THJE STORY JPAJPJER COJLJLJECTOR N:.��1�:1�:�.4
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Research on Modern "Comics"
HERE Is Buying Guidance investigators compared the num on almost everything today ber of beats of a comic on a T and the "comic paper" is window sill, before the paper no exception. The boys of became useless. One of the boys Form 2J at Wakefield Cathedral had the use of a fish and chip Secondary School in England shop, where resistance to grease, have put the modern "comic" salt, and vinegar was measured. under the microscope. Their At first I thought that these findings have been published in tests were something entirely Mitre, the school magazine. new, but on examining some of Five boys of thirteen years did the old comics in my collection the research out of school hours, I see that these, too, have ap and most thoroughly did they parently been used for fly-swat go to work. They nominated as ting, and from the food-stains the best comic one which they on some of them they have also found not only best to read, but been tested as table-cloths! also the best for holding fish and I still have in my possession a chips, for fly-swatting, and for frantic letter from a postal mem fire-lighting! ber of the Northern Section The winning comic-unfortu [Old Boys' Book Club] library nately the name is not given in telling me that his wife had lit the report-took 66 minutes, 38 the fire with a Magnet from the seconds to read, against 9 min Secret Society series. (It took utes, 42 seconds for the "poorest two years to replace the copy.) buy." Verily, there is nothing new un In the fly-swatting test, the der the sun! - GERRY ALLISON
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.. The First School Story in a Boys' Weekly
The Young ; Englishman s Journal, Number 8, June 8th, 1867. Temple Pub. Co.
The Boys of B!rcham School, by org Emmett, lllu trat d by Harry Ma.guire
(Why did W. L. Emmett accept a title block with reversed N's?) (See S.P.C. 79, page 52)
lT WAS INTENDED that a reproduction of a Victorian paper should accompany three of the four parts of Tom Hopper ton's article, Digging Round the Roots. However, having placed the copies of the papers in the hands of a photo grapher, Mr. Hopperton had difficulty in obtaining the prints and they only became available in time for this issue. 114 THE STORY PAPER COLLECTOR • No.82 Vol.4
DIGGING ROUND THE ROOTS
By TOM HOPPERTON
HE TOTAL NUMBER of stories Sampson, Low & Co. were pub was now becoming formi lishing Henty's Union Jack they T dable, although only Tal had only one school tale in the bot Baines Reed's contri 70-odd books they issued. The butions to The Boy's Own Paper R. T. S. for a long time confined -The Fifth Form at St. Dominic's themselves to Reed's works, and and The Cock House at Felsgarth when Sampson, Low had an -have weathered the storms of other go at the juvenile market time. Their impact was cumu in 1892 with Boys their book lative rather than immediate. list had risen to over 100 with Harcourt Burrage long outwrote Reed's Roger Ingleton Mi nor still and outsold Reed, and if he had standing alone. More represen happened to be backed by The tative for our purpose were Religious Tract Society instead the two firms reprinting weekly of more ephemeral publishers, serials, Hogarth House with five I feel that he would not have school stories out of 54, and been sub merged in unjustified Edwin J. Brett, whose 1900 list obscurity. He began with Em had 21 of them to 22 historical mett and lived long enough to tales and 45 general adventure be adopted as a sort of pet by yarns. Hamilton Edwards in The Boys' With the turn of the century, Realm, but from Charley and Tim the climb began. One reason at Scarem School in his early days must have been the improve down to The Lambs of Littlecote ment in the stories. There is and The Island School, which not a lot to choose between, seems to have \ieen the Aldine say, the first Boys of England Company's swan-song in num serial, Alone in the Pirate's Lair, ber publishing, it is hardly pos and Henry St. John's In Nelson's sible to go wrong in dipping Day, and it would be difficult into his vast output. to date such storil!s accurately Book publishers were still from the internal evidence. Thi s chary of the school story. When would not apply in general to i1M111111mt:11m1111111t:1n11u11111c1111u11111111:111111111111t:11110rn111t:11:111111111c:111u1111u11 p ART FOUR i1011111a111i111111111111ci111111111111t�•111111111111111:11111mrn1111111111m11�11111n1111111n111111c 116 THE STORY PAPER COLLECTOR
