Christmas comics: THE WIZARD (1960)

Strictly speaking, this isn't a comic. The Wizard was a story paper, full of prose adventure stories, but it's worth showing this copy here if only for the excellent cover by Bill Ritchie. (As most of you will know, Bill was the artist of Baby Crockett in The Beezer and many other strips.)

Inside this 28 page story paper there are several short text stories with various adventure themes and some contained a festive theme, such as this complete story, with art by Fred Sturrock...

Peppered throughout the paper were a few cartoons and a couple of small strips. Christmas Capers is by George Drysdale, and Rocky is most definitely Bill Ritchie's work again. Ah, the old 'holly on the chair' gag. Still used in comics today. (I drew a recent version as part of The Bash Street Kids story in this year's Beano Christmas Special.)

This issue also featured an advert for that year's Black Bob book as an incentive for a last minute Christmas present...

On the back page, another seasonal story; It Looked Like A Cold, Cold Christmas with art by George Drysdale...

All images ©D.C. Thomson and Co. Ltd. 

UPDATE: Phil Shrimpton showed me this cover of a 1953 Christmas Topper (the comic's first Christmas issue) by Dudley Watkins which had the same theme as the Wizard cover. 

Phil has loads of British comics for sale on his eBay page and it's always worth a visit:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/phil-comics/m.html

There'll be another vintage festive comic in my next post. Any guesses as to which year I'll be visiting?

More early work by Dave Gibbons (1976)

Concluding my look back at strips from 40 years ago, here are some examples of strips drawn by Dave Gibbons for the D.C. Thomson comics. The visual storytelling skills and dynamism of Dave's work was evident even then, and it was inevitable that he'd go far, as indeed he did. 

The Spy in the Sputnik was a typical D.C. Thomson yarn, improved considerably by having Dave Gibbons as the artist. It ran in Hotspur from the issues dated September 11th 1976 to October 30th 1976. Although it only a very short-lived series (8 episodes) it was awarded the cover slot from the first episode. 

During this period, Hotspur's editor implemented the baffling practice of moving the toplines (that traditionally ran across the top of each story page) to big flashes slapped in the middle of the artwork. This strange idea was very distracting and took the reader out of the story. (It was one reason I stopped buying Hotspur in the mid-1970s so I never saw these strips until I bought the comics on eBay recently.)

After The Spy in the Sputnik, Dave's next published serial for D.C. Thomson was The Flying Tripehound for The Wizard. Thankfully, a comic that kept the toplines at the top. Here are the first two episodes from December 1976. (A "tripehound" was aviation slang, and not the abusive term it is today.)

A while back, on the Comics UK Forum, comic historian Ray Moore kindly provided a list of Dave's strips for these comics. I've shown examples of the Simon Gaunt stories and Year of the Shark Men on this blog in the past (check out the links after this list). 


"Dave Gibbons full list of work for Wizard is as follows:

The Wriggling Wrecker 20/7/74 - 21/9/74

The Year of the Shark Men 24/4/76 - 10/7/76

The Deathless Army (Simon Gaunt mystery story) 14/8/76

The Last Torpedo (Simon Gaunt mystery story) 28/8/76

The Flying Tripehound 18/12/76 - 12/2/77

Cat and Mouse 13/8/77 - 8/10/77

Cat and Mouse 3/12/77, 17/12/77, 24/12/77

He also did occasional work for Hotspur inc

The Spy in the Sputnik 882(11/9/76) - 889(30/10/76)"

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/year-of-shark-men-1976.html

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/wizard-work-by-bolland-gibbons-and.html

Ten years after these strips were published, Dave would be at the top of his game illustrating Watchmen, one of the greatest graphic novels in the history of comics.


NOTE: Interestingly, The Spy in the Sputnik was actually a redrawn / revised version of a strip that Ian Kennedy had drawn several years earlier. Colin Noble has the details on his blog:
https://nothingbutafan.wordpress.com/2015/12/09/the-spy-in-the-sputnik/

Chained to his Sword (1976)

As promised the other day in my post about the early work of some of our top comics creators, here are a few examples of Chained to his Sword. This series appeared in D.C. Thomson's  The Wizard in 1976, although I there had been an earlier series a few years before. The artwork is by the great Carlos Ezquerra, designer of Judge Dredd and Strontium Dog for 2000AD and Starlord. 

The first episode from The Wizard dated September 25th, 1976...

The episode from The Wizard dated November 13th, 1976...

The penultimate episode from The Wizard dated December 25th, 1976...

Tomorrow I'll be showing more 40 year old strips from another comics legend! 

Wizard work by Bolland, Gibbons, and Ezquerra

Before 2000AD exploded onto the scene, some of its greatest artists had drawn strips for rival publisher D.C. Thomson. I showed The Year of the Shark Men on this blog in a previous post (see here) and today I'd like to show a few more forgotten treasures.

All of these strips are from The Wizard in 1976. Simon Gaunt was the fictional narrator of short, self-contained supernatural stories that were mainly used as filler material in the comic. Useful, therefore, to give work to the newer generation of artists such as Carlos Ezquerra, Dave Gibbons, and Brian Bolland. Their distinctive styles and talent were evident even then, and it was inevitable they'd become three of the top comics artists in the industry. 

Click on the pages to see them much larger. 

Who Killed Kane? drawn by Carlos Ezquerra, from Wizard dated January 31st, 1976...

Eye of the Tiger drawn by Carlos Ezquerra, from Wizard dated February 14th 1976...

The Black Monk, drawn by Carlos Ezquerra, from Wizard dated April 3rd, 1976...

The Black Horse of Vengeance, drawn by Carlos Ezquerra, from Wizard dated May 22nd, 1976...

The Deathless Army, drawn by Dave Gibbons, from Wizard dated August 14th, 1976...

The Last Torpedo, drawn by Dave Gibbons, from Wizard dated August 28th, 1976...

The Box, drawn by Brian Bolland, from Wizard dated September 25, 1976...

Roundhead's Revenge, drawn by Carlos Ezquerra, from Wizard dated November 13th, 1976...

Carlos Ezquerra also drew a serial called Chained to his Sword during this period too, and I'll show some examples of that in a future post.