Long-time readers will know I'm a big fan of Roland Davies, whose "Come On, Steve!" has been mentioned here quite a few times over the years, so you can imagine how pleased I am to have stumbled across a previously unrecorded strip by Davies in the pages of Everybody's: "Sporty Shorty"—or "Sporting Shorty" as the title seemed to change each week. Davies was a master of the pantomime gag strip... and here's a small selection (sadly all I have) so you can judge for yourself. All date from 1939, the first appearing on 15 April.
(* Everybody's © IPC Media.)
Sporty Shorty appears quite similar to Sportin' Sam (?) who used to appear on the back of the Sunday Express and was by Reg Wootton. I remember about 20/30 years ago there was a comment by the weekly cartoon saying that it was the last one due to the poor health of Reg Wootton & that was that.
ReplyDeleteWootton eventually died in 1995. I've just noticed that a handful of original art boards for his "Sporting Sam" strip are being sold on eBay.
ReplyDeleteFunny enough I spotted those Sporting Sam Original Art boards on ebay whilst searching for something completely different!!
ReplyDeleteWhilst on the Express newspaper, I just posted a Carl Giles post over on my blog. Someone has commented asking if Giles ever contributed to a cover for the guinness book of world records back in the 70's. I have no idea!! Do you have any recollection of this Steve??
Piley
Piley,
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't ring any bells but that's not to say that it didn't happen. Nice post on Giles, by the way.