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Release Date: October 2006

Great British Comics transports you through more than one hundred years of Britain's bizarre weekly comics, newspaper strips, magazines and graphic novels from their secret origins to today's cutting edge. On this journey you can step into the rural wonderlands of Rupert Bear and the blasted outback of Tank Girl, experience the glistening spaceships of Dan Dare and the Mega-City mean streets of Judge Dredd, and marvel at the knobbly knees of Dennis the Menace and the tight black leather of Modesty Blaise. Extraordinary, exciting, and often eccentric, many of these cartoon-strip stars have been exported and translated worldwide and adapted for radio, television, and movies, becoming timeless icons and familiar friends who accompany millions of readers during their childhoods and throughout their lives.

This engaging, lavishly illustrated survey reveals how the characters in British comics have reflected social and cultural revolutions from the nineteenth century up to the present day. With access to rarely seen artefacts and original artwork, this book also delves behind the scenes to explore the fascinating lives of the men and women who devised the comics, sometimes unnamed and unrecognised. Discover how they visualised the spirit and imagination of the nation, and how, like distorting funhouse mirrors, the panels in their comics show us our foibles, our dreams, our fears, and ourselves.

Paul Gravett on Great British Comics:
"Peter Stanbury and I have been brewing a book on British comics for several years now, but it has been difficult to line up a publisher here, as so many of them are reluctant to invest in creating such a highly illustrated book without the support of an American co-edition. Luckily, Aurum were not deterred when some US companies decided not to do the book, complaining, rather absurdly, that it was "too British"! I'm convinced that there is a real interest here in Britain, as well as around the Commonwealth, to support a book on our own comics culture regardless of the US market. As it turns out, at the same time Aurum are also releasing an annual-style book on British sports comics called Sporting Supermen and two slipcased facsimiles of the first Dandy and Broons annuals from D.C. Thomson. There does seem to be an overdue resurgence of enthusiasm and appreciation for our heritage."

"Several new ideas went into creating this new book. One was trying to revive and make sense of comics from the past. To many readers, including British people, these old comics can seem pretty alien, almost as baffling as manga. We want to put them into their social and cultural contexts, so we've sourced some related photos, documents, toys, etc to show alongside them. Photo research turned up some amazing period pieces. The husband of a friend of my Mum's had a photo of himself as a boy from the Daily Mirror queuing for "rationed" comics in 1943. We found a huge seaside promotional shot from 1955 of dozens of young Eagle and Girl readers waving their favourite weeklies on the beach. Time-capsule shots like these show comics as part of the everyday way of life."

"Another innovation is showing original artwork. This has been tried a bit before in books on British comics, but I don't know of any other book with such a range of original artwork, reproduced as crisply as possible so you can see loads of detail. Often a lot is lost in the repro process, especially on full colour painted art, and even more can go if you shoot from the printed page. Collectors, artists and publishers were amazingly generous in lending their gems, from Frank Hampson, Frank Bellamy, Ron Embleton, Dudley Watkins, John Millar Watt, to Leo Baxendale, Ken Reid, Davey Law, Sydney Jordan, Mike McMahon, Joe Colquhoun and more."

"It's also been a revelation discovering from experts like Alan Clark, Steve Holland, David Roach, Craig Conlan and others just who some of these artists are. A few artists were allowed to sign their work, others, say in Eagle or of course 2000AD, were properly credited. But for decades, artists (and writers too) often worked in total anonymity. The sad result is that a lot of truly amazing British talents are unnamed, unknown, unappreciated and risk being forgotten entirely. Some of them have no idea of the impact their work made on young readers and the following that is still out there for it. For example, I know readers would love to meet Shirley Bellwood, who drew the weekly covers and cover paintings for annuals for Misty, which terrorised girls, and some boys, in the 1980s. I'm so happy that nearly all of the artists with work in this book are identified, some properly for the first time ever in a mass-market book."

"The other concept driving this was not to gaze wistfully into yesterday but to bring the story right up to date and counter the doom-and-gloom merchants who insist that British comics today are "pretty much dead in the water" or "down the tubes". We may never get back to the earlier decades when a huge variety and volume of comics crowded the newsstands. But by looking a bit further afield, to the small press, newspapers and magazines, onthe internet or in the US market, you soon find all kinds of vibrant creativity out there. As far as I'm concerned, a lot of comics by British creators published in the US are culturally British rather than American anyway, so I've included great stuff like Paul Grist's Jack Staff, Andi Watson's Little Star, Grant Morrison and Philip Bond's Vimanarama and others that are rooted in life and people here, but just happen to be put out by American companies."

"Rather than attempting any sort of single, sweeping, encylopaedic, all-in-one condensation of comics history, which others have tried more or less successfully, Peter and I are seeing our books on comics as part of larger part-work, that will hopefully grow into a series of five, ten, or maybe more different titles, each on a different aspect but building up into a multi-volume set of comics history and appreciation."

"Like many people in Britain, my earliest comics-reading experiences were of British comics - I grew up on Beano and Dandy before being dazzled by TV21 and Look & Learn - but so many British comic fans become British fans of American comics. 2000AD, first and foremost, and later Warrior, Escape, Deadline and others did dramatically change all that. For the first time, a new readership was admiring our own homegrown talent. I remember the buzz queuing up in Forbidden Planet to meet Bolland, McMahon, O'Neill to sign those first annuals. This was a new fandom and these were our own superstar creators. Even so, most comic shops in Britain today are essentially American comic shops. I hope this book, and the Comics Britannia BBC series, might encourage a few shops to try appealing to the public by stocking more British material, because there's a grwoing wealth of first-rate reprints and brand new stuff to offer."

