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[Robb_K]

We are still in the Christmas - New Year's break, so I thought we'd compare and contrast this British Christmas comics annual collection to our previous US Christmas Giant annuals - Knockout 1959 Annual.

You can find it here:  https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=75736

Like the regular Weekly Knockout Comics Magazine, it contained a mixture of cartoony comedy strips (like Billy Bunter), and semi-realistically drawn intact and serialised strips (including Sexton Blake), in the detective, Western, and other adventure themes, and also contained games and puzzles, educational informational pages, and text stories.  But, unlike the relatively thin Weeklies, this special book had a whopping 200+ pages.

Sit by the roaring fire in your easy chair, and enjoy reading this nice bit of nostalgia, sporting some fine artwork, good storytelling, and humourous comedy.

[gregjh]

I'm surprised this is a British annual, the art style in early stories would have me thinking it's American. This is a very big annual and I decided to read a couple of stories and features that caught my eye. The "strange facts" and drawings of old racing cars was enjoyable. I started story-reading with Jonny Wingco. The drawing was good but for whatever reason, the plot just didn't spark my interest despite the promising start.

Although I skimmed many other stories here I can see early inspiration (or competition, in the early years) for Beano stories, particularly the Bash Street Kids (Billy Bunter, Beaver Patrol Boys) and the "science geek" characters (Shark Boy) both in terms of art style and plots.

The second story I read in full was Tod and Annie. It's a clever idea - two resourceful orphans struggling to survive - if a very predictable tale. Again, solid artwork.

My final opinion on 'Knockout' is that it features lots of varied characters and stories with some good artwork but to modern eyes it's lacking in originality or imaginative plots. The most interesting thing for me was seeing the similarities with surviving characters and ideas in the Beano and Dandy comics of later decades.

[The Australian Panther]

I used to see these British annuals on the newsagent stands, but did not buy them. These annuals were published for Christmas, I think, but rarely had any content relating to Christmas. Unlike the US equivalents.
This is a particularly good one. From my current perspective,. there is a lot here I like.
Given there are 202 pages here, I wonder if the material was reprinted, to save costs? Or did the annuals sell in huge numbers to justify the production?
In these British comic papers, it is always the dramatic strips that interest me, the 'humourous' strips don't work for me at all. 
So,
Sexton Blake in 'the runaway train' Good art, a great chase sequence. The best of the three Sexton Blake stories here.
Billy Bunter - I was a private schoolboy but the British experience, as depicted, is not one I can identify with.
I know I will disappoint some of you, but Bunter is a character I never had the taste for. And did British 'Masters' still wear robes and Mortorboard hats in the 1950's?
Strips like Sporty and Sydney and our Ernie feature language and clothing that was largely foreign in Australia. Somehow the US equivalent was less alien and easier to get into and enjoy.
Although, that didn't apply so much to books. I read and loved Richmal Compton's William books, The Wind in the Willows and the Famous Five [to name three] despite their obvious Britishness, but the 'funny papers' never really spoke to me.
Lucky Logan - nice one. Also good art.
The strange facts type pages, some interesting facts, but I could dispute some of them.
How to make a secret code. I used to wile away the time in early highschool classes by making up codes.
Anybody else have that experience? 
There is a lot of this, so I will skip some of it.
Johnnie Wingco. Stories about planes and heroic pilots were very popular with boys in the 50's and into the early 60's. A fairly typical story in the genre, but nicely illustrated with attention to the planes and the ships.
Thunderbolt Jaxon, Two stories here, I think. I might have picked up this comic for these.
Winning competitions - with everything at stake and villians out to cheat - was a standard plot in British storytelling. Not so much in US storytelling. 
Tod and Annie. An interesting dramatic idea, from an adult perspective a little unrealisticc, but a narrative that young children could have probably identified with.
Davy Crockett [hugely popular at the time] - Generic, but well told and a lot of action, which is what you want for a Western. 
Sinbad Sims. I quite like this. A well-told little adventure. Would like to know more about this character, if there is more to know. 
The Space Family Rollinson. This is also a series - if it was a series - I would like to know more about.
That makes three different versions of 'the swiss family robinson' metamorphised into Space Castaways - that I know about.
Nice choice for the reading group. Some new strips for me, and that's what I like.
Cheers! 

