Update, 27-04-24:
While trying to find the origin of a MWF poster from the 1970s, I accidentally came across this article that gives some answers about why this one-off publication exists. My estimated date of mid-late 1962 is wrong, it's actually from 1963. And, I don't know how I never saw it when I was researching the first time around, when there's even a photo of the first page of the Shadows comic. It's a much more interesting origin than I expected - it seems like it was created as a prototype issue of Jackie magazine!
"To try out the teen market and provide an editorial template for Jackie, a one-off pop title was produced on the new Goss rotary photogravure press at Kingsway. Gravure allowed glossy colour pages and high-speed print runs.
The 64-page magazine was called Elvis, Cliff and All.
It was put together by a small team working on Jackie and included “pops, pin-ups, stories and features” about Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, Adam Faith and Billy Fury.
Wow, haha! What a find!
(end of update)
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| (The artist really phoned it in when he got to Hank...) |
It's got some good, if probably totally fabricated articles, and also comics, posters, etc, all about all sorts of music and film stars too, but mostly exactly who you'd expect from the title:
But by far the greatest prize, is this unintentionally surreal masterpiece...
You'd think that if you were going to draw a comic about The Shadows, it would at least be vaguely music-related, but no, instead it's Hank and Bruce building an aviary...? And over just two pages this somehow leads to Brian Bennett exacting his revenge in the form of a taxidermied dodo "borrowed" from the Natural History Museum.
The first time I saw it I was laughing with just how strange it is! Where do I even begin? Read it yourself:
I don't know if it was drawn for this book or appeared in some other comic or magazine at the time. As for likenesses - Bruce looks a bit off but they got his face right, Brian looks like Brian in most panels, but Hank doesn't really look anything like Hank apart from the big panel of his face which I think has been copied from a photo. There's no publication date anywhere in the book but based on all the other features about other pop stars, and the fact that Licorice is the bassist of choice (he doesn't appear in the comic) it's probably from mid-late 1962.
The other pages about the Shadows are a set of profiles of the boys, with a focus on Licorice who will have just joined at the time. There are a few inaccuracies but nothing too egregious! For instance, it says Lic has dark brown eyes, the story about how he got his nickname is wrong, and Hank's real name is apparently Brian Marvin.
I'll leave you with Brian B. presenting the stuffed dodo to a very shocked Hank and a relatively calm Bruce!
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