British Science Fiction Association:
BSFA Awards 2006: Non-Fiction Recommended Reading Shortlist

Judge Dredd, Tank Girl, Modesty Blaise and other creations from the minds of great Brit masters are covered in this colourful compendium. It includes everything from comic strips to graphic novels in chapters divided into thematic categories - schooldays, science fiction, cartoon creatures and so on. The small print in reproduced panels can be hard to read - but the multitude of graphics make up for it. 

Clear, concise, pleasant to look at, Great British Comics is a Great British Book! Congratulations!!

Get out your cheaters for this across the pond funfest
This colorful volume reminds me of nothing so much as an "across the pond" version of Comix, Les Daniels' early-70s survey of the then-virgin territory of American funny books. As in Daniels' book, Gravett and Stanbury lump together a dizzying variety of different types of British comics, ranging from hoary old classics to the most ephemeral of "countercultural" modern works. The comics are arranged by subject matter (kids, families, sci-fi, adventure, women, etc.), with each sequence of sample strips presented in more or less chronological order. The effect of this parallel-track structure (to someone not well versed in the subject matter, that is) is to somewhat muddy the waters on the issue of what, exactly, does constitute a "great" British comic. I rather suspect that the trendy likes of, for example, "S**t the Dog" and "Johnny Fartpants" won't hold up as well in future years as "Judge Dredd" or "Modesty Blaise", but Gravett and Stanbury treat each item in a particular collection of themed strips with more or less equal gravity. Adding to the neophyte reader's difficulties, many of the strips reproduced herein are reproduced at such a small size that one literally needs an optical aid to dope them out. This may not be much of an issue to the British reader who knows these characters and creators, but for someone who actually wants to read the doggoned - er -- bloody things, it can be a problem. The accompanying text carries a whiff of the overwrought in its attempts to plumb social meaning, but it can easily be skimmed over when things get too thick. The authors maintain a Web site, www.greatbritishcomics.com, which they claim includes "lots more fun and facts" (and, hopefully, larger font sizes). Overall, this is a reasonably worthwhile purchase for someone interested in broadening their panelological horizons.

You guys read, right? And you're into comics? Then check out the slick, fascinating, and informative book Great British Comics, by the universally-respected amazingly talented writer-genius Paul Gravett. And yes, our main reason for lavishing such praise on Mr Gravett is because his book includes a page from Tozzer & The Invisible Lap Dancers. But seriously, check out the GBC website, then pick up a copy. It's an excellent read!

I must say I thought Great British Comics was an excellent effort!! ­ well researched, very well written and with a unusual graphic design approach ­ really top notch! (to use a 'Lord Snooty' phrase).

Great British Comics has the same look and feel as Paul Gravett's Graphic Novels: Stories To Change Your Life, which was published in 2005. But rather than deconstructing individual comic book pages, this coauthored volume surveys the rich and underappreciated heritage of British cartooning. It encompasses not only newspaper strips, comic books, and graphic novels, but also tabloid anthologies, picture libraries, and Christmas annuals. The book's copious illustrations showcase cover art, interior pages, original sketches, newsagents' posters, rare toys, and charming photos of kids reading long-forgotten comics like Beezer and Seek and Strike. Anyone with a soft spot for English popular culture is likely to find this book utterly absorbing. The authors have packed a cornucopia of eccentricity into a relatively small number of high-gloss pages.

Gravett and Stanbury have little to say about the ancestors of modern English cartooning, from William Hogarth and George Cruikshank to James Gillray and Punch. They are primarily concerned with commercial visual entertainment from the past century or so. While we often talk about comics culture, broadly understood, in such national contexts as France, Japan, and the United States, we tend to overlook or take for granted the extent to which cartooning is part of everyday life in the different mini-countries of the United Kingdom. This book provides a useful corrective to the unspoken assumption that cartooning in England and its neighbors consists of childish whimsy or lesser imitations of American material.

By ranging across formats, genres, and historical eras, the authors make it clear just how varied and ubiquitous comics have been in twentieth century British society and culture. They open the book with a useful timeline that highlights the rise and fall of comics publications, from Ally Sloper's Half Holiday (1884-1929) to Judge Dredd Megazine (1992-present). The timeline includes information on successive monarchies, prime ministers, and public events. If you are interested in, say, which comics periodicals were launched during the reign of George V (1910-1936), this is your guide. For most North American comics fans, the very titles of the magazines listed are likely to evoke a lost world of cultural meaning. Tiger Tim's Weekly (1910-1940), anyone? How about Commando Picture Library (1961-present)?

The organization of the book reflects the idiosyncratic preoccupations of English popular culture. Not surprisingly, social class emerges as an important theme from the get-go. Subsequent chapters take up such topics as animal comics (Down on Jollity Farm), children's mischief (Wheezes in the Tuck Shop), and comics for girls (Jolly Hockey Sticks to Sheroes). The chapter on movie stars, royalty and comics is appropriately titled Spitting Images. Even though the authors are writing in English, it quickly becomes apparent that this is their English, not ours. The bathetic photo of the bathing beauties enjoying 'What The Butler Saw' on a windy pier in North Wales is enough to tell us that we are no longer in Kansas, or southern California. The full size reproduction of a 1938 strip titled Lord Snooty and His Pals, complete with dialogue like, "It's a snip!" is another giveaway.

