Batman Superman (Titan) vol.2 #01 (2017)
Births:
James Crighton (1892); Powys Evans (Quiz; 1899); Racey Helps (1913); Anthony Haden-Guest (1937)
Deaths:
Sir Owen Seaman, 1st Baronet (1936); Ken Reid (1987); Stanley Franklin (2002); Guglielmo Letteri (2006); Adrian Kermode (2009); Michael Fleisher (2018)
Notable Events:
Ken Reid suffered a stroke, while working on a Faceache strip, and died in 1987.
Rupert Bear stamps released by the Post Office in 1993.
Denis Gifford and Bob Monkhouse looked back at British comics in Sixpence for a Superman, broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in 1999.
The first Hi-Ex comics convention began, at Eden Court, Bishop's Road, Inverness, in 2008.
Holy Mackerel - It’s My Life! broadcast on BBC Radio 4 to celebrate Frank Dickens in 2012.
Showing posts with label Ken Reid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ken Reid. Show all posts
Saturday, February 2, 2019
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
On This Day: 18 Dec
First Appearances:
Ticker Turner in The Victor (D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd.) #44 (23 Dec 1961).
Births:
Charles Robinson Sykes (Jacques d ‘Or; Rilette; 1875); Michael Moorcock (1939); Ken Reid (1919); Luke Walsh (1964)
Deaths:
Ewen Bain (1989); Geoff Campion (1997)
Notable Events:
Terror Keep newspaper strip began in The Daily Mirror in 1936.
A Christmas tea for Eagle readers, with Marcus Morris, Frank Hampson, and Charles Chilton, took place in Leeds in 1951.
Michael Moorcock's 60th birthday was celebrated by the publication of moorcock@60.com in 1999. The volume had sixty contributors, and was instigated by his 'Nomads of the Time Streams' fan club. The great man's birthday party was in Texas.
St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold feature film released in the UK in 2009.
Ticker Turner in The Victor (D.C. Thomson & Co., Ltd.) #44 (23 Dec 1961).
Births:
Charles Robinson Sykes (Jacques d ‘Or; Rilette; 1875); Michael Moorcock (1939); Ken Reid (1919); Luke Walsh (1964)
Deaths:
Ewen Bain (1989); Geoff Campion (1997)
Notable Events:
Terror Keep newspaper strip began in The Daily Mirror in 1936.
A Christmas tea for Eagle readers, with Marcus Morris, Frank Hampson, and Charles Chilton, took place in Leeds in 1951.
Michael Moorcock's 60th birthday was celebrated by the publication of moorcock@60.com in 1999. The volume had sixty contributors, and was instigated by his 'Nomads of the Time Streams' fan club. The great man's birthday party was in Texas.
St. Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold feature film released in the UK in 2009.
Tuesday, October 30, 2018
Monster Fun Comic #1
14 Jun 1975; Cover price 6p.
32 pages. Colour & B&W.
IPC Magazines Ltd.
Edited by Bob Paynter.
Cover by Robert Nixon (uncredited)
Free plate wobbler.
Contents:
Monster Fun Comic is an odd beast. Which is appropriate, really.
Given the treatment doled out to Kid Kong at the beginning of his strip, you would be forgiven for thinking that there would be a rampage of some kind on the cards. You would be wrong. Sort of... No chaos wrought by the banana-obsessed ape is through spite or malice, instead being a series of events which escalated out of control in a manner not unlike that seen in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. He's called an ugly brute, and horrible, before being thrown a lone banana for his rations.
What would you do if your were in Kid Kong's place? Of course he escapes from his cage. Breaking into a department store in his hunt for nourishment, he discovers a giant school uniform and puts it on. Why, you ask? Well, he can't exactly blend in if he is naked, can he? In his cunning disguise, he approaches the home of Granny Smith, who takes pity on the "poor lad, shaking with cold." When men from the fun fair arrive to reclaim their gorilla, Granny Smith chases them off, chastising them for their cruelty.
There are some beautiful flourishes in Nixon's artwork (the first panel, especially so), and Kong is given real character in his facial expressions - though never losing a essential cartoonish element which allows the comedy to work.
The introduction of the titular item in X-Ray Specs is handled almost as an afterthought, with an optician (named, rather unlikely, I. Squint) walking out of his shop and asking Ray to try them on. Discovering that he can see through items, he uses this ability to read a letter which is in its' envelope, dodges a punch from a jack-in-the-box, and avoids being covered in whitewash perched atop an open door.
Things are taken up a notch (or three) with Ken Reid's exceptional Martha's Monster Make-Up. Martha's father, who works in Mallet Horror Films, finds an old jar of make-up while sweeping out one of the dressing rooms, and decides that it will make a perfectly good gift. Applying her make-up, Martha discovers that it is special "monster" make-up, able to turn her skin "scaley and horrible." Liking the results, she rushes downstairs to show her mother...
Yes, it is a gender-flipped Faceache, but there's more to it than obvious parallels - being a domestic rather than a school setting allows for different kinds of stories to be told, and Ken Reid's art doesn't falter in providing the location with a reality which underpins horror elements. It is very much of its era - the second panel recalls the askance smile Barbara Windsor often gave the camera, and dressing tables with curtains around them are very evocative of seventies sit-coms.
Dough Nut and Rusty is slow to introduces the robotic duo, favouring the Posh family's persistent rodent problem. Dough Nut, the most expensive, exclusive robot ever constructed, and Rusty, neither expensive nor exclusive, both apply for a position on staff. When asked to make tea Dough Nut produces a tray laden with cakes and such, prompting Rusty to leave, dejected at his inability to compete. Squeaking from his rusty joints, however, encourages mice to follow him out of the Posh residence, upon which he is offered a job.
Rivalry between the robots is amusing and (strangely) filled with very human moments. There are some extremely nice designs in the "futuristic" setting (set in 2000). with a hovercar an especially nice touch - if I didn't know this issue had been published in 1975, I would have sworn that it was a subtle homage to Star Wars.
For fans of Jack and the Beanstalk there is Grizzly Bearhug... Giant, which updates the basic concept without introducing much in the way of laughs. It doesn't feel like a strip which has been given enough consideration - the title refers to a character (almost) introduced in the final page, while several gags fall flat, and the appearance of a witch (in traditional garb) feels horribly out of place. I'm not sure I'm on board with this strip.
Utilizing a two-page spread, Art's Gallery opens with young Art inheriting a supposedly-haunted Tudor home, with a distinctive jettied top floor, seemingly located in the countryside. After discovering that he has also inherited his uncle's paintings, Art decides to use the building as an art gallery, but his paintings have other ideas and attempt to make their escape. An art thief arrives attempts to steal one of the paintings, though is soon shown the error of his ways - a police reward for his capture delighting Art, though dismaying the paintings.
A fascinating notion, though one which is only briefly explored. Interaction between the paintings and the thief raises the possibility that people can enter paintings, as in Doctor Who and Night at the Museum, opening up an even greater landscape (pun intended) for the strip's future.
While this strip occupies the majority of the spread, there is an added bonus - below, in a short row, are five visual puns. The kind of thing where halves of a banana say goodbye, and the caption beneath reads "banana split." Readers are asked to send in their suggestions, with a £1 prize on offer for those selected for publication.
The paintings are awfully generic, such as Drake Playing Bowls, Circus Clown, Humpty Dumpty, The Three Musketeers, and Milkmaid being highlighted in this first strip, calling into question the taste of Art's uncle. It isn't what is presented here which is really interesting, as much as the implications for the central idea. The strip is a perfect opportunity to inject a little art history into the title, though there isn't so much as a hint of background to art or collecting.
Looking back on the first issue, it would have been more interesting to have a free gift tying in directly to a strip rather than a generic practical joke. One of the great tragedies of IPC during the seventies is the lack of imagination when it came to promoting their new titles. If art plates had been included in the first three issues, or appropriate tone (Caravaggio, perhaps, or Henry Fuseli), then Monster Fun would have had room to grow and mature as 2000 A.D. did.
I sincerely doubt that anyone with a passing interest in comics will be entirely unaware of the Badtime Bedtime Book pull-out section, and it is redundant to extol the virtues of Leo Baxendale's superior material endlessly, but this is something special. whether encountered within the pages of Monster Fun itself, or purchased separately (as they often are), the stories evoke a timeless joy which brings back childhood delights in a way that seems effortless.
'Jack The Nipper's Schooldays' isn't perfect - the paper stock it is printed on is adequate, but the repro is patchy in places in my copy. The strip is so far ahead of its companions (I'm looking at you, Grizzly Bearhug... Giant) that it really stands out as a creator operating at the height of his abilities.
Fully embracing the conceit of the title, Draculass - Daughter of Dracula is - after Kid Kong and Martha's Monster Make-Up - only the third strip to truly take advantage of the comic's theme. X-Ray Specs owes more to soft SF (of X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes calibre), Dough Nut and Rusty is SF, while Grizzly Bearhug... Giant, Art's Gallery and the Badtime Bedtime Book are fantasy. For a title with a unifying theme, there is precious little horror on display.
As I mentioned, the title really is an odd concoction of strips.
