Seven Days a Week (5)

"Shoot", and just in case you can't figure out where you are supposed to be aiming the ball, "Incorporating Goal". (Shoot, 1975)

Comic Clippings - 19 April

The Sun carried a feature by Grant Rollings on the new St. Trinian's film under the headline 'Story behind sexy new movie' (19 April). Not sure how long the link will work but it offered some background on Ronald Searle and his wartime exploits, explaining how he came up with the idea whilst in the Army in Scotland in 1941, based on the real-life St. Trinnean's school for young ladies. The first St. Trinian's cartoon appeared in the October 1942 issue Lilliput, by which time Searle was on duty in Singapore; a few days later he was taken prisoner when the British forces surrendered and found himself in Changi Prison where more than 800 of his fellow prisoners died. The movie stars Rupert Everett (in the twin role of headmistress Camilla Fritton and her brother), Colin Firth, Russell Brand, Stephen Fry, Celia Imrie, Emily Watson and model Lily Cole. Dirk Deppey at Journalista links to this essay which offers a far more comprehensive history of the St. Trinian's series. The Independent carries a longer piece, 'St Trinian's belles to ring once more' by Guy Adams (19 April) but no pictures. The Daily Mail and Guardian also covered the news that model Lily Cole was joining the cast a while back (11 April) and the Mail has some new pics (19 April) of girl band Girls Aloud dressed up.

Other news in brief:

• Pat Mills pays tribute to Massimo Belardinelli at Down the Tubes (18 April).

• Congratulations to Rich Johnson who posted his 100th Lying in the Gutters column (16 April)

Dorothy Craigie (Dorothy Glover)

Meanwhile, back at Robin Annual (yes, I'm still working on that!), we take a look at someone who contributed to the first two editions.

The British Library lists our author as "Dorothy Craigie, later Dorothy Glover" but the evidence is against them. Miss Dorothy Glover was how she was born and how she remained her whole life; Dorothy Craigie was a pen-name, pure and simple.

Dorothy Mary Glover was born in Wandsworth, London, the daughter of Albert (a gas engineer's bar keeper) and his wife Isabella Glover.

She is probably best known as an illustrator for a series of children's books written by Graham Greene for Eyre & Spottiswoode and Max Parrish and her collaboration with Greene on a bibliography of Victorian detective novels.

A rather useful website relating to the Dorothy Craigie Collection at Georgetown University reveals that:

"Graham Greene (1904-1991) and Dorothy Glover (1901-1971) met in the spring of 1939 when he rented a studio from her in Mecklenburg Square for writing. At the time she was working as a theatre costume designer in London. They began an affair shortly after, Greene moving in with Glover as his family was in the countryside. During the Blitz of London in 1940-1941, Glover and Greene both served as neighbourhood fire wardens. By 1946 his loyalty and interest in the affair was decreasing, but they continued to live together until the summer of 1948, when he moved into an apartment adjacent to Catherine Walston's, who he had met and begun an affair with the year before."

Their first collaboration, published in the autumn of 1946, was The Little Train, which originally appeared under the name Dorothy Craigie, "with illustrations by the author," and only reissued as by Greene in 1957. She continued to illustrate stories for Greene after they split but Glover subsequently sold a number of manuscripts at Sotheby's in 1964, including the MS to The Power and the Glory, A Burnt-out Case, three children's books and the screenplay of Brighton Rock.

The above illustration (from The Little Horse Bus by Graham Greene, 1966) comes from this site which notes, "Dorothy Craigie's work should be better known -- her own stories (Rufty Tufty) as well as work for other authors. She is one of the minority of English illustrators who could handle large areas of flat colour with no inhibition. She uses advertising signs and other forms of commercial lettering to great effect in her work."

Following the release of The Little Train, she wrote two further books for Eyre & Spottiswoode, Summersalts Circus as by Dorothy Craigie and The Voyage of the Luna I as by David Craigie. She continued to write under these two names until 1960 as well as illustrating books for Ruth Ainsworth (the 'Rufty Tufty' series) and others. The majority of her work was published by Max Parrish, although she also produced illustrations for The Sphere and Tatler.

