New GARTH story starts today

Reprints of Garth continue to appear in the Daily Mirror, and today sees the start of another adventure. The Fishermen originally appeared in the paper from March 16th to July 14th 1979, written by Jim Edgar and drawn by Martin Asbury. The reprint now has the addition of full colour for its new appearance thanks to the skills of Martin Baines.

The reprints give us two strips a day, meaning that the serials conclude in half the time that they originally did. The Fishermen should run until sometime in April.

Buy the Daily Mirror to see the strip continue, or follow it online for free at the Mirror's website:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/cartoons/

Garth in Sub Mission

Today's Daily Mirror begins reprinting the 1995 Garth story Sub Mission, written and drawn by Martin Asbury, with new colours by Martin Baines. 

The serial originally ran in the Mirror from 8th June to 16th August 1995. As the paper reprints two strips a day it means Sub Mission will only run for about a month before the next story starts. For reasons best known to the Daily Mirror, they're not reprinting each serial in sequence so it's anyone's guess which story will follow it. Not that it really matters of course as the serials are self-contained stories. 

I'd still like to see some Steve Dowling Garth strips reprinted, but the Mirror only focuses on Frank Bellamy and Martin Asbury reprints. 

You can follow the Daily Mirror comic strips every day in the newspaper or online at the website:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/cartoons/

Garth: Scourge of God

Time was when the Daily Mirror had so many new strips they couldn't all fit onto one page, and that was back in the 1940s when the paper only had 8 pages a day. Comic strips were considered high priority then, to boost the spirits and provide escapism during World War 2. These days, the public (and publishers) have a lower opinion of comic strips, with them fighting for space on the Mirror's horoscope page and with six of the strips being reprint.

Garth has been a reprint for several years now, and this week the Daily Mirror began reprinting the Scourge of God serial from 1989. The script is by Jim Edgar, the art by Martin Asbury, with new colours by Martin Baines. 

I've compiled the story so far for you above from the Mirror dated 23rd to 26th January. (Click on it to see it full size.) After reading that you can check out the latest episodes in the Daily Mirror today and every day or online at their website...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/cartoons/garth/

A rarity; a Garth comic from 1946

"Comics aren't just for kids anymore" screamed headlines in the press back in the 1980s. Simple research shows that they never were exclusively for children of course, and that "adult" doesn't always mean profanity and sex. When British comics originated in Victorian times they were aimed at adults, and later in the 1950s comics like Top Spot, and digest-sized comics such as True Life Library were too. Then there's newspaper strips, which were often targeted towards older readers (or at least all-ages). 

Back in 1946, the Daily Mirror published the first Garth comic, collecting the character's first adventure from 1943. Garth - Man of Mystery, was in American comic book size, albeit horizontal, and featured 36 stapled pages including covers, for a shilling.  

Garth had been created by cartoonist Steve Dowling (who had also originated Ruggles for The Daily Mirror years earlier) and journalist Gordon Boshell. The strip is still in the paper today, although in reprints of later stories colorised for modern tastes.

Each strip carries an identification number and looking through the Garth comic I noticed that some had been skipped, so I think the story had probably been edited to fit the 36 page format. Also, if these episodes featured any female nudity (as the Garth strips often did) then it's been censored for the reprint. Here are the first three pages of the comic...

...and here's a later page, with Garth showing his tremendous strength...

Later on, the characters return to where Garth was found...

...and in the end, Garth flies off to his next adventure "to seek the land of his origin"...

I purchased this Garth - Man of Mystery comic only recently and it seems to be a mystery in itself. There's hardly any mention of it online, and most listings don't even acknowledge it. Quite a rarity, it seems! As far as I know, there were no more Garth comics published in this format, although there were a few well known Garth books years later of course, which most Garth fans own. 

The comic carried two adverts; one on its inside back page, one on the back, for razor blades and rings. Yep, the comic was definitely pitched at older readers...

A couple of years after this Garth comic, (in 1948 as far as I can ascertain), the Mirror also published another title in the horizontal comic format: Belinda and the Bomb Alley Boys, reprinting a Belinda adventure from the paper. (The character was also by Steve Dowling, and was basically Britain's version of Little Orphan Annie.) Mike Higgs kindly sent me a scan of the cover and an interior page...