the school story. There were he feel sufficiently close to St. naturally exceptions. The King of Basil's and the rest to consider the School has been mentioned himself a possible and not in as capable of passing muster for congruous entrant and so begin many more years : at the other the process of personal associa extreme, Horace Phillips' Cast tion which led thousands upon Out by the School was poor ham· thousands to enrol themselves my stuff which might well have as devoted supernumeraries at been written twenty-five years St. Jim's and Greyfriars? It seems before it was. But speaking to be at least feasible. broadly, there was a quite dis· For precisely the same reason proportionate improvement in that the boys' thoughts were the polish of the school story being moulded in this direction, over a similar period, and no the publishing opportunities one could confuse the dates of were then broadening beyond The Boys of Bircham School and the recognition of the pioneers, Goodwin's Cad of St. Carton's and the last foundation stone ( 1895 and utilising a scholarship was laid by the striking expan boy). sion of The Amalgamated Press. The Harmsworths founded HIS ADDED GLOSS of sophisti· what became The Amalgamated T cation must have swelled Press just as the full effectof the the popularity, but was 1871 Education Act was being there another factor, something felt. The population was ex in the minds of the boys them panding rapidly and illiteracy selves? The youngster of 1867 reducing to a negligible percen did not need to be told th at tage, so that the greatest mass life is real, life is earnest. His market ever lapped up their pro short schooling and the im liferating publications. Up to minence of some sort of job then, a writer specialising in made the boarding school a school stories had been un vague dream, remote and unat· thinkable: it was practically im tainable. The popularity of Rags possible, in fact, for even the to Riches fables probably re most versatile to confine himself flected his immediate interests. exclusively to boys' papers if he The better-educated boy of the hoped to make a living. The opening years of the twentieth purely boys' writer now became century was held back longer a fact, and if people like Michael from the labour market by the Storm, Henry St.John, and David increased school-leaving age. Did Goodwin continued to accept Tom Merry at the Helm
The British Boys' Paper, Number 22, July 28th, 1888. Al dine
Tom Merry's Schooldays, by George Emmett (It doesn't show in the reproduc tion, but the heel of the page bears the legend: "New Boys' Paper, No. 96, Vol. II, The British Boys' Paper, No. 22, Vol. l")
(See S.P.C. 79, page 52, where it is called British Boys' Journal)
I adult work it was perhaps more of Beeton's Boys' Own Journal, and from choice than from necessity. Boys of England set a formula for Even so, the school story spe its rivals and successors which cialist of any output could not was still adhered to by the A. P.'s have developed without another highly successful Boys' Friend, change, this time in the weeklies Boys' Realm, and Boys' Herald. themselves. They had been This make-up relied on three, mixed papers right from the days four, or five serials to form the 117 118 THE STORY PAPER COLLECTOR body of the paper, and was in of it. The Qem Library was con evitably a brake on the progress ceived as a mixed weekly and as of the school tale. The editors, such gave no indication that fearful of unbalancing their pro it could have outlasted Trapps gramme, would not at best ad Holrnes' Vanguard Library or mit more than one at a time, so Henderson's Nuggets. Torn Mer the schoolboy remained a pic ry was to be an intermittent colo drowned by the trumpets, performer and (said he sinking trombones, and bass drums of his voice to a whisper) there highwaymen, pirates, and adven was nothing extraordinary about turers. The libraries altered all the Clavering stories and the this. bud certainly did not foresha dow the flower. What did make ENNY LIBRARIES had flourished The Qem was Griffiths' decision P from about 1840 and, as they to transport the Terrible Three were complete, undated, and to St. Jim's, a removal effected always vendible, they were pro against the author's inclination bably a better publishing risk and one which was to give than the perishable weekly jour the stories a unique structure. nal. Brett, Charles Fox, Hogarth Chance created the opportunity, House, and even that crow of ill and Charles Hamilton was pre omen Guy Rayner had run long eminently the author to make and successful series, which still, the most of it. however, remained strings of No writer can do more than unconnected novelettes. The continue where his predecessors new type issued by the A.P. and left off. The limited terrain of particularly by the Aldine Pub� the school story had been so ex lishing Company showed it was tensively cultivated that·no deni possible to build up a devoted gration of Charles Hamilton's following for characters as di work is implied in pointing out verse as Buffalo Bill, Deadwood that his material was very much Dick, Dick Turpin, Robin Hood, second-hand and that he was Sexton Blake, and Jack, Sam, deeply rooted in the Victorian and Pete. For the first time sus tradition. As that is the present tained characters were outdraw object, this is not the place to ing the trip!!! pull of the names detail what he did contribute, of author, publisher, and paper. even if the editorial space and The stage was set, although particularly the editorial patience not even the stage manager, permitted it. Editor Percy Griffith, was aware One example, however, may Magnet Readers may Not Recognise Him, but the Young Gentle· man in the Plug Hat is Bob Cherry
Boys of England, Number 86, July 10th, 1868. Newsagents' Publishing Co.
