Canadian-born William Maxwell Aitken emigrated to Britain in 1910 and soon after began building a newspaper empire. In 1911 he was knighted, becoming the 1st Baron Beaverbrook, a title subsequently used for his newspaper group, Beaverbrook Newspapers, which in 1916 bought the Daily Express newspaper, originally launched in 1900 by Sir Arthur Pearson. Over the years the Daily Express and its sister paper, the Sunday Express, would feature the debut publication of several notable comic strips, including Rupert Bear, Jeff Hawke, Four D Jones. The Gambols and Giles; in 1957 they were responsible for providing the first comic outing for Ian Fleming's spy James Bond, with their seminal strips now being reprinted by Titan Books.
Though mainly a newspaper publisher, Beaverbrook also produced a few comics. On 4th September 1954 they launched the Junior Express, a newspaper aimed at younger readers which featured comic strips alongside the news reports, then, over a comparatively short space of time, the news content was reduced and then dropped entirely in favour of the comic strip content. Viewed as a challenger to Hulton Press' Eagle, the Junior Express soon changed its title to Express Weekly. At some point Beaverbrook also purchased TV Comic from rival newspaper group News of the World, before subsequently selling it to TV Publications and refocussing Express Weekly's content towards licensed strips related to TV show, renaming it TV Express. They would eventually sell it to Polystyle, who had also bought TV Comic from TV Publications.
In 1977, after a change of ownership, the company was renamed Express Newspapers.
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