Happy last day of the year, folks! It’s New Year’s Eve here in Rustyopolis, and thus time to reveal the winner of The Great Rusty Staples 2021 Calendar British Comics’ Logo Identification Competition!
You’ll possibly recall that the entrants were asked to identify the British comics on whose logos I based the month names in the Rusty Staples 2021 calendar…
Some of the months were considerably easier to work out than others, but those readers who spotted a specific pattern had an advantage over everyone else: the names of the comics start with the same letters as the relevant months.
Without further prevarication, here are the month logos and their relevant comics… Of course, many comics tweak or completely revamp their logos over time, so I’ve tried to use the form of the logo I most strongly associate with the comic (although I expect that other people might have a different logo in mind when they think of the title).
Jackpot (IPC)
First issue: 5 May 1979
Last issue: 30 January 1982
Issues: 141
Absorbed into: Buster
Fantastic (Odhams / IPC)
First issue: 18 February 1967
Last issue: 26 October 1968
Issues: 89
Absorbed: Terrific
Absorbed into: Smash!
Marvelman (L. Miller and Son, Ltd.)
First issue: 3 February 1954
Last issue: 1 February 1963
Issues: 346
Issues were numbered #25 – #370: replaced Captain Marvel Adventures (1953).
Action Force (Marvel UK)
First issue: 7 March 1987
Last issue: 13 February 1988
Issues: 50
Absorbed into: The Transformers
(Note: I also accepted the later Action Force Monthly title as a valid answer — the logo is almost identical!)
Mandy (DC Thomson)
First issue: 21 January 1967
Last issue: 11 May 1991
Issues: 1269
Absorbed: Debbie
Absorbed into: Mandy & Judy
Judge Dredd Megazine (IPC / Fleetway / Egmont / Rebellion)
First issue: 1 October 1990
Last issue: Ongoing
Issues: 426+
See also: Our recent celebration of the Megazine‘s 30th anniversary!
(Note: Yes, I did think of using IPC’s June for this month, but I decided against it as I recently used that for something else.)
Jinty (IPC)
First issue: 11 May 1974
Last issue: 21 November 1981
Issues: 393
Absorbed: Lindy, Penny
Absorbed into: Tammy
Adventure (DC Thomson)
First issue: 17 September 1921
Last issue: 14 January 1961
Issues: 1878
Absorbed: Red Arrow
Absorbed into: The Rover
Spellbound (1976) (DC Thomson)
First issue: 25 September 1976
Last issue: 14 January 1978
Issues: 69
Absorbed into: Debbie
Oink! (IPC / Fleetway)
First issue: 3 May 1986
Last issue: 22 October 1988
Issues: 68
Absorbed into: Buster
Noddy Time (Woman’s Way)
First issue: 10 May 1975
Last issue: 20 December 1975
Issues: 33 (at least…!)
Relaunch of: Noddy and his Friends
(Note: I also accepted Noddy and his Friends and just “Noddy” as viable answers!)
Deadline (Deadline Publications Limited)
First issue: 1 October 1988
Last issue: 1 October 1995
Issues: 71
Some entries — August and December in particular — turned out to be a lot trickier than I’d expected, but not impossible! However, only six entries correctly identified all twelve comics. All six entrants’ names were written onto identical slips of paper, rolled into balls, and then thrown in one go in the direction of my cats. Dora chased one of them for a while before spontaneously deciding to wander away, but Wulf brought one back to me, thus signifying the winner.
And the winner is…
Mark Waldron!
Congratulations, Mark! You’ve won three new Judge Dredd books: Judges — Volume Two, Judge Fear’s Big Day Out and Judge Dredd — Year Three omnibus!
Thanks to Mark and everyone else who entered the competition — I hope you all had fun and that it wasn’t too infuriatingly tricky!
Thanks also for all your support over the past year: in 2020 the blog’s page-hits have been more than double that of 2019! Partly, I attribute this to my team of incredibly gifted contributors, but it might also be because people have been stuck at home for the best part of a year and they’ve already read the rest of the internet.
2021 will see some changes to the way things are done around here… but I’ll expand more on that tomorrow when I do the round-up of the year listing the top-ten most popular posts (as I did last year).
Until then, stay safe, fellow Rustopians! I wish only the happiest and newest of Happy New Years to you all!
Rusty Staples 
That surprises me – I got December / Deadline straight away! (though as you predict in the preamble, that’s not the main logo I associate with Deadline).
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That is great fun, I had spent a decent amount of time looking at logo’s and found it quite wonderful, Mandy had me for a bit, as I thought Beezer and Victor may have had that black red yellow writing, and it was only the realisation that came a bit late, that months first letter was also the first letter of the comic, that I realised I must be wrong and looked at Mandy. Thanks for that.
the extras at the bottom, got couple… but unsure on them
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Hi James,
Yeah, the Mandy logo caught quite a few people out in the same way — I possibly should have chosen a different comic for May! Glad you enjoyed the competition, though!
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