[paw broon]

We have a comp  of Space Family Rollinson on site but it is the French version. I put it together a while ago and it has been ignored ever since
There weren't enough British issues scanned at the time so I had to resort to the reprint

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=76003

[The Australian Panther]

Thanks for the link!

[gregjh]

I used to see these British annuals on the newsagent stands, but did not buy them. These annuals were published for Christmas, I think, but rarely had any content relating to Christmas.

Same in the Beano and Dandy annuals of my childhood. They were released around Christmas time , designed as gifts, but had no Xmas stories I remember.

Santa would leave the Beano annual in my stocking for many years and I would always wake up ridiculously early on Christmas morning, sneak out of my room and find it to read until I could persuade my parents to get up.

[paw broon]

Most annuals were bought as Christmas presents but they were released earlier.  Oddly, The Broons and Oor Wullie were published in turn, one year Broons, the next Oor Wullie. It was a treat on Christmas morning finding whichever title was out that year. Some annuals were very good quality and this Knockout is an example of that. 

[The Australian Panther]

If Memory serves, somewhere in boxrs, I have two Broons annuals, dating from the 60's I lthink.

[Robb_K]

I used to see these British annuals on the newsagent stands, but did not buy them. This is a particularly good one. From my current perspective,. there is a lot here I like. In these British comic papers, it is always the dramatic strips that interest me, the 'humourous' strips don't work for me at all. 

So,

Billy Bunter - I was a private schoolboy but the British experience, as depicted, is not one I can identify with.
I know I will disappoint some of you, but Bunter is a character I never had the taste for. And did British 'Masters' still wear robes and Mortorboard hats in the 1950's?

Nice choice for the reading group. Some new strips for me, and that's what I like.
Cheers!

I'll make my main comments later, but I just have to comment on your Billy Bunter take.  I, too, was severely disappointed in the later Billy Bunter fully illustrated comic strips.  They became way too much the same, too predictable, and only gag-driven, so, the great story element that existed in the early story papers was missing.  Also, the artwork was not nearly as good as the early 1900s-style, individual illustrations that were strategically inserted within the earlier text stories.  The sense of the schoolboys' adventurous and mischievous escapades, complete with top-notch wordsmithian excellence in description of the settings and action, feeling of suspense, and anticipation as to how the story will turn out, are all completely missing.  And those are the qualities that made the Billy Bunter text stories so great.  As a visually-oriented art lover, I long had hoped to see a classic comic strip version of Bunter.  But when that came into existence, it sorely disappointed me.

[Robb_K]

We have a comp  of Space Family Rollinson on site but it is the French version. I put it together a while ago and it has been ignored ever since
There weren't enough British issues scanned at the time so I had to resort to the reprint

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=76003

The series has great artwork, and interesting stories.  I'd love to have access to a compilation of it, but would enjoy it a lot more if it were written in English or Dutch.  I can understand French to a degree enough to follow the stories, but not to the level of them being really enjoyable reading.  And, it's not enough of a priority for me to devote the time needed to translate all the stories, myself.

[crashryan]

Either because I had too much time on my hands or because I'm crazy--probably both--I read the whole thing, cover to cover. It took me two 100-page sittings. It wasn't all that bad, and I learned a few things.

I loved the old autos. Connoly's color frontispiece is nice. Thanks to this one-pager I looked up "Chitty Bang Bang" and learned the story of the cars, the books, and the [godawful] film.

Of all the annual's features I liked the Sexton Blake stories the most. Unlike many other strips they don't seem to have been cut and pasted from a different format. The stories are pretty simple but they do the job and the artwork is nice. The one exception is a glaring cop-out (our page 13, panel 4) that wins the Bill Fraccio Prize for minimal drawing. From these stories I learned about whistle buoys.

I just can't wrap my head around British one-page comedy strips. Sporty and Sydney repeatedly stretches out a two-panel joke out to fill a page. It takes some doing to make a single page strip seem long and boring! Why do Sporty and Sydney constantly refer to each other by name? Mike is just as bad if not worse. The Beaver Patrol pages are mostly meh. Of the longer comedy strips Billy Bunter and Our Ernie read like one-pagers strung together. I don't know if anyone agrees with me but I find the jokes to be repetitive and simplistic. By the way, is Our Ernie supposed to be an "Oor Wullie" clone? One online source said the same guy drew both series.