Unlucky Bob; or, Our Boys at School, by W. T. Townsend (See S.P.C. 80, page 76)
not be amiss as rounding off how the writer's later artistry the picture, and there is no can change a well-worn and need to take it from one of unpromising theme. the widely admired ·series. The Carboy came to Greyfriars as Christopher Clarence Carboy the world's greatest practical Magnets would be well down joker. (The Editor said so, and the list in any popularity poll l suppose he knew.) A shiver but, better than most, they show runs down one's back at the 119 120 THE STORY PAPER COLLECTOR thought of what Hemyng and institution, Wharton being nee his school would have hung on dled into mounting his well such a peg. C. C. C. would have known high horse, and Skinner, lived and breathed and had his Fisher T. Fish, and Bunter res being in a miasma of booby ponding in their own way to a traps, ink squirts, stink bombs, "planted" news item that Car bent pins, exploding pipes and boy Senior was a millionaire. candles, trip cords, greased stair cases, peppered tea, liberated HE VICTORIANS plotted their rats- and blackbeetles ! T stories from incident. Mr. It is therefore at first sight sur Hamilton switched the pro prising to find that"the greatest" cess and the casts which he did very little japing at Grey lovingly elaborated over the friars- not a single hand's-turn years were used to evolve a sys more than was essential to carry tem of plotting from charaeter. ing on the plot. Instead of Cox's Orange Pippins were deve a tedious procession of rather loped from the original crab spiteful tricks, we had a sequence apple- and there is no point in of charaeter studies showing elaborating the point. how the familiar cast re-aeted to Granted, it may be urged that Carboyan stimulation. Among no other writer had the oppor these delightful vignettes we saw tunity to work on so grand a Mr. Quelch insisting with fero scale, but in return it must be cious irony that Carboy's as granted that the opportunity sumed obtuseness was really would never have existed at all feeble-mindedness and compel if he had not been the master ling him to write to his father craftsman of the school story. to be removed to a suitable
in which Billy Bunter had slept, BUNTER BEDS! each one labelled: Billy Bunter HEN Slept Here 1 But th at couldn't WE FIRST SAW the en really be, so we read on: W try Bunter Beds as we were consulting our Concise Red Sandstones and Pebble beds 1,000 2,000 Universal Encyclopedia, issued in of from ft. to ft. in weekly parts a generation ago thickness . . in Devonshire and by The Amalgamated Press, we more particularly in the Midlands. had a momentary vision of beds So now we know I
.. TRACING A LEGEND
By JACK OVERHILL
USED TO GO IN an old shoe Robin Hood and Hereward the maker's shop a lot when I Wake - the three forming a I was a boy. On the wall was a trinity symbolizing the noble and picture of a man on a black heroic. horse leaping a gate. The man As time passed I heard about wore a funny-shaped hat, a mask, Dick Turpin from other sources. and a black cloak. He had pis Everything I heard added to his tols stuck in his belt and he was stature. When I was ten or looking round, a smile on his eleven I read of his exploits in lips, at other men on horseback penny copies of The Aldine after him. One day I asked Library. I wished I had been with the shoemaker who he was. He him to rob rich merchants, stopped work and smiled. play pranks on stout aldermen, "That's Dick Turpin, riding carouse in wayside inns, ex on Black Bess, the Bow Street change sword thrusts and pistol Runners after him." shots with Bow Street Runners, "Did they catch him?" and ride hard on a stout horse "No. Dick was too fly for that took toll-gates in its stride. them." One day I came across Harri His manner showed whose son Ainsworth's Rookwood, the side he was on. So did the tales book that immortalized Dick he told me of Dick Turpin hold Turpin and his ride to York on ing up coaches and robbing the Black Bess. It was the climax of rich to give to th� poor. One all that I had heard and read of the tales-how Dick Turpin about the famous highwayman. accidentally shot and killed his I thought he deserved a statue friend, Tom King- grieved me as high as Nelson's in Trafalgar deeply. Little by litde, the picture Square. of a brave and gallant man was I don't know how I learned built up in my mind to take its that Dick Turpin was born at the place with two other heroes- Rose and Crown public house in