Young Maisie is introduced to her cousin Draculass from Transylvania, who is going to be staying with the family. Informed that dinner will be steak and garlic, Draculass leaps into Maisie's arms, terrified. To calm her cousin down, Maisie takes her to see Madame Threeswords Waxworks, where Draculass attempts to bite the neck of a model Cavalier, angering the exhibition's attendant. In chasing them out of the waxworks, a robber posing as a waxwork is discovered, and they receive a reward.
All is concluded happily ever after, and Draculass retires to bed contentedly. In a coffin.
Much like the Sprouto fertiliser in Shiver and Shake's Sample Simon, Brainy and his Monster Maker features a MacGuffin which enlarges items, though in this case in the form of a ray-gun of the kind Buck Rogers would recognise. Challenged to prove his Monster Maker works, Brainy enlarges an apple - which promptly crushes his friend Curly. The apple isn't the only thing which to be made of massive proportion, as a maggot (within the apple) quickly makes its presence known before escaping over the garden fence. Curly's short-sighted grandmother mistakes the maggot for her pet sausage dog, and takes it for a walk.
March of the Mighty Ones, the sole adventure strip within the comic, begins with a dinosaur stomping around an English village, crushing cars underfoot. It is, however, a film set, and the dinosaur is an animatronic, made for an Anvil Films production by John and Jenny Byrd's father. He shows the computer which controls his monsters to a local reporter, who is impressed with the lifelike quality of the creations - and a tad nervous.
He has reason to be scared, as there is more than a touch of the cinematic Frankenstein in play. To hammer home the connection, a bolt of lightning strikes down from the heavens onto the computer, bringing the abominable creatures to life. John and Jenny barely manage to get out of the way when the dinosaurs, by the miracle of divine plotting powers, come to life and go on the march.
However implausible the concept, the handling is superb. For a two-page opening, this is easily the equal of anything similar in a traditional adventure title, and the art is excellent.
Cosmo Crumpet applies for an advertisement asking for a willing lad as an assistant, and so begins Major Jump, Horror Hunter, a strip in which the titular character is attempting to create a monster menagerie. He's a very British chap, with walrus moustache and pith helmet, and his intention is to capture large animals rather than actual monsters. Insisting that there are no such things, Jump is shocked to discover that Meredith, Crumpet's "pet," is indeed such a thing. This prompt him to alter his plans by including real monsters.
While the Major's first appearance is all about laying the groundwork for the series, instead of any actual hunting, there is a likability to him which allows for some leeway in how far it can stray from the designated purpose of the strip. I can't be alone in hearing the sonorous tones of Windsor Davies when reading Jump's dialogue.
The wonderfully named Massacre Street School, which is perfectly awful in every regard for sane, responsible teachers, is the setting for Creature Teacher. Pitiful cries echo from the building, but it is screams of terrified teachers rather than pupils. Mr. Gimble, blindfolded and led out on a diving board, is urged by the pupils to provide an example of a dive - into a pool, it must be added, from which they have drained the water. Fleeing the school, Mr. Gimble is not seen again. And really, who can blame the poor man?
The headmaster is informed that pupils have refilled the pool, and are reenacting the Battle of Trafalgar. His mind is on more important matters: finding a replacement for Gimble, who only lasted two days in charge of 3X despite being paid £500 a week. The school has gone through 97 teachers, with Mr. Strong the worst affected - so traumatised by his experience that he has developed a pathological fear of children. Mr. Gringe is little better, having become an astronaut to get as far away from 3X as is possible to get.
Mr. Fume, the science master has a plan to whip the lads into shape, and escorts the head through an underground tunnel to his laboratory. What greets them is... Well, it is a creature. A Creature Teacher, to be precise. Able to face off against the worst 3X have to offer, designed to withstand any manner of rambunctiousness without cracking, and with enough tentacles to cane five pupils at once. The cry is raised among the class as one: Creature Teacher has got to go.
Tom Thumbscrew, the Torturer's Apprentice! is a decidedly strange strip. Outraged that his basketball team have lost, the King sends for his torturer, Tom Thumbscrew, who uses the rack to stretch the team out. Not horror, per se, but implications should be obvious to older readers.
Cyril and his colleague are minding their own business, tending to their lighthouse (okay, Cyril is reading a book on monsters, but still), when an invisible monster rears out of the sea and snatches up the lighthouse to use as a torch. Once the monster has found its' way to London, it deposits the lighthouse (next to Nelson's Column no less) and goes off on its merry way. A very subdued story with which to introduce the character.
Sid Burgon's artwork is, as always, highly professional and filled with incident, but the writing doesn't gel. The notion is a fine one, but without some hint as to physical presence of the monster there is no sense of danger. Out of sight, out of mind. Had dotted lines been adopted as a shorthand for the invisibility (thus spoiling the reader feedback on what the monster looks like) there might have been more comedy present, but when your main character is so absent from the strip it is extremely difficult to care.
A bold knight out to slay himself a dragon comes face-to-face (or face-to-reflection) with Cinders, the love-struck dragon - which is the entire plot, in case you were wondering. If only the comic had ended on a better note...
A work of undisputed genius, some real gems, a couple of mediocre strips, and then there's Grizzly Bearhug... Giant. This could have been an instant classic, but even with the presence of weaker material this is still a solid beginning. There's fantastic potential here, begging to be nurtured, and even the strips which I'm not completely sold on have things working in their favour.
32 pages. Colour & B&W.
IPC Magazines Ltd.
Edited by Bob Paynter.
Cover by Robert Nixon (uncredited)
Free plate wobbler.
Contents:
.2 UNTITLED [Hiya, readers ... I'm Frankie Stein]; illustrated by Robert Nixon. / This Week's Free Gift / Next Week's Freaky Free Gift / Indicia
.3 Kid Kong UNTITLED ["Roll up! Roll up! Come and see the biggest gorilla in the world-"] w: UNKNOWN; a: Robert Nixon.
.6 X-Ray Specs UNTITLED [An Unusual Pair of Specs] w: UNKNOWN; a: Mike Lacey.
.7 Martha's Monster Make-Up UNTITLED [Special Monster Make-Up] w: UNKNOWN; a: Ken Reid.
.8 Dough Nut and Rusty UNTITLED [The Posh Family and Servants Back in the Year 1900] w: UNKNOWN; a: Trevor Metcalfe.
10 Grizzly Bearhug... Giant UNTITLED [Broken Down, Miles from Anywhere] w: UNKNOWN; a: Andy Christine.
13 Monster Fun Comic presents THE CONTEST TO END ALL CONTESTS! (half page) competition. / How to put together your Badtime Bedtime story book (quarter page) / We don't give the orders-YOU DO! (quarter page) subscription form.
14 Art's Gallery UNTITLED [Calling Art Lovers Everywhere - Here's Your New Hero!] w: UNKNOWN; a: Mike Lacey. / Art's Prize Potty Pictures
15 Badtime Bedtime Book 'Jack The Nipper's Schooldays' w:/a: Leo Baxendale.
20 Draculass - Daughter of Dracula UNTITLED [Draculass from Transylvania] w: UNKNOWN; a: Terry Bave.
21 Brainy and his Monster Maker UNTITLED [The World's First Monster-Making Ray Gun] w: UNKNOWN; a: Vic Neill.
22 March of the Mighty Ones UNTITLED [It Began One Day] w: UNKNOWN; a: Mike White.
24 Monster Hits - Top 10 Gags UNTITLED [Here's a Real Gas] w: UNKNOWN; a: Artie Jackson.
25 Major Jump, Horror Hunter UNTITLED [Wanted: Willing Lad as Assistant] w: UNKNOWN; a: Ian Knox.
26 Creature Teacher UNTITLED [The Little Monsters of 3X] w: UNKNOWN; a: Tom Williams.
29 Tom Thumbscrew, the Torturer's Apprentice! UNTITLED [The King's Basketball Team] w: UNKNOWN; a: Trevor Metcalfe.
30 The Invisible Monster UNTITLED [The Monster from the Deep] w: UNKNOWN; a: Sid Burgon.
32 Cinders - She's Hot Stuff UNTITLED [In Days of Old, When Knights Were Bold] w: UNKNOWN; a: Norman Mansbridge.
Monster Fun Comic is an odd beast. Which is appropriate, really.
Given the treatment doled out to Kid Kong at the beginning of his strip, you would be forgiven for thinking that there would be a rampage of some kind on the cards. You would be wrong. Sort of... No chaos wrought by the banana-obsessed ape is through spite or malice, instead being a series of events which escalated out of control in a manner not unlike that seen in Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. He's called an ugly brute, and horrible, before being thrown a lone banana for his rations.
What would you do if your were in Kid Kong's place? Of course he escapes from his cage. Breaking into a department store in his hunt for nourishment, he discovers a giant school uniform and puts it on. Why, you ask? Well, he can't exactly blend in if he is naked, can he? In his cunning disguise, he approaches the home of Granny Smith, who takes pity on the "poor lad, shaking with cold." When men from the fun fair arrive to reclaim their gorilla, Granny Smith chases them off, chastising them for their cruelty.
