Printed on Recycled Paper

The comics supplement of the Sunday Times newspaper, started in late 1989. Originally was published as a smallish, 16-page stapled booklet (like a proper comic), and featured a wide range of syndicated comic strips as well as some specially commissioned ones. The original layout was based on American weekend edition funny pages, and had a more adult slant (with strips like Doonesbury, Outland and Bizarro). Four pages in the centre were given over to puzzles, readers drawings and educational crap (as well as the long-running offer of membership to the Funday Times Club).

The Funday Times' main 'stars' were Rex and Tex (by Steve Bright), a lion and a unicorn based on the newspaper's coat of arms. This went from two pages at its peak, down to a measly three panels before being dropped altogether. Other good strips from the old Funday Times included Deputy Dink (Ed McHenry), Fish Tales (Mark Grant), Skulls (uncredited?), Numskulls, Bananaman and Beryl The Peril (courtesy of the Beano/Dandy/Topper). There is usually an Asterix or Tintin serial as well (Asterix was the comic's original front- and back-page strip).

By 1992, the format had changed to a regular unstapled broadsheet section. By 2001 (or probably long before), the Funday Times became unmitigated crap: a shambolic 'tie-in' comic on the front (e.g. Scooby Doo or Bugs Bunny, created by a soulless comic strip generating machine), and a kiddified lifestyle section on the inside, with great swathes of blank space and 'celebrity' interviews. The only comic strips from the good old days to have survived are a page of mind-numbingly crap 'English' comics (i.e. drawn in a 'sloppy' style with lame, tame Blue Peter style jokes: HAHA, IT'S A SNAKE TRYING TO PLAY A XYLOPHONE!) - space-filling rubbish, basically.

Bloody Murdoch.