Regular readers might recall that in last month’s Hatch, Match & Dispatch I mentioned that my father died on April 2nd. Well, on Saturday April 22nd, my mother fell at home and broke her left femur. The operation to repair it was successful, but over the following days the doctors struggled to keep her oxygen levels up, and sadly she died eight days later, exactly four weeks after Dad passed.
So it’s not been a great month, to be blunt.
Although growing up she did occasionally read publications like Girls’ Crystal and School Friend, Mam was never much interested in comics so I don’t have a credible excuse to waffle on about her in that context, but like the rest of the family she was a voracious reader of novels and (very like me) had a tendency to re-read her favourites over and over. She particularly loved the works of Maeve Binchy and was hugely impressed that one time in a bookstore she saw one of my novels on the same shelf as one of Maeve’s.
She was a proper Irish mammy, too: kind and loving and funny and a little bit daft and full of “ancient wisdom” that didn’t always stand up to rigorous scrutiny but which could spark great rambling conversations that lasted long into the night.
Mam was the spiritual — if not physical — inspiration for Judge Fintan Joyce’s mother in Judge Dredd: Blood of Emeralds, published in June 2015…
My favourite exchange, from a little over four years ago, came when I was helping her with the gardening:
Mother: “No, not that trowel. That’s my good trowel.”
Me: “What, you don’t want it to get dirty?”
Mother: “… That one’s for indoor plants.”
As I’m sure you can imagine, my sisters and I are devastated at losing both parents in such a short time, but we have a huge amount of support from family and friends, and our parents thought us how to be strong — we’ll weather this storm. Time will erode the pain of loss, but not the love at its core.
Patricia Carroll — 1941 to 2023. Rest in Peace.
Reprint News:
The Tomorrow People – The Complete Look-In Comics vol. 1
Coming in August from Chinbeard Books — in collaboration with Rebellion, Oak Tree, and the Treasury of British Comics — is the first of two limited-run collections of the fondly-remembered The Tomorrow People strips from Look-In.
Created by Roger Price in 1973, The Tomorrow People was a successful attempt by ITV to catch the wave of TV science fiction popularity spearheaded by BBC’s Doctor Who. The show’s premise focuses on the next stage of human evolution: psychic abilities, which for a small number of people kick in at puberty. A team of such endowed folks seek out and protect emerging “Tomorrow People” — and at the same time protect the Earth from all manner of threats.
The Look-In adaptation ran for almost five years, from July 1973 to August 1978, and I recall it being one of the highlights of the comic, with scripts by Angus Allan and Roger Price, and some cracking art from the likes of Mike Noble and John M. Burns.
To mark the show’s fiftieth anniversary, the new collections feature artwork restored by Robert Hammond and Barnaby Eaton-Jones (who also brought us the recent award-winning Robin of Sherwood — The Complete Look-In Comics) as well as four previously unpublished pages of the Tomorrow People strip, plus articles from creator Roger Price, actor Nicholas Young who played the lead role of John in the show’s original run, series historian Andy Davidson and Look-In expert Shaqui Le Vesconte.
Volume 1 of The Tomorrow People – The Complete Look-In Comics is planned for publication in August 2023, and is available for pre-order here.
Also of interest to fans, and published by Chinbeard Books and Oak Tree Books, is an original novel The Tomorrow People: Changes by Roger Price and Andy Davidson, scheduled for publication later this year.
Blog News:
- No blog news this time, folks: I’ve not done any updates or corrections since last month!
Standard disclaimer: unless I decide otherwise, these are only the “big” anniversaries (25, 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 60, 70, 75, 80, 90 & 100+ years); dates are cover-dates where known; monthly comics with no confirmed day of launch default to the start of the month; and this list is accurate only to the best of my knowledge, so do please let me know of any important errors or omissions!
Previous episodes of Hatch, Match & Dispatch:
2019: Oct, Nov, Dec
2020: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2021: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2022: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov, Dec
2023: Jan, Feb, Mar, Apr, May
30 years ago:
June – Funny Fortnightly final issue.