The intriguing thing about comics history is that there's always something new to discover! Were there any more Mirror comics in this 36 page format? Let me know if you have any info.

GARTH returns in a new series

The famous Daily Mirror comic strip Garth is currently running as a reprint strip in the newspaper but a brand new series has just begun online. Following on from where the final Garth strip left off, creators Bill Storie and Ant Jones hope to publish one episode a week. Although classed as 'unofficial', the strip has the permission of Mirror Group Newspapers. You'll find it on the Facebook fan page for Garth at this link:
https://www.facebook.com/garthcomicstrip

It would be great if the new strip was appearing in the Daily Mirror but I don't think cheap newsprint would do justice to Ant Jones' artwork so digital is the best option at the moment. As you can see, the quality looks superb! 

50 Year Flashback: Daily Mirror strips October 13th 1965

Several years ago I bought a bunch of old newspapers from the first Birmingham Memorabilia Show, back before the show became dominated by more recent nostalgia items. Here are the strips and cartoons that appeared in the Daily Mirror exactly half a century ago today.

The Andy Capp strip that day (above) is of course typical of the character; boozy and in debt, but creator Reg Smythe always managed to make the gags feel fresh and, more importantly, funny. 

The main strip page, regularly shared with Live Letters, featured Garth by John Allard and Steve Dowling, The Larks by Jack Dunkley, and The Flutters by Len Gamblin. We had the Daily Mirror every day when I was a kid so I have a particular fondness for these strips. 

Like Andy Capp, The Perishers (by Maurice Dodd and Dennis Collins) was on a different page back then, and a larger size strip than the others.

As well as five daily strips, the Mirror had a good selection of cartoons 50 years ago too. The Laughter column always carried work by some of Britain's top gag cartoonists.

There were also two regular 'pocket' cartoons. Useless Eustace by Jack Greenall...

...and Playboy! by David Rowe...

Plus the political cartoon by Stanley Franklin...

Strips and cartoons were considered an important part of the paper back then, and served as light relief to the serious news of the day. Sadly, the news of 50 years ago was very grim indeed, with the cover story revealing the re-opening of the tragic case that would be referred to as the Moors Murders. At this point it seems the press had not been informed of the arrests a few days earlier of the vile serial child-killers Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.

To end this blog post on a lighter note, here are the TV listings for this day 50 years ago. Only three channels, but at least there was a repeat of Hancock's Half Hour to watch, and a new Dennis Potter play... 

I hope you'll find these pages of historical interest. Click images to see them much larger and more readable. As for the weather forecast on 13th October 1965: "Mainly dry with some sunshine after early fog". Pretty much like today then!

Daily Mirror strips of the 1960s

We had the Daily Mirror every day when I was growing up in the 1960s. My family must have been reading it since the 1930s as my mum told me that when she was a child she enjoyed the Pip, Squeak and Wilfrid comic strip. The Mirror was the paper of the working class, and it had a direct and intelligent writing style that cut to the chase for the man in the street. 

It also had some great comic strips. I showed a page from a wartime edition here the other day, but today I'm focusing on the strips I enjoyed as a child in the sixties. There was Andy Capp by Reg Smythe, and The Perishers by Maurice Dodd and Dennis Collins of course, and I'm showing a couple of those here, but the strips I enjoyed most were the three tiers that always appeared around page 20: Garth, The Larks, and The Flutters. 

18th September 1962

Perishers: 18th September 1962.

Frank Bellamy's dynamic take on Garth in the 1970s receives a lot of praise, and justifiably so, but it was the earlier strips by John Allard and Steve Dowling which captured my imagination as a kid. Their stories often had a creepy atmospheric quality about them, even tense and claustrophobic at times due to the hatching and cross-hatching of the inks, but that added to the likable strangeness of the strip. Garth was aimed at adults of course, and women our time-travelling hero encountered would sometimes be topless, so that, plus the dark mood of the strip made it seem very mature to my young eyes. 

28th June 1963.

