Hotspur (comics)
| Hotspur |
Issue 1 of Hotspur (1933) |
| Publication information |
| Publisher |
D. C. Thomson & Co. |
| Publication date |
2 September 1933 |
| Number of issues |
1197 |
The Hotspur was a British boys' paper published by D. C. Thomson & Co. It was launched on 2 September 1933[1] as a story paper, the last of the 'Big Five'.[2] It was relaunched as a comic in the 1950s and ceased publication on 24 January 1981.[3]
The first issue of The Hotspur came with a black mask as a free gift[4][5] and contained an offer for an electric shock machine:
It's a great prize, absolutely harmless and will give hours of fun. Just watch your pal's face when you give him his first electric shock![6]
Thomson's 'Big Five' papers were extremely successful; the name was used by both readers and the industry.[7][8] In 1939 the company advertised combined weekly sales of over a million for the group; the first issue of The Hotspur sold over 350,000 copies.[9] The Hotspur specialised in school stories;[10] its Red Circle School stories replaced the public school stories in The Gem and The Magnet as reader favourites.[11][12]
Like other British children's publications, The Hotspur was published weekly, except for the Second World War and its aftermath, when as a result of paper rationing it published fortnightly,[13] alternating with The Wizard.[14]
The original Hotspur story paper published 1197 issues, the last on 17 October 1959. It relaunched in comic format as the New Hotspur[15] a week later, on 24 October 1959, and ran for another 1110 issues until being incorporated into The Victor on 24 January 1981.[3][16] There had been several mergers during the 1970s: with The Hornet in 1976, with The Victor in 1979, and with The Crunch in 1980.[3]
Notable characters and series
References
- ^ Vic Whittle, British Comics.
- ^ Joseph McAleer, Popular Reading and Publishing in Britain 1914–1950, Oxford: Clarendon, 1992, ISBN 0-19-820329-2, p. 168.
- ^ a b c Vic Whittle, Hotspur Page at British Comics.
- ^ British Book News 1979, p. 296.
- ^ Winter 2004 Market Report, Compalcomics.
- ^ McAleer, p. 179.
- ^ McAleer, p. 168. In addition to The Hotspur they were Adventure, The Rover, The Wizard and The Skipper.
- ^ Roger Sabin, Comics, Comix & Graphic Novels: A History of Comic Art, London: Phaidon, 1996, ISBN 0714830089, p. 44: "These papers in the 1920s and 1930s were dominated by the 'Big 5'.
- ^ McAleer, p. 172, note 18; p, 172, Fig. 6.1.
- ^ William Oliver Guillemont Lofts and Derek John Adley, The Men Behind Boys' Fiction, London: Howard Baker, 1970, ISBN 0093047703, p. 9.
- ^ McAleer, p. 169.
- ^ Jeffrey Richards, Happiest Days: The Public Schools in English Fiction, Manchester University Press, 1988, ISBN 071901879X, p. 289: "In its heyday The Magnet had a weekly press run in excess of 200,000. By 1930 it had fallen to 120,000 as a result of the direct competition of D. C. Thomson papers. This became particularly serious in 1933 with the launch of The Hotspur and the appearance of Red Circle, a tougher, more rambustious and more up-to-date public school than Greyfriars . . . which wooed schoolboy readers away. . . . By 1940 the Magnet's circulation was down to 41,660 [while] Gem had by 1939 fallen to 15,800 copies a week".
- ^ McAleer, p. 62.
- ^ Hotspur at 26pigs.com.
- ^ Redesigned by its postwar editor, Jack Mackersie; McAleer, p. 163, note 3.
- ^ Kevin Carpenter, Penny Dreadfuls and Comics: English Periodicals for Children from Victorian Times to the Present Day: a loan exhibition from the Library of Oldenburg University, West Germany at the Bethnal Green Museum of Childhood, 2 June-2 October 1983, London: Victoria & Albert Museum, 1983, ISBN 0905209478, [1].
- ^ McAleer, p. 169.
- ^ Mike Conroy, War Stories: A Graphic History, New York: Ilex/Harper, 2009, ISBN 978-0-06-173112-9, p. 116
- ^ Conroy, p. 158.
External links