The Power Pack of Ken Reid, - ready for your support!

As reported a few weeks ago, Irmantas Povilaika has secured the license to publish two hefty volumes of Ken Reid strips, reprinting all of the material that Ken produced for Odhams in the 1960s. Yes, that's Frankie Stein, Jasper the Grasper, Queen of the Seas, Dare-A-Day Davy and The Nervs! This news has been warmly welcomed by the many fans of Ken's work as most of the material has never been reprinted and back issues of the comics are becoming increasingly expensive and hard to find. 

You can now back the project on Indiegogo at:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-power-pack-of-ken-reid-books#/

I caught up with Irmantas to ask him a few questions about this exciting venture and he's also supplied me with a few exclusive shots of some of the spreads...


Hi Irmantas. When did you discover the work of Ken Reid? Were his strips published in Lithuania or have you always had an interest in British comics?


Hi, Lew. My first encounter with British comics in general, and Ken’s work in particular, was when I was 10 or so and a pen-pal from Britain sent me an early issue of Whoopee! comic which had one of those splendid World-Wide Weirdies by Ken Reid. I vividly recall it was The Whacky Hand. Us kids didn’t have comics in Lithuania back in the day – it was part of the Soviet Union then, and the authorities probably thought it wise to protect their very young against Western influences, or whatever… Anyhow, the comic made a huge impression on me, I read and re-read that issue (the only one that I had) countless times until it fell apart. I eventually became a freelance cartoonist and drew comics for the country’s humour magazine for a few years in my twenties. Looking at my drawings now, I can clearly see influences of Robert Nixon, Terry Bave, Mike Lacey and Ken Reid – it’s amazing how much inspiration I drew from that single issue of Whoopee! Then other things came up and I abandoned the hobby. I picked it up again in 2007, but not as an artist – I started collecting British comics, and I blame that particular issue of Whoopee! for that. It didn’t take me long to re-discover Ken Reid, and I started reading about him online. I have to say that it was on your blog that I first found out about his Odhams strips, and was fascinated by them – the combination of quality artwork and the untamed sense of humour was explosive! It took me a few years to collect the complete sets of the Power comics titles and thus acquire the full runs of all of those brilliant strips that Ken drew for Wham!, Smash! and Pow! – all of them now to be presented in The Power Pack of Ken Reid that I am doing.

For many of us who grew up with these strips, the Odhams era represented Ken Reid at his most creative. Manic, funny, over-the-top humour that has never been equalled in British comics. There have been attempts to get this material reprinted before, but there were obstacles. How difficult did you find it to gain the license from Time Inc. (UK)?

To me the biggest obstacle was finding out who the rights belonged to and whom I should contact about the license, but when I did, things developed rather quickly and I wouldn’t say it was particularly difficult to arrange the permission. The people in charge at Time Inc. (UK) Ltd were 100 per cent professional and efficient, and paperwork didn’t take very long.


Did Ken's pages present any challenges for remastering? I'm thinking in particular of the colour Queen of the Seas pages which suffered from muddy printing on a few issues back in 1966.

Poor paper quality alongside with the quality of print of the comics did present certain challenges. The thin paper of the early issues of Wham! produced a see-though effect on quite a few of the pages, and it had to be handled carefully to try and preserve the gray shading of Ken’s art. The coloured pages of Queenie and Dare-A-Day Davy were also an issue but I think it was addressed in the best possible way. The remastered images that will go into the book are crisp, clean and look very nice, but don’t expect all of them to be flawless – they were scanned from original paper comics, and this is what buyers of the book should bear in mind.

I understand you're in touch with Ken's son? Can you tell us more about that? Has he been able to provide information and items for the books?

Antony was very helpful indeed. He wrote funny intros for both volumes and even drew an illustration for one! Most importantly, he allowed me to use his dad’s archive material when I was researching and writing Ken’s detailed biography for his Odhams years (1964-69) that will go into the two volumes of The Power Pack. In fact, Antony is actively involved in a separate project that we are doing together with another fan in the UK, and it’s the full and complete biography of Ken Reid, covering his WHOLE life and work! The piece that will be presented in The Power Pack of Ken Reid is just a ‘taste’ of what fans will find in the Complete Biography when it eventually comes out – Ken’s legacy (both published and unpublished material) is huge and diverse, and it will all be covered in detail, with unseen illustrations, etc. I really look forward to the completion of the Biography project and am very excited about it.

