By the 1960’s the superhero fad had well and truly reached the shores of the UK propelled in no small way by the success of the Batman television show in 1966. Although American comics had long been established in the UK the success of the Batman TV show resulted in an obsession in these costumed characters that was fueled in no small part by an increase in the number of new US superhero comic books and US strips being reprinted in UK comics. Along with these new comics came other merchandise such as colouring books, toy cars, models and trading cards. Out of all these items my favourites were the DC Comic Book Foldees trading cards by Topps.
DC Foldees were bubble gum cards about 2 ½ x 4 inches (approx. 6.5 x10 cm) with three perforated panels that could be folded over with a picture of a DC super-hero on one side, and a humorous generic character (an animal, woman, old man etc) on the reverse that could be folded over, in various combinations, to produce funny pictures. Looking at these cards today they are tame but in 1966/7 this 6-year-old thought they were borderline hysterical. There were 44 cards in this set with art by Wally Wood. Although Superman and Batman featured most prominently on these cards they also featured other characters including the Elongated man, Saturn Girl, Green Lantern, Jimmy Olsen, the Flash, the Golden age Flash, The Joker, Riddler, Green Arrow, Bizarro, and the Spectre.
I first encountered the DC Foldees on a trip to the ice cream van to pick up my Friday treat. I was usually given around 1 shilling (5p) by my parents to buy sweets for myself. On this particular day (it would have been summer 1966/67) as I reached up on my tip toes to place my order at the ice cream van serving hatch I spied in the corner of the window a brightly coloured yellow box with picture of characters I recognised (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman etc.) . I immediately knew I had to have one of these, I can’t recall the price ( it was probably around 3d / 1 ½ p) or the card I bought but within a few weeks these were collected and traded by all my friends (and my brother) so I had lots of these cards in no time at all. On the downside, like all trading cards at this time the chewing gum was a thin pinky / red rectangle that was usually brittle, tasted awful, and was almost always immediately binned.