The Enid Blyton Society

That's interesting, Felicity. Your cover pictures are more or less the same as the ones for Enid Blyton's Adventure Magazine, though the way the picture for Five Go Down to the Sea is coloured is completely different - my edition has bright, light colours (it looks like a daytime scene) and not so much of the tops of the cliffs can be seen, meaning that the flashing light doesn't feature at all. Also, my Sea has a red surround and Camp has a blue surround, and the pictures don't have the book titles printed on them (incidentally, I notice that your copy of Sea says, Go Down to Sea).

"Star Comics, New Delhi" makes me wonder whether yours might be Indian editions of Enid Blyton's Adventure Magazine, Felicity - probably the same inside except for adverts and competitions, most of which would presumably be different? Is the cover price we can see on your scans Indian currency, I wonder? Are those the back covers we can see (with a Superman cartoon/advert, and an old man on a bike)? Mine have puzzles and competitions on the back.

Excepting for the “Famous Five” comic, the rest of the pages in the book look uniform so is it full of “Superman” stories, or have you inserted various favourites in one of those “comic-holders” and had the sides trimmed?

Can you reveal the title of the “Lois Lane” that can be seen alongside?

Hello
Thanks very much for the instant response. Actually, I bought this bound book of comics when I was on vacation last December. It has six comics - Popeye, The magic pitcher,FF Go off to Camp, Superman& Batman in Super Comics, FF Go Down to the Sea and Mickey & Donald in Wonder World.
Anita, you are right. I think mine are Indian editions of the same comics - the inside page of Sea says Five Go Down to the Sea! In the last page there is a crime puzzle too. I think only the adverts on the inside cover & the back have been inserted by the Delhi publisher.
The Superman comic strip visible on my scan is the last page of the previous comic - Superman in The Private Life of Clarke Kent - The Long Weekend. The title of the Lois Lane strip is "Super Telepath"
The "old man on a bike" is part of a Laurel & Hardy advert on the back cover of the previous comic "The Magic Pitcher".
I paid two GBP for the book of six comics.

Thanks for the further details, Felicity!

To Felicity -

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Thanks for the info.

I thought it was too good to be true - the Superman comics were very popular and often appeared in albums of a 100 pages or more; but taking another look at the right-hand of the first picture I can see it’s just a piece of cardboard. From the way it appeared on my computer I thought the blank space was actually the outer edges of several hundred pages in a great big volume!

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At present the two comics are relatively young but if someone, somewhere, wants to build up a set and desperately needs one, there could be some profit available. If kept as part of your collection and looked after, they may increase in value depending on “circumstances” such as trends, or perhaps their place in the pecking order. A first edition of “Five on a Treasure Island” (the original book) could cost one of your legs, or perhaps an arm if its Bargain Day, but the same edition of a later title such as “Five Go off to Camp” may fetch only a 6th of the price.

Often it’s simply a matter of time – although having said that, the “Famous Five Annuals” are getting on in years but haven’t increased all that much in value as of date. Perhaps “Five Go Down to the Sea” (possibly the “rarest”) has gone up a little in the expected price range, but copies are often advertised for outlandish prices.

Tony Summerfield (the editor of our magazine) put it fairly succinctly several years ago when he wrote: “There are buyers with very deep pockets prepared to pay whatever it takes if they want a book and if it is badly listed and they don't notice it, it can go for next to nothing.”

That also applies to comics.

Now I know those famous five comics. Thanks for posting this.

(Merged with an older topic).

I was interested to see the addition to the cave of Enid Blyton's Adventure Magazine from the 1980s. I seem to remember another comic called something like Enid Blyton's Mystery and Adventure Magazine from about 10 or 12 years ago, this had a comic strip version of The Secret of Cliff Castle in it as well as other Blyton stories turned into comic strips, I don't suppose it had a very long run but I saw at least 3 or 4 issues in a local supermarket, I wish I had bought them now. I have searched the forums but haven't found any reference to it, I'm sure it must have been discussed.

A couple of things I would like to know about the 1980s Adventure Magazine are; did each edition of the comic have a complete Famous Five story in it and nothing else? And how has it only 30 pages? I thought the pages of periodicals had to be in multiples of four, so surely it should have 28 or 32 pages or was it 30 pages of story and two pages of adverts?

Kate Mary wrote:I seem to remember another comic called something like Enid Blyton's Mystery and Adventure Magazine from about 10 or 12 years ago, this had a comic strip version of The Secret of Cliff Castle in it as well as other Blyton stories turned into comic strips.

That was Mystery and Suspense, published in 1997. Sadly, it folded after 10 issues.

In answer to your questions about the 1985-86 Adventure Magazine, each comic has a complete Famous Five story in it and nothing else substantial (only puzzles, competitions, adverts and short articles on topics like Morse Code). I just checked a copy and it has 32 pages if you count the front and back covers.

Some of the stories stick to the original book while others differ considerably. Although the illustrations are garish, I find certain ones appealing - especially the atmospheric artwork by John Ridgway for Five Go to Smuggler's Top. The multi-coloured robin in the Five Get Into a Fix picture is a bit too much!

Thank you for that Anita, heavens was it 16 years ago that I saw that comic?!! It doesn't surprise me that it only ran to 10 issues, kids aren't interested in comics anymore. There were dozens of titles when I was growing up, but they are all gone now except The Beano.

Give Me Five: John Ridgway recalls his time drawing Enid Blyton’s famous teen adventurers

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Fascinating. Thanks, Pete! It amazes me how you manage to unearth quirky little gems of articles like this one. It's interesting that Enid Blyton's Adventure Magazine got John Ridgway into working for comics full-time. I didn't know the continental editions also contained a Secret Seven story in black and white. Neither had I realised that the backgrounds were at first done by Steve Parkhouse, until he dropped out of the project - or that Gail Renard was responsible for rewriting all Les Lilley's rather formal scripts in more colloquial English.