I gather that there are other extras too?

Comic archivist Steve Holland has provided the introduction for Volume One (Frankie Stein + Jasper the Grasper) and artist Nigel Parkinson the introduction for Volume Two (Queen of the Seas + Dare-A-Day Davy + The Nervs). My contribution is the detailed biography of the artist on the period – The Odhams Years of Ken Reid. It will be illustrated with some sketches and drawings. You will even find some scripts of Frankie Stein, hand-written by Ken! Last but not least, supporters of the crowdfunding campaign will receive free prints of original artwork. Oh, and there will be some bright colour pages in Volume One because all four of Ken’s Frankie Stein episodes in Wham! Annuals will be reprinted in full colour!


Can you tell us about the Crowdfunding campaign to back the book?

The crowdfunding campaign is now live and open to all on IndieGoGo platform. The books can be pre-ordered either individually or as a beautiful boxed set edition, with free prints of original artwork, as mentioned before. They will go into print immediately after the campaign ends and will be shipped two or three weeks later, when I receive them from the printing house. The slipcase edition will take a bit longer because the slipcases will be manufactured only after the books have been printed.  I plan to post regular progress updates on IndieGoGo, my blog and ComicsUK Forum to keep people up to speed. Folks may be wondering what happens if the campaign doesn’t reach its target. I can assure you that the books will be printed anyway, and that’s due to the considerable investment already made (license fees, the services of the various people involved in the project, etc.). The platform only allowed me to use US dollar as my main currency, but I hope this won’t be an inconvenience to fans in the UK or discourage them from supporting the campaign.

Finally, I'm sure I speak for readers of this blog in thanking you, Irmantas, for getting this excellent work back into print. Do you have any plans to publish other strips from that era by other creators? 

Thanks Lew, I have strong faith in the project and sincerely hope that people will find it interesting enough to support the campaign. There are quite a few other strips by other creators that I believe deserve to be celebrated in a similar way, and I would certainly be looking into this, provided my first publishing project attracts enough attention. Thanks for talking to me and helping me spread the word. I would like to encourage your readers to share this on social media, etc. and join me in my effort to make this project a success. I am happy to answer any questions, so feel free to contact me via my blog kazoop.blogspot.co.uk or IndieGoGo platform! Cheers!

There's another interview with Irmantas here, on the Down the Tubes blog:
https://downthetubes.net/?p=45821

The age of Power Comics!

The line of comics published by Odhams in the 1960s that became collectively known as "Power Comics" helped to make that decade so much fun. They weren't around for long (mid-1964 to early 1969), although it seemed much longer when we were living it, as childhood often does. They could be a bit rough around the edges at times in terms of editorial design, but that was part of their charm. On the other hand they also featured some of the best comics creators of the day, allowing people like Leo Baxendale, Ken Reid, Mike Higgs, Brian Lewis, Jordi Bernet, Louis Berjemo and many more to produce some of the best work of their careers. Plus they included Marvel reprints, bringing British kids a rush of Marvel at its best on a weekly basis. Now that was Thrill-Power!

I've posted about them numerous times on this blog, which you'll find with a simple search, so today I'd just like to re-post the covers of their first issues, all scanned from my collection. Funny, exciting, inspiring. Great days. I'm glad I was the right age to fully appreciate them!

Blackpool 1967, eating shrimps and wearing my Iron Man transfer.

WHAM! No.1 (1964)

One comic that had eluded me until recently was Wham! No.1. I didn't have it when I was a child, and in later years I always lost out on the bidding for it on eBay... until a few weeks ago, when I won a copy for far less than it usually sells for these days. It's a little tatty at the spine, but it's clean and complete, so I thought I'd show a few pages from it here today.

You probably know how Wham! came about, but if not, here's a recap: in 1964, Odhams Press wanted to produce a rival comic D.C. Thomson's Beano. The editors convinced Leo Baxendale to quit The Beano to develop stories for their new comic, which Leo envisioned as a sort of "Super-Beano" (or Wham! as it became) poaching Thomson's top talent. However, most of Thomson's artists would not leave the security of long-established comics to work on the new rival publication. Although the end result wasn't quite the "Super-Beano" that Leo had hoped for, Wham! still turned out to be a fresh and funny addition to the growing number of weekly comics in the Sixties.

