Two Kinds of Comic

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 799, 12 November 1954, Page 9

Two Kinds of Comic

HERE was a time when comics were funny and meant to be, but most parents would agree that nowadays many of them are no joke at all. When did the old-fashioned comic begin-when was Tiger Tim born?-and when did we enter the era of the slayer and the spaceman? Which comic characters ap‘peal most to young readers, and what do boys and girls think about the Americantype comic, which was the G.I.’s chief reading matter during the war and has caused so much concern to parents and others. Two BBC programmes which seek to answer these and many other questions have now started on the rounds of National stations. The first, Dear Boys and Girls, will be heard from 4YC at 7.0 p.m. on Tuesday, November 16 (repeating from 4YA the following Sunday), and 2YC at 8.48 p.m. on Sunday, November 21 (repeating from 2YA the follo.sing Sunday). This first programme is about the

comics. In gathering the material for it Jenifer Wayne, who wrote and produced both programmes, talked with the editor, writers and artists of a popular comic paper; and at) the British Museum she pored over bound volumes of old comics and spent hours renewing nostalgic contacts with childhood favourites. One of the facts she reveals is that today at 7

least 400,000,000 comics are printed every year in Britain alone, and that the annual cash turnover in retail comics in Britain is reckoned to be something like £5,000,000. Slayers and Spacemen, the second programme, explains how modern American comics were introduced to readers in Britain, and how they differ in appeal from the English juvenile comic. It covers three main types of storycrime, science-fiction and fantasy-horror -and ends with a summary of the views of 1600 British boys and girls on these comics. The author’s conclusion is that there are plenty of good comics as well as bad. The narrator of these programmes is Marjorie Westbury, and music for them was specially composed by Antony Hopkins.