Apparel of Laughs are very happy to launch a new range of 12 T-shirt designs celebrating the classic comics from IPC Fleetway in conjunction with Rebellion.
Each t-shirt design features one classic title from the archive with a selection of the characters that appeared in that comic. Comics featured include: Buster, Cheeky Weekly, and Whizzer and Chips, along with some shorter running titles like Wow!, Cor!, and Shiver and Shake.
A quote from Founder and Designer of Apparel of Laughs, Jude Coram: “I have been an avid collector of British comics for over 15 years now, with too many issues and annuals to count in my collection. The artistry and story telling is often overlooked for other mediums, but the British humour comic gives us a great insight into the national culture and sense of humour over the years. Back in the day, the humour titles of IPC Fleetway, now under the supervision of Rebellion, were the comics that filled the newsstands of the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s.
“I wanted to celebrate the many different classic comics from the Fleetway stable with a range of T-shirts. I delved into my own collection to find the many different characters to feature on the designs. I obviously wanted to show off the most recognisable characters by some of the most famous artists like Ken Reid, Leo Baxendale, and Mike Lacey. I also wanted to find some of the hidden gems that popped up in the issues that people might not have necessarily heard of before. Hopefully it will prompt people to look back to find these forgotten characters to give them another read.”
Apparel of Laughs has been selling T-shirts and gifts celebrating British culture from when it first launched in October 2019. Since then, it has spread a bit of Britishness to customers all over the world with designs featuring food, TV, film, sports, and art from the UK.
All the shirts are printed using vegan inks, and all are sent in plastic free packaging. All clothing orders are also sent for free to the UK.
The new collection of comic T-shirts perfectly sums up what Apparel of Laughs is all about; showcasing classic parts of British cultural history with fun, unique, and original designs.
The latest collection of the classic British comic book anti-hero is out now, with two thrilling stories of noir espionage!
Louis Crandell was a lowly lab technician who, through a bizarre accident, has the power to turn his body invisible – except for his steel prosthetic hand! He is now The Steel Claw, sometime crook, other times hero, but always one of British comics’ most popular characters!
In this new collection from Super Picture Library from the late 1960s, Crandell is assigned by the chief of the Shadow Squad to protect the four most important nuclear scientists as they meet for a secret conference. The assignment goes badly wrong, as the scientists are frozen solid, and their assassin chooses death over arrest The Steel Claw must redeem his reputation and find out who ordered the assassination.
This cold war thriller is pure sixties spy adventure, written by Tom tully (Mean Arena) and drawn in a graphic noir style by Jesús Blasco (Capitán Trueno).
It’s the Swingin’ Sixties, and there’s only one spy standing between crime and world domination – and her name is Jane Bond!
Jane Bond, Secret Agent, is the finest spy on Worldpol’s roster. Armed with her wits, her fists, and an array of futuristic tech, she is our last line of defense against a international criminal underworld. From fighting a school of super villainesses, to foiling plans to melt to Artic ice caps, to escaping the clutches of a giant mechanical lobster, there’s no shortage of dangerous missions Jane must undertake for Queen and Country!
This collection of campy espionage adventure from 1960s girls’ comic Princess Tina is lovingly restored to its full glory, and is lavishly illustrated throughout by Mike Hubbard, the artist of iconic Daily Mirror strip Jane.
Available in standard paperback or in a gorgeous webshop exclusive hardcover, these are British comics at their best!
When you spot a comic with snow and holly on the logo, you know immediately what you’re looking at. In another look at the history of classic British comics, David McDonald explores that British comic institution – the Christmas cover!
It’s a tradition is almost as old as comics themselves, with Comic Cuts being one of the very first comic covers to sport the snowy logo and festive theme on the cover of its thirty-second issue, way back in December 20th 1890.