As for Billy Bunter--Paw Broon and I have already agreed to disagree over this guy. I chalk my distaste for the character up to cultural differences. I find him totally unsympathetic. To quote Richard Hughes in countless ACG stories, "Wotta jerk!" Even so I find Bunter easier to take in text form than in these strips. They follow a rigid formula and the slapstick events aren't that funny. Also, Bunter looks like a fat middle-aged man rather than a fat schoolboy.

I can't fathom Mickey's Pal the Wizard at all. Do I have this right? Two children are somehow compelled to slave for an abusive uncle, even though they chum around with an all-powerful genie. And the genie only appears after the kids have been abused, whereupon he subjects the uncle to humiliating punishments until the kids beg him to knock it off. The genie relents and the kids go back to slave for the abusive uncle. WTF? Why doesn't the genie just get the kids the heck out of there?

The Lucky Logan stories are well-drawn. Scriptwise they're no better or worse than their American comic-book counterparts. Lucky's pal Hashpan (or is that Hashtag?) bears a striking resemblance to Alan Mistero's pal Polpetta ("Meatball"). Wonder if they're related. Both stories, especially the last one, show definite cut-and-paste signs. Are they reprints from the weekly paper?

Johnnie Wingo boasts nice artwork. I was surprised to find that it was really a World War II story bookended by Johnny and his jet. What is this obsession British comics have with war comics? Sure, American comics have had plenty of war series but they've never had the staying power of British books. Some of the picture libraries have run well over a thousand issues! And every weekly paper had its WWII hero series. Anyway the story is okay though the ethics are a bit murky. One panel suggests Markis was actively collaborating with the Japanese. I wouldn't expect Johnnie to let that go. I probably misunderstood. One thing I appreciated is that they explain Johnnie's silly surname. It's a jocular combination of Wingate-Cole, his true name.

Davy Crockett is another efficient western tale well drawn. I've always seen Davy as a backwoods man. It's odd to see him in the Far West.

Thunderbolt Jaxon appeals to me. I don't know why. Maybe it's the somewhat clunky old-fashioned artwork. At any rate the superheroics are fun. I notice that the strip is narrated in the present tense, American-style, rather than the traditional past tense. These don't seem to have been re-jiggered. Maybe they're original to this annual.  I enjoyed the artist's depictions of the sideshow attractions in the backgrounds of the kidnap story.

Speaking of rigid formulas, Tod and Annie baffles me. I've run across the strip before, in the weeklies, and it's always the same. In every three-page episode Tod and Annie meet somebody on the road and begin an adventure. Their pursuer Silas Stiggins shows up. Through some trick related to the adventure, with the help of their new friend, Tod and Annie escape. Rinse and repeat. Interminably. How did it last so long? The art's decent, at least.

Sinbad Simms is the only entertaining cartoon story in the book. It's because the story is given enough room to breathe. Ten pages seems like a novel in British comic-paper terms. The artwork is pleasant and the formula is unique. I like the way Sinbad treats Jasper like a dog even though the shark is apparently still a man-eater. I thought at first that Sinbad can breathe underwater, but apparently he can only hold his breath a very long time.

Yes, I really read Jimmy Topper and his Chums. I'm not crazy about school stories, which take place in a world totally beyond my comprehension, though I've read quite a few. This one doesn't stand up to the Greyfriars stories, in which most characters have distinct personalities. It's good to see a few girls among the group. There certainly are a lot of beatings handed out. I've heard wild stories about caning in British "public" schools. Does this story reflect real life?

The Space Family Rollinson are a good way to round out the book. I've read a number of episodes in the French collection as well as a smattering of their original Knockout appearances (sadly very few early examples have been scanned). In the first couple of strips Dad was a friendly caricature of the Middle Class Englishman, complete with tweed coat, soft hat, and pipe. Capable, as he soon proved, but satisfied with merely puffing on his pipe and reading the newspapers. By the time this episode appeared the ol' man was a seasoned space pilot. Graham Coton is supposed to be the series' primary artist, but I don't know his style. I'm not sure if he drew this one. Whoever it is, it's solid work. This strip seems to have been produced for the annual.