Publisher: IPC
From: 25 Mar 1989
To: Jun 1993
Duration: 4 years, 3 months
Issues: 43
Fortnightly at first, became monthly and rebranded as Funny Monthly after 16 Jun 1990. End date and issue-counts are estimated.
June – MyS-Tech Wars final issue.
Publisher: Marvel UK
From: Mar 1993
To: Jun 1993
Duration: 3 months
Issues: 4
June – Shadow Riders launched.
Publisher: Marvel UK
From: Jun 1993
To: Sep 1993
Duration: 3 months
Issues: 4
35 years ago:
June – Action Force Monthly launched.
Publisher: Marvel UK
From: Jun 1988
To: Aug 1989
Duration: 1 year, 2 months
Issues: 15
11 June – Big Comic Fortnightly launched.
Publisher: IPC
From: 11 Jun 1988
To: 03 Dec 1994
Duration: 6 years, 6 months
Issues: 170
Featured reprints from other IPC titles such as Buster, Cheeky and Whizzer and Chips. Issue #170 was retitled Big Comic Monthly, but that proved to be the final issue.
16 June – Superman (1988) launched.
Publisher: London Editions
From: 16 Jun 1988
To: 01 Mar 1993
Duration: 4 years, 9 months
Issues: 56
Fortnightly until #20, monthly until #46, bimonthly thereafter.
40 years ago:
June – The Mighty World of Marvel (1983) launched.
Publisher: Marvel UK
From: Jun 1983
To: Oct 1984
Duration: 1 year, 4 months
Issues: 17
02 June – Kim final issue.
Publisher: Marvel UK
From: 24 Apr 1982
To: 02 Jun 1983
Duration: 1 year, 2 months
Issues: 59
Contains photo-stories, and comics historian Robin Kirby informs me that it also had at least one comic strip, drawn by Redondo. Rob writes, “I’ve not been able to ascertain if it’s new or reprinted from somewhere else, although it doesn’t come from Tina, the editor having confirmed that from his database.”
08 June – Scooby-Doo final issue.
Publisher: Marvel UK
From: 24 Feb 1982
To: 08 Jun 1983
Duration: 1 year, 4 months
Issues: 68
22 June – Return of the Jedi launched.
Publisher: Marvel UK
From: 22 Jun 1983
To: 07 Jun 1986
Duration: 3 years
Issues: 155
Continued from Star Wars Weekly. Thanks to the cover-dates, there’s potential for a little confusion here, as Star Wars Weekly (by now simply titled Star Wars) had become a monthly: its last issue was cover-dated Jul 1983, which postdates the first issue of Return of the Jedi.
See also: Pocket-Money Comics: Star Wars Weekly
23 June – Load Runner launched.
Publisher: ECC Publications
From: 23 Jun 1983
To: 08 Dec 1983
Duration: 6 months
Issues: 13
See In-Shallow Profile: Load Runner
25 June – Wow! final issue.
Publisher: IPC
From: 05 Jun 1982
To: 25 Jun 1983
Duration: 1 year
Issues: 56
Absorbed into Whoopee!.
Adam and His Ants was a revived version of Andy’s Ants from Cor!!.
45 years ago:
07 June – Rampage final issue.
Publisher: Marvel UK
From: 19 Oct 1977
To: 07 Jun 1978
Duration: 8 months
Issues: 34
Relaunched as Rampage Monthly.
I loved this comic! Not only did it feature The Defenders, it also introduced me to one of my all-time favourite Marvel characters, Nova!
07 June – The Complete Fantastic Four final issue.
Publisher: Marvel UK
From: 28 Sep 1977
To: 07 Jun 1978
Duration: 9 months
Issues: 37
Absorbed into The Mighty World of Marvel (1972).
17 June – True War launched.
Publisher: IPC
From: 17 Jun 1978
To: 12 Aug 1978
Duration: 2 months
Issues: 3
Monthly
25 June – The Wizard (1970) final issue.
Publisher: DC Thomson
From: 14 Feb 1970
To: 25 Jun 1978
Duration: 8 years, 4 months
Issues: 435
Absorbed into The Victor.