While a few success stories have crossed the Atlantic ­ e.g., Modesty Blaise, Andy Capp, Alan Moore, and Judge Dredd ­ other icons of this distinctive culture remain confined to the home market. How many Journal readers are familiar with Billy Bunter, an "overweight, cunning, squealing glutton of a schoolboy at Greyfriars, a supposed former monastery near the south coast of Kent"? Comics featuring the exploits of this schoolyard antihero were first published in 1908. Charles Hamilton, the character's creator and main writer, clocked up "72 million words in 7,000 tales" on "the fattest schoolboy on earth" over a period of four decades. The character became so popular that he appeared in "seven television series and three specials. The shows in 1953 were broadcast twice nightly, at 5:40 pm for kids and 8 pm for grown-ups." The photo of Billy scoffing "a cream tea in the BBC TV series, played by Gerald Campion at the age of 29," is by itself almost worth the price of admission.

The overweight child monster seems to be one of the stock archetypes of British cartooning, along with the stouthearted adventurer, the soccer-obsessed he-man, the prim heroine, the inept swashbuckler, the world-weary clerk, and the officious teacher. Tabloid comic magazines like The Beano and The Dandy stand guard over an entire ecosystem of pratfalls, slapstick, 'wheezes', and class warfare. The Swots and the Blots, a strip created for a magazine called Smash! by the marvelous Leo Baxendale, pitted "creepy, clever upper-class kids against their messy lower-class rivals". The tabloid magazine Cor! featured a strip called Ivor Lott and Tony Broke, which does not sound like the sort of project that Disney or Dell would have green-lighted. I doubt anyone in Hollywood would have been interested in making a movie or television show about the late 1960s character Dare-A-Day Davy, who acted out readers' challenges, such as letting "a frog loose in a posh café". The Cockney logic embedded in these stories surely speaks to a kind of suppressed rage.

The authors provide numerous examples of comics that reassured their audiences rather than incited them, however. Animals have played a particularly significant role in this regard. As the authors note, "From farmyards and forests to country estates and suburbs, the wonderlands of walking talking animals, often behaving and misbehaving uncannily like us, have been favoured realms of Britain's illustrated literature for children since the nineteenth century." While Mickey Mouse was a big hit in Britain, so were Teddy Tail, Flook, Rupert, and Muffin the Mule. In the 1920s, a Daily Mirror strip called Pip and Squeek invited its readers to join the Wilfredian League of Gugnuncs, which was inspired by the baby talk of the strip's anthropomorphic characters, who used nonsense words like 'Gug!' and 'Nunc!' By 1928, "the WLOG had enrolled over 340,000 members and, thanks to international editions and syndication, 'warrens' and 'burrows' of Gugnuncs could be found throughout the world." The League stood for good manners and kindness to animals. The book helpfully provides several examples of Gugnunc memorabilia, including cartoons, song lyrics ("Stand by ­ friends all ­ Members merry and free!"), and a photo of eight thousand League members crammed into the Royal Albert Hall, for a special Gugnunc event that was featured live on BBC radio.

I have only two quibbles. The first may be a little academic. It concerns the term 'Britain'. For the most part, when the authors use the term they are at least arguably referring to something that might be better described as 'England'. A Scottish nationalist ­ and when it comes to matters of cultural representation, nearly all Scots are nationalists ­ would not find his or her comics culture reflected in these pages. The two-inch reproduction of a late 1930s Our Wullie page from the Sunday Postonly hints at the existence of cartooning above England's northern frontier. The book's preoccupation with 'public' school shenanigans is redolent of a social order that revolves around London rather than Glasgow, Edinburgh, or Cardiff. The hegemony of greater London and the Home Counties that Great British Comics inevitably reaffirms is tempered to some extent by the northern English cheek that is vividly expressed today in the pages of Vizand its competitors. England means more than high tea and Oxford lawns, but it is also a more coherent and less evasive term than Britain, which may no longer apply in a context where the English fly the flag of St. George and the Scots (and, to a lesser extent, the Welsh) look to their own parliament, newspapers, and pundit class.

Second, many of the reproduced images are too small. It would take a powerful magnifying glass to help the reader make sense of Buster the Conker-er, The Greens in Electric Soup, or Baby-Face Finlayson. The authors, and perhaps the publisher, may be biased toward artwork rather than text, in hopes of catching the eye of the casual book buyer. Speaking for myself, I wanted to be able to ferret out the artfully weird Englishisms that are likely to be found sprinkled in strips like Derek the Sheep, Bonny the Otter, and The Fat Slags. Why the design team thought I would not be interested in actually reading the script to Stonehenge Kit, The Ancient Brit is beyond me.

Here's an ideal Christmas gift. Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury's new book on Great British Comics. These guys are like a factory when it comes to producing books on this medium of ours - and every product that comes off the line is a classic model. Do yourself a favour, go to your bookshop and obey the instruction on this picture. That done, I'm sure you won't be able to resist taking it to the cash desk and buying it. And with Kickback, that'll make two Christmas presents you won't have to worry about getting anymore!

Like the two previous books, this one is an enchantment for comics fans. My sincerest congratulations to the two of you!

My father was born in Weymouth, England in 1936, and spent the first years of his life in Southampton, witness to an air war that boggled many a child's mind.  In 1945, he and his brother, along with their parents, were on the first post-war passenger liner bound for New York City, thanks to my grandmother's U.S. citizenship.  While much of the family history has been preserved, in memory and in my grandmother's memoirs, an open question is how a beautiful edition of The Adventures of Rupert happened to come to America with my father.

When I was a very small child, I was allowed to play with this book. Like many books written for kids, the Rupert Annuals were not only books for reading, they were actually toys with games and puzzles. The Adventures of Rupert also contained a surprise treat that rocked my little girl world. My mother set me up with a small dish of water and a paintbrush, and showed me how to dip the brush tip in the water and paint it over a drawing of Rupert and his friends.  The drawing magically turned to vivid, vibrant color!  I still haven't forgotten my completely delighted astonishment at this seemingly impossible result.  It helped cement my belief in magic, but it did something more, too.  It cemented my belief that there is always more to life than what meets the eye.  Hidden in the immediate moment are unlimited creative possibilities, and comics artists are giving us guided tours.  I can't imagine how much this meant to hungry British children living through a war. 