Broadcast on the East Anglian Programme of the Midland Home Service, June 8th, 1959 121 122 THE STORY PAPER COLLECTOR
Hempstead, a village about 20 and married. His way of doing miles from Cambridge. When I business was simple: he took did, I biked there with my bro cattle without paying fur it. He ther- he was a bit older than got found out-rumour said he me-to have a look at it. One stole a herd, but that was an of the rooms had a spy-hole exaggeration- and he bolted. For in the oak-beamed ceiling and a time he robbed smugglers in round the walls were framed Essex, but they were rough stuff, prints-some of them coloured able to give as good as they got, - and extracts from old news and afraid of what they would papers that told of Dick Tur do if they caught him he took pin's exploits. There was also a to deer-stealing, highway rob framed copy of the entry of his bery, and house-breaking. birth, in Latin, in the parish He became one of a band that register. made their headquarters in Ep Opposite, across the road lead ping Forest, living in caves. They ing up to the church, was a robbed churches and lonely group of pollard willows called farmhouses. Turpin used to hold Turpin's Ring. This used to be men and women over the fire to a cockfighting pit. There was an make them tell him where they air of antiquity and romance had hidden their money. Other about the Rose and Crown in ads · of his are too bad to keeping with its traditions and mention. The gang was broken all that had its effects on us. On up and Turpin joined up with the way home my brother got so others, notably Tom King. The excited that he kept lashing his brutalities of him and his assc bike with his cap, calling it Black ciates kept the suburbs of Lon Bess and imploring it to go don for a while in terror.· faster as he pedalled hard to Turpin didn't do his famous escape from the Bow Street Run ride to York. That was probably ners on his track. done by Nick Nevison, sixty years before Turpin's time. The T WAS A PITY that I had to story goes that Nevison was I learn the truth. The day came recognized when holding up a when I did. And how different man at Gads Hill at four o'clock from fact was fancy ! one morning. He rode the two Born in 1703, Dick Turpin hundred miles to York in a day was apprenticed to a butcher in to establish an alibi. When he Whitechapel. Soon afterwards got there he changed his clothes he set up in business on his own and boots and walked on to the
.. TRACING A LEGEND 123 bowling-green where he asked brother of Tom King-that was the mayor the time. The mayor shot in the yard of The Red Lion looked at his watch and told in Whitcchapel Road. Turpin him it was a quarter to eight. died gamely: he stamped his foot Nevison was prosecuted for down to stop his leg trembling the robbery but on this evidence when he was hanged in York for he was acquitted. The jury didn't horse stealing. But he hadn't the think it possible that a man courage of some highwaymen. could be in two places so far a·part on the same day. When APTAIN Hrnn and Robert he was drunk Nevison bragged C Allen had the nerve to at about what he had done. King tack Oliver Cromwell in Charles got him to confess the his carriage when it was guarded truth to him privately. He par by seven men. Francis Jackson doned Nevison and called him and four other highwaymen, "Swift Nick." after a running fight all day, The ride from London to York finally stood at bay and fought was long regarded as a real test for an hour with swords and of horsemanship and if there is pistols against two hundred men any doubt about this story there arrayed· against them on Hamp is no doubt about John Lepton stead Heath. John Cottingham making a wager that he would known as "Mulled Sack" as he ride between London and York drank so much of it-and Tom six times on successive days Cheney robbed Colonel Hewson three times each way-com on Hounslow Heath in sight of pleting each journey before sun his own regiment, Cheney losing set. He started out on May 20th, his life over it. 1606, and won the wager. That In comparison with them, was over one hundred years be Dick Turpin was a nobody. He fore Dick Turpin who, as I say, made so little impression on the didn't do his famous ride to mind of Captain Charles John York. Neithtr did Turpin have a son that he didn't even mention horse named Black Bess. Horace him in his