Captain Caution

Here's a little oddity... a comic strip issued as an A4 flyer by British Rail warning youngsters of the dangers of playing on railway lines. Along the lines of the Green Cross Code Man, the BR campaign features Captain Caution, drawn by Ron Smith. I believe this was published in May 1986, at which time Smith was drawing Judge Dredd for the Daily Star. My thanks to Richard Sheaf who sent this over.

 

 

(* My thanks to Richard Sheaf who sent this over.)

The Champions part 4

 

(* Matchbox® is now a registered trademark of Mattel Inc.)

The Champions part 3

 

 

(* Matchbox® is now a registered trademark of Mattel Inc.)

The Champions part 2

 

 

(* Matchbox® is now a registered trademark of Mattel Inc.)

Clash of the Titans

With the 3D remake in cinemas it is an appropriate time to take a look back at the British comic strips associated with the original Clash Of The Titans film.

Clash of the Titans

by Jeremy Briggs

Released in 1981, Clash Of The Titans was stop motion animator Ray Harryhausen’s last and most expensive movie which told the tale of the Greek myth of Perseus slaying the Gorgon and saving the princess Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus. As with many of the Harryhausen films, other mythologies are mixed in and in Clash’s case Cetus was replaced with the better known Kraken from Norse mythology.

Harryhausen movies have been well served by comics over the years mainly in the USA where Dell, Gold Key and Marvel have all released comic versions of his films. In Britain the first comic strip based on a Harryhausen film was Robert MacGillivray’s adaptation of Mighty Joe Young in Sun comic beginning in 1949, but it was during the 1970s that his films were best served with Kevin O’Neill drawing the Seventh Voyage Of Sinbad in Legend Horror Classics, John Bolton drawing One Million Years B.C. in House of Hammer and Ian Gibson drawing Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger in the movie special magazine edited by Dez Skinn. However the British comic strips of Clash Of The Titans have a rather more intriguing story.

The best known British Clash comic is the unusual Look-In Film Special which, if the number of second hand copies still around almost 30 years later is anything to go by, must have been pretty popular at the time. Unlike anything else released under the Look-In title, this is actually a British publication of the American Golden Press adaptation written by Mary Carey with art by Dan Spiegel. While Spiegel does a reasonable job of catching the likenesses of the characters and monsters, with the notable exception of the Kraken, the British edition doesn’t serve the film that well with its poor cover and garish colours. One can only imagine what it might have been like if a regular Look-In artist such as Mike Noble had been commissioned to illustrate it.

However there was a original British comic strip of Clash Of The Titans with black and white art by Modesty Blaise artist Patrick Wright. It appeared in 2000AD and ran for six weeks, yet you will find it in no 2000AD reference book or online database. Why? Because it also appeared in Warlord and other comics of the time. The British Clash Of The Titans was a comic strip advert for the film which also promoted Smith’s Snacks.

Smith’s Snacks, or Smith’s Crisps as they are better remembered, were running a £10,000 holiday competition along as a tie-in with Clash Of The Titans on their packets. Smiths were the manufacturers of Monster Munch so perhaps an advertising tie-in with a movie full of monsters isn’t quite such a stretch of the imagination as it first appears.

The half page adverts told the story of the film in abbreviated form over six weeks. In IPC’s 2000AD it ran from Prog 214 dated 30 May 1981 to Prog 219 dated 4 July 1981 while it also appeared in DC Thomson titles. The issues of Warlord that it was in were 349 to 354, which have the same cover dates as 2000AD, although Warlord managed to reprint the first advert instead of the second advert in issue 350 and then got back on track with the third one in issue 351. Since Clash was one of the big family movies of that summer it can be seen from the issue dates that the adverts were being used as a prolonged trailer for the child readers of the comics as they end as the school summer holidays would have been starting. While it does seem like an odd idea now, the deservedly forgotten Tippi Hedren and Melanie Griffith wild animal movie Roar also received the same treatment around the same time.

With no speech balloons, the story is told through text boxes with the film split down into six story segments. These cover the Perseus receiving his gifts from the god Zeus that will help him in his quest, his capture of the winged horse Pegasus, his battle with the three-headed dog Dioskilos, his battle with Medusa, his battle with the giant scorpions, and finally his battle with the deformed Calibos. The strip left the story at this point before the climactic battle with the Kraken encouraging the readers to “Now see the action-packed full colour film Clash Of The Titans.”

Patrick Wright’s artwork is clean, clear and accurate as befits the advertiser’s need to represent the characters and monsters as they would be seen in the film. By that time, with a mixture of comics work behind him that included strips in 2000AD and Battle, Pat Wright had illustrated Modesty Blaise in the London Evening Standard from 25 November 1979 through to 14 October 1980, taking over the "Eve and Adam" story from the departing John M Burns and then illustrating the full length of the ten month long "Brethren Of Blaise". Since the Clash strip had a similar action/adventure theme to Modesty and needed the same conciseness of art that a daily adventure strip demanded, perhaps it was his Modesty Blaise work that helped Wright get the commission. After his work on the adverts he would go one to illustrate various strips in IPC’s new Eagle and DC Thomson’s The Crunch.

