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 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' in the Tiger comic
• 'Captain Mason R.N.' was the alter-ego of Nick Mason in the sort of wartime strip you might have seen in Victor or Valiant comics
• 'Rich Right' was a 'strip' cartoon seen in the likes of Penthouse or Playboy for Richard Wright;
• and, finally, 'The Exploits of Dave Derring' created 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 a spaceship. 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 Michelangelo Blow-Up 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 films, music, books and cartoon characters, including:
  
  • Charlton Heston (shouting Annie Goni! – Annigoni, the Italian painter?);
  • 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;
  • Rupert the Bear ('Gotta find Brumas');
  • the fakir is chanting 'Needles and Pins Uh!' – a No 1 hit for the Searchers in 1964;
  • a pipe-smoking Hugh Hefner, founder of Playboy magazine, is at the bottom right ('Find out which side he dresses').