She lived at Alberta, West Beeches Road, Crowborough, where she died on 23 November 1971.

Books as Dorothy Craigie (all illustrated by the author)

Summersalts Circus. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1947.
The Little Balloon. London, Max Parrish, 1953.
Akoo and the Crocodile who Cried. London, Max Parrish, 1954.
Akoo and the Sad Small Elephant. London, Max Parrish, 1954.
The Little Parrot who Thought he was a Pirate. London, Max Parrish, 1954.
The Saucy Cockle. London, Max Parrish, 1955.
Captain Flint, Detective. London, Max Parrish, 1957.
Tim Hooley's Hero. London, Max Parrish, 1957.
Captain Flint to the Rescue. London, Max Parrish, 1958.
Tim Hooley's Haunting. London, Max Parrish, 1958.
Captain Flint, Kidnapped. London, Max Parrish, 1959.
Captain Flint Shipwrecked. London, Max Parrish, 1960.
Nicky and Nigger and the Pirate. London, Max Parrish, 1960.
Nicky and Nigger join the Circus. London, Max Parrish, 1960.

Books as David Craigie
The Voyage of the Luna I by David Craigie. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1948.
Dark Atlantis by David Craigie. London, William Heinemann, 1951.
Mick of the River by David Craigie. London, Max Parrish, 1960.

Non-fiction
Victorian Detective Fiction. A catalogue of the collection, with Graham Greene; bibliographically arranged by Eric Osborne. London, Bodley Head, 1966.

Illustrated Books as Dorothy Craigie
The Little Train, by Dorothy Craigie. London, Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1946; as by Graham Greene, London, Max Parrish, 1957.
Chimney Cottage by M. E. Atkinson. London, Bodley Head, 1947.
The Little Fire Engine by Graham Greene. London, Max Parrish, 1950.
Clever Polly by Catherine Storr. London, Faber & Faber, 1952.
The Little Horse Bus by Graham Greene. London, Max Parrish, 1952.
Rufty Tufty the Golliwog by Ruth Ainsworth. London, William Heinemann, 1952.
The Little Steamroller by Graham Greene. London, Max Parrish, 1953.
Rufty Tufty at the Seaside by Ruth Ainsworth. London, William Heinemann, 1954.
The Adventures of Clara Chuff by Harry Harrison. London, Hulton Press, 1956.
Rufty Tufty Goes Camping by Ruth Ainsworth. London, William Heinemann, 1956.
Rufty Tufty Runs Away by Ruth Ainsworth. London, William Heinemann, 1957.
Buster by B. A. Benson. London, Max Parrish, 1961.

Seven Days a Week (4)

Thursday's child...

In the days before V For Vendetta there was Night Raven by Steve Parkhouse and David Lloyd in Hulk Comic, part of Dez Skinn's Marvel Revolution. (Hulk Comic 1979)

Seven Days a Week (3)

Continuing Jeremy Briggs' look back at the days when you could buy a new comic every day of the week...

Colour Ezquerra art in an advert for Marvel UK's very short lived Fury war comic, and a cheeky strap line considering that its big rival would have been IPC's Battle comic which Carlos Ezquerra was a regular artist for. (Fury, 1977)

Comic Clippings - 17 April

It's beginning to look like the rumoured death of Massimo Belardinelli is more than a rumour. Journalista quotes a letter from Lambiek Comiclopedia editor Bas Schuddeboom saying that he heard the news from an Italian cartoonist. "We received the news in an e-mail from comic artist [name withheld*], who had worked with him on several projects. I don't know if [name witheld] read about the news on the internet, but I presume that he heard it more directly."

* Dirk Deppey explains that he was unable to check with Schuddeboom to OK revealing the source of the information before going to 'print'.