There are some beautiful flourishes in Nixon's artwork (the first panel, especially so), and Kong is given real character in his facial expressions - though never losing a essential cartoonish element which allows the comedy to work.
The introduction of the titular item in X-Ray Specs is handled almost as an afterthought, with an optician (named, rather unlikely, I. Squint) walking out of his shop and asking Ray to try them on. Discovering that he can see through items, he uses this ability to read a letter which is in its' envelope, dodges a punch from a jack-in-the-box, and avoids being covered in whitewash perched atop an open door.
Things are taken up a notch (or three) with Ken Reid's exceptional Martha's Monster Make-Up. Martha's father, who works in Mallet Horror Films, finds an old jar of make-up while sweeping out one of the dressing rooms, and decides that it will make a perfectly good gift. Applying her make-up, Martha discovers that it is special "monster" make-up, able to turn her skin "scaley and horrible." Liking the results, she rushes downstairs to show her mother...
Yes, it is a gender-flipped Faceache, but there's more to it than obvious parallels - being a domestic rather than a school setting allows for different kinds of stories to be told, and Ken Reid's art doesn't falter in providing the location with a reality which underpins horror elements. It is very much of its era - the second panel recalls the askance smile Barbara Windsor often gave the camera, and dressing tables with curtains around them are very evocative of seventies sit-coms.
Dough Nut and Rusty is slow to introduces the robotic duo, favouring the Posh family's persistent rodent problem. Dough Nut, the most expensive, exclusive robot ever constructed, and Rusty, neither expensive nor exclusive, both apply for a position on staff. When asked to make tea Dough Nut produces a tray laden with cakes and such, prompting Rusty to leave, dejected at his inability to compete. Squeaking from his rusty joints, however, encourages mice to follow him out of the Posh residence, upon which he is offered a job.
Rivalry between the robots is amusing and (strangely) filled with very human moments. There are some extremely nice designs in the "futuristic" setting (set in 2000). with a hovercar an especially nice touch - if I didn't know this issue had been published in 1975, I would have sworn that it was a subtle homage to Star Wars.
For fans of Jack and the Beanstalk there is Grizzly Bearhug... Giant, which updates the basic concept without introducing much in the way of laughs. It doesn't feel like a strip which has been given enough consideration - the title refers to a character (almost) introduced in the final page, while several gags fall flat, and the appearance of a witch (in traditional garb) feels horribly out of place. I'm not sure I'm on board with this strip.
Utilizing a two-page spread, Art's Gallery opens with young Art inheriting a supposedly-haunted Tudor home, with a distinctive jettied top floor, seemingly located in the countryside. After discovering that he has also inherited his uncle's paintings, Art decides to use the building as an art gallery, but his paintings have other ideas and attempt to make their escape. An art thief arrives attempts to steal one of the paintings, though is soon shown the error of his ways - a police reward for his capture delighting Art, though dismaying the paintings.
A fascinating notion, though one which is only briefly explored. Interaction between the paintings and the thief raises the possibility that people can enter paintings, as in Doctor Who and Night at the Museum, opening up an even greater landscape (pun intended) for the strip's future.
While this strip occupies the majority of the spread, there is an added bonus - below, in a short row, are five visual puns. The kind of thing where halves of a banana say goodbye, and the caption beneath reads "banana split." Readers are asked to send in their suggestions, with a £1 prize on offer for those selected for publication.
The paintings are awfully generic, such as Drake Playing Bowls, Circus Clown, Humpty Dumpty, The Three Musketeers, and Milkmaid being highlighted in this first strip, calling into question the taste of Art's uncle. It isn't what is presented here which is really interesting, as much as the implications for the central idea. The strip is a perfect opportunity to inject a little art history into the title, though there isn't so much as a hint of background to art or collecting.
Looking back on the first issue, it would have been more interesting to have a free gift tying in directly to a strip rather than a generic practical joke. One of the great tragedies of IPC during the seventies is the lack of imagination when it came to promoting their new titles. If art plates had been included in the first three issues, or appropriate tone (Caravaggio, perhaps, or Henry Fuseli), then Monster Fun would have had room to grow and mature as 2000 A.D. did.
I sincerely doubt that anyone with a passing interest in comics will be entirely unaware of the Badtime Bedtime Book pull-out section, and it is redundant to extol the virtues of Leo Baxendale's superior material endlessly, but this is something special. whether encountered within the pages of Monster Fun itself, or purchased separately (as they often are), the stories evoke a timeless joy which brings back childhood delights in a way that seems effortless.
'Jack The Nipper's Schooldays' isn't perfect - the paper stock it is printed on is adequate, but the repro is patchy in places in my copy. The strip is so far ahead of its companions (I'm looking at you, Grizzly Bearhug... Giant) that it really stands out as a creator operating at the height of his abilities.
Fully embracing the conceit of the title, Draculass - Daughter of Dracula is - after Kid Kong and Martha's Monster Make-Up - only the third strip to truly take advantage of the comic's theme. X-Ray Specs owes more to soft SF (of X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes calibre), Dough Nut and Rusty is SF, while Grizzly Bearhug... Giant, Art's Gallery and the Badtime Bedtime Book are fantasy. For a title with a unifying theme, there is precious little horror on display.
As I mentioned, the title really is an odd concoction of strips.
Young Maisie is introduced to her cousin Draculass from Transylvania, who is going to be staying with the family. Informed that dinner will be steak and garlic, Draculass leaps into Maisie's arms, terrified. To calm her cousin down, Maisie takes her to see Madame Threeswords Waxworks, where Draculass attempts to bite the neck of a model Cavalier, angering the exhibition's attendant. In chasing them out of the waxworks, a robber posing as a waxwork is discovered, and they receive a reward.
All is concluded happily ever after, and Draculass retires to bed contentedly. In a coffin.
Much like the Sprouto fertiliser in Shiver and Shake's Sample Simon, Brainy and his Monster Maker features a MacGuffin which enlarges items, though in this case in the form of a ray-gun of the kind Buck Rogers would recognise. Challenged to prove his Monster Maker works, Brainy enlarges an apple - which promptly crushes his friend Curly. The apple isn't the only thing which to be made of massive proportion, as a maggot (within the apple) quickly makes its presence known before escaping over the garden fence. Curly's short-sighted grandmother mistakes the maggot for her pet sausage dog, and takes it for a walk.
March of the Mighty Ones, the sole adventure strip within the comic, begins with a dinosaur stomping around an English village, crushing cars underfoot. It is, however, a film set, and the dinosaur is an animatronic, made for an Anvil Films production by John and Jenny Byrd's father. He shows the computer which controls his monsters to a local reporter, who is impressed with the lifelike quality of the creations - and a tad nervous.
He has reason to be scared, as there is more than a touch of the cinematic Frankenstein in play. To hammer home the connection, a bolt of lightning strikes down from the heavens onto the computer, bringing the abominable creatures to life. John and Jenny barely manage to get out of the way when the dinosaurs, by the miracle of divine plotting powers, come to life and go on the march.
However implausible the concept, the handling is superb. For a two-page opening, this is easily the equal of anything similar in a traditional adventure title, and the art is excellent.
Cosmo Crumpet applies for an advertisement asking for a willing lad as an assistant, and so begins Major Jump, Horror Hunter, a strip in which the titular character is attempting to create a monster menagerie. He's a very British chap, with walrus moustache and pith helmet, and his intention is to capture large animals rather than actual monsters. Insisting that there are no such things, Jump is shocked to discover that Meredith, Crumpet's "pet," is indeed such a thing. This prompt him to alter his plans by including real monsters.
While the Major's first appearance is all about laying the groundwork for the series, instead of any actual hunting, there is a likability to him which allows for some leeway in how far it can stray from the designated purpose of the strip. I can't be alone in hearing the sonorous tones of Windsor Davies when reading Jump's dialogue.
The wonderfully named Massacre Street School, which is perfectly awful in every regard for sane, responsible teachers, is the setting for Creature Teacher. Pitiful cries echo from the building, but it is screams of terrified teachers rather than pupils. Mr. Gimble, blindfolded and led out on a diving board, is urged by the pupils to provide an example of a dive - into a pool, it must be added, from which they have drained the water. Fleeing the school, Mr. Gimble is not seen again. And really, who can blame the poor man?
The headmaster is informed that pupils have refilled the pool, and are reenacting the Battle of Trafalgar. His mind is on more important matters: finding a replacement for Gimble, who only lasted two days in charge of 3X despite being paid £500 a week. The school has gone through 97 teachers, with Mr. Strong the worst affected - so traumatised by his experience that he has developed a pathological fear of children. Mr. Gringe is little better, having become an astronaut to get as far away from 3X as is possible to get.
Mr. Fume, the science master has a plan to whip the lads into shape, and escorts the head through an underground tunnel to his laboratory. What greets them is... Well, it is a creature. A Creature Teacher, to be precise. Able to face off against the worst 3X have to offer, designed to withstand any manner of rambunctiousness without cracking, and with enough tentacles to cane five pupils at once. The cry is raised among the class as one: Creature Teacher has got to go.
Tom Thumbscrew, the Torturer's Apprentice! is a decidedly strange strip. Outraged that his basketball team have lost, the King sends for his torturer, Tom Thumbscrew, who uses the rack to stretch the team out. Not horror, per se, but implications should be obvious to older readers.