The Larks by Jack Dunkley was a standard family sit-com, and it felt a bit too middle-class for the Mirror to me, perhaps better suited to the Daily Mail. Nevertheless, I often enjoyed the gags and I liked the artwork. The interesting thing about The Larks is that the characters aged with the strip, so as the years progressed the kids grew into teenagers, Sam (the father) gained a bit of grey in his hair, etc.

14th February 1964.

14th February 1964.

The Flutters was a strip I really liked. I'm sure that some of Ian Gammidge's scripts with all their sporting/gambling references went right over my head as a child, but I think it was the fact that it was a continuing humour strip that grabbed me. The artwork by the appropriately named Len Gamblin was the clincher though; busy but clear, and just right for the strip. I was disappointed when The Flutters was eventually replaced by Bill Tidy's Fosdyke Saga which I never really took to.

22nd April 1964.

Anyway, here are several examples of those strips, mostly from the mid-1960s. I hope you enjoy looking at them! All are scanned from old copies of the Daily Mirror I bought at a Memorabilia Show a few years ago. I've cleaned a couple up in Photoshop as necessary but I've left that authentic newspaper look to most of the scans. 

30th January 1965.

Perishers: 30th January 1965.

13th May 1965.

16th July 1965.

Andy Capp: 16th July 1965.

20th September 1966.

14th November 1966.

10th June 1968.

Also related:

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2008/01/day-of-double-strips-in-daily-mirror.html

70 years ago...

 Last Monday, the Daily Mirror contained a free copy of the complete 'D-Day' edition of the paper as a commemorative souvenir. The issue is dated June 7th 1944, so I don't know why it wasn't given away today, exactly 70 years later, rather than 6 days early, but it was a good freebie all the same. 

Back then, the Daily Mirror only had 8 pages an issue (wartime paper restrictions and all that) but it was packed with information. Interestingly, comic strips featured heavily, taking up 37% of the paper, and the political cartoon dominating page 3.

If you missed the reprint, here's a few pages from it. The issue that was on sale exactly 70 years ago today. I've cleaned the pages up a bit in Photoshop as the reproduction in the paper was a little off register. Click on the pages to read them at a legible size.

Cartoon by Philip Zec.

Strips:
Buck Ryan by Jack Monk and Don Freeman.
Beelzebub Jones by Hugh McClelland. 
Belinda by Don Freeman and Tony Royle.
Popeye (US syndicated strip) by E.C. Segar.
Ruggles by Steve Dowling.
Garth by Steve Dowling.

Jane by Norman Pett.
Just Jake by Bernard Graddon.

Back page pocket cartoon:
Useless Eustace by Jack Greenhall. 

Key 'Garth' strip begins today

Today's edition of the Daily Mirror begins reprinting Sundance, the last Garth story to feature the artwork of John Allard and which will soon lead to Frank Bellamy's first work on the strip. 

Sundance originally appeared in the Daily Mirror in 1971 and has been reprinted in a few places since but has been coloured by Martin Baines for this latest appearance. John Allard originally started out on the strip as an assistant to Garth's creator Steve Dowling, but took over the art duties completely in 1968 until a suitable replacement could be found. (Source: the excellent Frank Bellamy Checklist Blog which you can visit here). 

Frank Bellamy debuted on Garth with episode 13 of Sundance. Two of the original strips are being reprinted each day, which means that Frank Bellamy's first Garth strips will appear next Tuesday (November 13th). For now though, enjoy John Allard's version. 

Personally I always preferred the Steve Dowling and John Allard versions of Garth as those atmospheric strips were the ones I read as a boy. I'm hoping that the Mirror will delve into its archives and reprint some of the 1960s strips at some stage so that more people can appreciate that era of the character. Probably a slim hope, as Bellamy's version has always been a fan favourite, but you never know. 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/cartoons/

Bellamy classics back in the Mirror

Click to enlarge

Like the comic strip hero himself, the reprints of Garth in the Daily Mirror have been moving back and forth through time. After a run of Frank Bellamy stories, the newspaper then skipped forward to reprint a 1977 Martin Asbury drawn tale Ship of Secrets, which concluded yesterday. 