Now the educational features. I learned a lot of Old World minutiae. Billy Bunter taught me about Rock Cakes and Dripping Toast, which I'd never heard of. I learned many interesting claims about where common sayings come from. These I'm taking with a grain of salt. I haven't researched all of them but I do know that the theory that "give quarter" came from ransoming prisoners is deprecated by the OED. I wonder whether New York really used a 300-pound gorilla to test playground swings. Is this the same 300-pound gorilla that's always in the room and people ignore? Now how about that runaway prop whale? I'd have thought I'd have heard of that one. I wish I'd known this clever code during my school days when we were trying out the tricks in Herbert Zim's Codes and Secret Writing. We were partial to the Dictionary Code. Tod and Annie (and Silas Stiggins) taught me the names of a few new places in England. But about the origin suggested for Yucatan: I've heard the selfsame story used for the origin of "kangaroo."

This was a pleasant, if undemanding, holiday read.

[Robb_K]

As for Billy Bunter--Paw Broon and I have already agreed to disagree over this guy. I chalk my distaste for the character up to cultural differences. I find him totally unsympathetic. To quote Richard Hughes in countless ACG stories, "Wotta jerk!" Even so I find Bunter easier to take in text form than in these strips. They follow a rigid formula and the slapstick events aren't that funny. Also, Bunter looks like a fat middle-aged man rather than a fat schoolboy. 

I agree that Bunter is a rather unsympathetic character, and portrayed in these later, comic book or comic strip-style vignettes, appearing like a middle-aged man.  And, there are also good reasons why he was a lot easier to take in the earlier Comet text story papers.

In the story papers, I believe that the selling point was either working class curiosity about the English "public" (really private, and basically, exclusive to the wealthy and privileged classes) boarding schools, or nostalgia for those who were attending, or had attended them, as well as entertainment from the humourous antics of the GROUP of schoolboys, and their making fun of the pitiful character of the obese, friendless, Billy Bunter.  It is very clear, that the original author never intended to use Bunter as a protagonist, but, rather as a foil for the group of more "normal" schoolboys, and whose mischievous antics affected them.  It was a vehicle to highlight and possibly exaggerate both the fun and interesting aspects of life at adolescent boarding schools, and also touch on the not-so-nice activities that go on there, not always apparent to the general public.

I have a feeling that the urge for writers to write about their Public School days came about from the first large generation of boarding school graduates growing to later middle age or older, and sitting around with others of their experience, and sharing stories about their own school days, and the shenanigans that went on there back in the old days. Of course, the story-tellers imbellished the highlights of their careers to make the stories more funny, outrageous, and interesting.  And thus, they became more exaggerated over the years. It reminds me of when I used to get together with some of my old back-country skiing pals, and we would tell stories of our skiing and back-country trekking adventures we had on trips they had not attended. Such tales make great reading for people who can identify with experiences similar to those, or for people who know little or nothing about those experiences, but want to find out more about them, and get a feel for what they were like.

In the Comet text stories, before they changed over to the illustration-in-every-panel-with-text-below format, Bunter's antics generally drove the plots and action, but the emphasis was on the telling of stories of the mischief the boys at such schools get into, especially resulting in funny situations (while also bringing in some of the darker side of behaviour in those institutions).  There is enough room in those several pages of text, to lay out a proper setting, intersperse proper character backgrounds, and develop a story's plot, with an adequate pacing, to not have the entire focus fall upon the pitiable, selfish, conniving Bunter, whose wrongdoing invariably and rightfully gets punished.  Sometimes the reader will be glad he doesn't get away with his criminal-style schemes, but at the same time, he or she can feel sorry for him, because he does them out of a longstanding bitterness towards the boys who have made fun of him for his obesity, and perhaps his family's lack of wealth, probably without ever giving him a real chance.

The Comet's later text below, illustrated panel format, and, especially, Knockout's and Valiant's later comic strip/comic book vignette-style format didn't have enough space to develop any kind of story, and seemed to just attempt to portray Bunter scheming to get food or some luxury or advantage, for free, by some trickery.  And he invariably failed, and got punished mainly by his residence hall's main teacher (Squelch).  The strip had the absolute same plot each time, and became very heavily sight gag driven, often with no plot, but just a string of unrelated gags (which made no real sense).  And the artwork, to my taste, was much weaker than the original stray illustrations in the text stories.

