Dez Skinn doc debuts on Youtube

A brief documentary about Dez Skinn has debuted on Youtube:

Produced by Maximilian Feurstein and Ted Dontchev of the Brighton Film School, the 11 1/2 minute doc. covers his career in comics.

Egmont Classic Comics

Back in November 2012, Egmont UK announced the expansion of their Classic Comics imprint, which was the imprint being used by the company to reprint a wealth of classic comics from the Egmont archives. Four volumes of Roy of the Rovers appeared as e-books in June 2012 and the latest launch added a fifth, plus The Thirteenth Floor from Eagle, Johnny Red, Major Eazy and Charley's War from Battle and material from Misty.

I believe the experiment came to an end a year later—in November 2013—when Charley's War Book 16, taking the story up to March 1917, appeared. Over that year there appeared Kindle editions of Tales From The Mist (1 vol.), The Thirteenth Floor (2 vols.), Major Eazy (2 vols), Rat Pack (2 vols), Hook Jaw (1 volume) and Thunderbirds (5 vols).

It's a shame that the experiment seems to have come to an end. At the time, David Riley, Managing Director of Egmont Publishing Group, said: "Roy, Battle, Misty... these are iconic magazines which still have a place in the national consciousness. They deserve to be brought back; their appeal also has the potential to transcend the generation gap and reach an entirely new, younger audience. With the limitless possibilities offered up by digital publishing, there has never been a better time to bring these comics to the fore."

Despite Riley's belief that the Classic Comics titles could attract two audiences, the series seems to have fallen squarely between the two: attractive to the (relatively small number of ) fans of the original comic who wanted to read these adventures on paper and younger warriors of the digital revolution who read digital books but were not drawn nostalgically to forty-year-old characters.

When the second wave of titles was launched in November 2012, Egmont accompanied the press release with four promo postcards featuring comics from their archive. It's a shame there was no attempt to publish any humour in digital form.

 

 

 

Attack of the Killer Comics (South of Watford, 1987)

Remember when comics were cool? Back in the late 1980s there was a buzz about comics, about how they were now for grown ups, that they were going to taken to the heart of the mainstream and standing at a bus stop reading a comic would never be embarrassing again.

It lasted for a few months but didn't have much traction with the media, who went on to discover the next big thing, although I can't remember what it was because it is swamped in my memory by so many other hot tickets that were definitely The Next Big Thing.

Here's a fascinating documentary, dating from 1987, in which John (QI) Lloyd takes viewers on a whistle-stop tour of all that was cool about comics at the time—including interviews with Dave Gibbons, Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean, Myra Hancock, Alexei Sayle and Duncan McAlpine, plus clips of Wendy James talking about her Transvision Vamp song 'Hanging Out With Halo Jones' and Chris Amos's play American Eagle performed (I believe) at the the Old Red Lion, fringe theatre in Islington.

Oh, boy... does this bring back some memories!

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E W Hildick on Comics (part 2)

 

 

 

 

(* © Estate of E W Hildick.)

E W Hildick on Comics (part 1)

The following is a chapter from A Close Look at Magazines & Comics (1966) by E. W. Hildick in which the former teacher looks briefly at the history of comics. It is basic and intended to promote discussion and activities in class but at the same time is an interesting summation of how a children's writer and former teacher viewed comics in the mid-Sixties.

More tomorrow.

 

 

 

(* © Estate of E W Hildick.)

E W Hildick

"Several years ago, at the beginning of a long and often painful apprenticeship as a professional author, I decided to aim at having work accepted by as wide a variety of magazines as possible," wrote E. W. Hildick in 1966. "I regarded this not so much as a prudent financial bread-casting operation as a valuable literary exercise—an exercise to be marked by some of the toughest teachers in the world."

So begins the foreword to Hildick's book A Close Look at Magazines & Comics, published by Faber & Faber in 1966. Hildick goes on to explain how he studied each magazine he submitted his work to and in so doing learning more about the publishing world and the tough, taciturn editors who put magazines together. The exercise of study and submission earned him many sales and Hildick was able to boast that he had sold stories or articles to John O' London's Weekly, A.M.A., Reveille, Schoolmaster, Symbol, Football Monthly, Use of English, Times Educational Supplement, Yorkshire Post, Journal of Education, On the Road, The Writer, New Statesman & Nation, Co-operative News, Pick of Today's Short Stories, Farmers' Weekly, Teachers' World, Blighty, Yorkshire Evening Post, Look & Listen, The Lady, Evening News, Family Doctor, Bookseller, Time & Tide, The Londoner, Hardware Trade Journal, Cheshire Life, Glasgow Evening Citizen, Red Tape, Nottingham Weekly Guardian, Books, Woman & Shopping, Truth, Beat, Observer, Weekend, Yorkshire Life, Eagle, Man About Town, Radio Times, Spectator, Books and Bookmen, Forward Trends, Sydney Sun-Herald, Author, Teacher and the Kenyon Review.

