D C Thomson: high-impact cartoonists, Part One
These days, I am able to view a good chunk of British Comicdoms' past glories in a way I could only dream of until relatively recently. I am able to get a good butchers not only at the obvious and extensive BEANO and DANDY archives, but also equally worthy endeavors like the long-running BEEZER and TOPPER, ---the weekly comics as well as the voluminous annuals and Summer Specials, etc--- and also the usually- unsung but quite worthy publications like 70s contenders CRACKER and PLUG.
What follows here is an appraisal of the many artists from DCT who undeniably invaded my psyche---in the nicest way possible-----and who have since refused to leave my collected memory, even long after the comics they appeared in have sadly vanished from the Newsagents' shelves.
The list of esteemed contributers here is fairly complete and lengthy [I know this stuff quite well, as the time others are spending watching TV, I am happily skimming through these comics: much more entertaining!] and below I should mention all the 'greats' and maybe not-quite-as-great-but-still-well-worthy-of-inclusion.
This lengthy item sticks to artists known for cartoon work primarily, thus sadly there is no room for Masterful contributers like Paddy Brennan or Ron Smith and their cinematic-like, sumptuous adventure-fare, and also omitted are artists known more for ghosting the work of more established toonsmiths in their own right, and artists so new to the scene that their work is a tad early to assess.
Here, the featured artists need to have established at least ONE household-name character on their own, or they don't qualify.
This item is sticking to D C Thomson cartoonists only, and perhaps a follow-up assessment of rival publishers IPC and ODHAMS---as well as an overview of 2000 AD, heralding the works of Bolland. O'Neill/ Mc Mahon/ Gibson/ Belardinelli/ Ezquerra et al , will follow on from here-----who knows?
This is in no particular order of merit, although their degree of impact on the industry overall--as well as their ability to impress me-----are given decent shrift here.
LES BARTON [1924-2008]
-------so, why is LEZZ at the very top of the list? This one is a purely personal preference, due to his 60-odd week stint on the first series of his character I SPY [and two annual hardback book appearences , 1971/72] being by far my favorite-ever body of work by any cartoonist ever, [and his 8-part I SPY versus the Incredible Mr X: Sparky comic, summer 1969, remaining my favorite-ever comics story by anyone] even after taking into account that many other cartoonists were technically much more accomplished than he: however, the sheer sense of vitality in his work was a true force of nature that for me at least, put it head-and-shoulders above the competition.---and the competition was fierce indeed, back in '69.
I Spy still looks great even today--- highly inventive, uber-imaginitive stuff-----and it took me 38 years to re-obtain the original strips again , the most agonizing wait in my lifetime. Ironically, I wrote a fan letter to Les a year before he passed on, and I recieved a very nice personal reply from him , a week later. The exact same week, the entire run of Lezz-era I SPY from 1969/70 arrived on my doorstep, after that exceedingly lengthy wait of being painfully unable to revisit this sterling material.
I SPY bequeathed such memorable villians as MR X, Aye McSpy, Mr Mastermind, Mr EE, Mr Tempest and Mahairee Yogi, all from the Fu Manchu school of demented would-be World Rulers. A delightful satire on the media-saturated 'spymania' of the 60s, the comic concept took cues from James Bond and the TV Avengers, and all points in between.......essentially a lunatic comedy, it infused serial cliffhanger-styled Melodrama , centred around the proto-Inspector Gadget [years before that particular character actually emerged] and his endless weaponry and secret devices, hidden within his oversized black trenchcoat and trilby-------the Manic Madmen out to rule our planet used such threats as almost-invincible robots, massive all-out War Macines, and even paralysing porridge to achieve these ends. Always tinged with a sense of deadly danger admidst the outlandish mayhem, the mix was most satisfactory----to me at least! Later comic-strip villains of this type were more pantomime and ultimately less effective.
Also for SPARKY, Mr Barton gave us MA KELLY'S TELLY, TOM KAT [often done by a rotation of artists, that one] with his SPARKY Swansong being 'Ah---Chooo!' [the story of a sneeze], done, somewhat unusually, in the style of a political satire---with even one appearance from Ted Heath!
Later Les done much work as a ghoster for IPC, on such diverse works as KID KONG and approximating the style of Reg Parlett [ie:' Harry's Haunted House.']
