Vintage comic art for sale from 1960 to 1995!

Art by Richard Elson.

There are some unusual and rare pieces of British comic art in my auctions this week that should hopefully appeal to various collectors.

From 1985 there's one of my earliest characters, Snailman, in a complete strip from Marvel UK's Spider-Man No.648. This is liklely to be the last Snailman strip I'll be selling so if you're interested please bid. Here's the link:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/205480143411?itmmeta=01JV325EHYRMDY8MAFS3A2XPW1&hash=item2fd7922a33:g:6SQAAOSw8jVoIMyS

From 1995 here's a very collectable page of Richard Elson's artwork from Sonic the Comic No.64, written by me. It features Sonic and his team plus Commander Brutus, a villain I created who proved to be very popular with the readers. Here's the link...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/205480187789?itmmeta=01JV325EHYJ72MQPY7P60QR13H&hash=item2fd792d78d:g:tGsAAOSwHZ9oINMk

Art by Richard Elson

From my collection of comic art here's a page by the late Jimmy Hansen of the popular Ricky Rainbow character from Buster back in 1990. A chance to own a great page by Jimmy, one of the best humour artists of the day.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/205480146406?itmmeta=01JV325EHYJ1B7A4GKYEHERK04&hash=item2fd79235e6:g:rccAAOSwNFNoIM20

Art by Jimmy Hansen

Art by Jimmy Hansen.

Finally, something really special. The original artwork of part of a Billy Bunter story that appeared in Knockout comic way back in 1960! Drawn by the wonderful Albert Pease, one of the greatest UK humour artists of the 20th Century. It's very rare to see Mr.Pease's work up for sale. I'm hoping there'll be a lot of interest from British comics afficianados for this one!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/205480164898?itmmeta=01JV325EHY1DMVTH1PJ1TG85R0&hash=item2fd7927e22:g:H6sAAOSwCC1oIM9U

Art by Albert Pease.

 

The auctions end on the evening of Sunday 18th May. All bids greatly appreciated. Wishing you all the very best of luck!

Here's the link to the whole listings:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?item=203554298786&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562&_ssn=graphite47

 

Art by Albert Pease

 ****************************************

Wolverine, Spider-Man and Robo Capers in this week's original art auction

The latest auction of my original art has gone live today and it includes two Mini-Marvels strips from 2006 and a Robo Capers from 1987.

The Robo-Capers one is from Marvel UK's Transformers No.111 and is a self contained chapter of "The Forgotten Robots of History".

The Mini-Marvels feature Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Spider-Man and more and appeared in Panini UK's Rampage magazine in 2006. As well as the original inked art I'm throwing in the pencilled roughs for the Mini-Marvels too.

 

 

You can see the full listings here:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/graphite47/m.html?item=203554298786

Bidding ends next Sunday evening (20th February). Good luck!

 

Captain Wally and Snail-Man (Marvel UK, 1985)

Back in 1985 sales of the British Spider-Man weekly were in need of a boost. The solution, Marvel UK decided, was to pitch it at a younger readership as sales of other comics were strong in that area.

The result was that with issue 634, dated 4th May 1985, the comic changed its title to The Spider-Man Comic, a 32 page weekly with half its pages in full colour, featuring reprints of Spider-Man stories from Spidey Super Stories, an early-learner comic that Marvel US had been publishing. Other reprints included Fraggle Rock and Willy the Wizard (which had been called Wally the Wizard in the USA, but Marvel UK changed it to 'Willy' avoid unexpected laughter. Erm... right.) Reprints of The Dukes of Hazard from TV Comic also started running a few weeks later.

The editor was Sheila Cranna, whom I'd worked for on my very first regular strip, Robo-Capers, for Transformers. Sheila asked me to come up with some ideas for the comic's revamp and I submitted two superhero-spoof characters, Captain Wally and Snail-Man. Happily Sheila liked both and I was commissioned to produce a full page Captain Wally every week along with a half page Snail-Man.