Incredibly, in the first issue of Wham!, Leo Baxendale drew 17 of its 24 pages himself. Four of which were in full colour. Naturally, no one could keep up that tremendous output every week, so following issues saw other artists join the comic to imitate Leo's style on many of the strips. Meanwhile, over at The Beano, other artists were also imitating Leo's style on the strips he'd left (such as Minnie the Minx and The Bash Street Kids). As the 1960s moved on, Leo became the most imitated humour artist in the business, and elements of his popular style are still evident in comics today. 

Back to that first issue of Wham!, published Monday 15th June 1964, here's the strip that greeted readers as the opened the comic; General Nitt and his Barmy Army...

The Wacks was one strip that was swiftly taken over by another artist (Gordon Hogg) but for issue 1, Leo drew it himself...

The Tiddlers was very much Wham's version of The Bash Street Kids, but the twist was that teacher (Super Sir) was as wild as the kids. Sadly, this idea was dropped later, with Super Sir replaced by a teacher in conflict with the pupils. 

The centre pages gave us the first episode of Eagle-Eye, Junior Spy, a spoof of the popular spy genre of the time. The most important part of the strip though was its introduction of the baddie, Grimly Feendish, who would eclipse Eagle-Eye in popularity and go on to have his own long-running strip in Smash! (as well as a song about him years later by The Damned).

Another strip of note was Georgie's Germs, a gross version of The Beezer's Numskulls, that saw dirty kid Georgie having to deal with various ailments every week. This was another strip that other artists took over, but Leo set it off to a great start. 

With issue 4, Ken Reid joined the comic, bringing us Frankie Stein (see here) and Wham! became more manic than ever. It may not have been the "Super-Beano" that Leo had hoped for, but Wham! still turned out to be a great comic, with a cheeky, anarchic attitude, and still very fondly remembered by many. It inspired Odhams to launch companion comics for it, and soon we had Smash!, Pow!, Fantastic and Terrific, collectively known as the "Power Comics" that helped make the Sixties a great time to be a child.

You can read about the first issues of those other comics here:

https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/50-year-flashback-smash-no1.html


https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/50-year-flashback-pow-no1.html


https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/fantastic-50th.html


https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/50-year-flashback-terrific-no1-1967.html

50 Year Flashback: TERRIFIC No.1 (1967)

The fifth (and final) addition to Odhams' line of 'Power Comics' was launched on Saturday 8th April 1967 with Terrific No.1. Closely modelled on its companion comic Fantastic, in that the new publication also featured 40 pages and reprints of three Marvel strips. 

The free gift in Terrific No.1 is one that readers fondly remember; an iron-on T-shirt transfer of Iron Man. I wore mine with pride back in the summer of '67 and still have it, cut out from the T-shirt it was on (washed of course)...

...and here's me wearing that very T-shirt in Blackpool on that happy summer of 50 years ago...

Back to the comic itself, and it opened with the start of a Sub-Mariner story reprinted from Tales to Astonish No.70, story by Stan Lee, art by Gene Colan (using the pseudonym Adam Austin), inked by Vince Colletta...

The editorial page trumpeted the arrival of Terrific in fine 'Power Comics' fashion...

In the case of The Avengers, it was probably felt that new readers might be confused with a team of heroes they were unfamiliar with, so Terrific presented condensed versions of each hero's origin in a useful set of short strips. Readers of Smash! and Fantastic would have already seen the stories these panels were taken from, except for the case of Giant Man/Ant Man, as the origin had never been shown in a Power Comic prior to this...

With the origins out of the way, the main Avengers story began. Earlier Avengers stories had already been reprinted in Smash! so Terrific started by reprinting Avengers No.6 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (with great inking by Chic Stone)...

The full-page ad for next week's free gift. (You can see a photo of the gift on an old blog post of mine here:

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/free-inside-part-3.html )

Last but not least, the origin of Doctor Strange rounded off the issue, reprinted from Strange Tales No.115 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko...