Starting today, the paper delves back to 1972 for another Frank Bellamy story, The Women of Galba. This story has been reprinted at least a couple of times before, in the 1975 Daily Mirror Book of Garth (with nudity censored) and in a book published by Titan in 1985. By my estimation, running two original strips a day, the story should run for about seven weeks. The strip has been coloured for a new readership by Martin Baines.

For more information on the great Frank Bellamy visit this excellent blog:
http://frankbellamy.blogspot.co.uk/

Spaceship Away No.27

The summer edition of Spaceship Away (issue 27) is now available and features 40 packed pages in full colour. There's a fair bit of Don Harley work in this one, with a cover, centrespread, and a full page illustration. It's good to see one of the original Dan Dare artists being a regular contributor to this comic as it establishes a link to those golden days.

Speaking of original Dan Dare artists, sadly Bruce Cornwell passed away a few months ago and this issue features a nice tribute to him from Don Harley and Greta Tomlinson. There's also a short previously unpublished item from Bruce himself on his work, including his contributions to Danny Dare in Wham! (Bruce supplied the realistic artwork for Danny's daydream sequences in the humour strip in the early issues of the comic). 

There's plenty of comic strip content this issue. First up is episode eight of Tim Booth's Dan Dare serial Parsecular Tales. Very meticulous artwork from Tim but it really needed a resumé caption to bring readers up to speed. It's not easy remembering the plot of a story when the comic is only published three times a year.) 

Thankfully that's not a problem with Shadow Over Britain, the Jet Morgan serial reprinted from Express Weekly as it features a caption bringing readers up to date. 

A great complete story this issue is Thoughts That Kill, a 1980s strip drawn by Ron Turner adapting a 1939 story by John Russell Fearn. It's been nicely coloured by Martin Baines and hopefully more of these stories will follow in future issues.

A two page tryout Dan Dare strip by Nick Spender proves he has the skills to be an ideal artist on the strip and I hope we see more Dan Dare from him soon. There's also a stylish cutaway illustration from Graham Bleathman for Dan Dare's Apartment. Graham excels at this sort of intricate work and, yes, you can just about see Dan Dare's toilet, but thankfully it's unoccupied.

One drawback in this issue is the lack of humour strips. The Ray Aspen funnies provided a nice balance from the adventure material and their absence is a disadvantage.   

Spaceship Away is still reprinting Garth strips and now we're up to a 1970s Martin Asbury drawn serial, Finality Factor. Newly coloured by Tim Booth who does a good job but I have some problems with the way the strip is presented. On some panels the original lettering is in place, which is excellent, but on others it's been replaced by the awful Comic Sans font. Perhaps the source material wasn't too good and it had to be re-lettered, but there are far better comic lettering fonts out there to use. (Comic Sans is also used on some other strips in Spaceship Away. It really hampers the production. There's a reason why professional comics don't use this font, and one is that it looks cheap and ugly. Investing in a specialist comic font from Comicraft would be a better option.)

However the Garth strips in Spaceship Away suffer something far worse than Comic Sans. The strips have been resized to fit the A4 format, but it looks like 'Constrain Proportions' was unticked in Photoshop, leading to the strips being stretched vertically. It's most noticeable on circular objects such as planets, bubbles and suchlike appearing as ellipses, but it distorts everything. I fail to see the point in representing such classic strips if they're going to be distorted in this fashion. I can appreciate that if they were published in the correct proportion there'd be a bigger margin at the top or bottom of each page, but I'm sure collectors would consider it a small price to pay for strips being published as they were meant to be seen.

Perhaps I'm being too picky and most readers aren't bothered by the distorted pages and poor font, but for me it's a problem that's holding back Spaceship Away a little. For £7.95 an issue I'd have hoped these flaws would have been put right by now but it's something that's affected the publication for a while now. That said, Spaceship Away is still a fine tribute to classic Dan Dare and there's always new information in its pages for enthusiasts. The fact that it's reached issue 27 proves that it obviously has a loyal following and long may it continue to do so. 

To subscribe to Spaceship Away or to order individual issues go to the website here: http://spaceshipaway.org.uk/