Comic Firsts: London Daily News

I've been digging around in the attic this morning and stumbled upon a stack of old newspaper clippings. There are a couple of runs from newly launched papers that I thought I'd share with you.

The London Daily News was launched by Robert Maxwell on Tuesday, 24 February 1987. It was the first attempt to produce a 24-hour newspaper in the UK, updated throughout the day. The morning "gold top" edition was followed by three more daily editions. Publishing an evening edition brought the paper into direct opposition to the Evening Standard, whose publishers , Associated Newspapers, responded by relaunching the defunct Evening News and starting a price war that was damaging to both companies. The end came in July when the normally 20p London Daily News had dropped its evening price to 10p and the Evening News to 5p.

Maxwell eventually conceded defeat, having lost a libel case against Associated Newspapers after accusing them of lying about the circulation figures of the Evening Standard. The last edition of the London Daily News appeared on 23 July 1987 and Maxwell is said to have lost some £25 million on the venture, plus his undisclosed damages payment to Associated Newspapers, who promptly absorbed the Evening News into the Evening Standard.

The paper had a small strip content, with only three regular strips appearing. The main political cartoon was by Trog (Wally Fawkes), probably best known for his 'Flook' strip that appeared in the Daily Mail. (The British Cartoon Archive also has a very good biography of Fawkes on their website)

As this was the height of Thatcherite Britain, it's not really surprising that two of the strips involved Yuppies and money-making in London. 'Soho Square' featured a trio of main players, headed by Helvetica Bold, a 40-year-old American who runs the Young and Ruthless Advertising Agency in West End London. She certainly lives up to the "ruthless" half of the company name as she has no moral qualms about who she takes on as a client or how she promotes them; Art Hackett is a designer who has leftie credentials but has now been absorbed by the system; and Prince, the stylish young office junior.

The strip was written by comedy writers Max Handley & Tony Allen and drawn by Peter Rigg who, back in the 1980s, contributed to Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament (1987), and produced his own self-published comics, The Dregs! and Donna Meets the Dregs.

'Alex' by Charles Peattie & Russell Taylor has become something of an institution, having run for over twenty years. When the London Daily News folded, it switched first to The Independent (in 1987) and then to the Daily Telegraph (in 1992). A number of collections have appeared featuring Alex, a Docklands-based investment banker and his family with strips taking place both in and out of the office. You can find out more on Alex at Wikipedia.

Finally, there was a daily gag strip, 'Baby' by Michael Heath, about an irrepressible youngster who seems to have attitudes beyond his years.

Another Comic First tomorrow.

(* Illustrations are from the first three issues of the London Daily News (24-26 February 1987) © 1987 The London Daily News Ltd.)