Film Fun
{{for|the Canadian children's television miniseries|Film Fun (TV series)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
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{{more citations needed|date=December 2011}}
{{Infobox comic book title
| image = "Film_Fun"_British_comic.jpg
| imagesize =
| caption = Film Fun annual 1947
| schedule = Weekly
| format =
| limited =
| ongoing =
| 1shot =
| Adventure = Y
| Humor = Y
| multigenre =
| publisher = Amalgamated Press
Fleetway Publications
| date =
| startmo = 17 January
| startyr = 1920
| endmo = 15 September
| endyr = 1962
| issues = 2,225
| main_char_team =
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| colorists =
| editors = Frederick George Cordwell ("Eddie the Happy Editor")
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| nonUS = y
}}
Film Fun was a British celebrity comics comic book that ran from (issues dates) 17 January 1920 to 15 September 1962, when it merged with Buster, a total of 2,225 issues. There were also annuals in the forties and fifties. As the title suggests, the comic mainly featured comic strip versions of people from films from the 1920s to the 1960s.
Publication history
Film Fun was launched by Amalgamated Press (they would later release similar titles like Radio Fun, Sports Fun, and TV Fun). Pre-war circulation at its peak was around 800,000 copies per week.{{cite web|url=http://www.comicpriceguide.co.uk/uk_comic.php?tc=filmfun |title=The Comic Book Price Guide For Great Britain - FILM FUN |publisher=Comicpriceguide.co.uk |access-date=2014-03-03}}
The title was renamed Film Fun and Thrills in 1959 (when Amalgamated Press was bought by the Mirror Group; later known as IPC). In 1962, sales of Film Fun dropped below 125,000 a week, prompting IPC to merge the comic with Buster.
=Mergers=
Picture Fun merged with Film Fun soon after its launch in 1920, followed by Kinema Comic in 1932, Film Picture Stories in 1935, Illustrated Chips in 1953, and Top Spot in 1960.{{cite web|author=Lew Stringer |url=http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2011/01/top-spot-clint-of-1958.html |title=Blimey! It's another blog about comics!: Top Spot - The 'Clint' of 1958? |publisher=Lewstringer.blogspot.com |date=2011-01-30 |access-date=2014-03-03}}{{cite web|url=http://www.dandare.info/history/TopSpot-notes.htm |title=Loading |publisher=Dandare.info |access-date=2014-03-03}}
Eddie the Happy Editor
Frederick George Cordwell was better known to Film Fun fans as "Eddie the Happy Editor." Cordwell edited the comic until his death in 1949, aged 62 in Richmond, Surrey.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} Cordwell wrote many scripts for the strips as well as text stories for Film Fun. He introduced the idea of characters receiving huge plates of bangers and mash, giant Christmas puddings, and pies and such from grateful beneficiaries of their efforts. Cordwell even made it into the stories himself, "meeting" Laurel and Hardy a number of times, Joe E. Brown, Wheeler and Woolsey and other characters.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}}
Content
The cover of the first edition featured Harold Lloyd but named as "Winkle", the screen name by which he was known in Britain at the time. Apart from Laurel and Hardy, Film Fun used to feature many film and stage comedians of that era like Charlie Chaplin,{{cite web|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/w/wakefield_t.htm|title=Terence Wakefield}} Abbott and Costello,{{cite web|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/w/ward_norman.htm|title=Norman Yendell Ward}}{{cite web|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/bell_walter.htm|title=Walter Bell}} Buster Keaton, Ben Turpin,{{cite web|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/w/wakefield_gw.htm|title=George William Wakefield}} Jackie Coogan, Fatty Arbuckle, Joe E. Brown, George Formby, Wheeler & Woolsey, Max Miller, Lupino Lane, Red Skelton, Harold Lloyd (named Winkle in those days),{{cite web|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/r/radford_tom.htm|title=Tom Radford}} W. C. Fields, Terry-Thomas, Sid Field, Frank Randle, Morecambe and Wise,{{cite web|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/w/wilson_roy.htm|title=Roy Wilson}} James Cagney,{{cite web|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/w/walker_jos.htm|title=Jos Walker}} Tony Hancock, Sid James, The Goon Show, Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper,{{cite web|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/p/pease_charlie.htm|title=Charlie Pease}} Martin and Lewis, Arthur Lucan (in his drag role as Old Mother Riley) and Bruce Forsyth. There would also be serialised cowboy films featuring stars like Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. There were also detective stories featuring a fictional detective named Jack Keen.
Contributing artists
- Walter Bell
- Bertie Brown{{cite web|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/b/brown-bertie.htm|title=Bertie Brown}}
- Freddie Crompton{{cite web|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/c/crompton_freddie.htm|title=Freddie Crompton}}
- Fred Holmes{{cite web|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/h/holmes_fred.htm|title=Fred Holmes}}
- Albert Pease
- Tom Radford
- Eric Roberts{{cite web|url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/r/roberts_eric.htm|title=Eric Roberts}}
- George William Wakefield
- Terence Wakefield
- Jos "Josiah" Walker
- Norman Yendell Ward
- Roy Wilson
File:Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1918) - 1.jpg|Still for the American film Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves with Ali Baba (George Stone) being asked by his rich brother the secret of the cave, from pages 16 and 17 of the February 1919 Film Fun
File:Deliverance (1919) - 4.jpg|Still for the American film Deliverance with Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan, (1919), page 22 of the July 1919 Film Fun
File:The Green Temptation (1922) - Compson 1.jpg|Still with Betty Compson for the American film The Green Temptation (1922), page 17 of the April 1922 Film Fun
References
{{Reflist}}
Sources
- {{gcdb series|id= 61778 |title=Film Fun}}
External links
{{commons category-inline}}
{{Buster}}
Category:Fleetway and IPC Comics titles
Category:British humour comics
Category:1920 establishments in the United Kingdom
Category:1962 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Category:Magazines established in 1920
Category:Magazines disestablished in 1962
Category:Comics based on films