[The Australian Panther]

The best writing on the British public school experience is far and away Rudyard Kipling's 'Stalky and Co'
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45056.The_Complete_Stalky_and_Co.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3006/3006-h/3006-h.htm

I describe it as 'MASH' in a public school. One of Kipling's best books.

Didn't know it was a TV series. Unlikely to be as good as the book and short stories. I will have to track it down.
Stalky & Co DVD Trailer - BBC Series - Rudyard Kipling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sASJjL3BKEE 

[Robb_K]

The best writing on the British public school experience is far and away Rudyard Kipling's 'Stalky and Co'
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45056.The_Complete_Stalky_and_Co.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3006/3006-h/3006-h.htm

I describe it as 'MASH' in a public school. One of Kipling's best books.

Didn't know it was a TV series. Unlikely to be as good as the book and short stories. I will have to track it down.
Stalky & Co DVD Trailer - BBC Series - Rudyard Kipling
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sASJjL3BKEE

Thanks for the reference to Kipling's "Stalky& Co.  - Like all Kipling's classics, it is a treasure.  "Tom Brown's School Days" is another of that ilk, as was "Goodbye Mr. Chips".  In addition to the books, the original films of those stories were great classics, as well.  I hope to see that BBC TV series of "Stalky & Co.

[paw broon]

Bunter had a tv series and there are a couple of poor quality episodes on youtube:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwUzDB-KhMQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpS3ILvK_bQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKvOxTRSMNA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmc_qMgOq_8
Another very popular at the time school based series was Whacko, with Jimmy Edwards:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvKbYXUho58
This series spawned a film, Bottoms Up.

[Robb_K]

Bunter had a tv series and there are a couple of poor quality episodes on youtube:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwUzDB-KhMQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpS3ILvK_bQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKvOxTRSMNA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmc_qMgOq_8
Another very popular at the time school based series was Whacko, with Jimmy Edwards:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvKbYXUho58
This series spawned a film, Bottoms Up.   

The series was very true to The Comet stories, and decent to watch a few (mainly for the nostalgic factor).  But the episodes were too much the same.  It is pretty much the same situation of predictability as reading the later Bunter comic strips.  They get boring after reading more than a few in succession.  I remember seeing the film "Bottoms Up" many years ago.  A lot of British films were shown on Canadian TV during the 1950s and 1960s, due to a lack of domestic TV production, as compared to that of USA and Britain. 
I hope to grab a look at some of the Whacko TV episodes, if they are available at no cost.

[SuperScrounge]

The fact pages were all interesting.

The Runaway Train - Okay.

Billy Bunter - All four stories kind of blur together. The humor is okay, although each installment feels like two stories, not always well-welded into one story.

Sporty & Sydney - Eight stories??? Was this series really that popular or was the editor writing it? Not that I thought they were bad, they were generally amusing, although Sydney could be a not very nice person. The ping pong installment showing him at his worst.

Our Ernie - Four stories, eh, generally okay.

Lucky Logan 1 - Some friend of Hashpans. Sure he doesn't know Logan, but you'd think he'd at least go along with his friend's judgement. Then again gold fever does make people act strange.

Beaver Patrol Boys - I found all three cartoons to be cute. Is there a name for the type of cartoon filled with a variety of gags hither and yon? You'd think someone would coined a term for them.

Johhny Wingco - Okay adventure story.

Mike - I was not impressed with the five installments. They were okay for what they were, but they were not that great.

Thunderbolt Jaxon and the Flying Wreckers - Okay, although the ending felt like something from Fantasy Sitcom 101. I mean giving the plane manufacturer a second chance because of the sabotage is one thing, but accepting the plane despite not seeing what it can really do is more fanciful than a magic belt.

Tod & Annie - These two stories are... okay. Although like with the Billy Bunter stories it feels like each installment was two stories welded together. They keep running into nice people who help them out against Stiggins (and yet nobody nice enough to adopt them). Also, as the owner of the orphanage shouldn't Stiggins have better things to do than chase after a pair of orphans? Like running his orphanage? You'd think he'd have an employee chase after Tod & Annie instead of doing it himself.

