The End of Skid Solo! (1982) - Updated!

Compared to its stablemates Action, 2000AD, and Battle, the long-running Tiger comic was quite gentle and lighthearted in its storylines. It was therefore more of a shock when we read of the fate of Skid Solo in his final story. 

Skid Solo had begun in Hurricane comic in 1964. The story of the fictional racing driver proved to be a hit with readers and was carried over to Tiger when the two comics merged in 1965. When Tiger upgraded its printing from newsprint to web offset in 1969 it offered artists the opportunity to embellish their stories with a grey wash (diluted black ink) - or full colour painting if they appeared on the colour pages. Skid Solo's artist John Vernon excelled at both wash and colour techniques and produced some very nice pages. 

By 1982, Tiger was being readied for a revamp, replacing some older characters with new ones. Sadly, Skid Solo was one of those for the chop after an impressive 18 year run. Usually, when stories in Tiger came to an end they'd finish on a happy note, status quo restored, and with the heroes optimistic for their futures. 

Not so for Skid Solo! 

Perhaps the writing had been on the wall months before, when one of Skid's co-stars, Sparrow Smith, had been killed in a crash. A portent of things to come. 

The 1st May 1982 issue of Tiger featured the final Skid Solo story. Written by Fred Baker, drawn by John Vernon, the regular team. It left me stunned when I read it back then, and I was 23 at the time! I wondered how 8 year olds would find it. Here's the story...

I think the most disturbing thing about that ending isn't the crash itself, but that we never see Skid Solo's face again after the accident. The extent of his injuries aren't revealed to us, and it's left to our imaginations. It really was a powerful and unexpected ending for such a long-running character, and one that certainly won't be forgotten. Thanks to Fred Baker and John Vernon for such a memorable series!

UPDATE: I'm very grateful to blog reader Stephen West for providing some more info about Skid Solo. A few weeks after that final episode it seems that readers had been voicing their concerns to the Tiger editor Paul Gettens as acknowledged in his editorial...

The following issue saw a one page feature on Skid Solo, with an editorial update that "two months after the accident... doctors have said that Skid WILL walk again, but will have a limp. However, he won't be able to compete in Grand Prix racing for a long time". 

A way to placate upset readers, hopefully, and it lessens the harshness of that ending, but I like to think that it's up to the individual reader to choose whether to accept it or not. 

Stephen West also supplied some background info on Skid Solo, so here it is:

A few pieces of Skid Solo trivia:

• Skid’s first name is Edward (Hurricane 07/03/1964 – 2^nd episode) I don’t believe that it is ever mentioned again.
• Skid originally lived with his Aunt Mabel, the character was quietly dropped from the strip around the time that it transferred to Tiger in May 1965.
• Skid became a Grand Prix Champion for the first time. (Tiger 22/10/1966)
• Tiger sponsored Skid Solo - a Tiger head logo featured on the front of his racing cars thereafter (Tiger 28/03/1970)
• Skid was awarded an OBE (Tiger 05/10/1974)
• Skid met and raced with Stirling Moss (Tiger 14/02/1981 - 19/09/1981)

My thanks again to Stephen for the information!

The Christmas TIGER AND JAG (1969)

Most adventure comics tended to avoid Christmas stories as they interfered with continuity or were an awkward fit for serials, but Tiger and Jag editor David Gregory was happy to accommodate the festivities (as did Barrie Tomlinson when he was promoted from sub-editor to editor in 1970). This cover by John Vernon was always a favourite of mine, as it managed to fit in Santa, Christmas decorations, presents, snow, a special festive logo, and still find time for the story. 

The Skid Solo story continued inside with more winter adventure. The scriptwriter was Fred Baker, a very busy and talented creator who also wrote Billy's Boots, Hot Shot Hamish,  and many other strips...

Roy of the Rovers and his team were also celebrating, with a slap-up feed. art by Yvonne Hutton...

Splash Gorton (name inspired by Flash Gordon, look inspired by Sixties hippies) was a strip about a swimmer, with art by Joe Colquhoun ten years before he'd draw Charley's War...

War and football were the two mainstays of British adventure weeklies and Tiger combined them into one strip with The Barbed Wire Eleven, about British P.O.W.s forming a football team. Art by Jim Bleach. 

The centre page strip was a delight. Football Family Robinson was always entertaining, and John Gillatt's artwork was fantastic. The strip was originally drawn by Joe Colquhoun, a hard act to follow, but John did a superb job.

An advert for that year's annuals, plus a notice about the impending change to decimal currency that would come into force 14 months later...

Nosey was Tiger and Jag's single humour strip. The art looks a lot like the work of Chas Sinclair but I'm not sure if it is his or not. (At that time he was freelancing for TV Comic on Basil Brush.)

