British Boy's Magazines
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[edit] Description
In the middle of the 20th century there appeared in Britain a number of weekly magazines or papers aimed at boys between the ages of 8 and 16. Their price was 2d (two pence) and they were consequently known as the "Tup'penny bloods". They were printed on newsprint, with a coloured front cover. Inside there were short stories, with illustrations and often in a serial form. Some factual article were included. By today's standards, they were not particularly violent or lured, but even so, they were often frowned upon by educators. In 1940, George Orwell wrote an essay entitled "BOYS’ WEEKLIES", in which he was highly critical of them. He condemned them both from their literary content and their subject matter. Frank Richards, the originator of "Billy Bunter", replied to the essay. This did not, however, prevent thousands of boys descending on their local newagent each week to purchase one or more of the "bloods". Many boys obtained a taste for reading from an exposure to them.
They were in direct competition with the comics like "The Dandy" and "The Beano" which were in the strip cartoon form. The stories in them were mostly about school life, sport or war, often with a young hero, that the reader could easily associate with. Many stories had over-drawn characters, and used many descriptions that were 19th century parodies of nationality, profession or type. There were two main groups of publication the earlier was run by Frank Richards, while the second run by D C Thomson was known as the "Big Five".
By the middle of the 1960s, the taste of the youth of Britain was changing. As a magazine stopped publication it was combined with one of the remaining. By 1970 most of the publication with text had been replaced by new weeklies of the strip cartoon type. This type of magazine had previously been only available as imports from North America. There had also been a similar introduction of strip novels for adults.
[edit] Magazines
- Boy's Own Paper - from 1879 to 1967
- Richards' The Gem - from 1907 to 1940 (St Jims School stories)
- Richards' The Magnet - from 1908 to 1940 (Greyfriars School stories)
- Thomson's The Dandy - from 1937 (still publishing) - a strip comic
- Thomson's The Beano - from 1938 (still publishing) - a strip comic
- Thomson's Adventure - from 1921 to 1961
- Thomson's Rover - from 1922 to 1961
- Thomson's Skipper - from 1930 to 1941
- Thomson's Hotspur - from 1933 to 1959 ( Red Circle School stories)
- Thomson's Wizard - from 1922 to 1963
- The Champion was published during the period 1939-45 (no other information available)
- Tiger - from 1954 to 1985 - a strip comic
- Eagle - from 1950 to 1994 (with a gap in publication) - a strip comic
[edit] Cover illustrations sources
- "Wartime Scrapbook on the Home Front 1939 to 1945" by Robert Opie - published by piglobal ISBN 0 954795 44 X
- "The 30's Scrapbook" by Robert Opie - published by piglobal ISBN 1 872727 33 6
