British Comic Stamps: Tiger

Here's the fifth of our ten posts to mark the release of the Royal Mail's Comic Collection, celebrating 75 years of British comics. The Royal Mail have kindly sent us large versions of each stamp, so we thought we'd show them off in all their glory, in the order of first comic publication

Tiger was published from 1954 to 1985, and featured predominantly sporting strips. Its most popular strip was Roy of the Rovers, recounting the life of Roy Race and the team he played for, Melchester Rovers. This strip proved so successful it was spun out of Tiger and into its own comic.

• There's more about Roy of the Rovers on his official web site: www.royoftherovers.com

• Stamps and stamp products are available at all Post Office branches, online at www.royalmail.com/personal/comic-stamps-and-collectibles, the Royal Mail eBay shop: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Royal-Mail-Stamp-Collections and from Royal Mail Tallents House (tel. 08457 641 641), 21 South Gyle Crescent, Edinburgh, EH12 9PB.

Post Office celebrates British Comics

Britain's Post Office is celebrating what it's defined as "75 Years of British Comics" with a special issue of stamps featuring the covers of various much-loved comics, including 2000AD and The Beano.

Set to be released on 20th March 2012, the offer also includes two First Fay Covers featuring Boys Own and Girls Own - with a special 'Eagle' postmark.

The stamps comprise The Dandy (featuring Desperate Dan), The Beano (Dennis the Menace), Eagle (Dan Dare), Topper (Beryl the Peril), Tiger (Roy of the Rovers), Bunty (The Four Marys), Buster (Buster), Valiant (The Steel Claw), Twinkle (Twinkle), and 2000AD (Judge Dredd).

The stanps serve to indicate not just comics still going strong but just how many are no longer around, but it's great to see the Post Office promoting our industry in this way, even if British comics have been published for much longer than 75 years.

This release follows on the heels of  commeorative issues such as one celebrating the work of author Roald Dahl on 10th January and Classic Locomotives on 8th February.

• There's more details about the release on the British First Day Covers web site here: www.bfdc.co.uk/2012/comics

• The full Special Stamp Programme for 2012 is as follows:

5t January - Olympic and Paralympic Definitives
10th January - Roald Dahl

2nd February - House of Windsor
6th February - Diamond Jubilee Definitives
23rd February - Britons of Distinction

8th March - Classic Locomotives of Scotland
20th March - Comics

10th April - A-Z of Britain Part 2

15th May - Great British Fashion
31st May - Diamond Jubilee

19th June - Charles Dickens

27th July - Welcome to the London 2012 Olympic Games

29th August - Welcome to the London 2012 Paralympic Games

27th September - Memories of the London 2012

16th October - Dinosaurs
30th October - Space Science

6th November - Christmas

• For more on British Stamps visit the British Postal Museum and Archive

Art © Royal Mail

In Memoriam: "Hot Shot Hamish" writer Fred Baker

Comics writer and editor Barrie Tomlinson has been in touch with sad news that prolific British comic script writer Fred Baker died earlier this month.

He had been ill for some time with Alzheimer's and died of pneumonia on 4 June.

"He was one of the most prolific writers we had on the comics," Barrie recalls. "No matter how many scripts he was writing, the standard was always top class. "

He wrote some of the great classic stories that appeared in Tiger and Roy of the Rovers: Billy's Boots, Hot-Shot Hamish (which has recently been appearing in Scotland's The Sunday Mail), Mighty Mouse, Skid Solo and more.

"He really was one of the giants of boys' scriptwriters, says Barrie.

As Steve Holland noted just a few days ago on Bear Alley, Hot-Shot Hamish remains one of British comics' hidden gems, written by Fred and drawn by Julio Schiaffino for Scorcher & Score, and subsequently for Tiger, back in the early 1970s; Hot-Shot then teamed up with Mighty Mouse from Roy of the Rovers (wiki entry here), in which title the pair's adventures continued until 1991.

• Read Barrie's full tribute to Fred on the main downthetubes web site