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What comics did you read as a child?

(173 Posts)
Blossoming Thu 11-Aug-22 22:54:24

Following on from some comments in the ‘Common’ thread, what did you read and enjoy?

As a large family of boys and girls we had a mixture. The Beano (probably everyone’s favourite), Beezer, Topper, Eagle and Rover. Our cousins who lived nearby had Bunty and Dandy so we could read those too. Later on we had ‘Look and Learn’ and I started reading Jackie as a teenager.

leeds22 Mon 15-Aug-22 13:51:40

I had School Friend and my friend had Girls Crystal, so we could swap. I seem to remember Look and Learn and I loved Beano and Dandy too.

Dezzeau Mon 15-Aug-22 13:56:09

OMG I loved Petticoat - Janet Street-Porter used to write for it! Before that it was, I think, June and Schoolfriend (a merger!), and also Valentine and Marilyn - they were comics but with a lot of music.

Grandmamaoftwo Mon 15-Aug-22 14:05:15

Sunny Stories, more a magazine than a comic, then Look and Learn.

Grandma70s Mon 15-Aug-22 14:05:19

Cycorax

I wasn't allowed comics either, but managed to read them if my friends brought them into school. I remember, Girl, Beano, Bunty, Dandy, among others. My mother subscribed to a very worthy publication called The Young Elizabethan. I much preferred the comics!

I loved The Young Elizabethan when I was 12/14, so a bit older than the age for comics, I won a couple of competitions and had a book review and a poem published. They paid me! I got 10/6 for one of them.

Many years later I was discussing it with a neighbour who had also read it as a child, and we discovered we had come first and second in one of the competitions. We had lived at opposite ends of the country in childhood.

catladyuk Mon 15-Aug-22 14:05:28

girl, school friend and later mirabelle

Thisismyname1953 Mon 15-Aug-22 14:07:05

When I was very young I had beanie and my older DB had a dandy , then when slightly older I had Bunty and he had Topper . We swapped comics with each other every week.
As a teenager I got Jackie and had the posters all over my bedroom walls.

grandtanteJE65 Mon 15-Aug-22 14:23:59

I too started off with Robin then went on to Harold Hare if that was what the comic was actually called. After that Princess from I was ten. I think I lost interest in it when I was about fourteen, but by then I was allowed to read my mother¨s magazines (Woman's Own and Woman's Weekly).

All through my childhood I was allowed to read Oor Wullie and The Broons in the Sunday papers on the strict understanding that I did not read anything else in the papers.
(I had been badly upset, just before the abolition of the death sentence on catching sight of a notification of a hanging in Edinburgh. I had not actually read the paper on that occasion, my mother had stupidly left it lying on the floor beside her chair and sent me in to tidy the sitting-room and the headline caught my eye. After that I was not allowed to look at newspapers at all.)

The ban on newspaper reading was lifted when I was 15 as I remember reading about the Six-Day War and about the Prague spring.
My great-aunt, after checking the rest of the back page of the Scottish Daily Express carefully, let me read Rupert Bear. practically from the day I learnt to read.

Happysexagenarian Mon 15-Aug-22 14:24:36

I was usually only bought comics when we went on holiday in the summer, because I kept complaining I was bored! I remember Twinkle, Bunty, Mandy and Judy. If I asked for comics at home I was told there were plenty of books to read without wasting money on comics. But I was taken to the library once a month. By the time I reached my teens I preferred books to comics.

newnanny Mon 15-Aug-22 14:30:51

Mum bought me Princess Tina, and my older sister had Bunty. My Aunty bought me Tammy and my sister Jackie. We both read them all then Mum gave them to a girl a few doors away who never got any. Comics never seemed to be so expensive. Now they are astronomical.

homefarm Mon 15-Aug-22 14:32:56

Never read comics. My father bought Dandy and Beano, ostensibly for my sister and I but they were really for him [ semi literate all his life] I did enjoy my uncles copy of John Bull and failing that my grandfathers new paper.

Retired65 Mon 15-Aug-22 14:32:57

I read Bunty and 'Look and Learn'. My sister had Jackie. We also had a magazine called , 'The Elizabethan' when we were older. I also sometimes read 'The Princess'.

Missingmoominmama Mon 15-Aug-22 14:35:28

When I was quite young, my cousin used to pass on her copies of Twinkle, but as soon as I was old enough to have my own delivered, I had the Beano. Later, Smash Hits and NME joined that delivery.

I used to sometimes buy myself Jackie and Blue Jeans because the problem pages were quite juicy grin.

Ning74 Mon 15-Aug-22 14:39:25

Girls Crystal

mrsgreenfingers56 Mon 15-Aug-22 14:46:19

I had June and Schoolfriend and then Jackie when I got older. But mum didn't approve of comics so had to hide the Jackie one!

Nansypansy Mon 15-Aug-22 14:48:21

My parents chose which I could have …. I wanted Schoolfriend but was obliged to have Girl.?‍♀️

Bijou Mon 15-Aug-22 14:55:05

Didn’t have any comics. Had a lot of books and went to the library almost every day on the way home from school.

Alison333 Mon 15-Aug-22 14:55:18

I used to read Diana, Jackie and Fabulous (pop star mag). Later on, I liked Petticoat and Rave.

I found some vintage copies of Petticoat recently and was surprised about how 'wordy' the articles were compared to modern magazines for young women.

Mauriherb Mon 15-Aug-22 14:58:26

I had Judy and my friend had Bunty and we used to swap once we had read them

sarahcyn Mon 15-Aug-22 15:03:41

Penelope - a spin-off of the Thunderbirds franchise.
And Look and Learn. Straight to the back for the comics…

Mallin Mon 15-Aug-22 15:16:47

I wasn’t allowed comics as the only one that had ever entered the house ( via a neighbour ) had a spelling mistake and incorrect use of grammar. I made do with the next door neighbours cowboy novels. I recall my godmother asking me if I wanted a comic bought once, yet refusing as I preferred a liquorice whirl. Those long strips of black wound around a jelly sweet.

jerseygirl Mon 15-Aug-22 15:18:57

Bunty and later on jackie

DeeDe Mon 15-Aug-22 15:19:48

Think my last favourite was Valentine, when younger the beano, dandy and Bunty .. I still have an old Valentine comic somewhere grin

Kartush Mon 15-Aug-22 15:22:50

I lived in England until I was eleven and I dont remember any of those. My comic reading started when I was in my teens and I read Vampirella, uncanny x men, avengers and doom patrol

GrammaH Mon 15-Aug-22 15:38:19

We had Treasure then Look and Learn . In my teens I had Jackie & I remember my friend's elder sister had Petticoat which seemed really racy! It was then on to the Fab 208 magazine which linked with radio Luxembourg & had all the DJs in it, and Disco 45 which gave you all the words to the top hits so you could sing along with Alan "Fluff" Freeman's Top 20 count down.

Youngeil Mon 15-Aug-22 15:39:30

Does anyone remember Film Fun. My grandmother bought me a comic every Sunday on the way back from church. Eventually I went on to Schoolfriend and Girls Crystal, they were cheaper than Girl which was more upmarket!