Davy Crockett - Okay.

Mickey's Pal the Wizard - Okayyyyyyyy... neither story really impressed me and they never really took advantage of the premise of a boy having a wizard for a pal. When the wizard says he can't understand why Mickey tolerates his uncle I wonder if that's the writer's subconscious telling the writer about the fundamental flaw in the series.

Thunderbolt Jaxon and the Kidnappers - That nurse should be fired for letting Donald be watched by a stranger while she was picked up by a stranger.

The Case of the Vanishing Thief - Okay, but overly simplistic. You could probably swap out the name of Sexton Blake for any other detective and this story would play out the same.

Sinbad Simms - Bwha? A boy and his pet shark? Admittedly I did grow up watching shows about a boy and his pet dolphin & a boy and his pet bear, but a man-eating shark that obeys orders still seems a little too far.

Jimmy Topper and his Chums of St. Clement's - Ugh. Not really a terrible story, just overly long with forty gazillion characters, none of whom I gave a damn about. Anyone else think Gusty Guston is just a tenth-rate knockoff of Billy Bunter?

The Diamond Smugglers - More interesting than the previous Sexton Blake story.

Lucky Logan 2 - Cute. I've heard that actually shooting a gun out of someone's hand would actually mess up the person's hand, unlike what you see in westerns.

Space Family Rollinson - The story was a little too simplistic, but the art was very nice.

Deed-A-Day Danny - You know Danny, if you would let people know you were helping them instead of just building a thief trap as a surprise you might not get in trouble.

[SuperScrounge]

The GCD index for this book is now up https://www.comics.org/issue/1438681/

[Robb_K]

The Runaway Train - Okay.

Billy Bunter - All four stories kind of blur together. The humor is okay, although each installment feels like two stories, not always well-welded into one story.     

There is a reason for that, although the reasoning used by the writer for making the decision to use such a story  structure format seems to be flawed. The late 1950s Knockout weeklies each contained one 2-page "Billy Bunter" gag-driven, vignette-style "Story", in turn, containing from 25 to 30 illustrated panels, including the one or two illustrations included in the header tier at the top of both pages. These 26 to 30 illustrated panels were blown up in size and spread out over five pages of only six panels each in this Knockout Annual giant book.  The second page of original printing generally started with a narrative which explained that the story now has moved to a second location, which will be accompanied by action which will display a slightly different story theme, but still tenuously connected to the flow of action from that of the first page.  I'm not sure why the author chose to do that.  These vignette stories would be way too short for my taste using even two full small panel pages on a single theme, let alone cutting them in half to form two separate one-page almost unrelated "stories". 

The sad fact is that five six-panel pages is way too short to develop any kind of "story", and simply allows only room for one or two gag-driven vignettes, streched out accross five pages.

[Robb_K]

Now it's time for my own review of this giant, mixed bag book:

Sexton Blake - The Runaway Train:
Excellent artwork, and an engaging, albeit, very short story, which had a bit of nice action and managed to fit in some suspense. I'd rather have read it as a spread out story on 15-20 pages(rather than crammed into eight), with more action shown, and more background shown for the main characters.

Billy Bunter (All 4 vignette strips):
The artwork was passable, but not as good, to my taste, as the early 1900s engraving-style drawings that appeared as sporadic, individual drawings scattered one or two to a page in the classic text stories printed in the early Comet Weekly text papers from 1949 through to the mid 1950s.  The so-called "stories" were too short to have enough build-up of character and plot development and to show motivations of characters other than Billy.  They were really just gag-driven vignettes, all about Billy's carrying out plots to trick others into undeservedly obtaining food for his insatiable appetite, or undeserved luxuries or valuables.  This becomes very predictable and boring after reading more than one or two .

Sporty & Sydney - (All Eight Gag Pages):
These are silly, dull, not very funny at all, and stretched out gags to fill a page.  Not my cup of tea, to say the least.

Our Ernie - (All Four Gag Vignettes):
Well drawn.  Ernie is the classic mischievous "Bad Boy", which gets old fast, as he seems not to have empathy for others.  I DO like the fox hunt vignette 2-pager, which has  Ernie conversing with a family of super-intelligent foxes who speak The King's English.

