Comic Cuts

Things could be getting a little patchy for the next couple of weeks as I'm hard at work on The Art of Ron Embleton book, reprinting some of Ron's finest work from the pages of Look and Learn. With about 600 pages to choose from, it's going to be a cracking book. I've still got a lot of scanning to do but I took a a few hours off today to clean up a couple of pages. The above was the first page I worked on and I'm pretty pleased with the results. Don't expect the finished book for a while yet, tho.

One book that is out now is the latest volume from Carlton. It's called Up And At 'Em! and it's another selection of 10 stories from the pages of War Picture Library. Once I get hold of a copy, I'll put together one of my little information columns. But you can order it at a knock-down price via Amazon at the link above. They reckon they've got copies in stock.

The other book that's now definitely out is the US edition of Sci-Fi Art: A Graphic History which was out over here in January. The US edition has a completely different cover (by Oliver Frey) but is otherwise the same book. The UK edition (linked above) has a cover by Vincent Di Fate so I've been incredibly lucky on both editions... go on, you know you want to buy it!

That's it. I've run out of things to plug. Hope you all enjoy your Easter break.

Dick Tatham

Dick Tatham and Petula Clark

Dick Tatham was briefly a contributor to Boys' World in the early 1960s but was better known as a music journalist for Record Mirror, Crescendo, Billboard, Disc and Valentine. He also wrote music articles for D. C. Thomson's girls' papers Jackie and Diana. He lived in the Balham and Streatham areas of London in the late-1950s and early- to mid-1960s but that's all I've been able to discover.

Update: 19 December 2012. Tatham's full name was Richard Maurice Tatham, born in Steyning, Sussex, on 8 July 1917, the son of Guy Edgar Tatham and his wife Ethel Maude (nee Disher). He died in Surrey in around August 1981.

Non-fiction
The Wonderful Tommy Steel. Picture-story album. London, Record Mirror Cardfront Publishers, 1957.
Football Champions. London, 1965.
The Bay City Rollers Yearbook. London, Phoebus, 1975.
Elton John, with Tony Jasper. London, Octopus Books, in association with Phoebus, 1976.
Elvis. London, Phoebus, 1977.
The Incredible Bee Gees. London, Futura Publications, 1979.

Others
Cliff and His Wonderful Life, foreword by Dick Tatham. London, Go Magazine, 1964.

Bernard Buley

An author who appeared on my radar many years ago, way back in the late 1970s when I was still at school, Bernard Buley remained stubbornly elusive when it came to personal information for years. Although I chipped away at him for years, it was only recently that I managed to track down information on his death, which, despite being reported as "some time in the 1960s", actually occurred in 1973 when Buley was in his early seventies.

Ernest Bernhardt Buley was born in Melbourne, Australia, on 17 September 1899, shortly before his father, the journalist and editor Ernest Charles Buley, and mother, German-born Olga, came to England. The Buley family, which included Bernard's elder sister Olga Margerita Buley (1897-1986), took up residence at 240 Goldhawk Road, Hammersmith, and, later, at 7 Burbage Road, Herne Hill. Ernest soon became a popular figure in Fleet Street, easily recognised because of his Mephistophelian beard and the battered bowler hat that he always wore to cover his bald head.

Bernard followed his father into writing and was a regular contributor to Chums, Crusoe Magazine, Boys Magazine, Boys Realm and Champion. He joined Hulton Press where he became editor of Boys Magazine in the late 1920s. He was the sub-editor, under Hadyn Dimmock, of Scoops, Britain's first science fiction magazine, in 1934 for which he wrote the serial "Master of the Moon".

After the Great War, his father had become a prolific novelist as Bat Masters, under which name he wrote a series of horse racing novels. An expert on the track, although not so successful as a pundit, Ernest Buley earned himself the nickname "the new Nat Gould". As far as I'm aware (and contrary to what I've said in the past), I now believe that Bernard Buley did not use the name. Two later reprints published in the mid-1930s after Ernest's death have proven to be reprints of earlier titles.

In the late 1930s, he also contributed to Modern Wonder.