...and on the back page, the regular Power House Pin-Up kicked off with the Sub-Mariner, drawn by Jack Kirby...

Sadly, Terrific only lasted for 43 weeks before merging into Fantastic. Perhaps it was one too many Power Comics for kids to afford, perhaps it was just too expensive at 9d (when most comics were 7d or less). Personally, it was one of my favourites and I had every issue along with Fantastic, although I dropped Wham! around this time, possibly due to the expense of collecting all the comics.

Terrific and its companion comic Fantastic were a great way for young kids to discover the Marvel Universe. I do wonder though what impact they had on the sales of rival British comics. After being hooked on the exciting, savvy, Marvel stories, I couldn't even look at the comparatively dull D.C. Thomson adventure comics of the period such as Victor and Hornet. Obviously, overall, the traditional comics won out because the existence of the Power Comics was short and sweet, but Wham!, Smash!, Pow!, Fantastic and Terrific definitely helped add to the 1960s sense of coolness and fun. 

FANTASTIC 50th!

Fifty years ago, on Saturday 11th February 1967, Odhams launched Fantastic comic, a new weekly that is still fondly remembered to this day. Odhams had been presenting reprints of Marvel strips in their other comics for several months by this time; The Incredible Hulk in Smash!, The Fantastic Four in Wham!, Spider-Man and Nick Fury in Pow!, but those reprints were sharing space with traditional British humour and adventure content. With Fantastic, the content was 90% Marvel reprint, (later 100%), making the comic unlike any other weekly on the stands in 1967.  

We're talking about classic Marvel material too, with strips by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Don Heck and more from the dawn of what Stan coined as "The Marvel Age of Comics". (Not that Odhams called it that. They changed references of Marvel to Power, to suit their Power Comics imprint.) Although it reprinted the strips in black and white, and usually cut into two or three parts, the reproduction of the strips had never been so crisp and clear. 

For many readers, Fantastic was a great introduction to the Marvel Universe and we became hooked on the comic. It was exciting and dynamic, making traditional British comics such as Victor look terribly dull in comparison. An advert in the Daily Mirror proclaimed Fantastic as "The new comic book that's so different!" and for many of us, that was part of its appeal. It had 40 pages, so was thicker than most other comics of the period, although that necessitated a 9d cover price meaning it was also one of the most expensive comics in 1967 too. (Most comics were 7d, Dandy and Beano were still only 3d.)

Sadly, perhaps the majority of British kids had more conservative tastes, or 9d was too expensive, for Fantastic only lasted for 89 weeks. Clearly it was ahead of its time (as were its loyal readers) because that similar template of packaging three Marvel stories into a 40 page comic was used with more success in 1972 with Marvel UK's The Mighty World of Marvel, and is still pretty much the format still used today in the popular 76 page Marvel Collector's Editions published by Panini UK.

The back-up strip in Fantastic was brand new; The Missing Link, superbly illustrated by Luis Bermejo. The Link would later evolve into UK superhero Johnny Future but here's the first episode when he was still a lumbering brute...

The free gift in Fantastic No.1 was suitably different too; a soft plastic pennant that could be used for various purposes. (I used mine as a pen holder for a while, and, yes, I still have it.) Artwork to insert into the pennant was on the back page of Fantastic and different characters were on the back pages of Wham!, Smash! and Pow! that week as well.

From a personal viewpoint, I have fond memories of Fantastic. It was a bit expensive, and my parents were already buying me several comics a week, so my Aunt Joan used to buy me Fantastic (and its soon-to-follow companion comic Terrific). I remember her bringing them for me every Saturday afternoon when she'd finished her shift at the bakehouse. (I'd save Terrific to read on a Sunday.) Happy times, long gone, but comics can be great artefacts for stirring up memories. 

I know some feel that 50 years ago was just like yesterday, but I must admit it really does feel like a very long time ago to me, when one considers the numerous things that happen in one's life over such a period. They were good days though, and Fantastic made the swingin' sixties swing even more. 

Here's how Fantastic was advertised in the Daily Mirror on Friday 10th February 1967. (Yes, I've kept this clipping for 50 years!)

...and how it was heralded in Pow! a week earlier (Pow! No.4, on sale 4th Feb 1967)...

As they told us, there's no doubt about it. It certainly was Fantastic!