It took reading Paul Gravett's and Peter Stanbury's Great British Comics: Celebrating A Century Of Ripping Yarns & Wizard Wheezes to learn that Alfred Bestall, the writer and illustrator of Rupert for thirty years, was the man responsible for this incredible experience of “magic painting”.  This tidbit of information gave historical meaning to a cherished memory, thus closing a gap between a definitive childhood moment and an adult passion.  But far from being solely a wonderful exercise in nostalgia, Great British Comics is an excellent survey of a century of British comic art, and a superb contribution to studies of comics that discover their cultural relevance and interpret their importance. 

Gravett and Stanbury meet several aims of scholarship at once.  They preserve a century's worth of comic art in crisp resolution for future study.  They position the comics in historical context, allowing interpretation of their cultural relevance.  And they provide ample food for thought, stimulating dozens of questions for ongoing study.

This beautiful book is 9.5” x 11”, and may deceive you into thinking that its main aim is to grace your coffee table.  But the book is far too readable and engaging to be merely decorative.  The larger size permits Gravett and Stanley to capture and catalog disappearing comic art and present it in a size and resolution that allows the reader to view the original art in detail, inviting future studies of the artistry involved in the craft of comics.  The size also permits the reproduction of hundreds of complete strips, giving the reader ample access to the comics under discussion.

The book itself is a work of art, gorgeously designed in full color.  Even the black and white strips are given a colored background, making them easier to read.  The pages are designed with inventive borders and each page has its own unique title, often rhymed, a sort of gag headline, extending the pleasure of reading.  Most pages are devoted to reproduction of comic art, with clear and instructive captions, but each chapter also includes a short, informed, and thoughtful introduction.

That alone would be an important contribution, but Gravett and Stanbury do more.  A chronology of comics from 1825 to 2006 appears in Stanbury's timeline on pages 8-13, in which he places comics in the context of political developments and technological innovations. The book itself is organized along thematic rather than chronological lines.  The thematic approach to the chapters allows the authors to become fully engaged in historical and cultural analysis.  Chapter 2, for example, looks at domestic concerns in the comics, such as work and family.  The reader is treated to insights into how major characters such as Ally Sloper changed as class relations in Britain changed through wars and economic depression.  Chapter 4 looks at animals, and suggests intriguing connections between comics characters Rupert or Teddy Tail and classic literary characters like Winnie the Pooh and Peter Rabbit.

Above all, Gravett and Stanbury focus their efforts on tracking and understanding just how dynamic British comics are.  Not content to simply illustrate a century of comics, they ask about the changes in British comics, how those changes might be explained, and what they mean to British history and culture.  In this same way, they bring the contemporary scene to life for readers in Britain and the US, and it forms the basis for our confidence that British comics will stay energized well into the future.  Great British Comics is comics history at its finest.

Comics historiography is the most fertile and productive of the fields of comics scholarship right now.  These two deserve a lot of the credit for that, as Great British Comics is the third book by Gravett and Stanbury, after their Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics and Graphic Novels: Stories to Change Your Life.  The next generation can grab hold of this mother lode of information and analysis and begin writing critical studies that grapple with the questions of art, culture and national identity raised in the pages of all three books. 

Meanwhile, the ongoing labors of comics historians, like the labors of archeologists and folklorists, will keep us connected to our roots, our culture, and the resources of the human imagination.

Steve and I picked up Great British Comics just before the holidays and I wanted to let you know how much we've enjoyed it. It's a lovely piece of work. I can sympathise with the frustration you and Peter must have felt, having to compress such a huge subject into a relatively small space, but you did a very good job. I enjoyed your manga book, of course, but anything anime and manga-related is work; this, on the other hand, gave me an afternoon of pure nostalgic indulgence.

After so long immersed in Japanese comics and animation, it was nice to go back to my childhood and remember some of the wonderful times I had with Girl and School Friend (and, when I could pinch them, my sister's Bunty and Judy!)  Jackie and the rise of the photo-story seemed to put a stop to girls' comics in this country, and it's only with the rise of shojo manga that we're seeing them revived. The Silent Three and The Four Marys would be right at home in the average Japanese girls' comic, wouldn't they?

Collectors of British comics have been fortunate over the past couple of years one way or another. There have been some excellent collections of strips, a variety of 'Best of' books and even a handful of non-fiction titles exploring various subjects, some good, some not so good. However, this is the one I've been looking forward most to seeing.

The forebear of Great British Comics by Paul Gravett & Peter Stanbury is Dennis Gifford's The International Book of Comics (1984); rather than attempt a chronological history, Paul and Peter have tackled the subject by showing how a variety of genres have been handled over the years, ranging from class and family to science fiction and superheroes. Dennis's book was fine up to a point: the number of cover reproductions was substantial but if you wanted to know what was going on inside the comic, you had to look elsewhere... and for many years there really wasn't anywhere else to look. Dennis's deepest interest was in the comics of the first half of the 20th century and he had little time for many of the titles that came after the 1950s.

This is what distinguishes Great British Comics: it opens the covers and lets readers see the full range of comic strips that have appeared in Britain over the years and juxtaposes the old and the new so that, for example, the cover of a Tiger Tim's Annual appears on the same spread as a detail from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Giles shares a page with the Fat Slags'.

