When the comics went to war

By Adam Riches

Mainstream Publishing
£19.99 hardback

Published: 30 September 2009

“Over the precipice plunge Bob Taylor and his one-man tank. Are Bob and his machine doomed? Find out in: TIN CAN TAYLOR.”

Ah, they don’t make them like that any more, which is a shame because the illustration on the front cover of The Wizard (“the super picture story for boys”) shows Bob and his tank hurtling off the side of a mountain. And it really does make you want to know that happens next.

When the comics went to war is a look at how boys’ comics have depicted wars – both historical and contemporary – from the latter half of the 19th century to the 1980s. It’s packed with reproduced pages that you’ll recognise from the likes of Rover, Hotspur, Triumph and Wizard.

The story begins with the abolition of duty on paper by Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone in 18XX, which ushered in mass-market publishing. As a result, there was soon a huge demand for cheap fiction, which brought in the era of ‘penny dreadfuls’ and comics.

And there was certainly a gap in the market. It’s been estimated that in 1871, for example, The Boys of England comic had a readership of around two million children per week.

The writing in the comics was often of a high standard too. The Boys Own Paper could claim Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, RM Ballantyne, WG Grace and Lord Baden Powell among its writers.

There was no shortage of material either, much of it war-related – whether Napoleonic, Crimean, Indian or Boer. The onset of WWI also led to a boom, until shortages of paper in the later stages of war took their toll.

It’s also interesting to note that, in WWII, the incessant mockery aimed at Hitler in The Beano meant that its editor was included on a list of people to be answerable to the Führer himself for the crime of ‘gross disrespect’, following the expected German invasion.

Comics continued to be popular throughout the 1940s, while the ‘golden age’ of comics is said to be the 1950s and the book devotes some loving attention to this period (annual comic sales reached 350 million in Britain), before a winding down occurs as the 1980s approach.

Now, while there is still a flourishing second-hand market for comics, it seems their time has been and gone, which is a shame. But at least books like this keep the magic alive for just a little while longer.