JOHN GEERING [1939?-1999]
John Geering is most likely my favorite British comics-strip artist out of the entire bunch: unlike most other artists, he developed a wholly unique style that went a different route from cloning established Baxendale/Watkins/ad naseum........his technique started slightly shakily, [see very early PUSS and BOOTS, summer 1969] however within two short years his ability and potential had blossomed spectacularly, and I was indeed priveled to witness the unspooling of this ongoing improvement in real-time, as an avid mid-period SPARKY comic enthusiast. His approach seems inspired in part by Tom and Jerry, and there is a cat character in Chas Griggs' Kat and Kanary whose facial design possibly provided part-inspiration for Puss---but maybe not.
No matter, because Puss n Boots was a technical and artistic tour-de-force, benefitting even further in the second half of 1973, going 'double -spreader', meaning more space for Mr Geering to draw in, advancing the strip further still :and later full-color. Johns' other comics work of the 70s include TROUBLE BRUIN and his revamped, personal-stamped PANSY POTTER [both for SPARKY] , PC Big Ears and Monkey Bizness, [Dandy, 1971 and 1973] , THE NUTTERS for CRACKER [1975-76] and even the gung-ho HOTSPUR employed his services with his equally good Big Ossie material. A late 70s character turned up in the SPARKY book that closed the decade, in the shape of BRAINLESS, with a particularly dense Frank Spencer-attired lead character.
However, after a decade of quite astonishing material, new characters beginning in the form of BANANAMAN [NUTTY, 1980-85] sees an alarming new development in Johns' approach to work, and would remain for the remaining [almost] 20 years of his comics career: in order to earn a good living 'doing comics' he elected to increase his Bristol Board output radically more abundantly, with the inevitable corner-cutting techniques and shortcomings painfully on view, from this point on. From this period onwards, his work becomes less dimensional, using more visual shorthand [ much-used close-ups of heads/ explosions rendered simplistically/ aversion to crowd scenes other than in silhoutte, and many more]: some of it even resembles lower-grade made-for-TV animation output, making his glorious 70s material look Disneyesque in comparison.
Johno made it to the BEANO in the very early 80s through his SMUDGE creation, and here his strip look decidedly less rushed: perhaps quality control by the Editorship then? Other 80s creations were-a-plenty, including his late 80s take on Mal Judges' BADD LADS, Bonehead, The DOMES for mid-80s DANDY [especially rushed-looking, that one, but, hey, comics standards had dropped pretty rapidly by the mid-80s, in many cases] ---and not only that, he even found time to work on backgrounds for TV animation studio Cosgrove-Hall, on the Count Duckula series, near his Cheshire home. Recently, I have been looking through files of his latter work, and a late-entry BEEZER-TOPPER entry, BABY BLUE, about a baby whale is cuteness incarnate-------for all his work was rushed-looking in this era, it is still a remarkable achievement , considering the sheer volume of output he managed.
I met Johnno just the once, on Floor 2 of a cramped office at DC Thomson circa Summer 1984, which was bedecked with middle-aged Editors. He was charming, encouraging and polite: I am sure glad to know he at least knew I existed, [as did Les Barton, that other SPARKY artist who so impacted upon me] ----if only fleetingly. He looked through my early cartoon efforts, although I could not draw nearly as well back then.
I once discovered his home address in Cheadle after unwrapping layers of labels from a much-used cardboard mailing tube sent out to me by D C Thomson: I was too much of a gent to ever turn up at his doorstep un-announced, or even to bother him by writing to him---but maybe I should have.
This series is much more in-depth than I envisioned, and many more chapters should duly follow.
Plate One: my version of I SPY, as depicted by his original artist, Les Barton, the top-hatted deviant MR X being the strips' most prominent villian, a'la The Joker to Batman........the streamlined, almost abstract design of I Spy in this early version is still by far my own personal favorite; later versions including a more rounded incarnation of the secret agent by Brian Walker were impressive but in a quite different style----I personally love the vitality and certain lines of the original SPY.
Plate Two; my version of Pansy Potter [the Strongmans' Daughter] as rendered by John Geering for SPARKY, circa 1972 [I did need some reference for this one, although none of my versions of famous-style creations are straight copies. ] John took over an equally-memorable version of Pansy inked by Bob Webster for the same comic: Bob had a very striking, 'square' style, and John adapted some of the 'squareness' inherent in the earlier incarnation to pleasing effect.........Pansy's original 30s/40s spikeytop hairsyle was also re-introduced after her earlier 60s makeover.