Cyril and his colleague are minding their own business, tending to their lighthouse (okay, Cyril is reading a book on monsters, but still), when an invisible monster rears out of the sea and snatches up the lighthouse to use as a torch. Once the monster has found its' way to London, it deposits the lighthouse (next to Nelson's Column no less) and goes off on its merry way. A very subdued story with which to introduce the character.
Sid Burgon's artwork is, as always, highly professional and filled with incident, but the writing doesn't gel. The notion is a fine one, but without some hint as to physical presence of the monster there is no sense of danger. Out of sight, out of mind. Had dotted lines been adopted as a shorthand for the invisibility (thus spoiling the reader feedback on what the monster looks like) there might have been more comedy present, but when your main character is so absent from the strip it is extremely difficult to care.
A bold knight out to slay himself a dragon comes face-to-face (or face-to-reflection) with Cinders, the love-struck dragon - which is the entire plot, in case you were wondering. If only the comic had ended on a better note...
A work of undisputed genius, some real gems, a couple of mediocre strips, and then there's Grizzly Bearhug... Giant. This could have been an instant classic, but even with the presence of weaker material this is still a solid beginning. There's fantastic potential here, begging to be nurtured, and even the strips which I'm not completely sold on have things working in their favour.
Monday, October 29, 2018
Shiver and Shake #1
10 Mar 1973; Cover price 4p.
36 pages. Colour & B&W.
IPC Magazines Ltd.
Cover by Mike Lacey (uncredited).
Free practical joke.
Contents:
The two-comics-in-one gimmick works well here, with slight reservations. A comic which features a ghost and an elephant seems to lend itself to two distinct halves: horror-comedy resising with a ghost (Shiver), and comedy of other stripes residing with an elephant (Shake). However, Moana Lisa is in Shake's section. Such considerations aren't, by any stretch of the imagination, a deal-breaker, but these minor quirks do tend to display decisions made in concern to the title's layout, and indicate the journey from conception to print wasn't a smooth and easy one.
IPC's first horror-comedy comic gets rolling with an introductory cover, establishing the two hosts effects on their environments. While the logo works fine with a two-panel cover used here, it is extremely unwieldy - having such a busy title also means that attention is drawn away from the art, which I'm sure must have gone down well with creators. There's also a free gift (because IPC loved free gifts with first issues), but Shiver and Shake goes one better by having four. Okay, so there may only be one in each copy, but there are four practical jokes to collect.
Frankie Stein uses a tried and tested plot of a monster going to school. Of course, when it comes to Frankie doing anything, there is going to be a serious amount of destruction left in his wake. Predictable? Yes. Funny? Very much so. The character may have been softened, but the humour is as sharp as ever. Professor Cube's face in the final panel is priceless.
There's nice handling of social dynamics between Shiver and Grimes the Butler in The Duke's Spook, with Shiver desperate to frighten off Grimes, who is intruding on his lifestyle. Grimes is nonplussed by Shiver's antics, thanks to working in many haunted buildings previously. There isn't anything exceptional thus far, but it works perfectly - it is obvious that the rivalry isn't going to be resolved, but much appeal lies in seeing who is able to get the upper hand.
Webster is a bit of a let-down. Spiders can make for great horror stories, and (as with the BBC's Spider) can provide much entertainment, but this strip isn't quite as inventive or as funny as it should be. Terry Bave's artwork is superb as always.
Scream Inn (We're only here for the FEAR) is a very attractive strip, with a boxer and his manager arriving one night and seeing a sign offering a reward: a million pounds for anyone brave enough to spend a full night in the haunted bedroom. His manager sends Champ in to claim the prize (while he remains safely outside), kicking off a sequence of ghosts and ghouls doing their best to frighten Champ away. As dawn approaches it appears that he has bested the worst the haunted bedroom has to offer.
Everything about Scream Inn is excellent - a highlight of the issue, living up to Shiver and Shake's promise.
There have been numerous mobile, intelligent plants in fiction, but Biddy's Beastly Bloomers is a great step down from Day of the Triffids. As Biddy rests on her way home from Bosco Stores, plants attempt to eat sausages she has bought. She pulls the sausages away from the plants, uprooting them, but they follow her home. It is a comedy strip desperately crying out for a straight retelling, playing up horror elements, as it doesn't quite work as a humerous one.
A great idea whose handling is fumbled. So slowly paced that Robin is likely to come of age before the strip gets to a point. Like a cut-price Zip Nolan, Robin has to spot each clue (one a week) in order to uncover the identity of his would-be killer, with reader participation in the form of a cut-out-and-keep clue tab at the end of each installment.
I would be prepared to put up with glacial pace and ridiculously flat characters if we actually got something approaching real violence attempted against Robin, but the great, unforgivable crime which must be solved is... a death threat. It is written in block letters, rather than cursive, so the cad probably deserves everything coming to him. If, indeed, our culprit is a man...
The most puzzling thing about Who'd Kill Cockney Robin isn't in the writing, but the core idea. If this strip (inexplicably) turned out to be very popular, how was it meant to progress? His death threat comes from inheriting the factory, with clear motivations for antagonist(s). Having a completely new group of people introduced every fifteen or so issues, with their prime characteristic being a hatred of poor Robin, plotting would soon wear very thin indeed. The only possible way to sustain a story of that kind is with farce, thus eliminating tension.
There's something unlikeable about Shake, whose attempts to "help" a man seem more like sustained and deliberate unprovoked violence.
Lolly Pop begins as it would go on and on, with an act of miserliness which kicks off a sequence of events resulting in a catastrophe costing much more to resolve in the long run. This first installment of the series revolves around Archie asking for money to purchase a football, but receiving a penny in order to get a ping pong ball... Which Pop haggles down to a ha'penny as it has a dent in it. In blowing out the dent a bingo game is disrupted, whereupon events rapidly escalate.
It isn't immediately obvious how many children, in 1973, would have known who Erwin Rommel was, nor why having a bunch of soldiers hunting an actual fox, in The Desert Fox, is a rather funny joke. Which is precisely the problem with this strip. The Desert Fox's sense of comedy is rooted in a bygone age, not helped by the fact that the strip merely ends rather than receives a conclusion. There's no clever punch-line, nor a complex twist, with its denouement arriving due to lack of space for more incident.
There is another "witty" title in Gal Capone, whose titular character is basically a larger Minnie the Minx with no redeeming features. At least a semblance of plot is present, and is rendered in fine style by Murray Ball, but it is hard to feel much more than mild apathy for a character who is so basic in motivation.
The Fixer feels like it is a knock-off of something from early 70s pop-cultural landscape rather than a completely original strip. Fixer, for he has no name, sets out to help others get what they want. Not for money, but to see if he can. His altruism rings somewhat hollow, as when the plan fails (as it must for maximum comic effect) he doesn't seem to care about any consequences resulting from his actions.
As per IPC tradition, Match of the Week is the mandatory sports inclusion. It doesn't work for me, but I don't know much about football. Damsel in Distress, as nice as Trevor Metcalfe's artwork is, doesn't even raise a hint of a smile.
Tough Nutt and Softy Centre is an "opposites" strip, much like Fit Fred and Sick Sid from a few years later, but much more extreme in depicting the two main characters' behaviours. Nutt cracks reinforced stairs as he makes his way to breakfast, which is fried tree roots and nail sauce. Softy aks to be carried down the stairs in case he trips and falls, whereupon he has to have his soggy, mushy cereal at just the right temperature - half a degree hotter will prompt an outburst.
Nutt hates Softy as he is "the weediest little twerp I know," and the draught from one of his punches is enough to knock his fragile neighbour over. It is a well-drawn strip with clearly defined characters, an obvious antagonism, portrays appropriate comeuppance for the aggressor, and runs through the entire story in two pages. But a certain spark is missing, and both characters come across as annoying in their own ways.
A good comparison would be Ivor Lott and Tony Broke, which follows much the same formula of diametrically opposed characters. Within the established framework of such stories were moments of (temporary) redemption, allowing for both the positives and negatives of their personalities to be explored. In Tough Nutt and Softy Centre both characters are shorn of any positive aspects, resulting in a lack of empathy for their fates.
Jail Birds is exactly what it suggests in the title. Two budgies in a cage, being fattened up for a cat's Christmas dinner. Their escape attempts are the focus of the strip, but where Tom and Jerry made light of a cat's hunger for flesh through comedy violence, this feels crueler - the birds have already been caged, and their lives depend of fleeing from the cage in which they are trapped.
There's a possible explanation for the origin of Biddy's Beastly Bloomers in Sample Simon (not that such cross-overs really occurred on anything like a regular basis), as a packet of Sprouto fertiliser causes immense growth in several plants he tests the sample on. Unfortunately the fertiliser makes caterpillars grow just as much as his plants. An old gag, but well handled.
Perpetually scowling, Moana Lisa is only happy when she is miserable - as readers are likely to become after reading the strip. Characters with personalities which deviate hugely from social norms ought to have wilder things to be (for example) miserable about. An afternoon off school seems too tame for an introduction, whereas being miserable because she has won something significant in a raffle would offer more of a contrast.
