This Sunday, The Sunday Times has brought back The Funday Times, its popular comics supplement, as part of their reading campaign – and The Phoenix is involved, with Jamie Smart providing a fantastic “Bunny versus Monkey” theme front cover.
Launched in 1989, ending in print in March 2006, The Funday Times was intended mainly for children, and included several comic strips alongside puzzles and features. When it first launched, it included strips for older readers such as “Time and Ms. Jones“, written by Marise Morland, drawn by Sydney Jordan (best known as the creator of “Jeff Hawke), and Adolfo Buyalla, and humour strips such as “b.C.” and “Doonesbury”, but these were dropped in 1990 in favour of strips aimed directly at younger readers, including strips featuring BEANO characters and reprints of the Asterix books.
It also included reviews of various toys and songs, interviews with celebrities, including Will Smith, Gail Emms and Simpsons creator Matt Groening, and information on upcoming major events. It also featured adventure strips based on the Gerry Anderson TV series Thunderbirds, Stingray and Joe 90, capitaling on renewed interest in them in the 1990s
The new one-off edition, included with The Sunday Times this weekend (1st March 2026) is part of The Sunday Times Get Britain Reading campaign, which is supported by authors including Jamie Smart, who first worked on The Funday Times back in 2003, Michael Morpurgo, Anne Fine, Jacqueline Wilson, Michael Rosen and Julia Donaldson.
Young readers can look forward to extracts from new books, including Katie Kirby’s soon-to-be-published The Seriously Epic Holiday of Lottie Brooks, World Book Day’s new Roald Dahl-inspired adventure Chaos At The Chocolate Factory, and a new poem by children’s author and poet Rashmi Sirdeshpande.
Morpurgo has written the first line of a short story competition, while Matt Oldfield, who wrote the Unbelievable Football series, offers a guide of who look out for at this summer’s World Cup.
“The Funday Times was a weekly comic supplement, all big and newspapery, an absolute joy to read and an instrumental part of a lot of our childhoods!” enthuses Jamie Smart, a former contributor to the supplement, who has drawn a “Bunny versus Monkey” cover for this special edition.
“Some people might know I used to draw ‘Space Raoul’ centre spread comics in The Funday Times over twenty years ago, so it’s a real honour to be drawing a BVM cover for this special edition.
“Children’s comics have only had a few stalwarts over the past few decades, including The Phoenix comic and The Beano, and The Funday Times belongs in that list too.
“It’s vital that we offer children only the best, most brilliantest, most amazingest original comics and stories, and The Funday Times is such an important part of that.
“Do pick up a copy in The Sunday Times this Sunday, it all helps convince the world we need more children’s comics!”
The Sunday Times editor Ben Taylor said: “As a child, I could often be found curled up with a book — any book really, but Enid Blyton was a firm favourite.
“I loved British and American comics too, before graduating to football and pop music magazines and, of course, newspapers.
“Many of us got our first taste of reading via the pages of The Funday Times, which is why we’ve brought it back for a special edition.”
• The 12-page Funday Times will be included with The Sunday Times on sale this weekend
Head downthetubes for…
• The Sunday Times Get Britain Reading campaign
• The Phoenix Comic is online at thephoenixcomic.co.uk
• Jamie Smart is online at fumboo.com
• Marise Morland’s “Time and Elvira Jones” is available as a novel
Marise Morland has always been a science fiction fan, and has had SF and fantasy stories published in various magazines since the 1980’s. She’s also a published poet.
From 1988 she co-produced a comic strip, “Time and Ms. Jones”, which was serialised in early issues of The Funday Times in 1989, and recently reprinted in Italy.
She recently completed a series of space opera novels which are now on sale at doubledragon.com, Amazon and other platforms. More details here
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, British Comics - Newspaper Strips, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Other Worlds
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