• Steve Flanagan has produced a superbly illustrated review of Bryan Talbot's Alice in Sunderland. I'm still only halfway through the book but it is utterly captivating. Dense, yes, but never confusing; unfocused in places, certainly, but never less than fascinating. The artwork is a series of photo and comic strip collages with occasional breaks for a number of smaller stories within the story drawn in a variety of styles. I'm expecting to find the kitchen sink in the latter half of the book.

• Panini Comics in Germany has a video interview with David Lloyd. Lloyd also has an official website if you've not spotted it already.

• Long-time 2000AD fan and former editor of Class of '79, W. R. Logan, has a blog, La Placa Rifa.

• The Lost Characters of Frank Hampson website by Wakefield Carter and Alastair Crompton has recently been updated.

In the Post

The Spring 2007 issue of Eagle Times (curiously misnumbered vol.20 no.2) is out with articles about Keith Watson's Dan Dare and a continuation of the 'Frank Hampson Locations' feature from earlier issues. There seems to be a large amount of non-Eagle material this issue (Pop music of the Fifties, Geoffrey Bond's 'The Magic of Sanders', part 3 of a feature on Dick Barton) which I know some Eagle Society members won't be happy with. Personally I don't mind one or two -- it helps put the Eagle in context -- but I have noticed the increase. With some writers siphoned off to pastures Awaaaaay! I suspect Eagle Times may be struggling to find new ways to cover the same ground.

The March 2007 issue of Fumetto has also arrived. Makes me weep to think that there is nothing of this quality published in the UK. This is published in Italy by ANAFI (Associazione Nazionale Amici del Fumetto e dell'Illustrazioni) and it's big: 9 ½" x 11 ¼" with over 50 b/w pages of densely packed text. My Italian is lousy but I've picked up enough over the years to make some sort of sense of the articles, usually those where I recognise the names of the artists and know something of their work. This issue includes features on various incarnations of 'Buffalo Bill' strips in Italy, 'Ben Casey' (the US newspaper strip), Gino D'Antonio, Hugo Pratt and a special insert on Antonio Canale. The coverage is mostly material from the 1950s and 1960s which is my particular area of interest. Although Eagle Times, Spaceship Away, Jeff Hawke's Cosmos and Redeye all have worthy qualities, there's still nothing out there to cure my craving for articles and interviews with the folks who created the comics I grew up with. Would there be an audience for such a magazine? I'm not convinced there is. Yeah, I'm talking sacrilege, I know but I'm talking from experience. There are a number of people who are hugely enthusiastic but I've been involved with most of the comics' fanzines that concentrate on British comics that have come out in the last 20 years and none of them had a sustainable circulation and most had the same five or six writers doing all the work.

Sometimes I wonder if the way to go is big and expensive. Most fanzines are targeted and kept as cheap as possible to keep it within the reach of their small audience. Eagle Times, for example, publishes four issues a year for £22. Redeye can put out a 100+ page squarebound magazine for £4 an issue. So why not a magazine -- a book, really -- of 200+ pages for £10-12 twice a year. Tons of space for the widest possible coverage, for some really in-depth pieces, lots of illustrations.

Hey, I'm allowed to daydream.

Seven Days a Week (2)

The past, the present and the future all came together on a Tuesday, before Tiger was taken over by the sportsmen. (Tiger Annual 1963):

Seven Days a Week (1)

Jeremy Briggs is back with another contribution so I'll step aside and let him introduce...

DAYS OF THE WEEK - BRITISH COMICS STYLE

These days with the current crop of comics being a mixture of weekly (Beano, Dandy, 2000AD), bi-weekly (Toxic, Doctor Who Adventures), sort of monthly (Judge Dredd Megazine, Doctor Who Magazine) and bi-monthly (2000AD Extreme Edition), it is easy to forget that there was a a time when you could have bought a different comic every day of the week. Well, perhaps not Sunday, when you should have been going to church rather than discovering how many Cow Pies Desperate Dan had eaten, how many ragin' furies Captain Hurricane had flown into, or how many perps Dredd had judged. Mind you, Presbyterian Scotland even had Sunday covered as well.