During the war, Buley began writing for a number of small publishers and it is likely that he used a great many untraced pen-names or was writing for magazines as yet unindexed. One known pen-name is Roy McRae, used on four short crime novels in the late 1940s. He seems to have contributed regularly to various publications from the same publisher, Popular Fiction, writing for their romance series Women's 2d Popular Novels and the fairy tales series Modern Fairy Tales.

Buley also contributed anonymously to Boys' World in the early 1960s, his last known story appearing in 1964.

Buley was married to Suzanne R. Berryman (1897-1972) at Holborn in 1922 and had at least five children: Suzanna J. (b. Romford, 1923), Peter Bernard (b. Romford, 1925-1988), Keith Paul (b. Bucklow, 1927-2000), John L. (b. Eton, 1928) and June R. (b. Eton, 1933).

He died at Richmond-upon-Thames in 1973.

PUBLICATIONS

Novels
Klondike Bound. London, Amalgamated Press (Boys Friend Library 2/262), Nov 1930.
The Lumber Champion. London, Amalgamated Press (Boys Friend Library 2/294), Jul 1931.
Sky Devils. London, Amalgamated Press (Boys Friend Library 2/314), Dec 1931.
With Whizz at the Wheel. London, Amalgamated Press (Champion Library 129), Jun 1934.
The Sword of Justice. London & Dublin, Mellifont Press, 1935.
The Boy who Played with Giants. London, Popular Fiction, 1941?
The Husband She Dare Not Trust [and ‘‘Whom God Hath Joined’’ by Doris Farlowe]. Popular Fiction (Women’s 2d Popular Novels 32), 1943?
The Spanish Main, illus. Serge Drigin. Edinburgh & London, W. & R. Chambers, 1950.

Novels as Roy MacRae
Death at the Theatre. London, Popular Fiction (Detective 113), 1949?
The Whispering Voice. London, Popular Fiction (Detective 119), 1949?
The Black Cat Murder. London, Grayling (Mystery Thrillers 2), 1949?
Dangerous Lady. London Grayling (Mystery Thrillers 4), 1949?


UPDATE: 16 April 2009

It would appear that my assertion that Bernard Buley wrote under the female pen-names Alma Buley, Amber Leigh and Alice Stafford, contributing to girls' papers such as School Friend, School Girl and School-days Weekly in the 1920s, is wrong. A relative of Bernard contacted me after I posted the above piece and said that Alma Buley was, in fact, Bernard's sister. I'm hoping for some additional information shortly and will re-post once this little mystery is resolved.

Novels by Alma Buley
Wendy Beresford’s Double. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 1/140), Oct 1927.
The Slackest House in the School. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 1/179), Nov 1928.
A Spoilt Girl’s Schooldays. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 1/221), Oct 1929.
Expelled. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 1/267), Sep 1930.
Monica Eversley’s Ordeal. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 1/283), Jan 1931.
Lorna’s Last Term. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 1/323), Nov 1931.
When Dancing Days Were Over. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 1/329), Jan 1932.
In Conflict with the Captain. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 1/371), Nov 1932.
The Rebel of the Family. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 1/399), Jun 1933.

Novels as Amber Leigh
Rivals for Ballet Fame. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 2/197), Nov 1954.
Loyal Allies of the Expelled Captain. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 2/205), Mar 1955.
Rinty—the Dog with a Secret. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 2/211), Jun 1955.
Challengers for the Gold Cup. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 2/235), Jun 1956.
Stand-in for Her Filming Sister. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 2/248), Nov 1956.
Youngest Girl in the Ballet. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 2/284), May 1958.
Water Ballet at St. Wynn’s. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 2/293), Oct 1958.
Winter Sports Rivals. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 2/299), Jan 1959.
Tess of the High Trapeze. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 2/304), Mar 1959.
Schoolgirl Pony Trekkers. London, Amalgamated Press (SOL 2/342), Nov 1960.

Comic Bounce could save The DFC

... so says Caroline Horn in a news item published in The Bookseller (5 April). The growth in sales of graphic novels could see the title relaunched. David Fickling, founder of The DFC, has said that he is exploring different options for the comic's future. "It's a special creation that should come back and needs to come back in some way."

That way could be along the graphic novels route, which has already been given a recent boost by the introduction of a dedicated graphic novels section by Borders' stores. The new section was launched in early March and has resulted in an overall boost in sales of 800% for those titles on display. According to Borders' children's book buyer J. P. Hunting, "Some of the top sellers so far have been the Horowitz adaptations, and the Star Wars Clone Wars series has been selling well. We're very happy with how the sales have started off and expect sales to increase further as people become more aware of the area in store."

