I've looked plenty of times before at advertising comics (check out this link) to see them all, but today's example is a new one on me.
I've updated text in red...
An interesting lot (and a lot that's attracting a lot of interest) in the latest phil-comics auction here is this very smart looking comic magazine produced by a department store in Letchworth in the late 1950s.
The lot is a dozen issues...
volume 4, #6 (1958)
volume 6, #10 & 12 (1958)
volume 7, #4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 (1959)
volume 8, #1, 2, 4 (1960)
"Specially produced for the young friends of Foster and Scott, Letchworth". Foster and Scott were a menswear and boys school uniform shop in Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire.
This strip looks, to me, like it was drawn by a young Ron Embleton - what do you think?At the time of typing bids had reached £99 but I reckon it'll go higher than that. Collecting a full set of these seems impossible now but the level of interest in these indicates to me that there's some good stuff in these. Good luck if you bid!
UPDATE: I've now found some more images and these clearly show a different retailer on the front cover. I assume therefore it was a magazine that retailers could purchase and then amend 'personalise' with their own stamp / branding in some way. These 2 comics are for sale for £40 here John Freeman has told me that the publisher was Nine-Star Press Ltd, 359 Edgware Road, London, W2. Printed by A.M. Archer & Co. Ltd, Slough. There was also a club you could join.
Lew Stringer looked, a little, at Nine-Star Press here
Mike O'Doherty has let me know that Dolphin also contained art by Don Lawrence...
and here's the original art...
More pages...
More original art of those pages...
Mike tells me that renowned Don Lawrence expert Rob Van Bavel has identified these pages as by Don Lawrence himself! I can't see it myself but if Rob says it...
Here's a page by page look at volume 9, issue 5 - no sign of any work by Don Lawrence or Ron Embleton!