Edmund Wallace Hildick was born in Bradford, W. Yorkshire, on 29 December 1925, the son of Edmund Vernon Hildick (1884-1958), a commercial traveller, and his wife Edith A. (nee Dews). A younger sister, Dorothy, was born in 1931.

He was schooled locally and later said that he knew he wanted to be a writer from the age of 14 and that his training in mathematics and science helped him become more precise in his writing. After working as a junior assistant at Dewsbury Public Library and as a clerk in a truck repair depot in Leeds, Hildick worked during the war as a laboratory assistant at the Admiralty Signals Establishment, Sowerby Bridge, Yorkshire, and Haslemere, Surrey. He then joined the Royal Air Force in 1946-48.

After the war, he attended City of Leeds Training College where he obtained his teacher's certificate in 1950. He taught at Dewsbury Secondary Modern School between 1950 and 1954, leaving in order to become a full-time writer.

Hildick felt there was a gap in the market for books for working class children and began writing a series of stories featuring Jim Starling. Jim's adventures were broadcast on the BBC and two novels (the third and fifth in the series) were serialised in Eagle: "Jim Starling and the Colonel" (1959) and "Jim Starling and the Spotted Dog" (1961).

In all Hildick wrote some 80 novels for children, as well as writing non-fiction and mystery novels for adults (as Wallace Hildick). His work won numerous awards, including an honor book citation from the International Hans Christian Andersen Award, in 1968 for Louie's Lot; the American Ambassador Books booklist selection for children's literature in 1970 for Manhattan Is Missing and Top Boy at Twisters Creek; an honor book citation from the Austrian Children and Youth Book Prize Award in 1976 for Lucky Les: The Adventures of a Cat of Five Tales; and Edgar Allan Poe special awards from the Mystery Writers of America in 1970 (for The Case of the Secret Scribbler) and 1995 (for Hester Bidgood Investigatrix of Evill Deedes).

Many of his novels featured Jack McGurk, who, as leader of a group of friends, helped unravel over two dozen mysteries. The later novels brought in elements of fantasy and time-travel.

Hildick's books have been widely translated in Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Brazil, Japan, Poland, the former USSR, Yugoslavia, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Taiwan and Holland. In the late 1960s, many of Hildick's books were considered "too British" for American publication, a situation he remedied by writing books with American settings.

Hildick married Doris Clayton in 1950, who gave teaching in the 1960s to act as her husband's agent. Although he lived in England, he would spend part of each year in America. Hildick died on 12 February 2001.

PUBLICATIONS

Novels (for children, in series)

Jim Starling
Jim Starling, illus. Roger Payne. London, Chatto & Windus, 1958.
Jim Starling and the Agency, illus. Roger Payne. London, Chatto & Windus, 1958.
Jim Starling and the Colonel, illus. Roger Payne. London, Heinemann, 1960, Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1968.
Jim Starling's Holiday, illus. Roger Payne. London, Heinemann, 1960.
Jim Starling and the Spotted Dog, illus. Roger Payne. London, Anthony Blond, 1963, revised, London, New English Library, 1971.
Jim Starling Goes to Town, illus. Roger Payne. London, Anthony Blond, 1963.
Jim Starling Takes Over, illus. Roger Payne. London, Anthony Blond, 1963, revised, London, New English Library, 1971.

Birdy Jones
Birdy Jones, illus. Richard Rose. London, Faber, 1963; Harrisburg, PA, Stackpole, 1969.
Birdy and the Group, illus. Richard Rose. London, Macmillan, 1968; Harrisburg, PA, Stackpole, 1969.
Birdy Swings North, illus. Richard Rose. London, Macmillan, 1969; Harrisburg, PA, Stackpole, 1971.
Birdy in Amsterdam, illus. Richard Rose. London, Macmillan, 1970; Harrisburg, PA, Stackpole, 1971.
Birdy Jones and the New York Heads. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1974.