For those of us who are fairly long in the tooth, the growth of the graphic novel has been promoted as the saviour of comics before, back in the days when there was a British comics industry that didn't consist almost wholly of titles aimed at the nursery-age group. Twenty years ago, 2000AD was selling around 100,000 copies a week, the Judge Dredd Megazine perhaps half that number, and Crisis had been launched with early sales averaging around 65,000. Nowadays, 2000AD probably sells around a fifth of what it did 20 years ago and the Megazine may be selling half that figure.

The success of titles like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns prompted a lot of coverage in newspapers: graphic novels were the latest fashion accessories. But once you'd read those two, and picked up a copy of Maus, there wasn't much else on the market for adults. Publishers rushed to get new titles out, leading to some interesting releases from the likes of Gollancz and HarperCollins, but they were overwhelmed by the avalanche of Star Wars, Star Trek and Marvel collections that briefly filled the shelves. The early promise of the "comics aren't for kids" headlines rapidly fizzled out and the only headline news graphic novels made soon after was that they had became the most popular targets for shoplifters.

Twenty years on we're actually in a slightly better position: there are more titles out now that are worth picking up. Watchmen may have climbed into the best-sellers charts briefly, but now it sits alongside the likes of Alice in Sunderland and Tamara Drewe; Rebellion, publishers of 2000AD, have a slate of collections out that help fill the void in the young teenage boys' market; collections of Commando and War Picture Library may be aimed at the 'nostalgia' market by publishers, but they're also being picked up by boys in the same age bracket as 2000AD; publishers like Warner Books and Egmont are publishing graphic novels for an audience roughly the same age with their adaptations of Anthony Horowicz's Alex Rider novels, Dave Almond's The Savage (illustrated by Dave McKean) and the upcoming Rainbow Orchid by Garen Ewing; Classics Illustrated and the Classical Comics are pushing comics back into the classroom...

What it adds up to is a comics savvy audience. Reading comics seems to have skipped a generation but it's now making a comeback.

Now it's up to the publishers to have the right product on the market that will sustain this new interest. It's a shame that The DFC folded when it did, before any collections of material from the weekly comic were released. Ideally, The DFC would have been available on the newsstands each week, rather than by subscription; the first collections should have come out quickly to capitalise on the early publicity, especially when they had such an ace up their sleeves as Philip Pullman, and collections put out as soon as enough material from each strip became available.

Of course, when I say "ideally" I'm basing my whole publishing model on a gut feeling and I'm talking in broad strokes. The British comics industry rarely reprinted material in collections of any description (once you mention the Look & Learn Book of the Trigan Empire and the Billy's Boots Summer Special you start to struggle); but in an industry where back issues are not an option, you need some way to bring new readers up to speed on characters and collections (graphic novels, whatever you want to call them) are an ideal way of doing that. This was always the European model for publishing long-running comics: launch an album of old material when the characters were about to appear in a new adventure in the weekly comic. In Britain, to boost a long-running but flagging title, you launched a whole new comic: if it was a huge success it would be allowed to run, if not, it was merged with an established comic bringing new readers to that title.

I've no evidence that the above publishing model would have saved The DFC and I'm not the person/publisher risking their money. It's easy to yell "That's not the way I'd have done it," when you've nothing to lose. It really is easy: look... the recently released Roy of the Rovers Souvenir Special that's available in W. H. Smiths right now. That's not the way I'd have done it. The back cover boasts "12 pages of Roy of the Rovers action inside". There's actually 14 and they're in two batches of eight and six pages taken from the weekly comic, so they start mid-way through a story and you'll never know if Melchester win at Wembley/make it back to the top of the league. Most of the other stories end on a cliff-hanger so it's not a good reading experience. The daft thing is that there must be plenty of stories from Annuals and Summer Specials, complete in themselves, that could have been used featuring the same characters. Or a longer chunk of Roy so that we could see what happened at Wembley rather than pondering over his odd change of hairstyle.

Put all this grinching down to frustration and having high hopes that we can see weekly comics back on the shelves in newsagents one day.

