fortnightly juvenile educational magazine, The New Children’s Encyclopedia, to afford
much-needed comic relief. The enormous popularity of Tiger Tim and the (then) Hippo
Boys encouraged the editor of the newly conceived comic Rainbow to feature them on
his front page in full colour. Their popularity was so huge that a second comic, Tiger Tim’s
Weekly (31 January 1920), was created, but still this was not enough. Finally a weekly
comic just for girls was designed, using the old Playbox title, and from 14 February 1925
the hitherto unsuspected twin sisters of Tiger Tim and Company, Tiger Tilly and the
Hippo Girls, cut their comic capers.
Once again the darker side of British comic publication is cast across the comedy.
None of this immense commercial success benefited Julius Stafford Baker (1869–1961),
the cartoonist who created the characters. (He also created Casey Court, the large panel
of slum kid comedy that appeared in Chips from 1902 to the final issue—again without
continued benefit to his income.) Baker was dismissed from the Rainbow front page
after only a few issues, for being ‘too American’ in style. Tiger Tim was taken over by
Herbert S.Foxwell (1890–1943), who redesigned the character and related the style of
drawing more to the traditions of British children’s book illustration—amusing but
decorative. Foxwell continued the cover strips to the mid-1930s, but was then lured
away with greatly increased money to The Daily Mail to draw their weekly comic
supplement starring their long-established children’s strip hero, Teddy Tail (a
humanised mouse). Tiger Tim and his pals are, incidentally, the oldest continuing
heroes in British comics: they continued to appear in the nursery comic Jack and Jill
and celebrated their eightieth birthday in 1984.
The 1930s were the Golden Age of British comics and there was even a handsome
black-and-orange penny comic called Golden, to prove it. The two styles of comic art,
nursery and slapstick, had developed to perfection, building on the pioneering work of
Tom Browne, Stafford Baker, and others. Of all the many weeklies produced during the
decade, the finest has to be Happy Days (1 October 1938), a nursery-plus comic printed
in full colour photogravure showcasing the two finest Golden Age artists in comics, Roy
Wilson (1900–1965) and Reg Perrott (1916–1948?). Wilson had started his comic career
as assistant to the slapstick artist, Don Newhouse, but had speedily overtaken his tutor
on such excellent penny comic series as Pitch and Toss, a fat-and-thin pair of silly
sailors, and Basil and Bert, a monocled secret service agent and his lower-class assistant.
Wilson loved to draw funny animals, and his characters Chimpo’s Circus on the
evervaried covers of Happy Days are his comedy masterpieces. The editor thought so
much of this artwork that Wilson was actually allowed to sign his name!
Happy Days was the Amalgamated Press’s answer to Mickey Mouse Weekly, the first
full colour photogravure comic which started on 8 February 1936. It was published by
the hitherto exclusively adult-magazine publisher Odhams Press, in collaboration with
the Walt Disney organisation. Many of the interior strips were American-originated
Sunday and daily strips, but the wonderful full-tabloid cover pictures featuring Mickey
and his Gang were painted by Wilfred Haughton, who had been the first artist in
England to draw the movie mouse for merchandising. Every year from 1931 to the
mid-1940s he drew single-handedly the 128-page Mickey Mouse Annual. These are
collectors’ items today, and it is hard to believe that Haughton was actually discharged
from the comic for refusing to bring his characterisations of Mickey and friends into line
TYPES AND GENRES 245