Lemon Kelly
Meet Lemon Kelly, illus. Margery Gill. London, Jonathan Cape, 1963, published as Lemon Kelly, illus. Arvis Stewart, Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1968.
Lemon Kelly Digs Deep, illus. Margery Gill. London, Jonathan Cape, 1964.
Lemon Kelly and the Home-made Boy, illus. Iris Schweitzer. London, Dobson, 1968.

Louie
Louie's Lot. London, Faber, 1965; New York, David White, 1968.
Louie's S.O.S., illus. Iris Schweitzer, Macmillan, 1968, Doubleday, 1970.
Louie's Snowstorm, illus. Iris Schweitzer. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1974; London, Deutsch, 1975.
Louie's Ransom, New York, Knopf, 1978; London, Deutsch, 1978 [1979].

The Questers
The Questers, illus. Richard Rose. Leicester, Brockhampton Press, 1966, illus. Ruth Chew, New York, Hawthorn, 1970.
Calling Questers Four, illus. Richard Rose. Leicester, Brockhampton Press, 1967.
The Questers and the Whispering Spy, illus. Richard Rose. Leicester, Brockhampton Press, 1967.

McGurk Mystery
The Nose Knows, illus. Unada Gliewe. New York, Grosset & Dunlap, 1973; illus. Val Biro, Leicester, Brockhampton, 1974.
Dolls in Danger, illus. Val Biro. Leicester, Brockhampton, 1974, published as Deadline for McGurk, illus. Lisl Weil, New York, Macmillan, 1975.
The Menaced Midget, illus. Val Biro. Leicesdter, Brockhampton, 1975.
The Case of the Condemned Cat, illus. Lisl Weil. New York, Macmillan, 1975, illus. Val Biro, Brockhampton, 1975.
The Case of the Nervous Newsboy, illus. Lisl Weil. New York, Macmillan, 1976, illus. Val Biro, Hodder & Stoughton (London), 1976.
The Great Rabbit Robbery, illus. Val Biro, Hodder & Stoughton, 1976, published as The Great Rabbit Rip-Off, illus. Lisl Weil, New York, Macmillan, 1977.
The Case of the Invisible Dog, illus. Lisl Weil. New York, Macmillan, 1977, illus. Val Biro, Hodder & Stoughton, 1977.
The Case of the Secret Scribbler, illus. Lisl Weil. New York, Macmillan, 1978, illus. Val Biro, Hodder & Stoughton, 1978.
The Case of the Phantom Frog, illus. Lisl Weil. New York, Macmillan, 1979, illus. Val Biro, Hodder & Stoughton, 1979.
The Case of the Snowbound Spy, illus. Lisl Weil. New York, Macmillan, 1980.
The Case of the Treetop Treasure, illus. Lisl Weil. New York, Macmillan, 1980, illus. Val Biro, Hodder & Stoughton, 1980.
The Case of the Bashful Bank Robber, illus. Lisl Weil. New York, Macmillan, 1981.
The Case of the Four Flying Fingers, illus. Lisl Weil. New York, Macmillan, 1981.
The Case of the Felon's Fiddle, illus. Lisl Weil. New York, Macmillan, 1982.
McGurk Gets Good and Mad, illus. Lisl Weil. New York, Macmillan, 1982.
The Case of the Slingshot Sniper, illus. Lisl Weil. New York, Macmillan, 1983.
The Case of the Vanishing Ventriloquist, illus. Kathy Parkinson. New York, Macmillan, 1985.
The Case of the Muttering Mummy, illus. Blanche Sims. New York, Macmillan, 1986.
The Case of the Wandering Weathervanes, illus. Denise Brunkus. New York, Macmillan, 1988.
The Case of the Purloined Parrot. New York, Macmillan, 1990.
The Case of the Dragon in Distress. New York, Macmillan, 1991.
The Case of the Weeping Witch. New York, Macmillan, 1992.
The Case of the Desperate Drummer. New York, Macmillan, 1993.
The Case of the Fantastic Footprints. New York, Macmillan, 1994.
The Case of the Absent Author. New York, Macmillan, 1995.
The Case of the Wiggling Wig. New York, Macmillan, 1996.

Ghost Squad
The Ghost Squad Breaks Through. New York, Dutton, 1984.
The Ghost Squad Flies Concorde. New York, Dutton, 1985.
The Ghost Squad and the Halloween Conspiracy. New York, Dutton, 1985.
The Ghost Squad and the Ghoul of Grunberg. New York, Dutton, 1986.
The Ghost Squad and the Prowling Hermits. New York, Dutton, 1987.
The Ghost Squad and the Menace of the Malevs. New York, Dutton, 1988.