Ron "Nobby" Clark (1923-2009)

Ron Clark at his drawing board in the 1980s

It's a sad fact that my interest in the history of British comics and the creators behind the strips that entertained generations of children inevitably means noting the passing of some of its foremost talents.

I had the pleasure of corresponding and chatting to Nobby Clark on a number of occasions and he coped with my dozens of questions with patience and humour. "I'll be happy to help in your research," he wrote in 1999, "but remember we're going back some forty or fifty years. Much has happened in between and I've only my memory to rely on. What I will tell you is about as near to the truth to the best of my knowledge." You can't ask for better than that.

He was born, on 23 August 1923, Ronald Albert George Clark but signed his letters Nobby, a nickname that has been attached to men with the surname Clark since the 16th century. His parents were Albert Thomas Clark and his wife Nellie (nee Smith), a nurse he met whilst recovering from injuries sustained during the war, where he had been a sniper with the 2nd Royal Welsh Fusiliers.

I outlined some of Nobby's career in an obituary published in yesterday's Guardian (4 April), so I'll stick here to some additional details. He worked at the Gaumont-British Animation studios alongside a number of artists who were to become stalwarts of the British comics scene: Eric Bradbury, Mike Western, Alf Saporito, Harry Hargreaves, Ron Smith, Bill Holroyd and others. It was through Nobby that many of these artists got their break at Amalgamated Press as he persuaded them to submit samples. I recently heard from Eileen Banks (then Whatley) who worked as a letterer on Ted Holmes' Cowboy Comics in the early- to mid-1950s, who recalls that it was Nobby who suggested to Pete Banks, her husband-to-be, that she might find work as a freelancer with the A.P. once her health was restored (she had left G-B Animation to receive treatment for T.B.).

A storyboard meeting at G-B Animation
Clark is standing, third from right in doorway with Mike Western leaning on the chair back next to him

Animation was Nobby's favoured profession: "If Rank had dumped his Charm School instead of G.B.A. I'd probably still be there," he later recalled. His later career returned him to animation, working with Jack Stokes on the French movie Asterix versus Caesar and on later productions The Forgotten Toys and Percy the Park Keeper.

Yet it was his anonymous contributions to comics that dominated his working life. When G-B Animation folded in 1949, Nobbby teamed up with Eric Bradbury to produce samples to take to prospective employers. He approached Arthur Bouchier, then editor of Comic Cuts, who was unable to find a position for the newcomers but sent them to Leonard Matthews, editor of Knockout. Nobby quickly established himself and within weeks was offered a staff position.

He "wrote" dozens of humour scripts, often taking over established characters from Hugh McNeill ("Our Ernie", "Deed-a-Day Danny", "Young Joey") as well as creating new characters like "Blossom" and "Freddie Frog". I put inverted commas around "wrote" because he produced visual scripts, drawing out ideas with the text pencilled in as he had done on his initial samples. "It worked and nobody complained," he told me. "I still maintain you can't visualise on a typewriter to this day."

Blossom art by Eric Bradbury; Freddie Frog art by Harry Hargreaves

Nobby was one of the important figures in moving the action story away from historicals to more modern adventures. Although his first action strip was a Western, he took over the writing of "Captain Phantom", a wartime spystrip featuring a "man of a thousand disguises". These were fast-moving and entertaining yarns which helped establish a more modern style of adventure strip in the UK with writers like Nobby Clark and Mike Butterworth ushering in the kind of strips that would dominate during the 1960s. Nobby's contributions included "Space Family Rollinson" (SF), "Johnnie Wingco" (aerial adventure) and "Ginger Tom" (historical). Most of these were created for Arthur Bouchier, who had taken editorial charge of Knockout in 1953 under Matthews.

Johnnie Wingco art by Mike Western

In 1959, Nobby worked with Bouchier on the dummy of a new comic title for Monty Haydon, manager of the group of papers that included Knockout. With various strips created, Len Matthews shuffled the contents, moving "Buster" to the front cover and naming the paper after the character. This was shortly after the A.P. was bought out Daily Mirror Newspapers and renamed Fleetway Publications and Matthews was keen to exploit the popularity of the "Andy Capp" strip published by the Daily Mirror, published by Fleetway's parent company. Thus, Buster became briefly "the son of Andy Capp", although the exploitation of his character angered Capp's creator Reg Smythe and, to smooth things over, the family connection was dropped and the artist and writer dumped.