Another snowy strip ending with a Christmas feed, Typhoon Tracy was drawn by Graham Allen, who had previously illustrated many humour pages for the Odhams comics. A skilled artist who could do both funnies and light adventure. 

There'll be another Christmas comic tomorrow! Visit the blog again to unwrap it!

The Christmas TIGER (1958)

It's back in time 59 years for this 1958 Christmas issue of Tiger from the days when it had larger, but less, pages, and was printed on newsprint with only one page in colour. The cover strip is Roy of the Rovers by its original artist, Joe Colquhoun. Twenty years later, Joe would be drawing the superb Charley's War strip for Battle. One of the greatest artists in comics.

As I've mentioned before, adventure strips tended to avoid Christmas episodes as it interfered with the flow of the story, but Roy of the Rovers remained seasonal...

Inside, there wasn't much Christmas content, but here's a complete Police Dog Kim story for the occasion. Artist unknown.

The comic strip format was often used for adverts in the 1950s, such as this one for Rowntree's Fruit Gums...

Back then, Tiger carried a mixture of strips and prose stories. Here's Biff Bailey, Fighting Fury...

Finally, a review of Tiger's Top Sportsmen of 1958!

More festive fun tomorrow!

John Gillatt

On Facebook today, John Freeman made the sad announcement that artist John Gillatt has passed away. A popular and prolific artist in the heyday of boys' adventure comics, John Gillatt's work was primarily published in Tiger weekly. He was the original artist on SF strip Jet-Ace Logan for Comet comic in the late 1950s, and remained as one of the artists on the strip when it moved to Tiger in 1959. (The examples shown above are from Tiger dated 26th January 1963.)

Proving himself to be a perfect choice for drawing busy action scenes and a master of figurework and distinctive facial expressions, Gillatt swiftly became one of Tiger's top artists, working on strips such as The Black Archer and Johnny Cougar in the 1960s and then moving on to Football Family Robinson in late 1969 (replacing Joe Colquhoun). 

Later, he became the permanent artist on the long-running Billy's Boots serial for the comic, where his eye for detail and skill at drawing the human figure made him the definitive illustrator on the strip. Billy's Boots also proved very popular in Holland, where it had its own reprint series for which Gillatt painted new covers and supplied additional art. John was also the artist on the Scorer daily strip for the Daily Mirror for several years. 

John Freeman published a tribute to John Gillatt a couple of years ago on the Down the Tubes blog which you can see here:
http://downthetubes.net/?p=14018

No doubt more tributes will be posted online soon to this great comic artist and I'll update this post with links to them as and when.

New tribute to John Gillatt here:
http://downthetubes.net/?p=35570

A 1990 revival of Jet-Ace Logan by John Gillatt.

The ORIGINAL Billy's Boots! (1963)

Most of you will be familiar with Billy's Boots, the adventure strip that began in football weekly Scorcher in 1970 and later continued in Tiger for many years. However, several years before that there was another strip with that name and a similar premise. This Billy's Boots was in Tiger in the early sixties, and the example above is from the issue dated 23rd February 1963.

These original boots had a scientific explanation for their power, as opposed to the supernatural influence of the later version. I'm not sure who the artist of this strip was but it's a very nice, bold cartooning style reminiscent of Peter Maddocks and Wally Fawkes. 

Christmas Comics: TIGER (1970)

By 1970 Tiger had solidly become an all-sports theme comic, with the Christmas issue featuring Johnny Cougar on the cover taking a break from wrestling. (For several years during this period the cover strip rotated between Johnny Cougar, Skid Solo, and Roy of the Rovers.) Artwork by Sandy James, with the story continuing inside...

Carr Street United was a relatively short-run strip with artwork by Sam Fair...

Tiger had the advantage of better printing than most of its companion comics at IPC, allowing artists to embellish strips in grey wash. John Vernon used the technique to nice effect on his Skid Solo pages...

The comic only carried one humour strip in the seventies, with Autograph Albert being the one during this period. Art by Norman Mansbridge...

Finally, a full page ad for that year's Tiger Annual and its related titles, including books for Hurricane and Jag, two comics that had merged into Tiger in, respectively, 1965 and 1969. The weeklies were gone but the annuals continued...

Bookmark this blog to see another festive flashback tomorrow! 

The Nits of the Round Table (Tiger, 1966)

I'm insanely busy at the moment so this blog post will be brief. In 1966, Leo Baxendale had been working for Odhams for a couple of years on Wham! and Smash! but then moved to Fleetway to freelance on The Nits of the Round Table for Tiger weekly, starting in the issue dated 26th November 1966. Here's a few examples of that short run strip. (It ended in 1967.) Some of these strips look like Mike Brown may have collaborated with Leo on them but I'm not sure. (I think Leo explained the situation in his autobiography, but I've mislaid it at present.) Anyway, classic 1960s fun! (The strip was reprinted in Buster in 1973.) Click on pages to see them much bigger. Enjoy!