Felicity Snell Mystery
The Purloined Corn Popper. New York, Marshall Cavendish, 1997.
The Serial Sneak Thief. New York, Marshall Cavendish, 1997.

Non-series/Short series
The Boy at the Window, illus. Ionicus. London, Chatto & Windus, 1960.
Mapper Mundy's Treasure Hunt, illus. John Cooper. London, Anthony Blond, 1963.
Lucky Les: The Adventures of a Cat of Five Tales, illus. Peter Barrett. London, Anthony Blond, 1967; revised, Leicester, Brockhampton, 1974.
Here Comes Parren, illus. Michael Heath. London, Macmillan, 1968; illus. Robert Frankenberg, Cleveland, World Publishing, 1972.
Back with Parren, illus. Michael Heath. London, Macmillan, 1968.
Top Boy at Twisters Creek, illus. Oscar Liebman. New York, David White, 1969.
Manhattan Is Missing, illus. Jan Palmer. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1969; London, Tom Stacey, 1972.
Ten Thousand Golden Cockerels, illus. Richard Rose. London, Evans Brothers, 1970.
The Secret Winners, illus. Gustave Nebel, New York, Crown, 1970.
The Dragon That Lived under Manhattan, illus. Harold Berson. New York, Crown, 1970.
My Kid Sister, illus. Iris Schweitzer. Cleveland, World Publishing, 1971; Leicester, Brockhampton Press, 1973.
The Prisoners of Gridling Gap, a Report: With Expert Comments from Doctor Ranulf Quitch, illus. Paul Sagsoorian. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1971; London, Stacey, 1973.
The Secret Spenders (sequel to The Secret Winners), illus. Gustave Nebel, New York, Crown, 1971.
The Doughnut Dropout, illus. Kiyo Komoda. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1972.
The Active-Enzyme, Lemon-Freshened, Junior High School Witch, illus. Iris Schweitzer, Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1973.
Kids Commune, illus. Oscar Liebman. New York, David White, 1973.
Time Explorers, Inc., illus. Nancy Ohanian. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1976.
A Cat Called Amnesia, illus. Val Biro. New York, David White, 1976; London, Deutsch, 1977.
The Top-Flight Fully-Automated Junior High School Girl Detective, illus. Iris Schweitzer. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1977; as The Top- Flight Fully-Automated Girl Detective, London, Deutsch, 1979.
The Memory Tap. London, Macmillan Children's, 1989.
My Famous Father, illus. Leslie Smith. London, Macmillan Children's, 1990.
Hester Bidgood, Investigatrix of Evill Deedes. New York, Macmillan, 1994.

Novels (for adults) as Wallace Hildick
Bed and Work. London, Faber, 1962.
A Town on the Never. London, Faber, 1963.
Lunch with Ashurbanipal. London, Faber, 1965.
Le club des pisteurs. Hachette,  1969.
Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies (as E. W. Hildick, novelisation of the screenplay by Jack Davies and Ken Annakin). New York, Berkley, 1969; as Monte Carlo or Bust!, London, Sphere, 1969.
Bracknell's Law. London, Hamilton, 1976; New York, Harper, 1976.
The Weirdown Experiment. London, Hamilton, 1976.
Vandals. London, Hamilton, 1977.
The Loop. London, Hamilton, 1977.

Non-fiction as Wallace Hildick
Word for Word: A Study of Authors' Alterations with Exercises. London, Faber, 1965; abridged as Word for Word: The Rewriting of Fiction, New York, Norton, 1965.
Writing with Care: 200 Problems in the Use of English. London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1967; New York, David White, 1967.
Thirteen Types of Narrative. London & Melbourne, Macmillan, 1968; New York, C. N. Potter, 1970.
Children and Fiction: A critical study in depth of the artistic and psychological factors involved in writing fiction for and about children. London, Evans Brothers, 1970; Cleveland, World Publishing, 1971. 
Only the Best: Six Qualities of Excellence. New York, C. N. Potter, 1973.

Non-fiction as E. W. Hildick
A Close Look at Newspapers. London, Faber, 1966.
A Close Look at Magazines and Comics. London, Faber, 1966.
A Close Look at Television and Sound Broadcasting. London, Faber, 1967.
A Close Look at Advertising. London, Faber, 1969.
Cokerheaton (storypack), illus. Roger Payne. London, Evans Brothers, 1970.
Rushbrook (storypack). London, Evans Brothers, 1971.

