Harmsworth's Comic Paper Rivals –

Cover: From an oil painting of comic publisher James Henderson, age 50, 1873

Alan Clark continues his dynamic paperback series covering early comic history in the UK by taking a step back in time to the late Victorian and Edwardian era of comic and story papers. (The last two volumes covered Comic Papers Between the Wars 1919-1939). The first issue of Comic Cuts, Harmsworth's first comic paper, was issued on May 17, 1890. It was a halfpenny eight page weekly and he followed up that same year with Illustrated Chips. Although he later distanced himself from the boys’ story papers he published, he was always proud of his comic publications.

 

At this time he came up with something called the ‘Schemo Magnifico.’ This was a written plan to overwhelm the competition with loads of periodicals featuring ‘bad paper and cheap printing.’ He published For-Get-Me-Not, aimed at ladies and shop-girls, and in 1892, the Funny Wonder. A new comic, Funny Bits: or Roars of Laughter, was registered but never published.

Like its predecessors Harmsworth's Comic Paper Rivals is a comic horn of plenty overflowing with rare photographs, images, history and biography of publishers, journalists, comic artists and story paper authors. The fascinating drawings and photographs include the known and the not-so-well-known, among them Charles Henry Ross, Dan Leno, Frank Richards, Derwent Miall, W.G. Baxter, Jack B. Yeats, John Proctor, Oliver Veal, &c., &c., &c.

CONTENTS

[1] Alfred Harmsworth

[2] Trapps Holmes

[3] James Henderson

[4] Gilbert Dalziel

[5] C. Arthur Pearson,

[6] George Newnes

[7] T. Murray Ford

[8] Hits and Misses

[9] Rivals Gallery

Steve Holland's Bear Alley goes into much more detail HERE.

Alan Clark

Harmsworth's Comic Paper Rivals

A Half-Holiday Publication

First Edition 2023

Harmsworth's Comic Paper Rivals and other titles by Alan Clark are available HERE.

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