The Ultimate Book of British Comics
Graham Kibble-White

FOR many of us, our growing-up years were spent in the company of a weekly comic, a flimsy, poorly printed publication that was nonetheless bursting with colourful characters, high adventure and out-and-out slapstick.

However, in recent years the great British comic-book has all but died out, with only the likes of Dennis the Menace in The Beano, Desperate Dan in The Dandy and fearsome future lawman Judge Dredd in 2000 AD still providing the current generation of children with their fix of thrills and spills.

This book looks back at the glory years of the British comic industry, detailing the rise and fall of nearly 100 publications in an easy to use A to Z format.

As well as reacquainting readers with Roy of the Rovers, Bunty comic's frolicsome foursome The Four Marys and the feuding editors of Whizzer And Chips, it does a lot more besides.

The Ultimate Book Of British Comics is essentially an encyclopaedia, as the introduction reveals. Along the way it manages to spin out an entertaining story, detailing the arrival of weekly comics in the 1930s, through to their boom in the 1950s and 1960s - where some titles sold in excess of a million copies - and their sad demise in the 1990s.

This affectionate and wittily written publication is an absolute must for nostalgic adults.

Emma Pomfret