WHAM! Promotional Banner
Back when British comics had sales in the hundreds of thousands every week, they had a promotional budget to match, extending to retail promotions like this Wham! banner, offered to newsagents in the 1960s by its publisher, Odhams Press.
Launched in 1964, Wham! was the creation of Leo Baxendale and featured by strips such as Ken Reid, Baxendale drawing “Eagle Eye, Junior Spy”, “Grimly Feendish”, “General Nitt and his Barmy Army” and “George’s Germs”. (He also created “Bad Penny”, “Dr Doom”, “The Swots and the Blots”, “Sam’s Spook” and “The Man from BUNGLE” for sister paper, Smash!)
Reid created the comedy horror strip “Frankie Stein” and the Victorian miser “Jasper the Grasper” for the fondly-remembered title, those strips recently collected in two great hardback albums published by Irmantas Povilaika, still available to buy here.
This poster, a rarity saved by collector Peter Hansen, was just part of Odhams’ marketing efforts to promote Wham!, which included, cartoonist Lew Stringer recalls, smaller displays that newsagents could clip inside A-boards.
“It looks like Odhams went all out to promote it,” he says.”A pity that, according to Leo’s book [A Very Funny Business], when he and [Odhams Managing Editor] Alf Wallace went around six London newsagents only a few had heard of the comic, and others had ordered low and sold out. Some things never change!”
Days Gone Lledo: No. DG071024 1959 Morris LD Van Wham! Via “Little Wheels”
The comic has been celebrated in print and by its many fans down the years, and is one of several British comics immortalised by toy car maker Lledo, as one of their many “Days Gone” releases, along with Beano, Dandy and more, many available at reasonable prices from the terrific “Little Wheels” site, or perhaps by searching auction sites such as eBay.
• Buy the Power Pack of Ken Reid Books
• Check out more of the Lledo toy car range (and more) on Little Wheels
Days Gone Lledo: No. DG063014 Bedford O Series Luton Van Dandy & Beano, Bash Street Kids
Lledo “Adventure” Days Gone van
Lledo “Rover” Days Gone van
With thanks to Peter Hansen
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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.
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It’s worth mentioning that Leo Baxendale created Wham!
Commissioned to come up with a rival to the Beano, he created practically all of the early characters and came up with the title of the comic. He drew almost all of issue 1 to set the style, although various other artists were brought in for subsequent issues to ghost Leo’s style (naturally, Leo couldn’t draw 20 pages every week).
Ken Reid arrived with his creation Frankie Stein with issue 4.
And when sales began to dip and Marvel fan Alf Wallace started slipping in Marvel reprints and suddenly the Power line was born…
Alf would later become involved with the British Marvel operation, but more on that soon(ish) in From Cents to Pence! 🙂