Although I know it’s hard to tell but I really, really try not to be too terribly self indulgent with these things. As much as I am doing them entirely for myself (and make no mistake, I am) I do always try to keep in mind that (hopefully) others will be reading them. But I admit there are days when I literally just say ”screw that” and post whatever I feel like, which in this case just happens to be a 1950 issue of the UK weekly Knockout. For those who’ve only been exposed to American Gold and Silver comics it’s an interesting glimpse into what a British comic in 1950 looked like back then. Which was, basically, what a British comic looked like in 1939, that being an amalgam of an American Sunday comics supplement and a pulp magazine.

It also just happens, to include an episode of my all-time favorite British comics character, Billy Bunter, The Fattest Schoolboy On Earth! But there are other features of interest here other than just Billy like the long running Tod and Annie The Runaway Orphans. One of the curious things about pre-1960′s British boys comics is they sometimes actually included female characters. For some reason, after 1960 they became as rare as a woman in a volume of Tintin.

Oh, I once wrote one of the interesting things about British comics is African natives were drawn as realistic humans instead of as grotesque racist stereotypes. Apparently this was more of a guideline instead of a rule…

And finally, it included a two page installment of Sexton Blake, the once legendary, now nearly completely forgotten Penny Dreadful rival of Sherlock Holmes. Seriously, I know I’ am just a yank and everything, but given the amount of money Sherlock Holmes is currently generating isn’t it nearly criminal negligence of intellectual property that no one has attempted a Sexton Blake revival?