Lucky Logan (The Laughing Cowboy) 1 :
Excellent artwork. A decent story with good action, suspense, and good pacing.  Which means that it fits nicely in its 6 pages. I do wonder why Lucky is nicknamed "The Laughing Cowboy"; which was the favourite song of a record collecting uncle of mine, who had the 1936 78 RPM Okeh record of it buried inside his burial coffin along with him.  It was titled "The Laughing Cowboy", and sung by The Laughing Cowboy.

Beaver Patrol Boys:
Nice artwork, in a pastiche of similar themed gags, which are very cliche, old-fashioned, boring, and not very funny.  But it is nice to look at.  It reminds me of those two-page panorama scenes by Dick Ryan filled with funny animals with individual corny gags related to a similar theme in the late 1930s Chesler and Centaur multiple-genre comic books.

Johhny Wingco:
Great artwork, with a decent story, lots of good action.  The wartime flashback becoming most of the story was an interesting surprise.  I get the feeling that because WWII was much more costly, traumatic, and important in the lives of a much greater percentage of the population of Britain than USA, British comics focused more on that war's happenings for much longer than in American comic books, both in completely military series, and in flashbacks in individual stories in series from other genres.

Mike(all 4 strips):
Artwork is fairly standard for UK, but nothing special.  The series is a typical silly comedy with a somewhat bright and curious kid, and a silly parent.  I think it is very funny that the father wears a suit and tie to go camping in the woods.

Thunderbolt Jaxon and the Flying Wreckers:
Artwork is passable, but not great.  The series is a typical superhero saga.  He puts on his magic belt and becomes a super-strong, flying Greek Godlike superhero.  I think it is funny that the hero wears an ancient Greek outfit in 1959.  Superhero stories never had any appeal to me, even as a young child.  I did, however, like stories about real Humans who rose to occasions to great heights of heroism when such actions were needed.  Funny that I hated stories about magic and science fantasy, but enjoyed funny animal stories.  That is probably because I treated the anthropomorphic animal/people as Humans, who just looked different, but lived in a World with similar rules of physics, chemistry and biology as our planet.

Tod & Annie - (Both stories):
A seemingly evil orphanage owner chases after runaway orphans under his charge, seems very like the US' recent children's book series, Lemony Snicket's "A series of Unfortunate Events".  The second episode was more memorable than the first, and a reasonably entertaining story.

Davy Crockett:
Really top-notch artwork.  And I like that this story is printed in 2-colour process (which really provides a 3-colour effect, resulting in orange a beige/yellow off yellow, white and black, which is fairly close to as enjoyable as full colour (4-colour process).  As a historian, I cringe at seeing Davy Crockett portrayed as being physically in The Desert Southwest of The USA, when the closest he ever got to that area was the flat grasslands of east-central Texas, which doesn't have cliffs, mesas, and lots of bare rock and sandy soil.  In addition, he died at The Alamo, near present day San Antonio, in 1836, so he never got to the desert area of far west Texas, and there were no trains operating in west Texas before the late 1840s.  So that train being in the story would have been impossible.  In addition, there were no Cherokees living anywhere near west Texas, or any other part of Texas at that time.  That area was Comanche country.  And Cherokees were not horse riders, at least until they were later re-located from North Carolina to Oklahoma well after 1836.  They were not a Great Plains tribe, and so their chieftains never wore many-feather headdresses. 

Mickey's Pal the Wizard (Both episodes)
This children's fantasy featuring a Jinn who performs magic feats for his master of the bottle, reminds me of several 1940s children's fantasy strips (Jim Tyer's Pete Parrot, Ken Hultgren's Izzy and Dizzy, and the 1930's Floyd Gottfredson's "Mickey Mouse - The Miracle Master").  It is decent, but nothing special.


Thunderbolt Jaxon and the Kidnappers:
I enjoyed this story a little more than the first Thunderbolt story. But would rather have had it not be a superhero story, but have Jack Jackson have been a relatively normal, bright, young, somewhat athletic teenager, who hates wrong-doing, and rises to each occasion needing some wrong-doing-hating citizen ton act quickly to stop a crime in progress, or help a fellow Human in danger.  That is something a child reader can admire, to which I can relate.  Young Jaxon could have used his ingenuity to foil the kidnappers in a way that might not be very likely to be accomplished by most young adolescents, but still is within the realm of possibility.