Christmas was the great leveller in terms of holidays – almost everyone celebrated it, rich, poor, religious or non-believers – and Christmas covers soon became ubiquitous across all comics and story papers. But they really came into their own with the advent of colour printing and when comics started using it in the early twentieth century. The brightly coloured depictions of Christmas tradition on the covers, before the coming of television and cinema, must have been a wonderful sight on the corner shops shelves in that pre-electrified world. The colour tabloid covers of titles like Rainbow and Tiger Tims glorious featured a run of festive covers, as did adventure and girls comics into the nineteen twenties and thirties, some in colour, some in duotone and others in plain black and white.
World War Two and the accompanying paper shortages saw a lot of comics cancelled or reduced in size, but there still were some memorable covers. Interestingly, the war changed the tone of some Christmas covers – gone are the gifts and in with the ‘slap up meal’, with wartime food rationing tightening its grip Christmas pudding and mash potatoes captured the imagination far better than a toy in those lean times.
The covers of the seventies and eighties are the era of covers I’m most familiar with. My local newsagents, John Hanley’s, was a small sweet shop with a few groceries and cigarettes, the type of shop that was then common across the UK and Ireland. It had one wall totally dedicated to magazines, and the bottom shelf was reserved for comics. The week before Christmas the full bottom shelf, wall to wall, was packed with festive comics: humour, adventure, girls’, sport, all but a few sported snow covered logos, holly and festive goings-on on their covers. Each title would have its own ‘take’ on the holidays. The humour titles would have Santa and Christmas Pudding, 2000 AD could have Santa being arrested by Dredd and Battle had Charley Bourne playing football with the Germans.
One editor was responsible for a large amount of the covers during this time and went out of his way to make them an ‘event’ and that’s Tiger and Roy of the Rovers editor: Barrie Tomlinson. He was also responsible for getting numerous celebrities on the cover of his comics for Christmas, including cricketer Ian Botham, comedian Eric Morecambe and Ernie, former Olympic gymnast Suzanne Dando, presenter Henry Kenny and many others. I asked Barrie about the Christmas covers, and one in particular, featuring boxing star Henry Cooper, who appeared on the cover of Tiger in full Santa garb…
’I was particularly keen on Christmas covers and always tried to arrange something special,’ said Barrie. ‘I had good success at getting celebs to appear on the Christmas covers and that was always great fun. Snow on the masthead was also something I always insisted upon!
‘As I got more experienced at editing, I tried to make the Christmas covers really special. I’d start planning a cover in the early autumn, decide who I wanted to feature and then contact the celebrity directly. Asking for something for Tiger, Roy of the Rovers or Eagle was usually easy, as the titles were well known and had a good reputation. And maybe I did have a little skill in persuading people.
‘For the Henry Cooper feature, I contacted him directly and was delighted when he agreed to appear. We went to his apartment in north London, armed with a Christmas tree and a Father Christmas outfit. We got lots of Christmas photos for Tiger, including Henry delivering his famous left hook to my chin. As a bonus, I also organised some photos to go into Eagle, showing Henry smashing a hole in a copy of Eagle. We had, of course, previously cut out the hole in the office. It was the same with all the celebrities we featured in the comics, we never paid any money and none was ever asked for. It might be a bit different now!’
Interestingly, Barrie says the Christmas covers were not done as a sales promotion and nor were they mandatory – it was left to individual editors whether there was one and what it was. Often titles like Battle and Action did not have a Christmas cover at all, other than a ‘Merry Christmas, Readers’ masthead.
Christmas wasn’t the only holiday to be given a special cover on comics. Easter also got a look in but not quite as often as Christmas. Being a movable feast it would have been harder to schedule. I even spotted ‘Whitsun’ getting a mention on a cover masthead (yes, I had to Google it!)
The New Year covers are also worth a mention, not as common as the Christmas covers, scheduling often meant that the issues would be out after New Year so it would be missed. But they are the most common holiday cover after the Christmas editions. The stories inside, especially in the humour comics often featured Father Time as an old man with the scythe and the ‘New Year Baby’ sitting at his feet. There would usually be a montage of the characters of the comic singing ‘Auld Lang Saine’ and a handsome stranger with a lump of coal! Mike Western did a number of beautifully crafted New Year covers for Tiger, and Krazy often had its own zany take on it.