35 Years of Judge Dredd (video)

A fine precis of Dredd's history and importance although I have to disagree with Brian Bolland's statement that there hadn't been any science fiction in comics for 20 years. 2000AD's immediate predecessor, Action, had 'Spinball', which is a straightforward SF yarn about a futuristic sport. My own comic of choice had 'The Steel Claw' (an invisible man), 'Kelly's Eye' (invincible time-traveller), 'Mytek the Mighty' (giant robot ape), 'Kid Pharaoh' (an Egyptian pharaoh awakened in the modern world), 'Adam Eterno' (a castaway in time), 'Sergeant Strong' (a victim of cosmic rays) and 'Star Trek' (based on the TV show), amongst others. Champion was launched as a science fiction comic in 1966—as I pointed out in the introduction to the Hurricane & Champion index.

Revisiting The House of Hammer

A documentary about Dez Skinn's 1970s horror magazine.

The Beano, The Dandy and the Nazi Death List

(* As today is Battle of Britain day, Jeremy Briggs returns to Bear Alley with an intriguing wartime question... and an answer! A companion piece to this column can be found over at John Freeman's Down the Tubes.)

Were The Wartime Beano And Dandy Editors On A Nazi Death List?

by Jeremy Briggs

Seventy years ago this year, the Nazi’s were working on the details of Operation Sealion, their planned invasion of mainland Britain. These plans included a list of people who were to be rounded up by, or handed over to, the Nazi security forces once they were in control of the United Kingdom. It has been said that the editors of the Beano and Dandy were included on this list due to the humorous, and therefore disrespectful, attitude that the two comics had towards Adolph Hitler.

It is seems to be one of those now accepted facts about the history of British comics that has been referred to many times, from the flimsiness of The Sun...

Documentation discovered after the war suggested that, had the Nazi invasion of Britain succeeded, The Beano would have been closed immediately and the editor dealt with in the severest possible way for propaganda "crimes".

 ... to the heaviness of The Scotsman...

Beano and Dandy share a distinguished war record, so lampooning Hitler and Mussolini that unearthed documents have since revealed that, in the event of Germany invading Britain, the comics' editors (and the ever-inventive Dudley D) would have figured on a "hit list".

From respected fan publications such as The Beano and Dandy Collectors Club newsletter ...

It was revealed that during 1945 the Americans invaded Germany and found a store containing records relating to the German proposed invasion of Britain in 1940. Present was a list of people to be arrested, and they included the Editor of the Daily Telegraph, the Editor of the Sunday Times, the Editor of the Daily Mail, the Editor of the Beano and the Editor of the Dandy. At the time the Dandy Editor was mightily chuffed to hear the news!

 ... to the ultimate Beano book, The History Of The Beano, published by Waverley Books and authorised by DC Thomson themselves...

Even the product description of Waverley Books' The History Of The Beano on Amazon UK includes this -

The War Years: how The Beano aided the propaganda campaign against Hitler and boosted the morale of a nation's embattled children... leading to its editor and star artist being targeted as potential victims of a Nazi assassination attempt!

What would happen to the editors once they were in Nazi hands is normally left to the imagination but, based on what happened in other occupied countries to those individuals rounded up by the Nazis, it is not a stretch to say that to be included on such a list was effectively a death sentence.

This is one of those comics facts that intrigues me for its inconsistency, after all none of the five different references above tell the story the same way. Since the wartime editors were not credited in the comics and therefore their names where not public knowledge, how would the Nazis have known who they were? For that matter if the editors of the Beano and Dandy were on the list then why not the editor of DC Thomson's third humour title, the Magic? Maybe he was but since the Magic has been forgotten by the general public he just never gets mentioned. If the editors of the humour titles were on the list why not the editors of the boy's adventure titles, the Big Five of Adventure, Wizard, Hotspur, Rover and Skipper? When it comes down to it, just what was this Nazi death list?

Its name is the Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. which translates literally as the Special Search List for Great Britain but today it is better known simply as The Black Book. It was put together by SS-General Walter Schellenberg and it lists 2820 people that the Germans intended to round up once they had control of the country. While it includes the obvious politicians and trade unionists, it also lists other public figures - writers, performers and journalists amongst them - who had spoken out against the Nazi cause including names still famous today such as actor and writer Noël Coward and novelist H G Wells. The most famous quote about the book comes from the feminist writer and critic Rebecca West who described the list to Noël Coward saying, "My dear - the people we should have been seen dead with."

So would Noel Coward have been seen dead with the editors of the Beano and Dandy? For that matter just who were the editors of the Beano and Dandy in 1940?

