Reporters: Jeremy James, Jeanne La Chard, Denis Tuohy, Desmond Wilcox, Harold Williamson

This week: Zzonk!! Eeeeefnu - Uurgh! Splatt! - the world of Children's Comics
'Even now one of the pleasures in life is taking a 1945 Film Fun to bed early with a cup of hot chocolate. (Alan Aldridge)

'I based myself at school entirely on Tom Merry of the Gem. There was no smoking, no cribbing. It was all blue-eyed, eye on the ball. I really stuck to it religiously' (Peter Cushing)
'I feel all the colleges were into the story sort of comic, and us plebs, we were all into the pictures' (Ringo Starr)
'I think comics should be anarchic, should allow the child to feel it is in lovely secret revolt against its parents' (George Melly)
'Comics are like newspapers, they tell the social history of our time. I am a literary detective, so to speak! ' (A Collector)
'Quite simply we're trying to generate an emotional situation' (Editor, Tammy)
'I used to enjoy every minute of it, but after a while it becomes just a chore, you know, a necessary evil' (Comic Artist)
'Maybe we could join those pictures by having the Christmas pudding come through the serving hatch to hit somebody' (Script Conference)

Tonight Denis Tuohy for Man Alive explores the tradition of the British children's comic through the eyes of enthusiasts, publishers and critics.

(Colour)