Christmas covers over the last century and more chart the changes in gifts, food, decorations, and even in the depiction of Santa Claus himself, but also they show that the meaning of the holiday has stayed the same, family, friends and a break from the humdrum!
2000 ADand Judge Dredd Megazine still continue the tradition, and this year they are being joined by Monster Fun with a cracking Christmas cover by Ed Whatley.
David McDonald is the publisher of Hibernia Comics and editor of Hibernia’s collections of classic British comics, titles include The Tower King, Doomlord, The Angry Planet and The Indestructible Man. He is also the author of the Comic Archive series exploring British comics through interviews and articles. Hibernia’s titles can be bought here www.comicsy.co.uk/hibernia. Follow him on Twitter @hiberniabooks and Facebook @HiberniaComics
All opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Rebellion, its owners, or its employees.
The third collection of Britain’s best-loved homegrown superhero, The Leopard from Lime Street, is available to pre-order now!
Collecting stories published in the classic comic Buster from 1978 through to 1979, Billy Farmer – AKA the ‘Leopardman’ – continues to juggle his tough home life with his career as Selbridge’s premier superhero! As the Leopardman, Billy has managed to thwart countless dastardly villains, but now he faces an all new challenge as The Snow Beast is in town, intent on causing chaos during a cold winter…
Written by Tom Tully with art by Eric Bradbury and Mike Western, this third collection in this classic on-going series about the adventures of Britain’s homegrown superhero!
Order from one of these stockists or your local book or comic book store:
The latest collection of one of Britain’s most enduring comic book heroes – The Steel Claw: Reign Of The Brain – is now available is out now!
The second collection of the sci-fi classic features two stories reprinted for the first time in paperback and exclusive hardcover editions.
Louis Crandell was but a lowly lab assistant with a prosthetic, steel hand until an experiment gone awry results in a horrific explosion. Surging with electric charge which bestows Crandell the power of invisibility with the exception of his steel hand, so commence a series of uncanny thrills!
This fetching collection includes writer Tom Tully’s first two stories, originally published in the comic Valiant between 1963 and 1964, with the stunning, realistic black and white art of Spanish comics’ legend Jesus Blasco!
The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire Vol.4 is out now!
The best-selling science-fiction classic series continues with a fourth omnibus collecting the stories published from 1973 through to 1976.
Available in a standard paperback edition, the webshop exclusive hardcover featuring a brand new cover by legendary artist John Burns (Judge Dredd, Nikolai Dante, Modesty Blaize) is now sold out.
Don Lawrence’s painted art continues to be a highlight of the series but, as he takes a sabbatical from the strip, Miguel Quesada and Philip Corke match his impressive work with their own style.
The Trigan Empire remains resilient against enemies on all fronts, from treacherous politicians, murderous Zith assassins, and alien invaders, Trigo and Janno protect the citizens of Elekton.
Co-created by Mike Butterworth and Don Lawrence, The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire has been named as a major influence by the likes of writer Neil Gaiman (Sandman), artist Dave Gibbons (Watchmen) and Brian Bolland (Judge Dredd), amongst many others. This special hardcover edition perfectly showcases the remarkable talent of Lawrence, who is rightfully regarded as one of the finest artists in British comics history.
Originally published in the anthology titles Ranger from the first issue in September 1965, and Look and Learn from June 1966 until April 1982, the series told the story of an alien empire on the planet Elekton that was heavily influenced by history, particularly Roman. Created by Mike Butterworth, who died in 1986, and artist Don Lawrence, who died in 2004, the series’ mix of political intrigue and Lawrence’s lush painted artwork won a host of fans worldwide, and proved to be highly influential, inspiring a generation of comic book creators with its depth and beauty.