For a strip about a disembodied body part, The Hand is very amusing. Flipping a coin to decide whether to scare people or help them, then causing mischief regardless (we only have Hand's word for which side his coin landed), the floating, ghostly hand is a classic strip straight from its first outing. It may have all sorts of unanswered questions behind the concept, but the visual strength of Hand (rendered with utmost skill by Reg Parlett) surmounts such thoughts.
Soggy the Sea Monster has a distinctive look, while conforming to the generic look, but despite strong visuals the script feels like a checklist of "funny" moments being ticked off a list rather than an organic development of events.
Arguably the most important strip in the first issue, Leo Baxendale's Sweeny Toddler gets off to a strong start, with the violent baby causing enough mayhem for three strips by anyone else. Deceptively simple artwork plays with details (Sweeny bending the bars on his pram, a stack of knocked-over tins paying off a comment from the second panel) which work to heighten the comedy.
Horrornation St. plays off the title of Coronation Street, though (thankfully) doesn't require knowledge of the series to make sense of events. A series of monsters live together in an odd community, and interact with a series of puns, bad jokes, and strange behaviour. It feels like an adaptation of an old sit-com series with a creaky laugh track. I love it, obviously, especially as it doesn't rely on a "normal" cast reacting to events.
Reading Horrornation St. with hindsight shines light on some choices made - Sir Headley Deadly brings to mind Deadly Hedley, and looks like many of the ghosts which would populate IPC titles. It is much better than Adrian's Wall, which struggles to fill a single page with jokes, and it is clear even from the introduction of the walking wall that it is an idea with a finite lifespan.
Ye Haunted Lake, much like The Haunted Wood in Knockout, is a simple notion - if you take something from the lake then bad things will happen. In this case, little Sebastian's tiddler (safely ensconced in an empty jam jar) grows to incredible size during the journey home from the lake, with an accompanying increase in water. It shows that even simple ideas, when done well, can provide much entertainment. The issue is rounded off with a Ken Reid Creepy Creations illustration.
Not a perfect beginning, but with enough top-drawer material to make up for weaker strips.
36 pages. Colour & B&W.
IPC Magazines Ltd.
Cover by Mike Lacey (uncredited).
Free practical joke.
Contents:
.2 Frankie Stein UNTITLED [Monday Morning at Mildew Manor] w: UNKNOWN; a: Robert Nixon (uncredited).
.3 Cackles from the Cave (half page) jokes.
.4 The Duke's Spook UNTITLED [Butler Wanted - Apply Within] w: UNKNOWN; a: Arthur Martin (uncredited).
.5 Webster UNTITLED [Sentry Box] w: UNKNOWN; a: Terry Bave (uncredited).
.6 Scream Inn UNTITLED [The Champ] w: UNKNOWN; a: Brian Walker (uncredited).
.8 Biddy's Beastly Bloomers UNTITLED [Rooted in the Garden] w: UNKNOWN; a: Sid Burgon (uncredited).
.9 Who'd Kill Cockney Robin, part one, w: UNKNOWN; a: Tom Kerr (uncredited).
11 Shake UNTITLED ["The wind's blown off my best bowler!"] w: UNKNOWN; a: Mike Lacey (uncredited).
12 Lolly Pop UNTITLED [Meet Lolly Pop ... Richest Dad in the World!] w: UNKNOWN; a: Reg Parlett (uncredited).
14 The Desert Fox UNTITLED [North Africa 1942] w: UNKNOWN; a: Terry Bave (uncredited).
15 Free in Next Week's Shiver and Shake
16 Gal Capone UNTITLED [A Super Go-Kart] w: UNKNOWN; a: Murray Ball (uncredited).
17 The Fixer UNTITLED [The Rich Kid's Birthday Party] w: UNKNOWN; a: Peter Davidson (uncredited).
18 Match of the Week Cowboys versus Indians w: UNKNOWN; a: Mike Lacey (uncredited).
20 Damsel in Distress UNTITLED [Knight on a Kite] w: UNKNOWN; a: Trevor Metcalfe (uncredited).
21 Mirth-Shaking Inventions / Shake a Leg
22 Tough Nutt and Softy Centre UNTITLED [Meet Tough Nutt...] w: UNKNOWN; a: Norman Mansbridge (uncredited).
24 Jail Birds UNTITLED ["Only nine more months budgies..."] w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.
25 Sample Simon UNTITLED [Sprouto the Wonder Fertiliser] w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.
26 Moana Lisa UNTITLED [An afternoon off school] w: UNKNOWN; a: Peter Davidson (uncredited).
27 Who'd Kill Cockney Robin, part one (cont.)
29 The Hand UNTITLED [Heads or Tails] w: UNKNOWN; a: Reg Parlett (uncredited).
30 Soggy the Sea Monster UNTITLED ["Fifteen years I've been stuck on this desert island!"] w: UNKNOWN; a: Robert Nixon (uncredited).
31 Sweeny Toddler UNTITLED [Banned from the Supermarket] w: UNKNOWN; a: Leo Baxendale (uncredited).
32 Horrornation St. UNTITLED [Tootin Common, the Egyptian Mummy, Slept Soundly] w: UNKNOWN; a: Tom Williams (uncredited).
34 Adrian's Wall UNTITLED [A Walking Wall with Ghostly Legs] w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.
35 Ye Haunted Lake UNTITLED [Little Sebastian's Tiddler] w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.
36 Creepy Creations The One-Eyed Wonk of Wigan a: Ken Reid (uncredited).
The two-comics-in-one gimmick works well here, with slight reservations. A comic which features a ghost and an elephant seems to lend itself to two distinct halves: horror-comedy resising with a ghost (Shiver), and comedy of other stripes residing with an elephant (Shake). However, Moana Lisa is in Shake's section. Such considerations aren't, by any stretch of the imagination, a deal-breaker, but these minor quirks do tend to display decisions made in concern to the title's layout, and indicate the journey from conception to print wasn't a smooth and easy one.
IPC's first horror-comedy comic gets rolling with an introductory cover, establishing the two hosts effects on their environments. While the logo works fine with a two-panel cover used here, it is extremely unwieldy - having such a busy title also means that attention is drawn away from the art, which I'm sure must have gone down well with creators. There's also a free gift (because IPC loved free gifts with first issues), but Shiver and Shake goes one better by having four. Okay, so there may only be one in each copy, but there are four practical jokes to collect.
Frankie Stein uses a tried and tested plot of a monster going to school. Of course, when it comes to Frankie doing anything, there is going to be a serious amount of destruction left in his wake. Predictable? Yes. Funny? Very much so. The character may have been softened, but the humour is as sharp as ever. Professor Cube's face in the final panel is priceless.
There's nice handling of social dynamics between Shiver and Grimes the Butler in The Duke's Spook, with Shiver desperate to frighten off Grimes, who is intruding on his lifestyle. Grimes is nonplussed by Shiver's antics, thanks to working in many haunted buildings previously. There isn't anything exceptional thus far, but it works perfectly - it is obvious that the rivalry isn't going to be resolved, but much appeal lies in seeing who is able to get the upper hand.
Webster is a bit of a let-down. Spiders can make for great horror stories, and (as with the BBC's Spider) can provide much entertainment, but this strip isn't quite as inventive or as funny as it should be. Terry Bave's artwork is superb as always.
Scream Inn (We're only here for the FEAR) is a very attractive strip, with a boxer and his manager arriving one night and seeing a sign offering a reward: a million pounds for anyone brave enough to spend a full night in the haunted bedroom. His manager sends Champ in to claim the prize (while he remains safely outside), kicking off a sequence of ghosts and ghouls doing their best to frighten Champ away. As dawn approaches it appears that he has bested the worst the haunted bedroom has to offer.
Everything about Scream Inn is excellent - a highlight of the issue, living up to Shiver and Shake's promise.
There have been numerous mobile, intelligent plants in fiction, but Biddy's Beastly Bloomers is a great step down from Day of the Triffids. As Biddy rests on her way home from Bosco Stores, plants attempt to eat sausages she has bought. She pulls the sausages away from the plants, uprooting them, but they follow her home. It is a comedy strip desperately crying out for a straight retelling, playing up horror elements, as it doesn't quite work as a humerous one.
The Yorkshire town of Gnarlford ...and amid the modern industrial blocks, one old building stood out like a sore thumb - the tiny factory that made Bollsbottam's Bullseyes!The sole drama strip, Who'd Kill Cockney Robin lays out a lot of background before it really gets going. Employees of Bollsbottam's Bullseyes are outlined, and the reading of Barty's will (held up by the late arrival of Robin Radford) is the primary push of the story's first installment. To everyone's astonishment (save for astute readers), young Cockney Robin is bequeathed everything. Locked in the house, Robin discovers a note threatening his life, and must discover which employee wants him dead.
Famous throughout the land, Bollsbottam's Bullseyes were huge, crunchy and round! Gobstoppers of true goodness!
For eighty years, the factory had been owned by one Bartholomew Bollsbottam... A Bullseye Millionaire!
But now, alas, poor Barty was no more!