Monday - what are all the boys up the road doing tonight? Probably not reading their Lion comic after finishing chopping wood, or reading it whilst eating dinner in their school uniform. (Lion Annual 1958):

Look and Learn website

The Look and Learn website has undergone something of a revamp and now has a host of new features including a blog-style column for articles culled from the pages of Look and Learn; there are only a handful up at the moment but it should develop quickly. The selection is deliberately somewhat random -- so far you'll find Aardvarks rubbing shoulders with Edmund Spenser's 'The Faerie Queen' and Neville Chamberlain waving his famous piece of paper at Evans of the Broke.

We've also uploaded a number of issues of The Children's Newspaper, the famous Arthur Mee-edited magazine that ran from 1919 to 1965. It's a fascinating trip back in time to bygone years. Today's issue, for instance, is from 16 April 1938 and contains a piece noting that there are now 40 million motor-vehicles on the road; elsewhere on the same page you'll learn that it was the centenary anniversary of the invention of blotting paper and a manufacturer from Melbourne was looking for 30 spinners to take from Lancashire to Australia to teach Australian workers how to spin cotton.

The Children's Newspaper was definitely of its time: some of the pieces show how insensitive we were to race and creed back then; the run of Children's Newspaper shows how attitudes and lifestyles changed over those 46 years. It also follows all the major discoveries in science and about our world and others although I'm guessing that social historians will be more interested in how it charts the growth of things like television and pop music.

A history of the paper can be found here. LLM will also be making the whole paper available in searchable PDF format on a set of DVDs at the knockdown price of £59.99 in June. The set can be pre-ordered here.

I've been quite astonished at the success of our children's art competition. We've now had over 400 entries with increasing numbers coming from abroad -- the website is global, after all. There are some very imaginative and colourful entries and, if you have kids, why not encourage them to try their hands.

The Picture Gallery, which is my corner of the site these days, is now up to 15,745 images and there are many, many more to follow. I arrived back home from the office last week with half a terabyte of artwork images on a spiffy new hard drive, so that'll be keeping me busy over the next few months. A vast amount of original artwork is in the process of being photographed and cleaned up so we will have many more examples going up over the coming weeks.

So that's phase 2 of the website up and running... go visit the site and take a look for yourselves. Send some comments into the blog, look at the stunning array of pictures, download a copy of The Children's Newspaper... go on. You know you want to.

Squadron Leader Neville Duke (1922-2007)

Second World War air ace and test pilot Neville Frederick Duke died on 7 April at the age of 85. He enlisted in the RAF in 1940, earning his pilot's wings in February 1941, and was posted to 92 Squadron at Biggin Hill flying sorties over France. After serving with 112 Squadron in the Middle East (where he earned his DFC, the first of many awards), he returned to 92 Squadron, now in North Africa, as a flight commander where he racked up even more 'kills' and awards; his third tour of duty was as CO of 145 Squadron in Italy. His final combat total was 27.

After the war, Duke became a test pilot for the RAF High Speed Flights and Hawker and went on to set speed records in Hawker P1067 Hunter. He retired as chief test pilot in 1956 but continued to do consultancy work and later formed his own company, Duke Aviation. He also produced a number of books, including Sound Barrier (1953), Test Pilot (1953), Neville Duke's Book of Flight, edited by Edward Lanchbery (1958), The Crowded Sky, edited with Lanchbery (1959; also published as The Saga of Flight) and The War Diaries of Neville Duke (1995).

Obituaries: Daily Telegraph (13 April), The Guardian (14 April), The Times (16 April).

In case you're wondering, Duke's connection with comics is a series of articles called 'Into the Blue' that appeared in Ranger in 1965-66 which were credited to Duke and drawn by various artists. The series continued when Ranger merged with Look and Learn and became a long-running (1966-69) feature drawn by Wilf Hardy. Whether Duke actually contributed anything to the Ranger series other than his name is unknown (it's seems unlikely) but the series did include five episodes of a strip series on 'Famous Fighter Aces' which Duke himself could so easily have starred in.