Nobby was sent out to Spain to find new artists for the new paper and discovered a talented group which included Angel Nadal, Juan Rafart (Raf), Jorge Gins (Gin) and Martz Schmidt--Spanish despite the name. Raf drew Nobby's "Tony Hancock & Sid James" Film Fun strip ahead of the launch of Buster, for which Nobby wrote the bulk of the early strips, including "Buster", "Uppsy Daisy", "Lazy Sprockett", "Dumbell Fumblebee", "Bam, Splat and Blooie", "Cocky Doodle" and "Phantom Force Five".

Buster art by Bill Titcombe

He was also drafted in to write for the new Princess comic, writing "Circus Ballerina" and, later, "My Chum Yum Yum" for Tina. As the script writer for "Billy Bunter" in Valiant, he was the logical choice to write the adventures of Billy's sister, Bessie, for June & School Friend.

Nobby left Fleetway in 1969. Changes in management and changes of office began to make the job pall. "The final straw coming when Roy Davis and myself found ourselves, along with Alf Saporito and a few others, dumped in a large room with hardly any daylight." Various departments were being amalgamated and voluntary redundancy was being offered to some staff. Nobby took it and began working from home, continuing his association with some of the titles edited by Bob Paynter. A visit to King's Reach Tower convinced him he'd made the right decision.

Nobby was married to Jill Lee, whom he met at G-B Animation, in 1950 and had four children and six grandchildren. He was devoted to his family and passed on tips to all those who showed any talent for drawing. He also enjoyed gardening and had a fascination for history, often taking his children out for Sunday afternoon jaunts to historical sites. A lifelong fascination with military machinery and aircraft was inspired by his father and his time in the R.A.F. during the Second World War.

Nobby died on 21 March, aged 85. I'm sure you'll all join me in raising a glass to his memory.

Tony Hancock art by Juan Rafart

(* My thanks to Chris Clark and Charles Slack for their help with the above and for the photograph; the photo from the G-B Animation is part of the collection of Bob Egby; artwork © IPC Media.)

Rainbow Orchid

Although I try to stick exclusively to older British comics here in Bear Alley. Scroll down and you'll find I've mentioned a few new books that might seem to stretch the rules, but the coverage of Classical Comics has always been prompted by the artists they use: John M. Burns is now the elder statesman of British comics, with a professional career of 55 years under his belt—and long may he reign! Even Jon Haward, who I still think of as a newcomer, I first spotted working for Harrier Comics back in 1987.

One of the handful of new books I'm really looking forward to in the next few months is by a real newcomer, although even he's been around for over a decade. Garen's Ewing's The Rainbow Orchid, volume 1 of the adventures of Julius Chancer, is due out in August. The book is already listed at Amazon at the knock-down £6.29. Garen has just posted the cover (above) from which you can see that the book is a Tintin-style adventure yarn. If you've followed the story as it has unfolded online, you'll need no prompting to pick up the book. If you've not seen it, take a look, then go order a copy of the book.

(* artwork © Garen Ewing)

Vincent S. Daniel

I'm digging into the vaults for this one.

Vincent S. Daniel was born in Hammersmith, London, in 1874 and, after training as an art student, was to be found working as an engraver around the turn of the century. Soon, he became a freelance illustrator, his work appearing in The Story of Jesus for Boys and Girls (Sisley's, 1907) and the "Daily Mail" Sixpenny Novels series as well as story papers published by the Amalgamated Press. The earliest work I have been able to trace dates from 1904 when he began working regularly on Union Jack, shortly before that paper became the permanent home for Sexton Blake's adventures.

Towards the end of the Great War, Daniel switched from story headings and illustrations to crude but effective adventure strips for the company's penny comics. His earliest known strip work was "Juliet the Office Girl" in The Jester (1917), followed by contributions to Rainbow, Puck, Comic Life, Lot-o'-Fun and Crackers during the 1920s. For a period between 1922-24 he took over—from the strip's creator, Walter Booth—as the artist of Britain's first adventure strip, "Rob the Rover", later assisting Booth in the mid-1930s on the same strip as well as taking over "For the King!" and "The Adventures of Captain Moonlight". Solo, he produced many other adventure strips for Puck, Crackers, Merry & Bright and Golden during the 1930s.