A great idea whose handling is fumbled. So slowly paced that Robin is likely to come of age before the strip gets to a point. Like a cut-price Zip Nolan, Robin has to spot each clue (one a week) in order to uncover the identity of his would-be killer, with reader participation in the form of a cut-out-and-keep clue tab at the end of each installment.
I would be prepared to put up with glacial pace and ridiculously flat characters if we actually got something approaching real violence attempted against Robin, but the great, unforgivable crime which must be solved is... a death threat. It is written in block letters, rather than cursive, so the cad probably deserves everything coming to him. If, indeed, our culprit is a man...
The most puzzling thing about Who'd Kill Cockney Robin isn't in the writing, but the core idea. If this strip (inexplicably) turned out to be very popular, how was it meant to progress? His death threat comes from inheriting the factory, with clear motivations for antagonist(s). Having a completely new group of people introduced every fifteen or so issues, with their prime characteristic being a hatred of poor Robin, plotting would soon wear very thin indeed. The only possible way to sustain a story of that kind is with farce, thus eliminating tension.
There's something unlikeable about Shake, whose attempts to "help" a man seem more like sustained and deliberate unprovoked violence.
Lolly Pop begins as it would go on and on, with an act of miserliness which kicks off a sequence of events resulting in a catastrophe costing much more to resolve in the long run. This first installment of the series revolves around Archie asking for money to purchase a football, but receiving a penny in order to get a ping pong ball... Which Pop haggles down to a ha'penny as it has a dent in it. In blowing out the dent a bingo game is disrupted, whereupon events rapidly escalate.
It isn't immediately obvious how many children, in 1973, would have known who Erwin Rommel was, nor why having a bunch of soldiers hunting an actual fox, in The Desert Fox, is a rather funny joke. Which is precisely the problem with this strip. The Desert Fox's sense of comedy is rooted in a bygone age, not helped by the fact that the strip merely ends rather than receives a conclusion. There's no clever punch-line, nor a complex twist, with its denouement arriving due to lack of space for more incident.
There is another "witty" title in Gal Capone, whose titular character is basically a larger Minnie the Minx with no redeeming features. At least a semblance of plot is present, and is rendered in fine style by Murray Ball, but it is hard to feel much more than mild apathy for a character who is so basic in motivation.
The Fixer feels like it is a knock-off of something from early 70s pop-cultural landscape rather than a completely original strip. Fixer, for he has no name, sets out to help others get what they want. Not for money, but to see if he can. His altruism rings somewhat hollow, as when the plan fails (as it must for maximum comic effect) he doesn't seem to care about any consequences resulting from his actions.
As per IPC tradition, Match of the Week is the mandatory sports inclusion. It doesn't work for me, but I don't know much about football. Damsel in Distress, as nice as Trevor Metcalfe's artwork is, doesn't even raise a hint of a smile.
Tough Nutt and Softy Centre is an "opposites" strip, much like Fit Fred and Sick Sid from a few years later, but much more extreme in depicting the two main characters' behaviours. Nutt cracks reinforced stairs as he makes his way to breakfast, which is fried tree roots and nail sauce. Softy aks to be carried down the stairs in case he trips and falls, whereupon he has to have his soggy, mushy cereal at just the right temperature - half a degree hotter will prompt an outburst.
Nutt hates Softy as he is "the weediest little twerp I know," and the draught from one of his punches is enough to knock his fragile neighbour over. It is a well-drawn strip with clearly defined characters, an obvious antagonism, portrays appropriate comeuppance for the aggressor, and runs through the entire story in two pages. But a certain spark is missing, and both characters come across as annoying in their own ways.
A good comparison would be Ivor Lott and Tony Broke, which follows much the same formula of diametrically opposed characters. Within the established framework of such stories were moments of (temporary) redemption, allowing for both the positives and negatives of their personalities to be explored. In Tough Nutt and Softy Centre both characters are shorn of any positive aspects, resulting in a lack of empathy for their fates.
Jail Birds is exactly what it suggests in the title. Two budgies in a cage, being fattened up for a cat's Christmas dinner. Their escape attempts are the focus of the strip, but where Tom and Jerry made light of a cat's hunger for flesh through comedy violence, this feels crueler - the birds have already been caged, and their lives depend of fleeing from the cage in which they are trapped.
There's a possible explanation for the origin of Biddy's Beastly Bloomers in Sample Simon (not that such cross-overs really occurred on anything like a regular basis), as a packet of Sprouto fertiliser causes immense growth in several plants he tests the sample on. Unfortunately the fertiliser makes caterpillars grow just as much as his plants. An old gag, but well handled.
Perpetually scowling, Moana Lisa is only happy when she is miserable - as readers are likely to become after reading the strip. Characters with personalities which deviate hugely from social norms ought to have wilder things to be (for example) miserable about. An afternoon off school seems too tame for an introduction, whereas being miserable because she has won something significant in a raffle would offer more of a contrast.
For a strip about a disembodied body part, The Hand is very amusing. Flipping a coin to decide whether to scare people or help them, then causing mischief regardless (we only have Hand's word for which side his coin landed), the floating, ghostly hand is a classic strip straight from its first outing. It may have all sorts of unanswered questions behind the concept, but the visual strength of Hand (rendered with utmost skill by Reg Parlett) surmounts such thoughts.
Soggy the Sea Monster has a distinctive look, while conforming to the generic look, but despite strong visuals the script feels like a checklist of "funny" moments being ticked off a list rather than an organic development of events.
Arguably the most important strip in the first issue, Leo Baxendale's Sweeny Toddler gets off to a strong start, with the violent baby causing enough mayhem for three strips by anyone else. Deceptively simple artwork plays with details (Sweeny bending the bars on his pram, a stack of knocked-over tins paying off a comment from the second panel) which work to heighten the comedy.
Horrornation St. plays off the title of Coronation Street, though (thankfully) doesn't require knowledge of the series to make sense of events. A series of monsters live together in an odd community, and interact with a series of puns, bad jokes, and strange behaviour. It feels like an adaptation of an old sit-com series with a creaky laugh track. I love it, obviously, especially as it doesn't rely on a "normal" cast reacting to events.
Reading Horrornation St. with hindsight shines light on some choices made - Sir Headley Deadly brings to mind Deadly Hedley, and looks like many of the ghosts which would populate IPC titles. It is much better than Adrian's Wall, which struggles to fill a single page with jokes, and it is clear even from the introduction of the walking wall that it is an idea with a finite lifespan.
Ye Haunted Lake, much like The Haunted Wood in Knockout, is a simple notion - if you take something from the lake then bad things will happen. In this case, little Sebastian's tiddler (safely ensconced in an empty jam jar) grows to incredible size during the journey home from the lake, with an accompanying increase in water. It shows that even simple ideas, when done well, can provide much entertainment. The issue is rounded off with a Ken Reid Creepy Creations illustration.
Not a perfect beginning, but with enough top-drawer material to make up for weaker strips.
Sunday, October 7, 2018
Jet #1
01 May 1971; Cover price 3p.
40 pages. Colour & B&W.
IPC Magazines Ltd.
Cover by Eric Bradbury. (uncredited).
Free Trebor Bumper Bar fruit chews.
Contents:
A year before giant rabbits hopped their way across cinema screens in Night of the Lepus, giant animals were terrorizing Britain in Von Hoffman's Invasion. Both were, of course, inspired by movies of the fifties, but Jet's strip went a step further and added a mad Nazi scientist intent on revenging himself on Britain. While the story is all a set-up for the invasion, we do get to see an eel transformed into a sea-monster. It isn't Jörmungandr, but it is fairly impressive.
The quirky setting of The Sludgemouth Sloggers brings to mind Ealing comedies: thanks to a cruel geographical quirk, which is never explained, the valley of the River Sludge is a rain-trap, with a detrimental financial effect on the town of Sludgemouth. Desperate to revive the fortunes of the town, Ted Larkin, secretary of the Entertainments Committee, proposes to the council that they should enter the "What-a-Lark" competition, which offers a grand prize of fifty thousand pounds. "What-a-Lark" being, of course, a poor man's It's a Knockout.
Introductions are brief: Knocker Smith (a postman with balancing skills), Arfur Wurzel (likely named after the band, as he's a walking turnip-tossing stereotype), Charlie Anvil (the blacksmith, if you didn't guess by his name, who happens to be a strongman), and Constable 'Flipper' Finn (take a wild guess) are rounded up and sent off to compete in the first qualifying round. It is a thin script, aided some by the attractive art, but ultimately rather unremarkable.
Partridge's Patch takes place in the "peaceful little market town" of Barnleigh, to which we are introduced by way of a bank robbery. Peaceful? By what standards, the lack of giant eels eating people? The robbery happens to have taken place on Tom Partridge's beat, and he goes about solving the crime with his knowledge of rooks, salmon, and foliage. It is a decidedly rural strip, though it has the feel of the Zip Nolan stories to it.
In 1940, the British Bulldog Banner, which flew at Waterloo and the Crimea, and which is one of the British army's most treasured possessions, has fallen into the hands of German soldiers, though four soldiers have taken matters into their own hands to rectify the situation. Alf Higgs (an Englishman), Taffy Jones (a Welshman), Jock McGill (a Scotsman), and Paddy O'Boyle (an Irishman) are... Sergeants Four.
