My apologies for not updating this blog for two weeks. I've been juggling work, the flu bug, and an ongoing family commitment so blogging had to take a backseat. I can't promise it'll be back to normal at present unfortunately.
However, here's a few quick news items for now...
Steve Holland's superb blog Bear Alley reveals the contents for two upcoming books which reprint classic strips from TV Century 21 and Lady Penelope weeklies. Published by Reynolds & Hearn, Century 21 Volumes One and Two will include material from the peak of the comics' runs, including Mike Noble on Fireball XL5, Frank Bellamy on Thunderbirds, and Frank Langford on Lady Penelope. Amongst these gems of the 1960s is the Invasion of the Ants story from 1965. Here's an episode from that story, from TV Century 21 No.30, artwork by Mike Noble:
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Andrew Wildman, who was an artist on Marvel UK's Transformers 20 years ago (and has done loads of other things since of course) is currently appearing in The DFC. Frontier: The Weird Wild West is written by Jason Cobley and illustrated by Andrew, proving that the weekly children's adventure strip is far from dead. Check out Andrew's website here for more info.
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Sad news just in: artist and tv presenter Tony Hart has died, aged 83. Many will remember him from Vision On, the Sixties tv series for deaf children that even people with hearing watched and enjoyed. Many more will remember his character Morph, the Plasticine stop-motion character that began on tv in 1977. What's less known of this popular tv personality is that he designed the original Blue Peter logo, and, of interest to readers of this blog, was apparently also a comic artist. He drew strips for TV Comic in the 1950s, including Sooty and, as seen below, Packi the elephant.
Now, some may consider the title of this 1957 strip to be racist in a modern light. However, from examples I've seen, the strip was very good natured and inoffensive. The name is that of the elephant, not the Indian boy accompanying him. Tony Hart spent four years in India, which no doubt inspired this creation. When Blue Peter begain in 1958 Hart narrated and illustrated Packi the Elephant stories for the programme.
5 comments:
Hi Lew
I think you're worrying too much over the name of the elephant - he's a pachyderm, after all!
"Packi" as in "pachyderm", I would imagine. That probably went over the young readers' heads!
D'oh! Of course. Thanks folks. I'm blaming the after effects of man flu....
I wrote Mr Hart a fan letter a couple of years ago and he sent me a lovely response. He had to dictate it because he'd suffered a stroke and couldn't use his hands, but his kind words and encouragement rocket-fuelled me through the next month's work.
Don't worry about commitments outside of this blog - Real Life ofttimes take priority.
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