Sexton Blake - The Case of the Vanishing Thief:
A very simple very short story, not long enough to develop a plot with any suspense and characterisation of the villain, and so, not all that interesting.

Sinbad Simms - Shark Boy of The South Seas:
This story sports decent artwork, although somewhat stylized.  But, its premise of a Human boy befriending a shark and training it to follow his command is way too fanciful for my taste.  Sharks are not intelligent as dolphins.  They don't think.  They are likely to be totally instinctive.

Jimmy Topper and his Chums of St. Clement's (Text Story):
Excellent artwork, and a very good story.  The highlight of the book.  The story's plot was well-thought out, and paced well.  And the story was plausible, and entertaining.  And it had some decent suspense as well.

Sexton Blake - The Diamond Smugglers:
A seemingly more promising start to this vignette episode of this series than the train episode.  But, my hopes for a great, adventurous tale of Blake's bout with a gang of clever smuggles were dashed by an abrupt, obvious easy and lazy ending!  I would have liked a 20+ pages epic detective adventure story (spanning several episodes), with Blake being rescued too late to stop the criminal gang(more than just the two villains in this vignette) from getting the contraband stolen jewels past the customs danger, and Blake and The Customs Police working with Scotland yard, to ferret out the smuggler gang's boss, all started with clues Blake had noticed during his time with the two smugglers on their boat.  These extremely short crime story vignettes in self-contained vignettes, rather than ideally having complete book self-contained stories, or at least having consecutive 8 or 10-page episodes forming 24 to 96-page serialised long stories, are very disappointing to me. 

Lucky Logan (The Laughing Cowboy) 2:
Nice artwork (naturally, just like the first).  And a very clever story, with a surprising, unexpected humourous ending gag!  Very pleasing read.


Space Family Rollinson:
Excellent artwork.  Although it has a typical level of non-scientifically-based fantasy especially common for the late 1950s (which is a quality I don't like as a scientist, but have to put up with as a comic book fan), the artwork and characterisation and mood give it some charm.  It is an entertaining story, which is not so terribly unscientific as many of the SciFi comic book stories were in the 1950s.  So, I was glad for that.  But, it has too wide a story scope for its meagre number of pages.  Instead of 8, the story would be better served to have at least 20, to fit in more action with the space monster, and some dwelling upon the potential dangers from it, as well as a more elaborate climax, and some background of the Rollinson Family (as EVERY episode is supposed to stand on its own, so that a reader new to the series will not be totally ignorant of what went on before in the series.  And a little background about the newly-discovered planet and its people would help as well.  And, perhaps a short discussion of theories about the space octopus, who can live in Space in an area of no atmospheric gases of any kind, and very little gravity.  Surely readers wonder how its body holds together in almost nil levels of gravity.  At the very least, this story should be told in a span of 24 pages (3 episodes).  It would then have 2 excellent clifhanger episode endings, and the third would have room for a fantastic climax, and a short epilogue (perhaps at The King's palace, leading to a feeling that Skandock's planet and people might possibly return in later episodes of the series.

Deed-A-Day Danny:
The artwork is okay, and seems to be a style similar to that of some of the other comedy strips. The story is obvious and expected, and somewhat of boring.

Informational pages and special features:
These, as a whole, were drawn very well, and were interesting and informative, rather than boring fluff.

[SuperScrounge]

the reasoning used by the writer for making the decision to use such a story  structure format seems to be flawed. The late 1950s Knockout weeklies each contained one 2-page "Billy Bunter" gag-driven, vignette-style "Story", in turn, containing from 25 to 30 illustrated panels, including the one or two illustrations included in the header tier at the top of both pages. These 26 to 30 illustrated panels were blown up in size and spread out over five pages of only six panels each in this Knockout Annual giant book.  The second page of original printing generally started with a narrative which explained that the story now has moved to a second location, which will be accompanied by action which will display a slightly different story theme, but still tenuously connected to the flow of action from that of the first page.  I'm not sure why the author chose to do that.

Yeah, that's wonky explanation. Why even try to connect two unconnected incidents? Just run them as standalones.