Comic Clippings - 14 April 2007

News has filtered through that Massimo Belardinelli, best known for his work in 2000AD (Wikipedia entry), died in March following a long illness.

Born in 1938, Belardinelli's first work in the UK was 'The Steel Claw' for the Fleetway Super Library in 1967, inking and drawing backgrounds for Giorgio Cambiotti whilst working with Studio Rosi. Studio Rosi took over the weekly strip in Valiant in 1968 with Belardinelli continuing to ink in a style reminiscent of the strip's original artist, Jesus Blasco. In 1969-70, he worked on various strips for Lion.

As a member of Giolitti studio in the 1970s, he drew backgrounds for Alberto Giolitti on the Gold Key titles Turok, Son of Stone and Star Trek, also drawing 'Atlan' as a back-up strip in the German comic Perry. He was one of the many artists to contribute to 'Rat Pack' in Battle Picture Weekly before drawing 'Greens Grudge War' and episodes of 'Spinball' in Action. His association with 2000AD began with the revived 'Dan Dare' in the very first issue.

For ten years Belardinelli stamped a very strong style on the pages of 2000AD, one which gradually found less favour until, by 1988, he was relegated to second string stories. A prolific artist of stylish quality, he continued to draw for the UK, later working on Fleetway's Eagle and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

His contact with the UK market ended with the death of his agent, Alberto Giolitti, in 1993. His life was further devastated when his wife committed suicide, leaving him with a young daughter to support. It was often presumed that Belardinelli himself had died, although drawings continued to appear from his home in Rome, some of his work appearing in Japan.

Rumours of Belardinelli's death were only recently (2005) scotched when a UK fan, Rob Cox, contacted the artist and a feature appeared in the June 2006 issue of Italian Ink magazine (as I noted here back in August 2006).

• Leo Baxendale drops a line to the Forbidden Planet blog about the opening of his 'Stroppy Women' exhibition.

• Bryan Talbot is profiled in the Washington Express, 'Through the Looking Glass: Bryan Talbot' by Scott Rosenberg (11 April). Link via Journalista.

• Interview with Neil Gaiman at Wild River Review, 'Myth, Magic, and the Mind of Neil Gaiman' by Tim E. Ogline (11 April). Link via The Pulse which also provides a link to an earlier piece I missed in The Independent, 'Neil Gaiman: The Truth About Sandman' by Tim Martin (8 April).

• Ian Rankin talks about why Sean Connery should return to Scotland... but then talks about his long-held ambition to write comics and his upcoming 6-issue stint on Hellblazer in 'Rebus author calls on Sir Sean to fight for independence on the home front' (The Scotsman, 14 April).

Reg Gray

Reg Gray is a name that crops up as an illustrator in a number of annuals (e.g. Boys' World Annual, Daily Mirror Book for Boys, etc.) and books. A little bit of information came my way recently that Reg was the artist of the globe logo that adorned the covers of Look and Learn magazine for many years.

I've been unable to find out a huge amount about Reginald Stanley Gray. I believe he was born 19 November 1923 and died in 1992, aged 68, having lived most of his life in Essex. A former Able Seaman during the Second World War, he was also a painter and sculptor, an exhibition of his work held at the Collector's Gallery, London, 26 May-10 June 1961.

Catalogue
Reginald Gray: New Paintings, Drawings, Pottery. London, Collector's Gallery, 1961.

