We all need to start somewhere...

Like most of us who followed our passion, I've been drawing for as long as I can remember. Just random drawings at first, but then in late 1966 I felt inspired to fold the paper in half to make a four page comic. The first one was simply called 'The News' and I threw that away long ago but then I started doing a comic called WUFF! in early 1967.

Initially it featured short strips about family pets, neighbours pets, or my grandad (who was my hero), then later I'd create my own characters. Over the years it grew from 4 to 12 pages as I worked my way through dozens of Silvine drawing pads. VERY crudely drawn as you can see, because it was stream of consciousness stuff rather than having any forethought or study behind it. I had a *lot* to learn!

I did 111 issues of Wuff! and a few other comics from 1967 to 1974 then gave up for a few years, discouraged by thinking it was an impossible goal to ever become a real cartoonist. Then, discovering fanzines in 1976 reignited my ambitions and it was a long slog before selling my first cartoon in 1983 but it turned out OK I suppose. Follow your dreams, folks!

When I was doing my comics as a kid I only showed them to my parents (mostly to my mum) but here's a sampling of some covers from 1967 to 1973 done between the ages of 7 to 14. Yep, I know many others did far better and more accomplished drawings when they were that age but here we go anyway...

WUFF! No.1 Early 1967.

 

WUFF! No.40 (1969).

WUFF! No.71 (late 1970).

WUFF! No.82 (1971).

WUFF! No.93 (1972).

Back page of WUFF! No.93. Yes, Rockman was based on Darkseid!

SUPER-HERO ACTION No.3 (1973). Such hyperbole! :D

For more of my scribbles, er, early work, see this post:

https://lewstringercomics.blogspot.com/2013/08/rarities-my-very-early-work.html

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SHEDZILLA! (1979)

Here's a really old comic strip of mine from back in 1979. Shedzilla appeared as a one-off story in the first issue of a fanzine called The Alternative Headmaster's Bulletin, published by Gerald Midgley.

Shedzilla was one of the first strips I had published and, yes, it's very crudely drawn and I had a lot to learn back then. (I was 19 at the time.) Fanzines like TAHB were ideal for people starting out, to learn the ropes and get feedback before a lot more practise led to professional comics. 

Anyway, here it is in all its scrawly glory. Hope you like it!

Rarities: My very early work

I thought I'd share a few scans of my very early comic art with you today. Well, I say "art". Some of these are embarrassingly bad, but here goes, starting with the image above of the sort of comics I used to draw when I was a young lad. 

I used to put together numerous comic strips like this about my family and my pets in the 1960s, fairly hastily scribbled out in biro. The only people I ever showed them to were my immediate family and my best pal (all of whom are sadly no longer with us). This particular one above was about how my Grandad used to take me a walk on Sunday mornings with the dogs. Happy days. I'd have drawn this in 1967/68 when I was eight years old. Influenced my Marvel Comics it was a tad more melodramatic than it needed to be.

I drew over 100 comics when I was growing up, usually 8 page efforts ranging from any size, depending what paper I could lay my hands on. This one, Captain Thunder, is from 1973 when I was 14. Terrible work, showing no idea of anatomy whatsoever. (The figure was a bad crib of a Gil Kane Warlock cover.) At this stage drawing was purely a hobby and I had no ambition to work in the industry professionally at the time, so basically I wasn't trying as hard as I should have been. 

I'd actually given up drawing by the time I'd left school. (I'd dropped art as a subject before then too.) Living in a small Midlands town seemed too remote for any hopes of drawing for comics. (I naively thought all artists were on staff, working in London or New York.) Besides, our comprehensive school's career teachers had encouraged us to either join the army or consider factory/shop work, so I went to work in an office at a local mining tools company. 

I never enjoyed the office work or the daily routine, and was looking for a way out after a few years. In 1976 I discovered comic fanzines, which gave me the inspiration to draw again. I started contributing to various 'zines, and creating my own. Here's the very first Brickman strip (when he was called Brick-Person) from my fanzine After Image No.3, published November 1979. An early attempt as inking with Rotring pens...

I quit my job in 1980 and decided to focus on finding a career in comics. At this stage I didn't know what kind of comics I'd like to do. I tried my hand at superhero stuff, but as this 1980 cover to Alec Chalmer's fanzine Mirage proves, I hadn't advanced a great deal since the days of Captain Thunder...

I preferred creating humour strips so I started developing a humour style that might be appropriate for UK comics. I still wasn't anywhere near ready, as this Dawg strip from Paul Duncan's 1982 stripzine Short Fuse demonstrates...

At this stage I was inking with a dip-pen and not mastering it at all. Here's another 1982 drawing; the cover to Dick Domar's fanzine The Owl's Effort Summer Special...

I think I was starting to find a style in 1982 that I could develop. Here's a Fandumb mini-strip I did for the fanzine Chain Reaction...

That same year I switched to using Rotring pens again and the change in style was immediate. I found them far easier to control than dip-pens (although over the years I've switched back and forth). Here's one of several Fandumb At Large pages I did for The Owl's Effort. Still not pro standard, but an improvement on what I'd done before. (I'm embarrassed at how cynical the humour is here, although I did include myself in a later edition.)

I sold my first professional cartoons in 1983, and later worked as an assistant to Mike Higgs which helped me develop my style considerably. Here's a 1984 stripzine I published, - Brickman on Toast. By this time I was inking with Tombow fibre-tip pens which were very similar to the UniPin pens I use today.

Finally, here's a drawing I did in 1988 that some of you may not have seen before, featuring Tom Thug and Pete and his Pimple. It was done for the Birmingham Comic Art Show booklet for that year. Inked with Rotring pens.

I hope you've enjoyed this trip through my archives. If my crude, clueless early drawings could eventually lead to paid work then anyone can do it. All you need is practise and imagination, so for anyone out there with hopes to become a professional artist: keep drawing, keep learning, and never give up!