At that time the editor of The Beano was George Moonie who had been in charge from the comic's beginnings in 1938 and after the war he continued in charge until 1959 when he handed over the reigns to Harold Cramond. His Dandy counterpart was Albert Barnes who began the comic in 1937 and, remarkably, only retired as editor in 1982 when David Torrie took over. So were they really targeted as enemies of the Third Reich?

There have been many books both fictional and factual which deal with the Nazi plans for an occupied Britain but of the Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. itself only two copies survived the war. One of them is in the collection of London's Imperial War Museum and in 1989 they reprinted it as the second of their Facsimile Reprint series. This facsimile book is therefore readily available to the public in many reference libraries throughout the UK. This is not another author's or a translator's view of what was contained in the original book, nor an editor’s view of the interesting parts, but a complete reproduction of the actual book itself, listing in German all the people to be rounded up including, for many of them, their addresses and places of work. If editors George Moonie and Albert Barnes were on the Nazi death list this then is the book in which their names would appear.

Except they are not in it.

The Sonderfahndungsliste G.B., as well as having an alphabetical listing of people, also includes the names and addresses of trade unions, lodges, banks, firms and newspapers. The newspaper section lists some provincial newspapers as well as national ones. No D C Thomson titles appear on the list. Nor does D C Thomson appear on the list of firms. Nor for that matter do any members of the Thomson family appear on the list of people. There is no mention of the publishing firm of D C Thomson or even Thomson-Leng Publications in the book. The other D C Thomson personality who is often associated with the list is artist Dudley D Watkins – he isn’t in it either.

Indeed in the section were the contents are listed in geographical order while Dundee is included, and listed incorrectly as “Dundes-Whitehall”, only the local office of the Transport and General Workers Union at 7 Whitehall Crescent is mentioned. This is not unusual for the book as TGWU offices the length and breadth of the British Isles are listed including those in Jersey, the Isle Of Man, Northern Ireland and even the Irish Free State.

While the D C Thomson staff are not listed in the book there is an example of a cartoonist on the list. David Low, later Sir David, was the political cartoonist of the London Evening Standard and had been producing anti-Nazi cartoons in the paper for many years. He is listed as L137, the 137th name in the alphabetical listing of names beginning with the letter L, and was to be handed over to RSHA IV-B4. RSHA IV was the Geheim Staats Polizei, better known today by its abbreviation – Gestapo. The Gestapo's B4 section that he was to be handed over to was controlled by Adolf Eichmann, the man often referred to as the architect of the Holocaust, who escaped to Argentina after the war only to be captured by Mossad in 1960 and taken to Israel where he was executed in 1962.

In addition to the Sonderfahndungsliste G.B. there is a second Nazi document dealing with the invasion of Britain, the Informationsheft G.B. which translates simply as the Information Booklet For Great Britain. This contains information on the country itself and comes across as something of a geography text book but also includes lists of establishments and institutions which would have been of interest to an invading army. An English translation of the Informationsheft G.B. is included in Invasion 1940: The Nazi Invasion Plan For Britain, a book published in 2000 that also includes the alphabetical listing of people from the Sonderfahndungsliste G.B..

The Informationsheft G.B. contains a section on the British Press which details the country’s daily and Sunday newspapers and their owners. According to the book the seven major conglomerates were: the Harmsworth family’s Rothemere conglomerate;  the Berry conglomerate controlled by Lords Camrose, Kemsley and Iliffe; the Morrel and Rowntree familys’ Westminster Group; Lord Beaverbrook’s conglomerate; William Harrison’s Inveresk Paper Group; the Cadbury family’s conglomerate, and finally Julius Salter Elais’ conglomerate. Again, like the Sonderfahndungsliste G.B., the Informationsheft G.B. does not list D C Thomson or Thomson-Leng Publications in the press section, nor for that matter does it make any reference to any children’s comics or story papers, nor any other children’s publications.

So where did this story of the Beano and Dandy editors being on a death list originate from? They are certainly not mentioned in either of the two German documents drawn up to deal with an occupied Britain. Could someone in the past have simply concocted the information because it made for a good story?

Wherever it originally came from this story appears to have become generally accepted through repetition in books, newspaper articles and fanzines. It would seem that no one was aware that the original source material was relatively accessible and so was available to confirm or deny the truth. It also goes to show just how easily inaccurate information can become the accepted norm.

The idea that the wartime Beano and Dandy editors were on a Nazi death list does make for a good story - it's almost a pity it isn't true.