Illustrated Books
No Time For Tankers by Richard Armstrong. London, J. M. Dent & Sons, 1958.
High Road Home by William Corbin. London, Methuen, 1962.
My Favourite Animal Stories, ed. Gerald Durrell. London, Lutterworth Press, 1962.
Lizard Island Expedition by John B. Mercer. Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd, 1965.
A Donkey Called Haryat by Mary Drewery. Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd, 1967.
Supernatural Stories for Boys. Feltham, Hamlyn, 1968.
A Candle for St. Georgios by Mary Drewey. Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd, 1969.
Rosanna the Goat by Mary Crockett. London, Chatto, Boyd & Oliver, 1969.
Rüdi et le chamois (abridged) by Robert Recher, ed. C. Wright. Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd, 1969.
Réseau Clandestin (abridged) by Claude Stokis, ed. Malcolm E. Ridge. Edinburgh, Oliver & Boyd, 1970.
Discovery: Where You Live by Philip A. Sauvain. London, Macmillan, 1970.
Holiday Stories for Girls. Feltham, Hamlyn, 1970.
Sports Stories for Boys. Feltham, Hamlyn, 1970.
Spy Stories for Boys. Feltham, Hamlyn, 1970.
Thrilling Stories from the Past for Girls, ed. Eric Duthie. Feltham, Odhams Books, 1970.
Where the Winds Meet by Mary Drewery. London, Chatto, Boyd & Oliver, 1971.
Invisible Magic by Elisabeth Beresford. London, Hart-Davis, 1974.
Knights of the Cardboard Castle by Elisabeth Beresford. London, Methuen, 1976.
The Clover Club and the House of Mystery by A. D. Langholm. London, W. H. Allen, 1978.
The Runaway by Gillian Cross. London, Methuen Children's Books, 1979.
The Clover Club and the Adventure that Fell from the Sky by A. D. Langholm. London, Methuen Children's, 1980.
More Horse and Pony Stories, ed. Janet Sachs. London, Octopus, 1981.
Favourite Pony Stories (revised ed.). London, Octopus Books, 1987.

Terry Hall (1926-2007)

Terence (Terry) Hall, the creator of Lenny the Lion, died on 4 April. Lenny was something of a trailblazer in children's entertainment as he was one of the first animals to appear as a ventriloquist's sidekick; prior to Lenny's appearance, ventriloquists had used boy puppets, with Peter Brough and Archie Andrews the most popular act at the time.

Lenny was created in 1954 when Hall visited Blackpool Zoo. The original Lenny had a growly voice and teeth which, unfortunately for the entertainer, used to frighten children; he became hugely popular after Anne Shelton suggested that he should be a gentler character and the new Lenny, shy and speaking with a slight lisp, became a huge star. His first TV show debuted in 1957, as did a comic strip in TV Comic drawn by Bill Mevin and starred on the cover between 1958 and 1960, the year the show came to an end. Lenny was also the star of Lenny's Den (1959-61) and Pops With Lenny (1962-63), notable for an early appearance of The Beatles, and, many years later, appeared in educational storybooks which spun off into their own TV show, Reading With Lenny (1977-80).

Obituaries: BBC News (11 April), Daily Telegraph (12 April), The Independent (12 April), The Times (14 April), The Guardian (30 May).

I mentioned another shy, friendly lion recently -- Leo -- in my piece about Bert Felstead which began appearing in Playhour in January 1960. It would be an obvious thing to connect the strip with the success of Lenny on TV. Leo had made his debut some years previously in Playhour Annual 1958 (published in 1957) and might have been inspired by Lenny's earliest TV appearances.

(I grabbed the header picture from the Oxford Collectables website which has a useful guide to TV Comic. Lenny is presumably still © to his estate; Leo the Friendly Lion is © Look and Learn Magazine Ltd.)

Comic Clippings - 12 April 2007

Nothing posted over the weekend because I was working on...

... when I should have been out enjoying the sunshine. I'm 6,000 words into the introductory material but the end is not in sight so the patchy service will probably continue for a couple of weeks because we're doing the 4 volumes as a box set. I should add that the above is a scan of a photocopy and doesn't reflect the quality of the artwork that will appear in the book. (And that Karl the Viking is © IPC Media.)

• Jeremy Briggs (a familiar name to regular readers here) has a very good article about the 'Fight for the Falklands' strip that appeared in Battle back in 1982-83 on Down the Tubes (9 April 2007).

• Garth Ennis interview, 'Ennis brings shock, awe, devilish wit to 'Ghost Rider' and more' by Jeff Johncox (The Norman Transcript, 6 April 2007).