Children's literature
Magazines and comics

An important aspect of British children's literature has been comic books and magazines. Amongst the most popular and longest running comics have been The Beano and The Dandy, both first published in the 1930s. British comics in the 20th century evolved from illustrated penny dreadfuls of the Victorian era (featuring Sweeney Todd, Dick Turpin and Varney the Vampire). First published in the 1830s, according to The Guardian, penny dreadfuls were "Britain's first taste of mass-produced popular culture for the young." Robin Hood featured in a series of penny dreadfuls in 1838 which sparked the beginning of the mass circulation of Robin stories.

Dennis the Menace debuted in The Beano in 1951, while the popular stop-motion characters, Wallace and Gromit, guest-starred in the comic every four weeks from 2013. Important early magazines or story papers for older children were the Boy's Own Paper, published from 1879 to 1967 and The Girl's Own Paper published from 1880 until 1956. In the 1890s, half-penny publications succeeded the penny dreadfuls in popularity among British children. These included The Half-penny Marvel and Union Jack. From 1896, the cover of the half-penny comic Illustrated Chips featured the long-running comic strip of the tramps Weary Willie and Tired Tim, with its readers including a young Charlie Chaplin.

Other story papers for older boys were The Hotspur (1933 to 1959) and The Rover, which started in 1922 and was absorbed into Adventure in 1961 and The Wizard in 1963, and eventually folded in 1973. Many prominent authors contributed to the Boy's Own Paper: cricketer W.G. Grace wrote for several issues, along with authors Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and R. M. Ballantyne, as well as Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Scout Movement. Contributors to The Girl's Own Paper included Noel Streatfeild, Rosa Nouchette Carey, Sarah Doudney (1841–1926), Angela Brazil, Richmal Crompton, Fanny Fern, and Baroness Orczy.

The Eagle was a popular British comic for boys, launched in 1950 by Marcus Morris, an Anglican vicar from Lancashire. Revolutionary in its presentation and content, it was enormously successful; the first issue sold about 900,000 copies. Featured in colour on the front cover was its most recognisable story, " Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future", created with meticulous attention to detail. It was first published from 1950 to 1969, and relaunched from 1982 to 1994. Its sister comic was Girl, whose early issues from 1951 featured the strip "Kitty Hawke and her All-Girl Air Crew". Roy of the Rovers, an immensely popular comic strip featuring Roy Race, a striker for the fictional football team Melchester Rovers, first appeared in the Tiger in 1954. First published by Martin Handford in 1987, more than 73 million Where's Wally? picture puzzle books had been sold around the world by 2007.
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