British Comic Books

There are many differences between British comic books and the ones that people are used to seeing on the North American market. Up until the 1990's, comic books in the United Kingdom, comic books were in black and white with only a few color sections, such as the cover. The story line was intended for children's reading and the comics themselves only consisted of one or two pages.

Comics for teenagers were rare and when they did appear it was clear that the storyline was simply stretched a bit to make it appealing to this age group. Some British comic books for older children had articles and interviews, information about pop stars, articles about teenage life and had a few comic strips thrown into the mix. The main focus was to provide a sort of bridge between the comic books for children and the adult magazines for grown ups.

The most popular British comics are usually published around Christmas or during the summer and are called annuals. There have been some long running comics though, the most popular being ones being Mr. Beano and Mr. Dandy. These are published in Scotland by D.C. Thompson and Co. Ltd and have been going strong since 1937 and 1938. The Eagle was the popular comic in the 50s and 60s, with 2000AD taking the top spot since the 1970s. This comic book is aimed at older teenagers and even adults.

Some of the British comics are copies of ones from the U.S. For example, when Captain Marvel finished in the U.S., a British company copied the superhero and published the comic under a new name - Marvelman. This comic was called a clone of the parent comic and continued to enjoy success across the sea. Many of the cloned versions of other superheroes continued for several years and were revived in the 1980's by Alan Moore as an adult superhero.