TV Comic (1951)
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Publisher: TV Publications, Ltd.
Publication Date: September 1951 - June 1984
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English
Notes:
The flagship of the original publisher, it was perhaps less important to its final owner, Polystyle Publications, Ltd. It's worth noting right off the bat that tracking down who exactly published this title, and when, is very difficult. However, some Doctor Who related sources suggest that it switched to Polystyle between the time that Third Doctor stories went to other titles after issue #999, and before issue #1122, for which this site has a cover that clearly shows the Polystyle logo.
Irrespective of ownership, over the course of its significant run, this mixed color/monochromatic British weekly amassed numbers dwarfing even Action's high count. It died at issue 1696.
A "very British" comic, well and truly in that country's tradition of an anthology of comic strips, rather than the more modern American, character-based, irregularly-drawn, oddly-paneled "comic book". The strips were based, sometimes very loosely, on television series running at the time of publication. Among the properties treated in this series: Doctor Who (usually titled, oddly, Dr Who by the publisher), The Pink Panther, Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, The Telegoons, The Avengers, Adam Adamant, and Fireball XL5. Over the course of its near-34-year run, it would incorporate TV Land and TV Express in January of 1962; merge with TV Action in September of 1973; and have a slight name change (becoming Mighty TV Comic) between issues 1292 and 1347.Cover dates are slightly confusing in that many issues appear with the moniker "Every Monday", but the date is given "For the week ending XX/XX/XXXX", where the date is always a Saturday. This would seem to indicate that it came off the presses on a Saturday and was delivered to the newsagents on Sunday for a Monday sale date. Due to the scarcity of information on this title, much information is missing on each and every issue. The principle reason for initially entering this title is to allow for the proper chronicling of Doctor Who strips, but this accounts for less than 10% of the contents of each issue. Please feel free to add any information you can. British users are particularly encouraged to scan any covers they may have. Until we can find someone who actually has copies of these issues, the listing for this title will be woefully inadequate.
Number of issues cataloged: 650

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