COPYRIGHT D C THOMSON, 2015
What follows here is an appraisal of the many artists from DCT who undeniably invaded my psyche---in the nicest way possible-----and who have since refused to leave my collected memory, even long after the comics they appeared in have sadly vanished from the Newsagents' shelves.
The list of esteemed contributers here is fairly complete and lengthy [I know this stuff quite well, as the time others are spending watching TV, I am happily skimming through these comics: much more entertaining!] and below I should mention all the 'greats' and maybe not-quite-as-great-but-still-well-worthy-of-inclusion.
This lengthy item sticks to artists known for cartoon work primarily, thus sadly there is no room for Masterful contributers like Paddy Brennan or Ron Smith and their cinematic-like, sumptuous adventure-fare, and also omitted are artists known more for ghosting the work of more established toonsmiths in their own right, and artists so new to the scene that their work is a tad early to assess.
Here, the featured artists need to have established at least ONE household-name character on their own, or they don't qualify.
This item is sticking to D C Thomson cartoonists only, and perhaps a follow-up assessment of rival publishers IPC and ODHAMS---as well as an overview of 2000 AD, heralding the works of Bolland. O'Neill/ Mc Mahon/ Gibson/ Belardinelli/ Ezquerra et al , will follow on from here-----who knows?
This is in no particular order of merit, although their degree of impact on the industry overall--as well as their ability to impress me-----are given decent shrift here.
LES BARTON [1924-2008]
-------so, why is LEZZ at the very top of the list? This one is a purely personal preference, due to his 60-odd week stint on the first series of his character I SPY [and two annual hardback book appearences , 1971/72] being by far my favorite-ever body of work by any cartoonist ever, [and his 8-part I SPY versus the Incredible Mr X: Sparky comic, summer 1969, remaining my favorite-ever comics story by anyone] even after taking into account that many other cartoonists were technically much more accomplished than he: however, the sheer sense of vitality in his work was a true force of nature that for me at least, put it head-and-shoulders above the competition.---and the competition was fierce indeed, back in '69.
I Spy still looks great even today--- highly inventive, uber-imaginitive stuff-----and it took me 38 years to re-obtain the original strips again , the most agonizing wait in my lifetime. Ironically, I wrote a fan letter to Les a year before he passed on, and I recieved a very nice personal reply from him , a week later. The exact same week, the entire run of Lezz-era I SPY from 1969/70 arrived on my doorstep, after that exceedingly lengthy wait of being painfully unable to revisit this sterling material.
I SPY bequeathed such memorable villians as MR X, Aye McSpy, Mr Mastermind, Mr EE, Mr Tempest and Mahairee Yogi, all from the Fu Manchu school of demented would-be World Rulers. A delightful satire on the media-saturated 'spymania' of the 60s, the comic concept took cues from James Bond and the TV Avengers, and all points in between.......essentially a lunatic comedy, it infused serial cliffhanger-styled Melodrama , centred around the proto-Inspector Gadget [years before that particular character actually emerged] and his endless weaponry and secret devices, hidden within his oversized black trenchcoat and trilby-------the Manic Madmen out to rule our planet used such threats as almost-invincible robots, massive all-out War Macines, and even paralysing porridge to achieve these ends. Always tinged with a sense of deadly danger admidst the outlandish mayhem, the mix was most satisfactory----to me at least! Later comic-strip villains of this type were more pantomime and ultimately less effective.
Also for SPARKY, Mr Barton gave us MA KELLY'S TELLY, TOM KAT [often done by a rotation of artists, that one] with his SPARKY Swansong being 'Ah---Chooo!' [the story of a sneeze], done, somewhat unusually, in the style of a political satire---with even one appearance from Ted Heath!
Later Les done much work as a ghoster for IPC, on such diverse works as KID KONG and approximating the style of Reg Parlett [ie:' Harry's Haunted House.']
