Tuesday 19 November 2019

The Humorous Art of Diving - A Mixed Bag of Boltinoff

Here's a final selection of Henry Boltinoff's short strips. (Click for larger images).

Freddie the Frogman appeared in issue three of Showcase from 1956 which featured, appropriately enough, "The Frogmen!"



The rest of this selection all appeared in early issues of Aquaman in 1962/3 although Lucky was a reprint having previously appeared in a 1957 issue of Superboy.




I don't know if this Shorty is supposed to be the same one who featured in the previous Boltinoff selection.






Saturday 2 November 2019

The Return of S.N.O.R.K.E.L (At last!)

Back in March/April 2017 I presented a comic strip called S.N.O.R.K.E.L. from the pages of TV21. I promised to bring you more of Johnny Webb's adventures but for some reason this never happened. Well, better late than never I hope.

It turns out that, after the 15-week opening adventure, the strip was on borrowed time and only ran for another four weeks. I think economic reasons were behind the demise of S.N.O.R.K.E.L. and it was replaced by an imported (and presumably cheaper) strip  -  The Blue Angels (original title Buck Danny).

Apologies for anyone who's been on tenterhooks for the last two-and-a-half years but your wait is finally over - here's Johnnie! (Click for larger images).










As it turns out, this wasn't quite the end for Johnny (or Johnnie depending on which issue you read!) and a text story appeared in the 1972 TV21 Annual. It only had two illustrations and only one of those featured any underwater action. It also made the back cover of the annual with a copy of Alan Willow's cover to issue 39, complete with dodgy looking sharks!


Die-hard S.N.O.R.K.E.L. fans can read the text story here.