General History of Smith in a poem and Harrison Highwaymen,published only three Ainsworth in his novel, Rook years after Turpin was hanged. wood, made that name up be Turpin's fame was built up by tween them. hundreds of ballads, plays, and Turpin didn't accidentally stories written about him. One shoot and kill Tom King. It of the stories- a penny dreadful was Matthew King-probably a called Black Bess; or, The Knight 124 THE STORY PAPER COLLECTOR of the Road, written by Edward Viles in the 1860s, ran in weekly Bill Martin parts for five years. The total number of words was something T 1s WITH regret that we like two and a half millions. I record the death in October, 1962, in London of William URING THE PAST few years Martin, known to collectors as a a number of books have D very efficient locater of copies of been published revealing old boys' papers that otherwise the tru,th about Turpin. Won would have been lost to col dering how his fame was stand lecting circles. ing up to it, I recently went to Of Mr. Martin W. 0. G. Lofts the Rose and Crown at Hemp writes: stead to find out. The old public house with a I always got on very well with painting on the wall outside of him-in his case his bark was far a coach hold-up looked as pic worse than his bite. turesque as ever. Its genial host, In my own collecting I owe a lot Mr. Handley, was pleased to talk to him, and abo<1e all for introducing about Dick Turpin. He did so me to Herbert Lecl ... they seem to be available THE HARDY BOYS in all kinds of stores. Al though these stories are, MYSTERY STORIES as indicated above, pri marily mysteries (the two principal characters are By ALVIN FICK Frank and Joe Hardy, sons of a professional detec- ERHAPS IT IS no mere coinci tive ), they contain much material dence that the words "boy" relating to the boys' activities in P and "fun" both contain school. three letters. The two are, Solving mysteries and being and ought to be, inseparable. involved in the exciting events This element of fun has been surrounding their investigations pursued by the young reader were not the only occupations of into the realm of books, ac the Hardy boys and their friends. counting for the long-standing There was also a generous por popularity of certain series of tion of good-natured practical books and literary characters joking among their high school which have stood the test of friends. time. When considering British boys' F THE 38 titles published in books and fictional characters O the Hardy Boys series no one's thoughts inevitably rest on doubt hundreds of thou the boys at Greyfriars and, in sands of copies have been prin turn, on the inimitable William ted, perhaps even millions of George Bunter, variously referred these books finding their way to as Billy, "that fat villain," or, into American homes. At the as Harry Wharton, Captain of local public library the Hardy the Remove, has been heard to books are among the most worn say, "that fat, frabjous, footling and thumbed. octopus." It is interesting to note that In the U�ited States the popu the Hardy Boys also have a prin larity of the Hardy Boys Mystery cipal character who appears of Stori es is perhaps something of ten, although he is not destined a parallel, having been main to attain the formidable ( ! ) im tained more than thirty years. portance of Bunter, bane of the The stories are still being pub Famous Five. lished, i.e., reprinted, with some Chet Morton, described as "a new ones occasionally printed. stout chubby boy of about six Around the Christmas season teen," usually was a prime mover 125 126 THE STORY PAPER COLLECTOR in the elaborate hoaxes which hereditary enemies," which be spice the stories. Sometimes he gins on a mutual note of amity, ends up on the receiving end, to admiration, and pseudo-friendly the obvious enjoyment of his regard, develops into a booby companions. One of his most trap for the unsuspecting police notable successes in the field of officer. The chapter comes to a fun-making occurs in The Secret close with Riley running down of the Old Mill (copyright 1927). the street carrying a package con Chapter 14, Con Riley Guards a taining a loudly-clanging alarm Package, is devoted to a joke clock. He is followed by a crowd played on one of Bayport's sterl of small boys who are nearly as ing police officers. The chapter amused as the perpetrators of begins quietly, but ends in a the trick, Chet Morton and the wild, laugh-provoking