Brought to my attention this morning via Rich Johnston's Bleeding Cool website comes the news that D.C. Thomson have revamped the website for their newspaper The Courier and it now features two galleries of Dudley Watkins comic strips.
As I'm sure every reader of this blog knows, Dudley D. Watkins was considered to be Thomson's finest artist, a master of both humour and adventure work, and the original artist on The Dandy's Desperate Dan from 1937 to his untimely death in 1969.
The website features two sections: Treasure from the archives: the gems of Dudley Watkins which features a small selection of scans from various strips, including one showing Biffo the Bear happily encouraging cockfighting. There's also a brilliantly surreal Peter Piper story on there that some psychologists could have a field day with. After being beaten by his father, Peter brings to life a picture of his Dad as a boy and beats him up for revenge.
The other section is Dudley D. Watkins, Lord Snooty, and Hitler, being a panel-by-panel scan of a 1940s Lord Snooty and His Pals strip featuring wartime propaganda against that biggest bully of all, Adolf Hitler.
Best of all, the scans are taken from the original artwork. A treasure trove indeed.
Hopefully if this is a success D.C. Thomson will feature work from other classic artists in the future.
Fellow fans of old British strip Frankie Stein prepare for a shock to your bolts, because U.S. comics company Image Comics have announced their own version premiering this September!
The latest edition of the Diamond Previews comic catalogue advertises that the full colour 48 page $12.99 Frankie Stein book will be published in the USA on September 7th (or Sept. 8th in the UK and worldwide). Written by Steven T. Seagle and drawn by Marco Cinello the book promises to be "totally appropriate for kids of all ages".
From the synopsis, it's evident that this Frankie Stein has no relation to Ken Reid's 1960s comic-horror classic, or Bob Nixon's affable monster of the 1970s, but it has its own take on the monster-and-father aspect. "Young Frankie Stein is starting to doubt his father's claim that 'Boys live in castles and monsters live in cities'. Taking a leap of faith, Frankie heads into nearby Transylvania, Pennsylvania, to test that theory for himself on October 31st! What's a monster-boy to do in a city filled to overflowing with monsters?"
Described as "a timeless tale of perception and personal identity. And... pumpkins!" it does sound much more sugary and cute than the Frankie Stein we were used to. As IPC's Frankie Stein has been out of print for ages and the creators of the Image version are based in the USA I very much doubt they'd even be aware of the British Frankie.
I'll take a look at the Image version when it appears and while I wish the creators every success with their book I suspect I'll still prefer the manic brilliance of Ken Reid's original (below); a series that deserves its own collection.
Frankie Stein strip from Wham! No.78, 11th December 1965 drawn by Ken Reid.
Concluding my brief look at summertime strips from the weekly comics here's another bucketful starting above with a cover to Ally Sloper's Half Holiday dated October 1st 1892. I've shown this cover on the blog before but it's worth repeating for this theme. Great W.F. Thomas artwork from the days of beach huts and overdressed holidaymakers.
Zooming forward in time over 60 years later it's a Sally Barnes strip from TV Fun No.100, August 13th 1955 (below). Reg Parlett is the artist and the crowds on the beach are no exaggeration. In those days British beaches were packed, particularly when factories closed for a summer holiday week and all the workers took a break at the same time.
Moving on to 1st September 1962 and the girls' comic June featured an amusing little gag strip called Jenny. Does anyone know who drew this?
A few years later and Ken Reid's Frankie Stein goes to the beach in this funny full pager from Wham! No.55, 3rd July 1965. Notice how the storyline is much more complex than the basic seaside stories seen in the earlier comics (shown in part 1).
As far as I know, D.C. Thomson's Diana weekly never had an additional Summer Special, at least not in its early years. Presumably Thomson's felt that this big 24 page glossy was like a summer special every week, hence the 21st August 1965 issue being the "Sunshine Holiday Number" as part of its regular run. Unfortunately despite the lively beach painting on the cover none of the the interior strips have summer holiday themes.
IPC Magazines liked to use basic, simple formulas for their humour strips and Beat Your Neighbour used the old theme of rivalry to funny effect. Appearing a year before the tv sit-com Love Thy Neighbour, this strip of warring neighbours appeared in Knockout dated 11th September 1971.
Korky the Cat often appeared at the beach on the cover of Dandy Summer Specials but here in the weekly edition of The Dandy dated August 31st 1974 he and the Kits make do with a greenhouse and some builder's sand. Artwork by Charlie Grigg.
Finally, from Oink! No.8, 9th to 22nd August 1986, Tom Thug in Blackpool for the first time. The "Tom Thug on 'Oliday" strips were a recurring summer theme I'd use throughout the strips run. Some "sick" humour in this one I'm afraid, quite literally! (This was the first comic strip I'd drawn in colour. A bit ropey in places unfortunately!) By the way, the final panel had some dialogue altered by the editor, with "bog" replaced by "sink"!
That's it for this seaside trip through comic history. If you're heading for the beach this week have fun and watch out for crabs and beach bullies!
