1st Series
4th March 1939 - 16th February 1963
2nd Series
12th June 1971 - 23rd June 1973

Issue 1 of the first series of Knockout titled The Knock-Out Comic would sell today for around £350.

The first series joined Valiant in 1963 and the second series teamed up with Whizzer and Chips in 1973.

Knockout 40's - 50's - It seems to be the remotest Comic of it's time and seldom mentioned.
I had this paper as a Child and was particularly drawn (no pun intended)! to the Strip "Our Ernie" (Mr & Mrs Entwistle's Little Lad). The last words on the last frame after one of 'Our Ernie's' weekly adventures was from Pa' Entwistle who always said: "Daft I call it".

I have lived my life by this remark, and rather like Kipling's 'IF'- when all is going 'hey-wire', it's helped to keep my sanity!! I would be pleased to hear from a Kindred Spirit'

Our Ernie was drawn for some time by the late Dennis Gifford.
Dennis started drawing cartoons with Bob Monkhouse when they were both Schoolboys at Dulwich College.

Dennis founded ACE (The 'Association of Comic Enthusiasts'). In a tribute to Dennis, Bob Monkhouse said how much he had envied Dennis being responsible for producing 'Our Ernie;' ending the eulogy with: 'What's For Tea Ma'? and 'Daft I Call It'! - Bernard Mattimore (Cornwall)

A splendid site. Does anyone remember 'The Space Family Rolinson' in Knockout circa 1954? I'd love to see the artwork once more. Best - Colin Langeveld

Your site requests any other information on Knockout. I can recall that in the 40s the cover story for a long time was Deed-a-day Danny, a boy scout. - Bill Trench

Concerning Knockout, my brother received it in the 1940s while I received Chick's Own. From Knockout I can recall "CanvasbacK", "Mississipi Max and his Axe", "Deed a Day Dannie" and "Our Ernie" - "Whats for tea Ma? - Daft I call it". - Terence Lee

The Knockout seemed to be drawn by a pool of artists who also drew for the Sun (not the newspaper) and Comet and the monthly pocket strip books Kit Carson and Buck Jones. Kit Carson would also appear in the weekly titles. One of the strips in the Knockout was Sexton Blake - the detective who had started life around the same time as Sherlock Holmes and was originally based on the Conan Doyle creation. The monthly pocket sized Sexton Blake Library which eventually died after a creditable attempt to update the title into the same world as The Saint and James Bond, inspired films and plays and was very well written by a roster of writers that included as Jack Trevor Storey a prolific author whose books were often filmed. Jack Trevor Storey wrote The Trouble With Harry which became a Hitchcock film. Another classic from another era which appeared in Knockout was the Billy Bunter strip. This featured the Frank Richards characters but in a very knockabout fatboy steals cakes, fatboy gets found out, fatboy reaps the consequences way. There were plans afoot - by Hawk Publications who reprint the Dan Dare strips - for a newspaper strip based on the Knockout version of Billy Bunter but I have not heard much of this lately.

The star of Knockout was, of course, Our Ernie, a genuinely funny strip. Almost as good and I would guess by the same creators was Deed-a-Day Danny.

I also have a vague memory of Stonehenge Kit the Ancient Brit, again in the some mould as Our Ernie. Although published by the Almalgamated Press, all the publications above seemed to form a company within a company (maybe they had a common editor) and were vey different from the other AP publications such as Film Fun and Radio Fun. - Geoff Harrold

Two things I rember about the seventies Knockout were that it was a very colourful comic, and the star guest page. Nowadays most comics are full colour throughout, but thirty years ago most comics would have colour strips on the front back and centre pages and the rest would be either in black and white or black, white and another colour, usually red. But in Knockout there were no strips in just black and white. Any strip that wasn't in full colour was either black, white and red, black,white and blue, black, white and green (rare at that time) or even black, white and yellow (almost unheard of in any other comic). At one stage in the early seventies, Knockout, Whizzer and Chips and Cor!! (and later some of the other titles) had a Star Guest page where they would print a strip from one of the other comics. - Clive Huggett

Working on our comics site, www.lambiek.net, I just found out that 'Deed-a-Day Danny' was drawn by A.J. Kelly. The cover of Knockout retained its full-color front during WWII, except during times of National Emergency. - Margreet de Heer

It is interesting that a reader would comment on a sense that there was a "company within a company" operating at Amalgamated Press and hence the differences between some of the comics. Back in those days, certainly in the 50s, there were various comics departments at AP, some even in different buildings.
Comics such as Lion and Tiger were lead titles in one department, while Playhour, Jack and Jill, Comet and Sun were lead titles in another, and Film Fun and Radio Fun in another. Each group had a different manager. Knockout, as I remember, seemed to be pretty independent. As one who worked at AP at that time I recall that much of the scripting for Knockout was done by one "Nobby Clarke" (never did know his first name) would would sketch out his scripts.

A young budding artist on staff at that time was Bill Titcombe, In the late 5O's as AP gave way to Fleetway and a new building was erected most juvenile titles came together under one manager.

If you have any other information on Knockout please drop us a line.