home > blog : current / archive / RSS Feed

Blog: FCFC In The List

A couple of weeks ago The Funny Comics Fan Club received an EMAIL in our dedicated inbox. We set this up when the show first began, expecting to be DELUGED by comments from listeners but it hasn't quite worked out that way as people tend to contact us on the SOCIALS instead, so an Actual Email is always a source of excitement.

Thus I was already pre-excited when I opened it and discovered that we were going to be in THE LIST! They were getting in touch to ask for a PHOTO to use alongside a REVIEW, which I supplied and then immediately looked for people to SHOW OFF too about it. To my surprise quite a few people didn't know what THE LIST was, and it took me a while to realise that that's because it is very much Glasgow and Edinburgh based, so people in That London might not have heard of it unless, like me, it's one of the main places you send PROMO STUFF to if you're doing the Edinburgh Fringe, in which case it is A Big Deal.

FAST FORWARD to this week and the magazines is OUT, and we are in it! I was hoping for a nice review but I was in no way prepared for the BLOODY GRATE one that we actually GOT, one which made me SO HAPPY that I am going to repeat it in full here, and also THUS:

The golden age of British comics is brought to life in this glorious rustle through their back pages by the matey double act of Mark Hibbett and John Dredge. Reviewing specific issues of classic titles on a fortnightly basis, they go from old-school DC Thomson stalwarts such as The Dandy, The Beano and The Topper, to the more anarchic IPC new wave embodied by Whoopee! and Krazy. This riot of wild artwork and puntastic characters (such as Frankie Stein and Sweeny Toddler) was akin to moving from music hall to punk, with lashings of junior-school surrealism thrown in. The 12 editions so far take us from Jackpot to Cheeky Weekly, as we discover the class-based roots of many strips: in Class Wars, a posh private school and a scruffy comprehensive are merged. Umberto Eco gets a mention, as does Trevor Metcalfe's superhero homage The Amazing Three which enjoyed a second life by way of Grant Morrison in 2000AD. The first David Bellamy impression heard in the wild for many a year is here, as are Proustian reminiscences of Emu puppets, all punctuated by Kenny Everett-style jingles and a chirpy bubblegum theme tune. Hibbett and Dredge's fanboy enthusiasm suggests they still play conkers while waiting for the newsagent to open. Though the comics themselves can now be seen on the podcast's social-media pages, those scans may not have what the duo call the 'whiff of Thatcher and punk venues' of the paper versions. But it all makes for a bumper-size summer special of a show.

What I flipping LOVE about this review, by Mr Neil Cooper (thank you!),is that he has clearly listened to quite a few episodes and GOT what we are on about. I was ESPECIALLY pleased that he talks about all of the CLASS WAR stuff that we've been finding, as I've found it ASTONISHING how much class tension there is in so much of the storytelling, and also how differently that's expressed in the IPC and DC Thomson comics. I'm basically just really happy to see it APPRECIATED like this! Thanks, THE LIST!

posted 5/2/2025 by MJ Hibbett

< previous

Bluesky / Twitter / Bandcamp / Facebook / YouTube

Click here to visit the Artists Against Success website

An Artists Against Success Presentation