Comics now and then

 It is Friday and that means comic day with me as I catch up with the Phoenix and Beano, the two weekly comics I get.

Phoenix seldom has any school based stories although a number have involved school age children but the Beano for a very long time has stories that at least reference school if not being set in a school of which The Bash Street Kids is the most famous one.

School today is very different at some levels than it was when this edition from June 16, 1962 was around with much less cricket being played, that chilling reminder of a Tawse at the top of strip being long gone although it reminds us that D C Thomson was very much a Scottish publisher and elements of scottish life do creep in to what were UK wide titles and this was the first strip drawn by the late David Sutherland who was scottish.

Given these changes and indeed even I could tell in the mid 1970's it was different to what things were even then never mind today, although the strip still runs, everything around has change because the children's world who read that comic has itself changed.

Today it is full colour, back when I read it originally only the front and rear was in colour, the reminder just used red and black in the main so for us annuals and the summer specials where when we saw our comic heroes in full colour and unlike then when we had newsprint, today the paper is better quality.

I do wonder sometimes if given the number that must go to recycling after a week or two if perhaps using modern newsprint might not be cheaper and better for the environment as todays newspaper too use colour pictures unlike the primitive black and white dots of the 70's and 80's.

The Pheonix does softback reprints of cartoon strip series which are more for collectors and fans of the likes of Looshkin and the Beano does a kind of illustrated "boomic" series of Dennis and Gnasher ones around a extended storyline.

Boomic is a brand that means Book but comic mash up really.

The D C Thomson fan books that have reprints of older classic strips around  a topic are popular - I have them every christmas - for bring back memories  of strips we no longer see such as Lord  Snooty and Pals, Little Plum and the like.

Comics are still a thing children do look forward to even in age of tie in weekly or monthly magazines to things in popular culture such as tv shows and films.