Pink Floyd 1974 tour programme

Pink Floyd played the Liverpool Empire in November 1974 on their Wish You Were Here tour with a brilliant programme. 'The Pink Floyd Super All-Action Official Music Programme for Boys and Girls' was done in the form of a 16-page comic with a colour cover. The main elements were two-page comic strips based on alter-egos for each of the band:

• 'Rog of the Rovers' with Roger Waters as a footballing hero in the style of Roy of the Rovers
• 'Captain Mason R.N.' was the alter-ego of Nick Mason in the sort of wartime strip by Richard Evans you might have seen in Victor or Valiant
• 'Rich Right' espoused a 'strip' cartoon that might have been seen in Penthouse or Playboy for Richard Wright;
• and, finally, 'The Exploits of Dave Derring' saw the speedway hero of Dave Gilmour's dreams.

As well as these, there was:

• the colour cover by Paul Stubbs showing two Marvel-type characters approaching the Pink Floyd pyramid in their space ship. The dialogue bubbles were: 'What is it? Could there be any form of creative intelligence out there?' with the reply, 'I don't know, Storm ... but I'm getting nil response from my transfer globe.'
• page 2 gave all the credits for the tour, including for the programme: Hipgnosis & Nick Mason; Gerald Scarfe - whom Pink Floyd later worked with on The Wall; and fantastic illustrators in Paul Stubbs; Joe Petagno; Colin Elgie; Richard Evans; and Dave Gale. The printing was done by John Bloom Printers.
• page 5 gave the 'life lines' for each of the band;
• the centre spread was a Gerald Scarfe cartoon of the band dated October 1974;
• page 12 is a quiz (did you know the Italian film director Antonioni tore the Floyd's film score to pieces?);
• page 15 gave the lyrics to 'Shine on You Crazy Diamond' (released on Wish You Were Here'); 'Raving and Drooling' (a version of which called 'Sheep' is on Animals); and 'Gotta Be Crazy', also on Animals;
• the colour back cover gave instructions for forming the 'Pink Floyd Lucky Pyramid Sign'.

The Rich Right (He's rich and He's Right!) cartoon by Joe Petagno made reference to several films, books and cartoon characters, including Charlton Heston (shouting Annie Goni!), Alex from the Burgess / Kubrick film Clockwork Orange as a party crasher ('Rich, I understand you own a cork hawk with a forked dork?'); Mad magazine's Alfred E. Neuman mascot; and Rupert the Bear ('Gotta find Brumas'). Back to top