frames of many strips simply increasing in size. The first two of the new issues were accompanied by a smaller "Mighty Midget" supplement. This evidently failed to attract the sales increases that had been hoped for, as the comic reverted to an A4 format from issue 1,377 two years later, now published on cheap newsprint. Although the paper quality eventually improved, the comic came to rely heavily on reprints of older material, or using scripts from old strips with new characters. The only notable, collectable and original strip of this period was perhaps Battle of the Planets (drawn by former Dan Dare artist Keith Watson), which ran from 1981 to 1983. The publication ultimately closed in 1984, after 33 years, due to declining sales. The last issue contained no warning in its pages of the title's discontinuation, nor of it being merged with another comic; instead, TV Comic simply failed to appear the following week. However, both The A Team and the Tales of the Gold Monkey strips, which had been running until this point, concluded with frames stating "The End".