Daniels' career seems to come to an end with the collapse of the penny comics in the early months of the Second World War, although he was still listed as living in London in 1944-45, shortly before his death, aged 71. Daniel was married to Ethel Martha Dixon in 1902 and had at least two daughters, Monica (later Dewey) and Pauline (later Kenway).

I've heard that Daniel is said to have owned a farm in Bishops Stortford, Hertfordshire, although the only early (1929) address I've been able to trace is in Leigh, in Kent, and I believe he spent most of his life living in Brentford, London.

Another, more intriguing, story, told to me by Bill Lofts, was that Daniel's father was a well known card sharper on the London to Brighton race train and Daniel ended his life by shooting himself in the offices of the Daily Mirror. I strongly believe that Bill got this wrong (Daniel's father was an accountant and his death is registered at Brentford)—so who was the artist Bill was mistaking Daniel for?

(* artwork © IPC Media; with thanks to Jose Pires)

Jon Haward's The Tempest

Following the recent mention of John M. Burns' work on Wuthering Heights, I was pointed towards another upcoming release from Classical Comics, The Tempest. Jon Haward has been posting pencils and finished pages from the upcoming title, which looks like an excellent follow-up to his previous book, the excellent (and award-winning) Macbeth.

(* artwork © Classical Comics.)

Garth Minus Garth

From his creation in 1943, the Daily Mirror's Garth strip exemplified the comic strip hero. Muscular, good-looking and fearless, never at a loss for what to do, he was the embodiment of the non-superheroic superhero: although he travelled through time, he had no powers beyond his physical strength and phenomenal mind. Aided by scientific genius Professor Lumiere on his many adventures, Garth survived 54 years before being discontinued.

Now, the time-traveller has been revived ... but with a post-modern twist that has turned the strip into an internet phenomenon. "Garth Minus Garth" is an almost existential experience. The familiar and heroic figure has been removed from each of the strips, leaving his fellow travellers isolated, adrift and facing danger alone. By taking out the titular character, the strip is left populated only by normal, human figures and raises issues about the nature of heroics and who really is the hero.

Garth's removal leaves important questions hanging without answers and asides meant for the now invisible giant are turned back upon the speaker. In one strip, a sailor asks, "You gone crazy, feller?" Without Garth, the question takes on a whole new level of uncertainty as the sailor queries his own sanity.

With Garth no longer there, the Captain's question in the example above goes unanswered, leaving the reader to ponder whether there ever could be an answer. "Garth Minus Garth" is an unsettling reimagining of the familiar strip that takes it into whole new territories of doubt and contradiction.

(* Garth © Mirror Group Newspapers)

Splash Page

The release of The Casebook of Sexton Blake has prompted me to dig out this example of a Sexton Blake spin-off strip. Blake featured in Knockout from 1939-60 and in Valiant in 1968-70. A later revival stumbled at the last minute: Blake was meant to be the lead strip in Tornado when it launched in 1979 but the failure of the Sexton Blake TV series Sexton Blake and the Demon God in late 1978 led the editors to change Blake into a new character called Victor Drago. A real shame as it was the most true-to-character Blake strip ever.

The lack of a Gwyn Evans yarn in the book reminded me about a spin-off strip featuring one of Evans' most popular creations, Splash Page, a crime-busting journalist who often featured in Evans' Blake tales. A Splash Page comic book was planned in 1949 but never appeared. He did, however, appear briefly in the pages of Comet in 1950 (perhaps using up storylines that had been written by Richard Chance for the mooted comic book).

The artwork was by Alex Oxley, a cartoonist, animator and illustrator who was an irregular contributor to comics during the 1950s. The example below is scanned from Knockout Fun Book 1956 but reprints a 1950 strip from Comet, probably Oxley's earliest comics work.

(* Splash Page © IPC Media)

Comic Cuts

I've spent all week at the scanner or cleaning up scans and I'm pleased to say that a few things are starting to come together.