climax: older lads, who are watching from across the street. Officer Con Riley was at peace with the world. His heart was full HE AUTHOR, Franklin of cont�ntment and his stomach was w. Nixon, sprinkled these hap full of pie. The sun was shining and T py episodes generously one of the aldermen had just given throughout his books, perhaps to him a fairly good cigar. His beat lighten the tenseness of the main had been free of crime for a week. mystery plot. Even the most His wife had gone to the country pleasant shade of a tree is im for a visit and had taken the chil proved and its enjoyment heigh dren with her. Hence, Con Riley's tened when dappled with flecks feeling of deep and everlasting satis of sunshine. At any rate, the faction with the world. Even the humor is a bonus never frowned boys, his natural and hereditary upon by the young reader-or enemies, had not tormented him for by the "old boy" delving into an several days. Perhaps, he argued, it old haunt for a whiff of that was because they were up to their magic that suffused his youth. ears in work, preparing fo r examina tions. lf that was the reason, Con Here is a list of the 38 Hardy Riley decided that examinations Boys mystery books: were good things and should be The Tower Treasure. encouraged. The House on the Cliff. That this state of tranquility The Secret of the Old Mill. would soon be ruptured is a The Missing Chums. foregone conclusion. An en Hunting for Hidden Gold. counter with his "natural and The Shore Road Mystery. .. TODD= FOX 127 The Mystery of the Caves. The Secret of Cabin Island. TODD=FOX The Great Airport Mystery. What Happened at Midnight. N NEWSPAPERS in North Amer While the Clock Ticked. I ica there appears a syndicated Footprints Under the Window. feature, ls This Your Name? The Mark on the Door. It gives, each day, a name and The Hidden Harbor Mystery, what it means and whence it The Sinister Sign Post. came. In December last the A Figure in Hiding. name dealt with was "Todd." The Secret Warning. We were told that it is an Eng The Twisted Claw. lish name meaning "one with The Disappearing Floor. some qualities of a fox" or "a The Mystery of the Flying dweller at the sign of the fox." Express. From this it is seen that the The Clue of the Broken Blade. author of the Inn of a Thousand The Flickering Torch Mystery. Secrets stories in The Bullseye in The Melted Coins. the early 1930s had a good idea The Short-Wave Mystery. when he named his hostelry The The Secret Panel. Red Fox Inn - the name of the The Phantom Freighter. sinister landlord who dropped The Secret of the Crooked so many of his visitors into the Arrow. cellar with the aid of a revolving The Secret of the Lost Tunnel. chair being --Jasper Todd ! The Secret of Skull Mountain. � The Secret of Wildcat Swamp. I Wish to Purchase . The Wailing Siren Mystery. The Crisscross Shadow. -Copies of British weekly maga The Yellow Feather Mystery. zine, Passing Show, from October The Hooded Hawk Mystery. 7th, 1933, to February 3rd, 1934, The Clue in the Embers. and other issues containing illus The Secret o{ Pirates' Hill. trations by Fortunino Matania. The Ghost at Skeleton Rock. Will pay well.-Alvin Fick, Fort The Mystery at Devil's Paw. Johnson, New York, U.S.A. � -Copies of The Gem with J. N. � DELICATE (B. 0. P. Reader) - Pentelow's St. Jim's Gallery, and What you complain of does not also No. 593.-Frank McSavage, signify.-Reply to a reader in Boy's 21231 Celes Street, Woodlands Own Paper No. i389, Aug. 26, '05. Hills, California, U.S.A. Mainly in larger servings we present MORE POT-POURRI can enlighten me. Prince Pip A PRINCE WHO pin lived in my memory, and VANISHED! that is all. I fancy very few other collec FANTASTIC, FICTITIOUS prince tors of old story papers bother was responsible for my in with Prince Pippin, for his ex A troduction to The Magnet. ploits were just too fanciful. But When I was six or seven years someone might recall the name old my parents decided it was of the paper in which he was time I had some weekly reading. featured. -0. w. WADHAM The name of the publication 12 Military Road, Lower Hutt, they chose for me I cannot re New Zealand. call now-it was early in 1914- {There is an article, What is Gossamer! -Fairy Queens and All That. bv Otto but I clearly remember the main Maurer, in the 1961 Collectors' Digest character. He was Prince Pippin. Annual. Other articles in earlier Annuals also tell of the stories which