JOHN GEERING [1939?-1999]
John Geering is most likely my favorite British comics-strip artist out of the entire bunch: unlike most other artists, he developed a wholly unique style that went a different route from cloning established Baxendale/Watkins/ad naseum........his technique started slightly shakily, [see very early PUSS and BOOTS, summer 1969] however within two short years his ability and potential had blossomed spectacularly, and I was indeed priveled to witness the unspooling of this ongoing improvement in real-time, as an avid mid-period SPARKY comic enthusiast. His approach seems inspired in part by Tom and Jerry, and there is a cat character in Chas Griggs' Kat and Kanary whose facial design possibly provided part-inspiration for Puss---but maybe not.
No matter, because Puss n Boots was a technical and artistic tour-de-force, benefitting even further in the second half of 1973, going 'double -spreader', meaning more space for Mr Geering to draw in, advancing the strip further still :and later full-color. Johns' other comics work of the 70s include TROUBLE BRUIN and his revamped, personal-stamped PANSY POTTER [both for SPARKY] , PC Big Ears and Monkey Bizness, [Dandy, 1971 and 1973] , THE NUTTERS for CRACKER [1975-76] and even the gung-ho HOTSPUR employed his services with his equally good Big Ossie material. A late 70s character turned up in the SPARKY book that closed the decade, in the shape of BRAINLESS, with a particularly dense Frank Spencer-attired lead character.
However, after a decade of quite astonishing material, new characters beginning in the form of BANANAMAN [NUTTY, 1980-85] sees an alarming new development in Johns' approach to work, and would remain for the remaining [almost] 20 years of his comics career: in order to earn a good living 'doing comics' he elected to increase his Bristol Board output radically more abundantly, with the inevitable corner-cutting techniques and shortcomings painfully on view, from this point on. From this period onwards, his work becomes less dimensional, using more visual shorthand [ much-used close-ups of heads/ explosions rendered simplistically/ aversion to crowd scenes other than in silhoutte, and many more]: some of it even resembles lower-grade made-for-TV animation output, making his glorious 70s material look Disneyesque in comparison.
Johno made it to the BEANO in the very early 80s through his SMUDGE creation, and here his strip look decidedly less rushed: perhaps quality control by the Editorship then? Other 80s creations were-a-plenty, including his late 80s take on Mal Judges' BADD LADS, Bonehead, The DOMES for mid-80s DANDY [especially rushed-looking, that one, but, hey, comics standards had dropped pretty rapidly by the mid-80s, in many cases] ---and not only that, he even found time to work on backgrounds for TV animation studio Cosgrove-Hall, on the Count Duckula series, near his Cheshire home. Recently, I have been looking through files of his latter work, and a late-entry BEEZER-TOPPER entry, BABY BLUE, about a baby whale is cuteness incarnate-------for all his work was rushed-looking in this era, it is still a remarkable achievement , considering the sheer volume of output he managed.
I met Johnno just the once, on Floor 2 of a cramped office at DC Thomson circa Summer 1984, which was bedecked with middle-aged Editors. He was charming, encouraging and polite: I am sure glad to know he at least knew I existed, [as did Les Barton, that other SPARKY artist who so impacted upon me] ----if only fleetingly. He looked through my early cartoon efforts, although I could not draw nearly as well back then.
I once discovered his home address in Cheadle after unwrapping layers of labels from a much-used cardboard mailing tube sent out to me by D C Thomson: I was too much of a gent to ever turn up at his doorstep un-announced, or even to bother him by writing to him---but maybe I should have.
This series is much more in-depth than I envisioned, and many more chapters should duly follow.
Plate One: my version of I SPY, as depicted by his original artist, Les Barton, the top-hatted deviant MR X being the strips' most prominent villian, a'la The Joker to Batman........the streamlined, almost abstract design of I Spy in this early version is still by far my own personal favorite; later versions including a more rounded incarnation of the secret agent by Brian Walker were impressive but in a quite different style----I personally love the vitality and certain lines of the original SPY.
Plate Two; my version of Pansy Potter [the Strongmans' Daughter] as rendered by John Geering for SPARKY, circa 1972 [I did need some reference for this one, although none of my versions of famous-style creations are straight copies. ] John took over an equally-memorable version of Pansy inked by Bob Webster for the same comic: Bob had a very striking, 'square' style, and John adapted some of the 'squareness' inherent in the earlier incarnation to pleasing effect.........Pansy's original 30s/40s spikeytop hairsyle was also re-introduced after her earlier 60s makeover.
COPYRIGHT D C THOMSON, 2015
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