The book celebrates the diversity of British comics without frowning or fawning over them and reveals that every decade has produced substantial and superb strips. They may not all be to everyone's liking -- 'Dan Dare' fans may have no time for Viz -- but common sense tells you that they reflect a changing world. In Dennis's books the world was cozy, safe and unchanging where, in Great British Comics, Paul and Peter cry vive la difference and offer ample proof that comics nowadays are more varied in their subject matter and style of presentation than they have ever been.

This isn't a knock against Dennis's book, which is an excellent starting point when it comes to the history of comics (and its scope, reflected in the title, is international), but for British comics, Great British Comics is going to be hard to beat for its breadth of coverage. The writing is accessible, the captions are detailed and the pictures wisely chosen to illustrate the points raised in the text. What better way to introduce (or re-introduce) yourself to comics?

Great British Comics: Celebrating A Century Of Ripping Yarns & Wizard Wheezes is a delightful survey of characters great and small - not just Dan Dare and Dennis the Menace, but also Wilson 'the barefoot athlete' (Hornet) and Belle of the Ballet 'the orphan of the dancing school' (Girl). Although modern comics are included, the book is mostly a gleeful, face-pulling, nosh-eating reminder of the days before graphic novels and before the critics had their say.

A new book devoted to British comics is always something to celebrate and Paul Gravett's & Peter Stanbury's sumptuously illustrated book, Great British Comics, is a feast for the eye that will quickly have anyone who ever handed over their hard earned pocket money in exchange for a copy of Beano, Knockout, 2000AD or any one of a thousand such titles, wallowing in a warm nostalgic glow.

The eight chunky chapters cover most areas of comic history and genres from the Victorian era of Ally Sloper, through film and TV based titles such as Film Fun and Radio Fun and, of course, the myriad selection of funnies titles and characters. The various girl-orientated titles have a section to themselves, as do the adventure weeklies and monthlies of the Amalgamated Press and D.C. Thomson, and also the many newspaper related strips also get a mention. To our taste, there is perhaps a little more emphasis on the latter day more 'adult' style comics than on the earlier titles we prefer but, if this encourages younger readers to take an interest in the rich heritage of the British comic, then that is no bad thing.

The greatest joy of this book is, without doubt, the comprehensive selection of superbly printed illustrations found therein. As well as colourful images from the pages of the comics, the authors have also unearthed some wonderfully evocative photographs of comic shops, Victorian comic vendors and similar images that not only help to put the humble comic into its historical and sociological perspective but also offer an interesting insight into a bygone age. One evocative photograph, occupying a double page spread, depicts dozens of boys and girls on the sands at Worthing, in 1955, all waving their copies of Eagle, Girl or Swift. The period is perfectly captured in their demeanour, dress and haircuts.

In an age when editors demand world wide sales for a book it is not easy for a writer to persuade a publisher to take a book - particularly one with so much colour and so many illustrations as this one - on such a very British subject (we know: we have tried!!) and Paul and Peter are to be congratulated on persuading Aurum to publish this exciting picture-packed volume.

With the UK comics scene currently awash with creative talent, Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury have brought together a timely collection of the best of British from the last 100 years of the art form. The two authors worked together on the excellent Graphic Novels: Stories To Change Your Life and here they bring a similarly in-depth approach to sourcing and contextualising the work. The amount of research is indeed impressive, with the authors listing some rare artifacts and including some fantastic archive photography alongside the hundreds of examples from strips, cartoons and graphic novels. It's a nostalgic journey - for anyone who has an interest in comics culture - and an extremely enjoyable one. While the background images to the pages do sometimes make the layouts feel a little chaotic, the level of research and discovery here more than makes up for that.

Some of the most interesting and important work in comics scholarship in 2006 lay in the production of beautiful collections of reprints, and showcasing comics in museums as well as books. Dan Nadel's Art Out Of Time deserves particular mention here, as do Ivan Brunetti's An Anthology Of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, & True Stories, and Great British Comics: Celebrating A Century Of Ripping Yarns & Wizard Wheezes, by Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury.

I picked up Great British Comics yesterday and I wanted to say what an honour it was to be included in your book. It's really beautiful. I only wish I had a hundredth of the craft of some of the artists in there. I'm sure the contents will be an inspiration to me over the coming years.

Congratulations to you and Peter for another excellent study. The range and quality of the artwork is stunning and it's good to see all those artists get their credit after such decades-long anonymity. I particularly enjoyed the old photos and publicity materials you'd gathered and, as with your other books, I applaud the decision to reprint entire pages rather than excerpted panels. On a personal note, it was good to see my old studio buddy Mick McMahon featured so strongly.

I have a few books on comics in general, and Great British Comics beats all of them hands down. It is wonderfully written - not scholarly, not dumb, but perfectly readable, intelligent and also very positive about its subject matter, showing no snobbery or bias towards any one particular area. And talking of that, the diversity of genres and styles is quite astounding - British comics are incredibly rich in history and it is fascinating to see the quality of early strips and their development through the years. But they also have a rich future from the look of things, and Paul Gravett is enthusiastically upbeat about a medium that many thought lost along with their distant childhood... "Oh yeah, I remember comics! Do they still make them?". There is a current scene and it's alive and kicking, and there are plenty of examples here. Graphically the book is excellent - there's plenty to look at, and it's not just a gallery of impressive covers as is quite often the case with books of this nature, but actual strip pages - the storytelling itself, which is what comics are. Overall the book is an inspiration.

This is a wonderful book: incisive nostalgia, a celebration of pen-and-ink work and a visual feast of well-known and obscure comics. In every respect, it's smashing.

