Boys Adventure Comics

12 March 2026

UPDATED: Girl comic merchandise

I've added some new items of merchandise - and these are highlighted in red

I've previously looked at some of the spin-off merchandise associated with Swift comic (here), Swift books (here) and Robin comic merchandise (here). In a similar vein I thought I should look into the merchandise produced by their sister title Girl. I've looked at Girl novels (here and here) but this is the other merchandise that was produced.

I thought I'd be able to find more merchandise but googling 'girl comics merchandise' turns up a lot of stuff which is not to do with the Girl comic I'm after. Anyway, I'm sure more will turn up but here's what I've found so far...

All new items highlighted in red

This was from a recent sale on 'the saleroom'. It wasn't clear to me if the Girl film strips would fit in the Dan Dare spaceship film viewer but it might do!

A lovely selection of Girl diaries here. The green diaries are dated (internally) as 1954-7 and then there are two 'stripy' diaries (for 1958 and 1959 respectively).

Image c/o ebay.

New addition today is this piece of advertising for a newsagent...

Promotional Poster for Free Gift in Vol 12 #6 - Feb 9 1967 Rare

Girl card game from Pepys

A more comprehensive set of birthday cards images has now come to light...

The backs of the cards - albeit not in the same order as they're shown above

The Wendy and Jinx cards (designs 1+2)

The Belle of the ballet cards (designs 3+4)

The Lettice Leefe and Miss Froth cards (designs 5+6)

Over on the www.dandare.info website (here) I've spotted these two Girl birthday cards...

The first features Wendy and Jinx

...and the second has Lettice Leefe and Miss Froth

This Girl diary for 1956 recently sold for £47...

I'm unsure how many years this ran for - in fact this is the first Girl diary I've ever seen. The Eagle equivalent was long established and ran from at least 1951-1963 (but was red not green). There was also a Swift diary but I've never seen one of those so I can't even say what colour that was!

Also spotted this on ebay recently - looks like a plastic belt buckle

Pelham puppet of 'Lettice Leefe' - a character created by John Ryan (who created Captain Pugwash and Harris Tweed for Eagle)

Pelham also made a 'Belle of the Ballet' puppet as well

And then there's this - a Girl doll - featuring the Girl logo on the dress and the belt buckle

from 'British dolls of the 1950s' by Susan Brewer (2009)

And there's this piece of Eagle/Girl crossover merchandise - yes, it's a table tennis set!

I'm sure there's more out there so if you have any images you could share just let me know.

Ah, a carpet sweeper! What a delightful piece of tie-in merchandise

And here's some more Girl products - I'd love to get bigger and better pictures of all of these but at least it gives me some stuff to look for

from 'The history of girls' comics' by Susan Brewer (2010)

And, thanks to friend of the blog Jeremy Briggs we can also add these images...

...a blond haired version of the doll shown above...

...and a paintbox (which looks quite similar to the Swift paintbox that was also produced)...

11 March 2026

UPDATED: The world of Wym - Any Lanning & John Carnell

Those creators of The Sleaze Brothers, Andy Lanning & John Carnell, are also the creators of this obscure kids title from 1990...The world of Wym.

There's a lack of info. about this on t'internet and in fact the only thing I could find about it is this blog link / youtube clip here which is the only evidence that I can prove all 6 issues of this title were actually produced!

Credits are as follows:
Creator / Artists = Andy Lanning
Creator / Writer = John Carnell
Co-creator / Artist = Anthony Williams
Lettering = Bambos Georgiou
Editor = Nancy Hazel
Managing editor = Floron Florenzo
Editorial Director = Etta Saunders

UPDATE (Mar '26) - I've now acquired a copy of issue #3 so I've added that to the covers gallery below.

Issue 1 seems easy to get hold of but all other issues are really hard to get hold of, I've picked up the only issues of issue 2 & 4 that I've ever seen.

I'm after issue 6 only.

The world of Wym, Clearmark publications, issue 1 (March 1990)

The world of Wym, Clearmark publications, issue 2 (April 1990)

The world of Wym, Clearmark publications, issue 3 (May 1990

The world of Wym, Clearmark publications, issue 4 (June 1990)

The world of Wym, Clearmark publications, issue 5 (July 1990)

The world of Wym, Clearmark publications, issue 6 (August 1990)

issue not to hand - can you help?

10 March 2026

UPDATED: Celebrity comics - Rupert

I've occasionally looked at publisher Celebrity / Clearmark comics in the past...

Count Duckula is here

The wisdom of gnomes is here

Wanted is here

Popular fairy tales here

Were Bears here

The world of Wym here

Tom and Jerry here

Cookie here

Henry's cat here

Summer specials here

Ovide here

And there may be other titles out there just waiting to be discovered. One such title that was new to me was their Rupert comic from 1989/90. There are a LOT of Rupert comics out there so I'm currently parking this in the 'too difficult' to deal with category. I'll return to it at some point I'm sure. In the meantime if you can help with any details do just get in touch.

I recently spotted an auction lot on eBay for these comics - so I've clipped a few images from the listing for my covers gallery below.

UPDATE: covers for issues 9, 11 & 14 now added

FURTHER UPDATE: I've now added cover for the summer special

UPDATE: We now know that the title lasted 20 issues. All new images highlighted in red. Interestingly issue 10 has the publisher recorded as Celebrity but by issue 12 the publisher has been amended to Clearmark.

Celebrity comic, Rupert, issue 1, 18th October 1989, 50p