Playhour


Playhour was a British children's comics magazine published between 16 October 1954 and 15 August 1987, a run of approximately 1,700 weekly issues.

History

Originally published under the title Playhour Pictures, the title was shortened with issue 32 to Playhour. Playhour was intended as a companion to Jack and Jill, initially aimed at a slightly older audience. The lead strip in its early days was "Prince, the Wonder Dog of the Golden West", drawn by Sep E. Scott. With issue 32 it lowered its target age-group and introduced comic strips based on A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh and Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, both drawn by Peter Woolcock.
1956 saw the arrival of "Sonny and Sally of Happy Valley", two children who were to be associated with the title until its demise in 1987; Sonny and Sally wrote the weekly editorial letter and children writing to the editorial address would receive replies signed by Sonny and Sally.
The stories of Sonny and Sally were initially related in rhyming couplets, as were a number of other early stories, although by the end of the 1970s the stories were written in normal prose form. Others were told in captions below the illustration, or text comics, as Playhour avoided the use of word balloons.
Playhour contained a mixture of original tales for young children and adaptations of well-known fairy tales.

Series published in "Playhour"