First up, the Frank Bellamy World War I book is with the designer... or will be when my CD arrives (it went into the post yesterday). I finished the last of the pages on Thursday and, apart from some brief editorial bits, the bulk of my work on it is now done. Once the (few, minor) corrections are done we should be able to get straight onto the Frank Bellamy's Swift Special Edition.

Which means that as of Monday I'll be working on the next book, The Art of Ron Embleton, full tilt. I managed to squeeze a week in on the book in February, so a vital chunk of the work is already done. I think I can use building a house as an analogy for this one (and for quite a few of the other books I work on): there's a lot of preliminary work laying the foundations when nothing much seems to be happening; then the building goes up steadily as the the contents are selected and the artwork scanned and cleaned; then nothing seems to happen for ages... that's when the rooms are finished off, decorated, carpets laid and everything is made ready for the owners to move in; in terms of our analogy it's caption writing, designing, writing introductions, writing back cover text, proofing, writing information sheets and everything else that needs to be done. There's a bit of the book, when the walls suddenly shoot up, that's visible—nowadays that's usually because my enthusiasm levels are soaring and I can't help but post stuff here—but the rest tends to go on in the background.

With the Embleton book I'm still laying the foundations, so don't expect to hear much about it for a week or two.

For once, the Saturday's post brought some stuff that I want rather than bills and junk mail. I've not had much of a chance to do anything but glance at these but I'll mention them now rather than leave them and forget.

Firstly, William Rudling has reprinted the Jeff Hawke's Cosmos special, The Martian Quartet. This clocks in at 140 pages and contains four Jeff Hawke yarns, "The Martian Invasion" (a long early tale), "The Search for Asteron" (about a mysterious planet arriving in the solar system), "The Threat from the Past" (in which the Martians are thought to be behind a series of disasters on Earth) and "The Opposite Power" (in which Jeff uncovers the plans of a mad archaeologist).

The four stories are linked by the Martian character Ultar (hence the title) and were the second through fifth Jeff Hawke stories, originally running between July 1954 and June 1956. The original edition in 2005 was the first time they had been reprinted in the UK. This new edition has expanded notes by Duncan Lunan which always add to the background of the strip, exploring the technology and astronomy of the strips (a popular feature in the Jeff Hawke's Cosmos magazine).

Sydney Jordan comments that the strips were "hopelessly optimistic" about how space flight would progress once mankind built its first rocket to the Moon but I love the optimism of the Jeff Hawke strip. It was the Anti-Hollywood in the 1950s where science fiction movies were often little more than thinly disguised fear-mongering about Communist invasions and any new technology was guaranteed to blow up the world, or melt it, or turn it into a dustbowl. In comparison, the Jeff Hawke saga has aged really well.

As always, I'm looking forward to the next issue of Jeff Hawke's Cosmos, which is due in April. Subscriptions (3 issues a year) are available from The Jeff Hawke Club, 6 The Close, Alwoodley, Leeds LS17 7RD: £18.50 in the UK; £28 (or Euro 38) for overseas air mail. Because of the deal with the copyright holder, the Martian Quartet book is only available to club members. Further details from william[at]williamrudling[dot]com.

Eagle Times enters a new year with another excellent issue, the highlights of which are Frank Hampson's original notes for the "Operation Saturn" storyline from 1952 (interesting to compare the original outline to the finished version as Frank fell ill and another scriptwriter was brought in to complete the story), Steve Winders' continuing exploration of "Heros the Spartan", another reminiscence from Alan Vince and (ahem) a very positive review of Rick Random, Space Detective ("An excellent addition to comic book literature").

Subs. are £22 (overseas £34 in UK pounds) from Keith Howard, 25A Station Road, Harrow, Middlesex HA1 2UA. Worth every penny.

The Casebook of Sexton Blake was a real surprise. 545 pages for just £2.99—and cheaper still on Amazon! I've no idea how Wordsworth Editions do it but the book itself is nicely presented with some embossing on the cover (designed by Robert Mathias from artwork by Eric Parker originally used on the Sexton Blake Annual), and has an informative introduction by Mark Hodder and seven long stories packed into its pages. Of these, one is a classic: "The Man From Scotland Yard" introduced the character George Marsden Plummer who was to survive dozens of encounters with Blake over the years; the others are less well known but with two stories by George Teed (probably my favourite of the old Blake writers) and another by Robert Murray Graydon, this collection just can't go wrong. Cecil Hayter, W. J. Lomax (a football yarn which sees Blake and Tinker joining the England team!) and William Murray Graydon fill out the pages entertainingly, making this an excellent read as well as excellent value for money.