featured The paper was well illustrated Prince Pippin.] and had similar size pages to * * * those of The Sexton Blake Library. I never became really keen on Film Fun Finishes ! Prince Pippin, but a friend of mine, a year or so older, became STILL ANOTHER LINK with the very enthusiastic about him. days of 1919-20 when many new An older brother of his was boys' papers were coming from buying The Magnet. He offered The Fleetway House was cut to swap this paper for my Prince last September when (as was Pippin publication. It was not briefly noted in S. P. C. Number long before Prince Pippin was 81) Film Fun was merged with replaced by The Magnet at first Buster. Perhaps it was the last hand. I just could not wait link, as far as juvenile weeklies to get a delayed, and often are concerned-if we do not damaged, copy. include Children's Newspaper. I have an impression that Number 1 of Film Fun was Prince Pippin did not survive dated January 17th, 1920, while World War I. Perhaps some the final issue was for week end reader of The Story Paper Collector ing September 8th, 1962, but the 128 MORE POT-POURRI 129 total number of issues we do and, silly-like, denied it, but was not know. proved guilty by another boy. It The pictured humorous ad was my turn to receive the wax ventures of movie and TV star ender on both hands-and how Tony Hancock was our favorite it stung! I tried hard not to feature of all the picture-stories weep but my eyes filled up I that have appeared in Film Fun But as time went on I was while ·we were reading it. glad that I received the punish In recent years the paper be· ment. I had felt a desire to came noted, with Knockout, for know what it was like when the reprinting of stories from I had witnessed others being papers of the 1920s and 1930s, punished. The pain didn't last but this policy was abandoned long, but the �cane certainly before the end and Film Fun made one behave, and it is a had become an all·picture-story pity that it isn't made more use paper. -w. H. o. of today! * * In the few school stories that have read, only once have I The Wax-Ender 1 seen the cane mentioned as a I FOUND · Bend Over, Bunter! in "wax-ender." This was in a Big S. P. C. Number 80 interesting Budget of June, 1907. The story, reading, but in the school that titled Too Much Bragley was I attended we had no alcove at written by Herbert Wentworth. the end of a corridor where the I shouldn't wonder if he had cane was kept. It always hung made the acquaintance of the from the master's desk for all to cane when he was a lad, to see, so there was no excuse for judge by the way he told of its not thinking of what was wait stinging cuts! ing for you if you did anything -ARTHUR HARRIS you shouldn't do. Penrhyn Bay, Llandudno, Wales. The cane had some black * * * twine w und round the end, �' which I !earned later was called Too Much War! cobbler's wax. It looked rather ominous and certainly made WAR, WAR, WAR 1 I 'rn sick of it, those who felt it writhe like and so are all the fellows I cut worms! Sometimes their know here! But British boys contortions were funny! must be war minded, otherwise Then one day, not thinking why so many war comics and about it, I was caught talking strips? 34 monthly war libraries, 130 THE STORY PAPER COLLECTOR 16 comics (age group 8 to 14) I lo•1e it, l love it, with war stories per week! And who shall dare - JOHN c. STOKES To chide me for loving Dublin, Eire. November 26th. 1962. That old armchair. * * Apparently The Bullseye tried to hit the target with revived Jasper Todd's Return and re-written stories originally ONLY NOW, after 21 years in printed in other papers years the New Zealand Army, have I before. -0. W. WADHAM found time to catch up on * * * memories of the comics and No-One Claimed C.H. boys' papers of my long lost youth. Through the kindness of Wrote in Simple Style! the Editor I have been able to recapture. much from a file of Recently I challenged a suggestion about thirty copies of The Story that Charles Hamilton wrote in a Paper Colledor. simple style. The writer of the sug There is too much to dwell gestion did not mean "Simple" he and comment upon in all these meant " simple" - but the impression information-packed pages, but that the average reader of the com one page in Number 57 prompts ment would gain is that Charles comment. It carries a reproduc Hamilton wrote for less intelligent tion of the front cover of The youngsters. -Comment