But that wasn’t the end of the story for the Clash advertising strip. In the early 1980s the main monthly magazine that would feature fantasy films was Marvel UK’s Starburst and issue 34 had a two page advert of the Clash of The Titans comic strip also advertising the Smith’s Snacks tie-in. Yet while it was published at the same time to advertise the same film with a comic strip by the same artist, this was no reprint or reformatting of the six half page weekly strips. Instead Pat Wright redrew the entire story to fit the full page portrait format of Starburst. It is to his credit that while it would have been easy to copy his own panels from the weekly version on the whole he does not, with only the two climactic panels of Perseus holding the Gorgon’s head and later killing Calibos with his sword appearing to be similar.

They may not be the full length comic strip that the fans would have liked to appear but the two advertising strips for Clash Of The Titans remain unusual additions to the Harryhausen comics collection.

This article includes all six weekly versions of the Clash Of The Titans advertising strip. The two page version of the strip appears below to allow readers to compare the two versions.

(* Clash Of The Titans © MGM.)

Clashs of the Titans supplemental

(* Clash of the Titans © MGM.)

Stingray Inflatable

A somewhat random addition to the post below. Norman Boyd recently sent me over the above scan of a Stingray advert drawn by Ron Embleton from July 1965. For you youngsters, 15/6 was fifteen shillings and sixpence, or 77 1/2 pence in "new money". That's pretty cheap as the retail price index is probably only 14 times greater today in comparison to 1965, making the cost of the inflatable around £10.75 today if we were only to consider average price increases.

You can see what the inflatable looks like here.

Advertising: Bellamy, Horak, Langford

My recent trek through the pages of Look and Learn turned up a few interesting adverts from the pens of comic strip artists, Frank Bellamy, Larry Horak and Frank Langford.

The Bellamy is known to fans but this was the first time I'd seen it. I'm told by Norman Boyd (of the Frank Bellamy Checklist) that this appearance on 1 May 1971 predates the previously known first appearance.

The Horak advertises the latest in a long line of Brooke Bond picture card series, probably known to every person of a certain age in the UK. The little album shown in the advert was issued by Brooke Bond and children who grew up in the sixties and seventies would pester their mums to buy their tea so we (and I include myself here) could get the free cards that were slipped into every packet. By coincidence, I still have the History of Aviation album, not quite complete, that dates from 1972. Horak is, of course, better known as the artist of the James Bond newspaper strip, which he drew for about 12 years from 1966.

Frank Langford we've covered before, so you can see more examples of his adverts here and here, the latter link offering a little background information on the artist.

Still Smoking? Yes Sir!

As an unrepentant smoker (although I heartily recommend that you don't start!), I couldn't resist the Bar One adverts which appeared in the early 1950s. Mr. A. Withers of Holloway tells us: "30 to 40 cigarettes a day is my average and I wouldn't like to cut down. So I smoke Bar Ones! At 2/8 for 20 I save nearly two bob a day". I imagine Mr. A. Withers is likely to have had a very unpleasant and weazy death.

Joking aside, any excuse to air a couple of cartoons by H. M. Bateman is worth grabbing.

"The Vicar's not pulling his weight!"

Three examples of Horlicks advertising from the 1950s. Nobody seems to have any idea who the artists might be, although the first two at least are the kind of thing that Geoff Squire did very well.

Adverts from Daily Graphic (1952) and Picture Post (1955), the latter grabbed from eBay. My thanks to John Adcock of Yesterday's Papers for the two examples from the Graphic.

Battle Picture Library launch ad

Since I'm celebrating the release of the latest Carlton war libraries reprint, Against All Odds: War Picture Library Vol. 2 (scroll down for more details), I thought I'd post this, which I've just stumbled across in an issue of Film Fun—a 4-page advert for the first two issues of Battle Picture Library, which was launched that month.

If you're interested in finding out "What happens next?" you can... The Rats of Tobruk was one of the stories I featured in Death or Glory.

KP Alien Spacers

Following on from the appearance of the KP Outer Spacers advertising strip (which I've now put together in proper reading order here), Richard Sheaf sent over a similar styled ad. for the KP Alien Spacers -- as Outer Spacers were rebranded. These adverts appeared in the new Eagle in the 1980s and were drawn by... well, it looks like Robin Smith who also drew 'Detective Zed' for Eagle but is probably best known for his work as an art droid for 2000AD and as the artist of The Bogie Man.

With thanks to Richard for the scans. Coming Soon: Clarks Commandos - Series Four!

Clarks Commandos Series 3 - part 1

After a brief rest, Kit Carter's back on his holidays with the rest of the Clarks Commandos team for another adventure which I'll run in three blocks of episodes.

Artwork is by Tom Kerr. Come back tomorrow for more.

Clarks Commandos Series 3 - part 2

Part two of the latest adventure for Kit Carter and the Clarks Commandos.

Artwork by the wonderful Tom Kerr... the adventure concludes tomorrow.