Other authors have, in the past, attempted tomes chronicling the history of British comics, but they've usually tended to attempt a coffee-table book crammed with dry text, detailing who published what and when, floundering with the profusion of material. In this case, it's not usually a failure of the author's prose; the topic is vast, and covers such a range of sub-genres, periods, and materials that it is truly bewildering to follow.

Refreshing then to read Great British Comics, by Gravett and Stanbury, which copes with the nebulous nature of the topic with confidence. Indeed they draw you through the material with such ease, so I found myself reading chapters, and then pouring over the pages to drink in the reproduced work for hours. None have captured the range of material available, from so many ages, with such interesting examples and percepive writing. And it's well designed, with time-lines and photographs to illustrate specific areas, and my favourite – a two page spread of the great and the good in British comics, laid out as cigarette cards.

It's lavishly illustrated throughout, and one of the key joys of this book is the examples printed within. Not only does it show the prime specimens of Great British Comics, but also the awful British comics, absurd British comics, and underground British comics; amongst them gems I'd forgotten, and others I wish I'd seen before.

Great British Comics doesn't dwell on one particular era, but does justice to each age. It doesn't plaster pages with comic covers, but gives clearly printed examples of the inside art. It doesn't try to slavishly follow the history with chapters, but rather grabs logical sections and deals with then deftly.

All ‘round, a good book.

Gentlemen, we have a winner...

Most general books about comics tend to specialize or be skewed towards a certain genre, audience or era - think 'superheroes', 'alternative', '1960s'. It's a rare beast that eschews such temptations and goes all out for the historical sweep, without seeming superficial or conversely dragged down by the weight of facts and figures. Fortunately, comics historian Paul Gravett wears his extensive learning lightly and weaves an extremely readable overview of a dense field, aided by inviting layouts from the talented Peter Stanbury.

So who should buy this book? Just about anyone with an interest in British comics will get something out of it: the melange of visuals from a century and a half of comic strips will draw in the casual browser, while its authoritative blend of comics culture and history will appeal to the comics' cognoscenti.

Put simply, this is the best primer on British comics I've ever read. Put it on your shopping list now.

The great man's done it again... Lots here for the student of comics, be they in search of enlightenment or an actual degree.  After the fascinating introduction, rich in social context, Mssrs. Gravett and Stanbury embark on a treasure hunt of lost gold and current currency, then showcase it with all the clarity and style Gravett displayed in Graphic Novels: Stories To Change Your Life, with pages reprinted whole.  Separated into genres or markets, it's a far more engaging affair than last year's less colourful effort by someone else, and just to be clear, Paul isn't bound by the rule of where something's published.  As Paul and I discussed during his initial sweep for material, it'd be stupid to ignore the likes of Andi Watson, the most British of British comicbook creators because he's published in America owing purely to the logistics involved (i.e. the population of America dwarfs that of Britain so it sustains a healthier publishing base; it therefore makes more financial sense to print/publish there and ship the smaller fraction over here, rather than print/publisher here and incur the costs of shipping the majority of a print run there).  I tried to get Milkkitten in here, but in truth this isn't the proper venue for the more recent, experimental stuff that hardly anyone's ever heard of.  It does, however, include Simone Lia, who was always going to be a British Great, and comes in as a strong, engaging retrospective with a fine sense of perspective, and a great deal of eye candy.

And so to the man whom posterity will remember as the greatest historian of the comics/graphic novel form in this country and certainly its most enthusiastic chronicler: Paul Gravett. His latest offering, co-written with Peter Stanbury and gorgeously produced by Aurum Press, complements their Graphic Novels: Stories to Change your Life issued last year.

The literary archaeology at the core of Great British Comics takes your breath away. Beano, Dandy, Modesty Blaise, Judge Dredd and Dan Dare are still familiar but scores of others are rescued from oblivion: Leo Baxendale's Tiddlers for Wham!, the magazine that he created in 1964; Sweeny Toddlers (about a terrorising baby); a pastiche of Indian sci-fi and curryhouse-menu prose called Rogan Gosh; The Happy Days, a chirpily narrated strip, about the experiences of a suburban family that ran for 13 years; the saga of Wulf the Briton, which started in Express Weekly in 1957. Dip into this treasure trove and you will come up with something amazing every time.

Book Of The Week: A Tardis Of Delights.

Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury's Great British Comics is an entertaining celebration of the medium.

Of all the canny decisions that went into the making of this book, its choice of cover is the most perfect. Korky the Cat winks mischievously, promising us more of the tomboy misbehaviour that's been the mainstay of British comics since the late 19th century. In Britain, comics were always regarded as lowbrow fun for children, no more exalted than crisps or sweeties. Compare Korky with the US's Krazy Kat - a wry, linguistically sophisticated newspaper strip adored by serious critics from the 1920s onwards - and the two countries' different relationship with the artform is obvious. Note also that the Dandy created Korky at the same time as America spawned the superhero. British publishers always did prefer hi-jinks to drama, with far-reaching consequences: even the most visible of our modern "adult" comics - Viz - is a potty-mouthed spoof of the Beano.

Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury are well aware of the limitations and missed opportunities that have contributed to the comparative low esteem in which British comics are held. However, their purpose in compiling this book is not to apologise but to celebrate. And there is much to celebrate: more than a hundred years' worth of "ripping yarns and wizard wheezes". Wisely, they've chosen not to produce a coffee-table tome featuring a few dozen full-size reproductions of front covers and a smattering of text. Instead, Great British Comics is madly compendious. A scholarly history is traced in eight substantial chapters, each exploring the evolution of the medium through a different lens: class relations in "For Richer, For Poorer", femininity in "Jolly Hockey Sticks To Sheroes", and so on. Given the density of data - a jostling succession of titles, characters, writers, artists, publishers and trends - Gravett and Stanbury do a remarkable job in keeping the text lucid and entertaining. Their observations are backed up with hundreds of comic story pages. How do they fit them all into a 191-page paperback? By shrinking them down to a quarter, a sixth, even a twelfth of their original size. Excellent design and pin-sharp printing reduce the eyestrain, but I suspect that most readers over 30 will need a magnifying glass to decipher the minuscule contents of the word balloons. This is not a book to be idly flipped through, it's an engrossing adventure, a Tardis of delights.