Incidentally, the Adventures of Sexton Blake radio series, which I've previously mentioned, has been pushed back from Easter to June. There will be, in addition, a documentary about Blake entitled The Hunt for Sexton Blake with David Quantick.

I'll leave you with a page from The Perishers Omnibus. I loved this strip when I was growing up (my Dad being a Daily Mirror reader) and pick up these collections when I see them (all-too-rarely these days, unfortunately). You can see the cover for the 1982 collection at the top of the column but I was particularly taken with the "eyeballs-in-the-sky" sequence which was reprinted that year. The original strips dated from 1979 and, for those who never followed the story, each summer the Perishers—Wellington, Masie, Marlon and Baby Grumpling—would visit the beach at St. Moribund's. Boot, Wellington's huge, hairy, hungry dog, would visit a rock pool each year to the amazement of the crabs inhabiting the pool; it has become a religious experience for many of the crabs whilst other crabs, more dedicated to science, try to debunk the God-like status of the eyeballs-in-the-sky. In this episode, the crabs have launched a rocket (a tin on an old spring) which was breached the limits of the pooliverse but the rather literal example of crabkind sent up to sketch the realms beyond the pool has returned with a disappointing set of pictures.

What sets this particular sequence apart is that it totally breaks the fourth wall: a few episodes earlier there was a reference to Maurice Dodds (the strip's writer) releasing an album and in the set below, one crab comments that the sequence of events is "leadin' to one o' them big single frame scenes which saves Dennis Collins [the artist] havin' to draw the same scene four times over". And the next strip—published the next day—is just that.

(* The Perishers © Daily Mirror; Jeff Hawke © Daily Express; Dan Dare © Dan Dare Corporation; Sexton Blake © IPC Media.)

John Burns' latest artwork

Seán Michael Wilson has posted three pages from his Classic Comics adaptation of Wuthering Heights as well as covers to the upcoming The Canterville Ghost and Sweeney Todd. The adaptation of Wuthering Heights isn't due to appear until 2010 but these pages by John M. Burns make me wish it was here now. Visit Seán's blog for a look at the third page.

(* artwork © Classical Comics.)

DFC folds... Super Comics Adventure Squad launches

The final, 43rd issue of The DFC was published today. It was previously announced that, if a buyer could not be found, the paper would inevitably fold.

However, some of the creators behind the various DFC strips have teamed up to launch a new blog—Super Comics Adventure Squad—which, according to the site, "will act as a hub for some of the best in British graphic storytelling talent, a place where you can keep up with what they're doing, all in one place, and where they will post news, events, sketches and comics, with links back to their own websites where you can see and learn more.

"Here the spirit of The DFC lives on with some of the very best British graphic storytellers, and this blog will share our news, art, comics, events and new projects. Enjoy!"

The name derives from James Turner's DFC strip, "Super Animal Adventure Squad".

Who the heck is Hrook Zadin?

The Knockout Annual for 1961 includes an episode of "Firebrand the Red Knight", drawn in the weekly Knockout by the easily recognisable Pat Nicolle. The Annual story on the other hand is signed by an artist I don't otherwise recognise: the signature looks like Hrook Zadin but may be Hrok Badin or Hrak Zaltin or some variation.

Anyone got a clue who this guy is?

UPDATED 29 March 2009

David Roach steps up to the plate:

I was tickled to see your piece about the knockout annuals mystery artist, Hrook Zadin. The square-jawed hero was the giveaway to me before I saw the signature. This is an artist you first knew as Kimo (for Enrique) Badia, or Enrique Badia Romero to the rest of us . I don't quite get the Hrook bit, but it's definitely Romero - and one of his earliest British strips I'd say.

David thinks the 'Hrook' "is actually Kimo just scrawled rather too decoratively," although I'd have to say that the cross-stroke on the 'H' looks too precise... I'm now thinking that Hrook, or something similar that would fit the signature, might be a common Spanish corruption for Enrique, in the same way that Edward can be shortened to Ed, Eddie or Ted.

(* artwork © IPC Media.)