In returning the flag to British soil, they are rewarded (or given cruel and unusual punishment) by being made an independent commando force to tackle special top-danger missions. The thinking, most likely, being that if they can't be courtmartialed, then they can at least be shot by the Jerries. Sergeants Four is the narrative equivalent of a joke, though handled with a smidge more sensitivity than Bernard Manning. Barely. Even the Germans are hideously stereotyped, so at least it is equal-opportunity in its' targets.
Paddy McGinty, a young boy living in Boggymorra, wants a pet. The problem is that he can't afford to look after a pet, which is a sensible enough plot point to raise. Animals are expensive. Then he happens upon a blurry creature in the woods which claims to be from the planet Ven, and which can change shape. As you do. It may sound like the opening of a low-budget horror film, but this is the infamous Paddy McGinty's Goat, and any comparison to mainstream media is both pointless and inadequate.
Nothing about the story makes a lick of sense. We don't know how 'Goat' got into the woods, or managed to get to Earth for that matter, nor do we learn if others of his kind are around. There's no explanation of why this alien being feels most comfortable as a goat (disturbing suggestions aside), nor - given the final panel of the story - how Paddy is going to find the money to pay for Goat's voracious appetite.
But it isn't that kind of a story. It is the kind of story where a young boy takes an obake home to live with him, and hopes that its' tastes don't run to human flesh as well as raw turnips.
The Kids of Stalag 41 is exactly what the title would lead you to expect. Rationally it is obvious that the popular US comedy Hogan's Heroes played a part in the creation of the strip, but finding comedic elements in the notion of a group of children stuck in a concentration camp takes some doing. The strip is basically The Bash Street Kids with the trappings of WWII as scenery dressing, and while the artwork is perfectly serviceable it never overcomes the distasteful set-up.
When you're reading a comedy strip and thinking "I hope there isn't an Anne Frank joke in this," you know something has gone terribly wrong with the building blocks the strip is built on.
We aren't done yet. For such a thin comic, Jet is a wealth of tone-deaf strips.
Crazy Car Capers is loosely based on the 1968 US cartoon Wacky Races, though if that isn't enough to put a reader off, the script helpfully provides a slew of stereotypes and casual bigotry to the mix. Hiram X. Spendcash, a mad millionaire, has organised a round-Britain race for cars of an unusual design. and rather than truly original vehicle designs (such as The Addams Family's mode of transport) the designs seen are lazy and obvious jokes.
Because IPC had a rule that every title had to have a sports strip, whether it made sense or not, Adare's Anglians wastes three pages full of beautifully-drawn yet vapid nonsense about a small island's football team. New Anglia is a small island far out in the Atlantic, and the people there have decided to enter the World Cup to avenge England's defeat. If you are wondering how well this sits alongside the other strips, then fear not - there is the same mockery of foreigners present and correct.
The islanders exist in some strange time-warp, where everything looks a hundred years out of date, for no apparent reason. We don't find out how New Anglia enters the World Cup without participating in any of the qualifying rounds, which must have taken place prior. Everything about the strip is just a little bit off, and it is difficult to see why the choice to place Adare's Anglians in the title had been made. Did someone lose a bet? Was it a dare? In fact, these questions apply to Sergeants Four, Paddy McGinty's Goat, and Crazy Car Capers as well.
Thankfully there is one undisputed classic among the bunch - the first appearance of Faceache, masterfully handled by Ken Reid. The opening installment is a slight tale, yet no less amusing for that.
Kester Kidd is firmly in the tradition of Wilson, The Wild Wonders, and Master of the Marsh, with the titular character exhibiting amazing prowess at running, jumping and other athletic feats. Kester Kidd comes to the attention of Barney Grumshott, a former athlete considered the best all-rounder in his day, through assisting him fetch a television on a cart which has rolled away (which makes some sense in context). It isn't an inspiring start, and doesn't radically improve.
Watching the athletics on television, Grumshott is disappointed to see world records go to foreign athletes, and he decides to turn Kester into the greatest athletic all-rounder in history. You don't have to be a genius to fill in the blanks of what will come, but the story is handled with fine (if unambitious) art, and sympathetic dialogue. There's nothing revolutionary in the strip, but it does what it does well.
Bertie Bumpkin is a sustained joke about a country gentleman with a strong accent. Yep. That's the extent of the strip's ambitions, and reading the story now is uncomfortable at best. It isn't quite as bad as Paddywack, but there's nothing which raises so much as a wry grin. Terry Bave is so much better than this strip, and it feels as if Bertie Bumpkin is a placeholder until something more suitable can be found. It doesn't so much have a punchline as have a limited amount of space in which to expand upon a vignette.
Bala the Briton sits uneasily beside the rest of the contents - a historical epic, treated seriously, with classical undertones such as messages from the Gods, an epic sea voyage, and (in the final panel) evidence that Jason and the Argonauts has an undue influence of the scripting. While the bare bones implies Anabasis may have been the initial foundation (appropriately relocated for a British audience), the fantasy elements loom large over the strip. Not that this is, in any way, a detriment to the story.
It may be the beautifully clean art, or the clear and emotionally-pure desires of the main characters, which makes the strip stand out amidst the lesser material, but Bala the Briton truly is a refreshing read - the pacing is perhaps a little too slow, and the characters remain undefined save for their roles in the narrative, but it works despite everything. If there was a "readers favourites" box to pick highlights, my ball-point pen would be hastily scribbling in "Bala the Briton" (if, that is, I was born earlier).
Despite the (almost-)namesake of the strip having died in the early forties, Carno's Cadets wears its' influence large. I've made gags about Fred Karno before, and had to explain what I was talking about, so seeing that he had some influence on Brtish comics beyond custard-pie gags is amusing. Did children in the early seventies know who Fred Karno was? Or that the title was a play on Fred Karno's Army? I remain unconvinced that the cultural legacy was being appropriately maintained.
And this is the perfect example (alongside the Val Doonican reference) that the writers weren't appealing to the children reading the comic, but were actually writing from their own childhood favourites - a full generation separating the humour from its' intended audience, thus ensuring that the emotional immediacy of the material was once or twice-removed.
And yes, for the record this is about actual cadets. Zero exertion was made in coming up with the outline. The dialogue is peppered with lazy shorthand ("Fair dinkum" and "Hoots mon" appear within two continuous panels), and even the artist can't rise to the challenge of engaging or original ideas - a spaceship rendered as a giant disc looks more like a WWII helmet, and a giant robot has the appearance of cheap, stiff, plastic toys of the fifties.
Alien invasions have been done many, many times in British comics, and is almost a cliché through repetition, yet most manage to raise at least a couple of interesting twists. This feels like a strip which was held over from a decade previously, and offers nothing new or (crucially) engaging. I don't care about any of the characters, and the mild peril of a character falling down a cliff didn't raise any questions save for why these children were placed in peril in the first place.
As first issues go, this isn't all bad. There are too many shortcuts taken in getting to the story at hand, and some of the ideas are ridiculous, but there is charming artwork and a (little) touch of inspired lunacy (from Bala, primarily), but as a cohesive package the comic falls flat. The casual bigotry and reliance on tired ideas truly mars the good, and it feels rushed in a way that is hard to pinpoint.
40 pages. Colour & B&W.
IPC Magazines Ltd.
Cover by Eric Bradbury. (uncredited).
Free Trebor Bumper Bar fruit chews.
Contents:
.2 Von Hoffman's Invasion w: UNKNOWN; a: Eric Bradbury (uncredited).
.5 The Sludgemouth Sloggers w: UNKNOWN; a: Douglas Maxted (uncredited).
.9 Partridge's Patch w: UNKNOWN; a: Mike Western (uncredited).
12 Sergeants Four w: UNKNOWN; a: Fred Holmes (uncredited).
16 Jest a Minute! pocket cartoons. w: Miss L. Hawkins [Lollipop], G. Downs [Car Wash], M. Campbell [Road Up], B. Smith [Long-Distance], R. Warwick [Exercise Book], I. Frazer [Removals], N. Duffield [Psychiatrist], and D. Eatwell [Marriage Guidance]; a: UNKNOWN.
17 Free in Next Week's Jet in-house advertisement.
18 Paddy McGinty's Goat w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.
20 The Kids of Stalag 41 w: UNKNOWN; a: Mike Lacey (uncredited).
22 Crazy Car Capers w: UNKNOWN; a: Solano López (uncredited).
26 Adare's Anglians w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.
29 Faceache w: UNKNOWN; a: Ken Reid (uncredited).
30 Kester Kidd w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.
33 Bertie Bumpkin w: UNKNOWN; a: Terry Bave (uncredited).
34 Bala the Briton w: UNKNOWN; a: UNKNOWN.
37 Carno's Cadets w: UNKNOWN; a: Solano Lopez (uncredited).
40 Cola Rola Lyons Maid ice lolly advert.
A year before giant rabbits hopped their way across cinema screens in Night of the Lepus, giant animals were terrorizing Britain in Von Hoffman's Invasion. Both were, of course, inspired by movies of the fifties, but Jet's strip went a step further and added a mad Nazi scientist intent on revenging himself on Britain. While the story is all a set-up for the invasion, we do get to see an eel transformed into a sea-monster. It isn't Jörmungandr, but it is fairly impressive.