in Let's Be Controversial in Bullseye for October 22nd, 1932. The Collectors' Digest for November, 1962, The picture shows Jasper Todd, referring to an item, The Group Pieture, the rascally landlord of the Red in The Story Paper Collettor Number 79. Fox Inn, and the chair· that I do think, however, that Charles dumped his victims into a hid ·Hamilton was the better writer for den cellar. youngsters, he having a more simple Surely this is not the same style. Jasper Todd who appeared in a -Opinion expressed in S.P.C. No. 79. Chips serial, The Red Inn, about the time of World War I? SIMPLE: Not complex or compli He, too, had a chair-a real cated. death chair. When he touched -A definition according to the Funk & Wagnalls Practical Standard Dictionary. a secret spring, the victims went to their doom in the sea below. IT WILL BE NOTED that the view Well can I recall the rhyme expressed in S. P. C. Number 79 that Todd used to chant: was that Charles Ha mi !ton wrote ... MORE POT-POURRI 131 in a more simple style than ]. N. E. B. F. only means, very sensibly and Pentelow, NOT th at he wrote in a to my mind corret!ly, that given the simple style. There is a difference. two authors and the same plot, We are now wondering if we Charles Hamilton would tell the rate as more, or less, average story to the enjoyment of the young than the average reader! sters and the oldsters; whereas ]. N. However we may rate, we Pentelow would be more likely to would have hoped that the attract the oldsters, mainly by reason "average" reader of S. P. C., be· of his style ; which would, no doubt, ing without doubt one who make use of more complicated words reads a lot, would possess the and phrases that, say, the ten-year ability to choose the right defi olds hadn't become too, if at all, nition of the word "simple,'' the familiar with. I would say that C.H. one that we now know was was by far the MORE TALENTED intended by the writer of the writ�r, able to reach an audience or comment. readership of immense proportions Certainly we did not for a -WHICH HE DID. But J.N.P. was a moment feel that E. B. F. was talented author, too, more subtle, suggesting that Mr. Hamilton less direct, possibly, no, undoubtedly wrote in a simple style or by more long-winded. He made Mr. inference that he wrote for less Hamilton's characters a year or two intelligent youngsters. older in actions all round, I think ** and tended, though, of course, not always with success (depended on A QUARTERLY MAGAZINE is not the reader) to mal ... 132 THE STORY PAPER COLLECTOR perhaps if E. B. F. had used "pel On page 126, column 2, line lucid" [it] would have saved mis 17, for Nixon please read Dixon. understanding. Sorry, Al ! -ToM HoPPERTON * * * Scarborough, Yorks. ** Cards Appreciated PERHAPS E. B. F., who (along OuR THANKS go out to the many with us by our extracting those friends who sent us Christmas paragraphs from a letter without cards. We would like to thank asking for permission) so inno each one individually- but we cently started the whole ruckus, · cannot do that ! is a bit dismayed at it all. * * ** WE HAVE just had a very bright John o' London's thought. It would have been sti ll WELCOMED BACK brighter if it had occurred to us more than before we had set more than three years ago, the literary three columns of type. (We can magazine John o' London's bowed not- naturally- bring ourself to out as a separate publication at waste all that time and effort by the end of 1962. It is now a sec discarding it unused.) This is it: tion of Time and Tide. We give our permission to any * * * one who does not like the phrase, The Greyfriars List a more simple style, in S. P. C. Num ber 79, page 50, to substitute for CONGRATULATIONS to John Wern it: a less complex style. ham, Roger Jenkins, and all con That should make everyone cerned for the fine printed Old happy-we know that E; B. F. Boys' Book Club (London) Lib will not mind-and we hope to rary Greyfriars List. The pictures hear nothing more about that make it a real collectors' item. SIMPLE word. -w. H. G. * * * THE STORY PAPER Dixon - Not Nixon! COLLECTOR Established 1941 WE THOUGHT we had read the Edited , printed, and published by proofs of Alvin Fick's article in Wm. H. Gander, 202 Yale Ave. West, this issue, The Hardy Boys Mystery Transcona 25� Manitoba, Canada. Stories, very carefully, but it now This Issue 288 Copies. appears that we couldn't have. PRINTED AT THE ROOKWOOD PRESS ..