Don, who started out as a comics creator in the Gower Street Studios in London, first working on Marvelman before moving on to Karl the Viking for Lion. Other artists who worked on the strip include Ron Embleton, Miguel Quesada, Philip Corke, Oliver Frey and Gerry Wood.
Although the strip has seen only limited English-language release it remains one of the most popular comic series in Holland and Germany, with over two million albums sold.
Rebellion is proud to present the finest romance comics in British history in one spectacular volume!
Curated by Eisner-nominated historian and artist David Roach, A Very British Affair charts the stratospheric rise of romance comics in postwar Britain with a selection of the greatest romance comics ever printed in the UK. Featuring an eclectic mix of artists from Spain, Italy, and the UK, this collection unearths the sensual art and emotional writing which delighted generations of comics readers.
Featuring over 50 comics stories – many of which have never been reprinted before – this lavish book is a stunning tribute to the often uncredited creators who crafted an industry of love. Roach shines a spotlight on the Spanish and Italian artists who dominated romance, as well as the genre’s forgotten female contributors, like Jenny Butterworth, Pat Tourett and Diane Gabbott.
Featuring art by comics icons like Shirley Bellwood (Misty), Jordi Badía Romero (Creepy) and Enrique Badía Romero (AXA), Mike Hubbard (Jane), Carlos Ezquerra (Judge Dredd), John M. Burns (Modesty Blaise), Purita Campos (Patty’s World), Jesus Blaco (Steel Claw), Pepe Gonzalez (Vampirella) Jesus Redondo (Kitty Pryde) and Blas Gallego (Black Beth), this is an unmissable collection for lovers of comics and love.
Out in February 2023, A Very British Affair comes in a standard hardcover and a webshop exclusive slipcase edition, which comes with:
An exclusive and signed illustrated frontispiece by David Roach
A front cover featuring Angel Badia Camps’s original Serenade cover with its original dressing, and back cover by Jordi Longarón
Numbered endpapers
Two 307mm x 231mm prints of classic romance covers from Serenade – one by Ángel Badia Camps, one by Jordi Longarón (posted flat, not folded)
This magical comedy from the classic British girls’ comic Jinty is perfect for Hallowe’en!
Popular, rich and great at school, Carrie lives a charmed life – because, unbeknownst to her classmates, she’s a witch! Hailing from a long line of witches and warlocks Carrie has never wanted for anything – that is until her bumbling, nonmagical and anti-magic cousin Angela shows up! And worst of all – if Carrie can’t turn Angela into a legendary sorceress – she’ll lose all her powers! Worlds collide and sparks fly as these cousins have to learn to live together – or else!
Created by Catalan artist Trini Tinturé, this brand new collection of never-before-reprinted comics also features another tale – the spooky, insect-infested ‘Creepy Crawley’.
Out now, A Spell of Trouble is available to order in standard paperback or in a hardcover edition exclusive to the Treasury of British Comics webshop, featuring a brand new cover by original series artist, Trini Tinturé.
Badtime Bedtime Stories, a brand new collection of anarchic, frenzied comics stories from the pen of Leo Baxendale, is out now!
Available in standard hardcover or exclusive webshop edition, these explosive, hysterical comics – in which Dr Jeykll and Mr Snide, Little Miss Muffet and Little Red Riding Hood run wild in chaotic retellings of beloved tales – are the arguably the jewel of the British humour comics, beloved by many for their DIY storybook aesthetic when they were originally printed in Monster Fun.
In this stunning new collection, the comics are restored to their full glory, while reprinted in a smaller style to retain the intimate feel of the originals. Stories inside include, Jack the Nipper’s Schooldays, Punch and Chewsday, Dr Jackal & Mr Snide, Little ‘Red’ Riding Hood, Jack and the Beans (in Tomato Sauce) Stalk, Little Boy Blue, Little Miss Stuffit, Moby Duck, Little Bo Creep, The Underwater World of Jacques Custard. and William the Conk.
Crammed with gags and hidden details, these Badtime Bedtime Stories are the perfect late night read for kids and grown ups!
