Saturday 20 April 2019

The Collectable Art of Diving - "The Sea - our other world" Part Two

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If you didn't fancy hiding your cards away in the album a poster was available as an alternative.


Finally here's an ad that ran in comics of the day.




Friday 19 April 2019

The Collectable Art of Diving - "The Sea - our other world" Part One

Cigarettes. Bubble gum. Cereals. Ice lollies. Tea. Comics. What do these products have in common? They've all given away sets of collectable cards. I must have spent a fortune on bubble gum as a kid, collecting various card sets! There's a history of how French Tradesmen's cards led to cigarette cards by the tail-end of the 19th century here.

Tea company Brooke Bond started giving away cards in their packets of tea in 1954, a practice that continued until 1999. A total of 57 sets were issued in the UK with further sets in other countries. I'm going to be looking at set B27 from 1974: The Sea - our other world. I've previously featured a few of the cards in an earlier post but now I'm presenting the complete set of 50 in their associated album.

The cards were painted by artist Ley Kenyon who you can read about in my earlier post.

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Come back tomorrow for part two.


Saturday 13 April 2019

Sea Hunt - The Books

Some more Sea Hunt goodies as promised. (Click for larger images)

Dell Comics in the US published 10 issues of a comic based on the series but they all had photographic covers. UK publisher World Distributors produced a 100 page album featuring reprints of some of the strips. I'm fairly sure that the cover is by World stalwart Walt Howarth.

1962



The series had also featured in two editions of the Television Favourites Comic Annual, also from World Distributors. The cover shown here is from the sixth and final annual in the series. They primarily featured westerns, along with a few stories of TV animal stars such as Lassie and Rin Tin Tin, so Sea Hunt offered the reader a bit more variety. This one I can confirm is by Walt Howarth.

1961





This colouring coloring book is from the US. Unfortunately the scan is not clear enough to make out the artist's signature. Anyone out there know who it is?






Friday 12 April 2019

Fred the Frogman

Here's some more rub-down fun from Letraset! The Mini-Toons were launched in 1970 and proved very successful with the initial 12 sets eventually expanding to 48. Fred the Frogman was number seven in the first batch.

The packaging on my set doesn't match any shown on the excellent  Action Transfers website so must be a later variant. I bought it from a seller in the United States so it might be an international version.

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Thursday 11 April 2019

The Comrades' Art of Diving

Here's a selection of striking Russian book covers. Some of the titles are taken from eBay listings so any Russian speakers please feel free to offer better translations!


Underwater Sports (1959)



Neptunia is Beside Us (1968)



Underwater Adventure (1972) (Click for larger image)



Through the Glass of the Underwater Mask (1974) (Click for larger image)





Tuesday 9 April 2019

Sea Hunt - The Games

Sea Hunt was an American TV series starring Lloyd Bridges as former US Navy frogman Mike Nelson. It first aired in January 1958, running for four seasons and 155 episodes. Rejected by the three TV networks of the day (ABC, CBS and NBC), the series went straight into the syndicated market. Producer Ivan Tors also made the short-lived series The Aquanauts which was renamed Malibu Run when the emphasis shifted to land-based adventures. His company was later responsible for the underwater sequences in the James Bond film Thunderball as well as his own Around the World Under the Sea. Several of Tors' other projects appeared both in the cinema and on TV: Flipper, Clarence the Cross-Eyed Lion/ Daktari and Africa Texas Style/Cowboy in Africa.

Board games based on Sea Hunt were produced in the US and the UK. The US version was made by Lowell:

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The UK version was made by J & L Randall under their Merit brand:






It's interesting that the UK version doesn't feature any images of Lloyd Bridges. Budget reasons perhaps?

More Sea Hunt goodies coming soon!