The fun begins with Fun, a lower-class tuppenny alternative to Punch, launched in 1861. Gradually, as more comics came on to a hungry market, intricate Victorian engravings and wordy subtitles gave way to simpler, cleaner lines and more dynamic storytelling. Censorious educators and middle-class parents were aghast at the nation's youth spurning The Iliad for Illustrated Chips, but kids knew what they liked, and their cheap thrills were soon big business. In a snapshot from 1943, a throng of children queue outside the newsagents waiting for their fix; one lucky boy is already reading the Nazi-beating exploits of Rockfist Rogan, RAF. A 1955 photo shows crowds of kids at the seaside excitedly waving the latest copies of Eagle and Girl.

One of the main attractions was a vision of a brighter, cheerier, more hedonistic world than chilly reality offered. The authors note that "Dan [Dare]'s first urgent mission took him to Venus in search of the right conditions to grow food for a starving, overpopulated Earth. This scenario would have struck a chord with British readers who had to put up with rationing that was even stricter than during the second world war right up to 1954." Several of the pages reproduced in the book illustrate the peculiarly British obsession with "the slap-up feed" which provided the climax of so many comic stories - a gross fantasy of "jelly and ice-cream, buns and cakes, towers of mashed potato with sausages sticking out".

In America, the function of comics was often to subvert the cushioned comforts of normalcy, suggesting dark undercurrents beneath the American dream or psychedelic visions outside of it. British comics largely strove to be harmless and family-friendly. It's almost unbelievable that until 1969 Amalgamated Press, one of the UK's largest comics publishers, forbade drawings of snakes in case young readers might be frightened. (Even when the ban was relaxed by new owners IPC, their first snake - on the cover of Whizzer and Chips - was not a killer but a pet.) Britain was happy to reprint American funnies, but the importation of horror comics was controversial. The Sunday Dispatch on February 13 1949 thundered: "Horror has crept into the British nursery. Morals of little girls in plaits and boys with marbles bulging in their pockets are being corrupted by a torrent of indecent coloured magazines that are flooding bookstalls and newsagents."

In the arena of sex, however, British mainstream comics were often more daring than their American equivalents. The morning after D-Day, British soldiers were given a morale boost by the Daily Mirror's cartoon glamour girl, Jane, taking the phrase "comic strip" literally. Thenceforth, Jane's undressed body ("Give me a break, I can't find my panties!") was a British icon, a pen-and-ink precursor of the Page 3 girl. An American syndicate agreed to take her on, but artist Norman Pett was obliged to scribble clothing over her naked bits and even to censor her suspenders. The nudity that would later spice up such strips as Garth, Modesty Blaise and Tiffany Jones remained, in America, a strictly underground phenomenon.

Today's state of play is more complicated. While the main preoccupation of our most popular comics is still arguably what a Yankee visitor in a Posy Simmonds strip calls "toilet yumor", the US's post-South Park culture is now so infantilised that the likes of Johnny Fartpants no longer seem so peculiarly British. As for the serious side of things, many of the most exciting, dependably inventive of "American" comics creators are in fact Brits lured overseas by greater opportunities, money and status. Great British Comics displays pioneering work by Alan Moore, Brian Bolland, Grant Morrison and a host of current luminaries. It even includes a page from Bryan Talbot's Alice In Sunderland, not due for publication until next year.

Which brings us to the biggest strength of this book: the depth and breadth of its scope. Previous historical studies have tended to argue that there was a golden age of comics which coincided conveniently with the authors' own childhoods. Gravett and Stanbury emphasise the medium's ongoing vitality. Sure, they pay enthusiastic homage to Rupert, Desperate Dan and all the rest, but they're equally evangelistic about 2000AD, the graphic novel explosion of the 1990s, and whatever is fresh on today's drawing boards.

Of course there are limits to how much warrants praise in a country whose comics publishers have always, as the authors concede, "avoided change for as long as possible". If Gravett and Stanbury are aware - and, as connoisseurs, they must be - that some of the UK's best-loved strips are creaking hack-work, they're too diplomatic to say so. Indeed, they keep criticism to a minimum, relying on plentiful documentary evidence to induce nostalgia, embarrassment, hilarity, awe and disdain according to the beholder's own tastes. They're mindful that "any character, no matter how obscure or undistinguished, can become somebody's all-time favourite if they read it at the right time and in the right circumstances". In other words, dear reader, while you may have a sound rationale for preferring one Whitbread-nominated novel to another, or for judging the efforts of Danielle Steel or Dan Brown to be trash, you may be forever gripped by the daft conviction that Roger the Dodger was witty or that Circus Ballerina had tragic pathos.

If there's one thing that this book makes wonderfully clear, it's that British comics, like comics elsewhere, are a dazzlingly complex universe, encompassing the whole range of literary and artistic endeavour, from mindless babysitting to metaphysical meditation, with plenty of dystopian satire, high-octane heroics and luscious aesthetics along the way. The final panel of my review is approaching, so I'll leave you with just two titbits: Orwell's Animal Farm was turned into a 78-episode anti-communist propaganda comic - drawn by the same artist who was so adept at separating Jane from her clothes. Further on, in a feminist cartoon from the 1990s, Beryl the Bitch disses a useless male as he boozes in front of the telly - with a Beano at his side. Great British Comics is chock-full of juxtapositions like that: the classic and the kitsch; soothing nostalgia and its acerbic discontents.