Title becomes Wizard with issue 370 (12 Mar 1977)
50 years ago:
02 June – Hit! launched.
Publisher: IPC
From: 02 Jun 1973
To: 08 Dec 1973
Duration: 6 months
Issues: 28
Issue-count estimated. As far as I know this one didn’t contain much (if any) comic-strip content, but it’s included here because it’s part of the My Guy Timeline.
23 June – Knockout final issue.
Publisher: IPC
From: 12 Jun 1971
To: 23 Jun 1973
Duration: 2 years
Issues: 106
Absorbed into Whizzer and Chips.
A revival in name of The Knock-Out Comic (possibly triggered by the massive popularity of the TV show It’s a Knockout which began in 1966).
23 June – Once Upon a Time (1973) final issue.
Publisher: IPC
From: 24 Feb 1973
To: 23 Jun 1973
Duration: 4 months
Issues: 18
Absorbed into Walt Disney’s Now I Know.
Weekly. A revival of Once Upon a Time (1969): these editions were marked as ‘Re-published’ on the cover.
30 June – Hanna-Barbera’s Fun Time final issue.
Publisher: Williams Publishing
From: 01 Nov 1972
To: 30 Jun 1973
Duration: 7 months
Issues: 25
See also: Pocket-Money Comics: Hanna-Barbera’s Fun Time
60 years ago:
June – Classics Illustrated final issue.
Publisher: Thorpe & Porter
From: Oct 1951
To: Jun 1963
Duration: 11 years, 8 months
Issues: 181
June – Valiant Picture Library launched.
Publisher: Fleetway
From: Jun 1963
To: May 1969
Duration: 5 years, 11 months
Issues: 144
65 years ago:
June – TV Picture Stories launched.
Publisher: Pearson
From: Jun 1958
To: Mar 1960
Duration: 1 year, 9 months
Issues: 57
Adaptations of then-popular TV shows. Early issues were unnumbered. Emergency Ward 10 was a spin-off from this series.
07 June – The Miracle (1935) final issue.
Publisher: Amalgamated Press
From: 09 Feb 1935
To: 07 Jun 1958
Duration: 23 years, 4 months
Issues: 1218
It’s been suggested that The Miracle was absorbed into The Oracle (see below), but that seems unlikely given that The Miracle‘s final issue is dated only one day before The Oracle‘s… Something’s amiss here: I suspect that at least one of the dates is wrong.
08 June – The Oracle (1933) final issue.
Publisher: Amalgamated Press
From: 28 Oct 1933
To: 08 Jun 1958
Duration: 24 years, 8 months
Issues: 1322
85 years ago:
03 June – The Summer Comic final issue.
Publisher: Pearson
From: 25 Jun 1932
To: 03 Jun 1938
Duration: 6 years
Issues: 4
18 June – Buzzer final issue.
Publisher: George Newnes
From: 16 Oct 1937
To: 18 Jun 1938
Duration: 8 months
Issues: 36
100 years ago:
02 June – The Ruby final issue.
Publisher: Amalgamated Press
From: 20 Jan 1923
To: 02 Jun 1923
Duration: 5 months
Issues: 20
Absorbed into Schoolgirl’s Weekly.
115 years ago:
20 June – Fannie Eden’s Penny Stories (1905) final issue.
Publisher: Amalgamated Press
From: 29 Jul 1905
To: 20 Jun 1908
Duration: 2 years, 11 months
Issues: 152
Relaunched as Fannie Eden’s Penny Stories (1908).
27 June – Fannie Eden’s Penny Stories (1908) launched.
Publisher: W.B. Horner & Son
From: 27 Jun 1908
To: 19 Apr 1913
Duration: 4 years, 10 months
Issues: 252
A relaunch of Fannie Eden’s Penny Stories (1905).
Rusty Staples 
I’m really sorry to hear of the loss of your mother, Michael, and so soon after the loss of your father. I can’t imagine what you’re all going through.
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So sorry to hear the news of your mother.
On a happier note – it’s amazing how long John Burns careers has been.
Wonder why they went from Star Wars to Return of the Jedi (and didn’t have three years of Empire Strikes Back in between)?
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Sorry to hear your bad news.
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I’m very sorry to hear your dreadful news Michael, that sounds unbelievably tough.
I love the dialogue on that Dredd page. I might have to dig that story out again.
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