The Magic Robot

There were 51 Kid Colt Outlaw comics reprinted in black and white by Thorpe and Porter in the 1950s. All were square bound and 68 pages and displayed “British edition” on the covers. A few years later there were 5 more Kid Colt comics (renumbered 1 to 5) under the Thorpe and Porter Top Sellers brand. The Grand Comic Database place these comics as published in 1960-1961. I think they were perhaps published as late as 1965, at the time when Top Sellers was also publishing Flash, Miracle Man, Fantastic Tales and Race to the Moon.

Sometimes the only way to date an undated British reprint is by the adverts. The back cover of Kid Colt Outlaw No 3 advertises Cannon Records. Cannon produced 7 inch 33rpm EPs containing cover versions of chart hits. In 1963 those EPs cost 5 Shillings. In 1964 their price increased to 6 Shillings. As this advert says the records were now priced at 6/11 (more or less the then current price of a 45rpm single) I deduce this comic was likely on sale in 1965.

Cannon Records and these cheap-and-cheerful cover versions were the brainchild of Allan Crawford. He was also involved in the pirate radio station Radio Atlanta in 1964 and sensibly decided that rather than compete with Radio Caroline, they should join forces and so they placed a ship to both the north and the south of the country. Radio Caroline South and Radio Caroline North would operate successfully from 1964 to 1968.

Eventually Mr Crawford had replaced these EPs with LPs stealing the “Top of the Pops” wording so associated with the BBC TV show. He conceived the idea for Top of the Pops, having noted several UK labels such as Music for Pleasure pioneer the anonymous covers format during 1967 and 1968. Crawford’s key idea was to create a continuous series of albums with the same title. The Pickwick label agreed to undertake Crawford’s idea and the first volume was issued in mid-1968. New LPs would appear every month or so from 1968 until well into the 1980s. Sales of the LPs were helped by all but the first few featuring glamourous girls in provocative poses.

The umpteen Top of the Pops volumes were issued by Pickwick Records on their Hallmark label. Unlike the EPs the LPs contained anonymous cover versions of recent and current hit singles. Although the recordings were intended to replicate the sound of the original hits as closely as possible the results were variable. However these uncredited session musicians and singers were often people who would go on to greater things such as Tina Charles and Elton John.

Sometimes in the rush to get product on the Record Spinner Racks in Woolworths whilst the songs were still topical wrong choices would be made. A song that had appeared in the bottom reaches of the charts and appeared to be rising would be picked for a cover version. But shortly afterwards the original crashed out of the charts and became a “flop” making up the numbers rather than a “Top Pop” on the latest volume.