Bitesize: Lavish comix nostagia-fest...

In the wake of their impressive Graphic Novels and Manga anthologies, Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury turn their attention to the "ripping yarns and wizard wheezes" of British comics and comic strips. The result is an attractive and well-researched overview of the medium spanning more than a century, from James Sullivan's The British Working Man (1875) and Dan Dare's adventures in Eagle to Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland and other contemporary titles.

Among the featured strips that are fondly remembered – or, for some of us, half-remembered – are female spy Modesty Blaise, The Spider, a high-tech criminal mastermind with a gadget for every dicey situation, and The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire, a lavishly illustrated epic that appeared in the pages of Look and Learn throughout the 1970s. There's also a rather neat timeline, showing the life-spans of key titles in context alongside the various social phenomena that the comics often reflected – from the three-day week and the Winter of Discontent to the arrival of television and the first broadcast of Doctor Who. It's a simple visual device, but one that adds to the seductive retrospection on offer.

Any Cop?: Despite the inclusion of more recent offerings, Great British Comics will appeal primarily as a nostalgia-fest for readers of a certain age - or, given the enormous span of the book, readers of certain ages. But that's no great criticism and there's plenty of background information and rarely seen material to bring a warm glow to those of us who misspent our youth poring over many of the pages reproduced here. And it's hard to think of another volume that features Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean alongside Curly Wee and the Fat Slags.

As well as communicating a bottomless enthusiasm for comic book culture in all its forms around the world, Gravett and Stanbury's book offers a valuable account of the British scene, from Gillray and Cruikshank to today's cult heroes (and possibly tomorrow's mainstream stars), such as Ben Dickson and Bryan Talbot. There have been some ups and downs, but we're nowhere near the writing (and panel art) being on the wall for comic books just yet.

In my opinion Great British Comics is the closest to a definitive book on British comics to date.

On the first read through, it seems accurate enough apart from a few inevitable tiny niggles. (Egmont's Toxic has been running since 2002, not 2004 for example, and the story that Graham Dury dropped The Fat Slags from Viz was just a myth perpetrated by a maverick press officer.) But that's being pedantic and discourteous to such a fine book. Authors Paul Gravett and Peter Stanbury should be proud of their work on this essential tome.

Printing and reproduction of the many old strips is immaculate, even though many are reduced in size, and the design is easy on the eye whilst packing in tons of information. Where most previous books on UK comics have only shown covers, this book sensibly shows a huge selection of strips too so one gets a full-on experience of the variety of British comics. Anyone who only thinks of The Beano or 2000AD when they think of British comics will be pleasantly surprised by the vast display of styles and genres shown here. It's also good to see that newspaper strips are also well represented, which have sometimes been overlooked in previous histories of UK comics.

The rich history of originated UK comics stretches back over 100 years, and not only is that represented in the text and numerous strip samples but designer Peter Stanbury has also provided the reader with a handy timeline, charting the lifespan of each comic across the decades from comic/text story papers such as Comic Cuts and bringing us bang up to date with comic magazines such as Wallace & Gromit Comic.

I was particularly pleased to see that unlike some previous books and articles on UK comics, this one doesn't perpetuate the myth that British comics are dead. Instead it brings us an optimistic note that although the "major" publishers may not be as prolific in the field as they once were the rise of independents has ensured that comics continue. The examples in this book prove the point that although some fans may wistfully wish for a return to the "traditional British comics" of their youth, the truth is that our comics have always evolved, both in art style and in format, reflecting trends and social changes, and hopefully will continue to do so.

There's something in the book that should interest everyone who wants to learn more about comics. There's a nice "sense of history" throughout the book too, with various photographs and information which put the comics into their cultural context.

Page 4:
Caption for photograph on Page 2, the date of The Beezer issue is 12 May 1956.

Page 6:
Boys' World cover is drawn by Edwin Phillips.

Page 13:
Egmont's Toxic has been running since 2002, not 2004.

Page 37:
The story that Graham Dury dropped The Fat Slags from Viz was apparently just a myth perpetrated by a maverick press officer.

Page 51:
Adam Ant illustrated is drawn by Maureen and Gordon Gray.

Page 88:
Sandy Dean's Schooldays is drawn by Bruce MacDonald.

Page 113:
Cap Condor: Art by Neville Wilson

Page 114:
Robot Archie: Art by Ted Kearon

Page 138:
This particular Pansy Potter strip is not by Hugh McNeil. To be identified.

Page 140:
This particular 'Four Marys' is not by Bill Holroyd. To be identified.

Page 140:
Jill Crusoe: Art by Reginald B. Davis.

Page 142:
The Sue Day Annual cover: Art may not be by Bill Lacey. To be confirmed or identified. Cover of June and School Friend Library 455 is drawn by Peter Kay.

Page 149:
Slaves of War Orphan Farm is drawn by Desmond Walduck.

Page 158:
Dick Turpin (TPL 223) is not by Derek Eyles but by Stephen Chapman.

Page 161:
His Sporting Lordship: Art by Mike Western.

Page 164:
Shipwrecked Circus is drawn by Paddy Brennan.

Page 167:
Roy of the Rovers Annual 1982, cover and left spread drawing of the team appear to be drawn by David Sque. Tiger April 16 1977 page is drawn by Yvonne Hutton.

Page 177:
Charlie Peace is drawn by Jack Pamby.