The quirky setting of The Sludgemouth Sloggers brings to mind Ealing comedies: thanks to a cruel geographical quirk, which is never explained, the valley of the River Sludge is a rain-trap, with a detrimental financial effect on the town of Sludgemouth. Desperate to revive the fortunes of the town, Ted Larkin, secretary of the Entertainments Committee, proposes to the council that they should enter the "What-a-Lark" competition, which offers a grand prize of fifty thousand pounds. "What-a-Lark" being, of course, a poor man's It's a Knockout.
Introductions are brief: Knocker Smith (a postman with balancing skills), Arfur Wurzel (likely named after the band, as he's a walking turnip-tossing stereotype), Charlie Anvil (the blacksmith, if you didn't guess by his name, who happens to be a strongman), and Constable 'Flipper' Finn (take a wild guess) are rounded up and sent off to compete in the first qualifying round. It is a thin script, aided some by the attractive art, but ultimately rather unremarkable.
Partridge's Patch takes place in the "peaceful little market town" of Barnleigh, to which we are introduced by way of a bank robbery. Peaceful? By what standards, the lack of giant eels eating people? The robbery happens to have taken place on Tom Partridge's beat, and he goes about solving the crime with his knowledge of rooks, salmon, and foliage. It is a decidedly rural strip, though it has the feel of the Zip Nolan stories to it.
In 1940, the British Bulldog Banner, which flew at Waterloo and the Crimea, and which is one of the British army's most treasured possessions, has fallen into the hands of German soldiers, though four soldiers have taken matters into their own hands to rectify the situation. Alf Higgs (an Englishman), Taffy Jones (a Welshman), Jock McGill (a Scotsman), and Paddy O'Boyle (an Irishman) are... Sergeants Four.
In returning the flag to British soil, they are rewarded (or given cruel and unusual punishment) by being made an independent commando force to tackle special top-danger missions. The thinking, most likely, being that if they can't be courtmartialed, then they can at least be shot by the Jerries. Sergeants Four is the narrative equivalent of a joke, though handled with a smidge more sensitivity than Bernard Manning. Barely. Even the Germans are hideously stereotyped, so at least it is equal-opportunity in its' targets.
Paddy McGinty, a young boy living in Boggymorra, wants a pet. The problem is that he can't afford to look after a pet, which is a sensible enough plot point to raise. Animals are expensive. Then he happens upon a blurry creature in the woods which claims to be from the planet Ven, and which can change shape. As you do. It may sound like the opening of a low-budget horror film, but this is the infamous Paddy McGinty's Goat, and any comparison to mainstream media is both pointless and inadequate.
Nothing about the story makes a lick of sense. We don't know how 'Goat' got into the woods, or managed to get to Earth for that matter, nor do we learn if others of his kind are around. There's no explanation of why this alien being feels most comfortable as a goat (disturbing suggestions aside), nor - given the final panel of the story - how Paddy is going to find the money to pay for Goat's voracious appetite.
But it isn't that kind of a story. It is the kind of story where a young boy takes an obake home to live with him, and hopes that its' tastes don't run to human flesh as well as raw turnips.
The Kids of Stalag 41 is exactly what the title would lead you to expect. Rationally it is obvious that the popular US comedy Hogan's Heroes played a part in the creation of the strip, but finding comedic elements in the notion of a group of children stuck in a concentration camp takes some doing. The strip is basically The Bash Street Kids with the trappings of WWII as scenery dressing, and while the artwork is perfectly serviceable it never overcomes the distasteful set-up.
When you're reading a comedy strip and thinking "I hope there isn't an Anne Frank joke in this," you know something has gone terribly wrong with the building blocks the strip is built on.
We aren't done yet. For such a thin comic, Jet is a wealth of tone-deaf strips.
Crazy Car Capers is loosely based on the 1968 US cartoon Wacky Races, though if that isn't enough to put a reader off, the script helpfully provides a slew of stereotypes and casual bigotry to the mix. Hiram X. Spendcash, a mad millionaire, has organised a round-Britain race for cars of an unusual design. and rather than truly original vehicle designs (such as The Addams Family's mode of transport) the designs seen are lazy and obvious jokes.
Because IPC had a rule that every title had to have a sports strip, whether it made sense or not, Adare's Anglians wastes three pages full of beautifully-drawn yet vapid nonsense about a small island's football team. New Anglia is a small island far out in the Atlantic, and the people there have decided to enter the World Cup to avenge England's defeat. If you are wondering how well this sits alongside the other strips, then fear not - there is the same mockery of foreigners present and correct.
The islanders exist in some strange time-warp, where everything looks a hundred years out of date, for no apparent reason. We don't find out how New Anglia enters the World Cup without participating in any of the qualifying rounds, which must have taken place prior. Everything about the strip is just a little bit off, and it is difficult to see why the choice to place Adare's Anglians in the title had been made. Did someone lose a bet? Was it a dare? In fact, these questions apply to Sergeants Four, Paddy McGinty's Goat, and Crazy Car Capers as well.
Thankfully there is one undisputed classic among the bunch - the first appearance of Faceache, masterfully handled by Ken Reid. The opening installment is a slight tale, yet no less amusing for that.
Kester Kidd is firmly in the tradition of Wilson, The Wild Wonders, and Master of the Marsh, with the titular character exhibiting amazing prowess at running, jumping and other athletic feats. Kester Kidd comes to the attention of Barney Grumshott, a former athlete considered the best all-rounder in his day, through assisting him fetch a television on a cart which has rolled away (which makes some sense in context). It isn't an inspiring start, and doesn't radically improve.
Watching the athletics on television, Grumshott is disappointed to see world records go to foreign athletes, and he decides to turn Kester into the greatest athletic all-rounder in history. You don't have to be a genius to fill in the blanks of what will come, but the story is handled with fine (if unambitious) art, and sympathetic dialogue. There's nothing revolutionary in the strip, but it does what it does well.
Bertie Bumpkin is a sustained joke about a country gentleman with a strong accent. Yep. That's the extent of the strip's ambitions, and reading the story now is uncomfortable at best. It isn't quite as bad as Paddywack, but there's nothing which raises so much as a wry grin. Terry Bave is so much better than this strip, and it feels as if Bertie Bumpkin is a placeholder until something more suitable can be found. It doesn't so much have a punchline as have a limited amount of space in which to expand upon a vignette.
Bala the Briton sits uneasily beside the rest of the contents - a historical epic, treated seriously, with classical undertones such as messages from the Gods, an epic sea voyage, and (in the final panel) evidence that Jason and the Argonauts has an undue influence of the scripting. While the bare bones implies Anabasis may have been the initial foundation (appropriately relocated for a British audience), the fantasy elements loom large over the strip. Not that this is, in any way, a detriment to the story.
It may be the beautifully clean art, or the clear and emotionally-pure desires of the main characters, which makes the strip stand out amidst the lesser material, but Bala the Briton truly is a refreshing read - the pacing is perhaps a little too slow, and the characters remain undefined save for their roles in the narrative, but it works despite everything. If there was a "readers favourites" box to pick highlights, my ball-point pen would be hastily scribbling in "Bala the Briton" (if, that is, I was born earlier).
Despite the (almost-)namesake of the strip having died in the early forties, Carno's Cadets wears its' influence large. I've made gags about Fred Karno before, and had to explain what I was talking about, so seeing that he had some influence on Brtish comics beyond custard-pie gags is amusing. Did children in the early seventies know who Fred Karno was? Or that the title was a play on Fred Karno's Army? I remain unconvinced that the cultural legacy was being appropriately maintained.
And this is the perfect example (alongside the Val Doonican reference) that the writers weren't appealing to the children reading the comic, but were actually writing from their own childhood favourites - a full generation separating the humour from its' intended audience, thus ensuring that the emotional immediacy of the material was once or twice-removed.
And yes, for the record this is about actual cadets. Zero exertion was made in coming up with the outline. The dialogue is peppered with lazy shorthand ("Fair dinkum" and "Hoots mon" appear within two continuous panels), and even the artist can't rise to the challenge of engaging or original ideas - a spaceship rendered as a giant disc looks more like a WWII helmet, and a giant robot has the appearance of cheap, stiff, plastic toys of the fifties.
Alien invasions have been done many, many times in British comics, and is almost a cliché through repetition, yet most manage to raise at least a couple of interesting twists. This feels like a strip which was held over from a decade previously, and offers nothing new or (crucially) engaging. I don't care about any of the characters, and the mild peril of a character falling down a cliff didn't raise any questions save for why these children were placed in peril in the first place.
As first issues go, this isn't all bad. There are too many shortcuts taken in getting to the story at hand, and some of the ideas are ridiculous, but there is charming artwork and a (little) touch of inspired lunacy (from Bala, primarily), but as a cohesive package the comic falls flat. The casual bigotry and reliance on tired ideas truly mars the good, and it feels rushed in a way that is hard to pinpoint.
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