Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Derek Pierson (1938-2016)

Derek Pierson at the Cheshire Cheese in 2006
Derek Pierson, at various times a member of the art departments at Hulton Press, Odhams and Fleetway Publications/IPC, has died at the age of 77. He was diagnosed with cancer some sixteen months ago and had suffered through lengthy radiotherapy and chemotherapy treatments and several hospital stays during 2015, only to find that the cancer had re-emerged at the end of the year, resulting in more weeks of treatment. In April he was hospitalised  with fluid on his lungs and kidney stones.

Even before his hospitalisation, Derek was fiercely anti-Tory and argued passionately against the privatisation of the NHS and the imposition of an unjust contract on Junior Doctor. These were topics that dominated his posts on Facebook, although other shared posts revealed he retained his wicked sense of humour even in adversity.

Derek’s career spanned several decades in comics and he made many good friends, whom he was happy to meet and correspond with. To his surprise, a younger generation of fans also began contacting him and he graciously helped where he could. I met Derek in 2006, having been invited to a pub get-together of former Fleetway staff and he later told me, “To be honest I can't believe how much interest is shown in our world of comics from those days. I wish I had kept a diary and noted some of the landmarks along the way, as I lettered my way (to pay the mortgage and feed the kids) through some of the masterpieces being produced every week for the various comics and mags I did work for.”

Born in Woodford, Essex, on 22 November 1938, Derek James Pierson was the second son of Henry John Charles Pierson, a ship’s joiner working in construction, and his wife Madeline Elizabeth (née Luckman), who were married in West Ham in 1934.

Derek attended St Barnabas Secondary School, Woodford Green, leaving at the age of 15 to work in a variety of jobs—at a bakery, an insurance office in Holborn and at Foyles Book Shop’s warehouse in Charing Cross Road. In 1955, and in order to find himself a more prospective career, he approached the Youth Employment Bureau, through which he obtained a post as a messenger boy in the postal department at Hulton Press.

At the age of 18, when a vacancy opened up, Derek was able to join the art department responsible for Eagle, Girl, Swift and Robin, honing his design skills as Hultons paid for him to attend St Martin’s School one afternoon a week and for two evening classes a week in typography and design at the London School of Printing in Black Hill. Realising that his talent did not lay in illustration—“I couldn’t draw to save my life!” he would later admit—he switched to a further evening course in magazine design. Work in the art department also involved making good artwork that had been editorially changed, hand lettering titles—one of his favourite tasks—and hand-lettering balloons, a task Derek was later to specialise in.

In 1959, and with wedding plans in the air, Derek joined Express Weekly after receiving a better offer from Beaverbrook Newspapers, only for the paper to fold less than two years later. Derek began freelance lettering for Fleetway Publications on the War and Battle picture library titles and early issues of Buster, but, now married, had to seek full time work with Bristow Helicopters at Redhill Aerodrome ordering spare parts for aircraft, and with a local engineering firm as a progress chaser.

Finding the work as dull as ditchwater, he jumped at a chance to join Odhams Press, working in John Jackson’s art department on Eagle, Girl and Boys’ World and later found himself cutting and pasting of American strips to make them fit the British format for the Power Comics titles managed by Alf Wallace. Wallace, notorious for his indecision, caused many a late night: “He used to change his mind so much on the text in a balloon that sometimes the area of the correction(s) stood up proud from the surface of the rest of the artwork by millimetres.”

Following the demise of the Power Comics, Derek returned to Fleetway working on Jinty, Sandie and other girls’ titles before heading “over Blackfriars Bridge to Faulty Towers” to work for Whizzer & Chips and other humour titles under the management of Bob Paynter.

Derek was married to Rita Shubrook in October 1960 and they enjoyed over 50 years of happy marriage. For most of that time they lived in Hornchurch, Essex.

Rita survives him, as do their children, Gary and Jacki, and a number of grandchildren.

(* photograph: Fraser Gray)

8 comments:

  1. I worked with Derek in his latter years as he was finishing his career and I was starting mine. Derek worked for a little company called Gidea Graphics and I joined in 1996 whilst learning to be a Graphic Designer. Derek later told me that on first impressions he thought "here comes jack the lad who knows it all.." and being a young man without much confidence I was shocked that he felt this way. No sooner had I started he offered to pick me up and drop me home from work and in his old Ford Fiesta, he would spend time telling me about his varied career and the many antics that he got up to. Over the years we stayed in contact and I would try to see him at least once a month. He was a true friend and would be more than happy to listen to your problems and give you frank and friendly advise. Derek's most notable trait was his sense of humour, wether it was reminiscing of old comedy greats or telling humours tails, Derek always knew the right thing to say. I remember once a debate in the office about politics which was getting rather heated, when Derek spoke up and said. "It doesn't matter who you vote for the government always gets in"... He was a good friend a mentor and a teacher and he will be sadly missed.

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  2. Hi David,

    Thanks for sharing your memories of Derek. Yes, he had a wicked sense of humour, even when things seemed dark.

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  3. I wasn't able to read this earlier and it just hurt so much. But thank you for writing this, Dad would have been chuffed to bits by it. And also for all the money we have raised via Just giving and at his funeral for Cancer research and Macmillan - At last count £680. Which really would have left him speechless (this didn't happen often!)

    He is missed every day by us all.

    Jacki

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  4. Hi Jacki,

    It was my pleasure to chat to your Dad a couple of times at IPC get-togethers at the Cheshire Cheese and I was very sorry to hear that he had passed away. The news that you've managed to raise so much for charity in his name is most heartwarming.

    Kindest regards,

    Steve

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  5. Derek was friends with IPC art assistant Kevin Brighton, who I usually worked alongside on my weekly jaunts down to London in the mid-'80s. Consequently, I got to meet Derek and the three of us would sometimes lunch together in the King's Reach Tower canteen. I remember him mentioning working on the Power Comics when he saw me with some bound volumes of Wham! and Smash! (given to me by a senior editor), as I sat leafing through them on the 26th floor. I didn't know Derek well, but am saddened to hear of his passing. There's a photo of him and Kevin on my blog somewhere, taken in the canteen. It only seems like yesterday since I took it - hard to believe it was over 30 years ago.

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    1. Hi, Gordon, you'll remember me, again, then as I'm Marc! Derek was a really nice guy, amiable and humorous (as I've mentioned here somewhere), I worked with him on the short lived "Wow!" Comic. Some sad news regarding this again, Kevin, sadly died of pancreatic cancer about this time last year (5.9.2021, I think). I, too am saddened about both Derek and Kevin, whom we knew together. Trust you, yourself, are well.

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  6. I worked with Derek in around 1983, always a nice, amiable, humorous guy, we played darts at lunchtime in the office. Really sorry to hear he'd died in just 2016.

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    1. Marc... were you working on Buster in the 1980s?

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