As you can see, both characters were set in a very English suburban environment. This formula had worked well for children's comics for years, usually with Dennis the Menace style strips, so I thought it'd make superheroes look even more ludicrous than they are by placing them in that setting. Adding to that, neither characters had any independence in their lives. Wally lived with his parents whilst Snail-Man lived with his brutally domineering Aunt Maim, thus further emasculating the concept of the strong super-hero.

Sheila Cranna was a pleasure to work for and I thoroughly enjoyed producing these strips every week. I was still fairly new to the business and certainly learning the ropes (some of the artwork here is a considerably rough and wonky) but I was very pleased to be working on a comic that I used to buy as a kid. (Even though it had changed considerably they retained the numbering so it was still the same comic that had launched as Spider-Man Comics Weekly in 1973.)

During its run Captain Wally introduced Macho-Man, who I'd later revamp a bit for his own series in Marvel UK's Secret Wars comic. Here's his first appearance from The Spider-Man Comic No.649...

For issue 650 I wanted to do something a bit different and, somehow, mention the comic's impressive long run. Sheila was happy to allow me two pages that week and I had Captain Wally and Snail-Man having a Marvel team-up...

Sadly, all things come to an end, some earlier than expected. With issue 651 the comic was tweaked again, becoming Spidey Comic. Jenny O'Connor became the editor and was instructed to make cuts in the budget, and Captain Wally and Snail-Man made their final appearances in issue 653. This was quite a blow at the time as it was my first experience of losing work. (Fortunately things soon picked up thanks to other Marvel UK strips and IPC's Oink!)

Although the strips only ran for 20 weeks they were very important to me as they were amongst my first regular professionally-published strips and helped me gain more confidence in my work. Sheila Cranna pretty much allowed me to do what I wanted with the pages, and as what Marvel UK were looking for were traditional UK kids strips with a daft edge I was more than happy to oblige.

Marvel still own the rights to these strips so, who knows, maybe Captain Wally and Snail-Man will turn up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe one day? Hey, if Howard the Duck could make a cameo, why not? I can but dream...

I'll be showing more strips from my 37 years in comics soon!

*****************************

Spidey mini-strips

I've enjoyed drawing all the strips I've worked on over the past 30 years. Who couldn't enjoy having their childhood dream come true? One of the most satisfying gigs was being commissioned by Panini UK to draw new Mini-Marvel strips when they had run out of the American ones by Chris Giarusso. I've shown some of these before in their original art stages, but here's a few of the printed versions from issues of Spectacular Spider-Man in 2008. Click on them to see the strips at a more readable size.

Spectacular Spider-Man was a really good version of the character for a younger UK audience. The main strip in the comic, often by Ferg Handley and artists such as Andie Tong and Simon Williams, was action-packed and well illustrated. 

Cover art by Andie Tong.

Sadly, Disney's decision to stop Marvel material being originated in the UK put paid to that. There is still a British Spider-Man comic for kids but it reprints American material, and Panini aren't even allowed to run a new humour strip in it now. Still, it was great while it lasted, and having the opportunity to write and draw Marvel characters for an officially approved comic is something I'll always remember fondly. 

Mini Marvels

One of my most enjoyable gigs was being commissioned by Panini UK in 2006 to write/draw new Mini Marvels when they'd reprinted all of Chris Giarruso's strips in Rampage. I only did a few before Rampage was revamped, then cancelled, but I was then asked to do a second run in 2008 for the Spectacular Spider-Man comic.

I showed a few on this blog last year, and here's another one above, pencil rough and finished inked art. I had to 'ghost' Chris' chubby character style to an extent, but it was still fun to be drawing Spider-Man for Marvel! 

And, seen for the first time, here's one that didn't get approved, so I didn't draw it beyond the pencil rough stage...

Spider-Man and Captain Pimply!

My thanks again to those of you who bid on my artwork last week. All the items have sold and will be posted off this week. I've now listed a few more pages on eBay including a Mini-Marvels strip featuring Spider-Man that I did for Panini UK and a 1987 Pete and his Pimple strip from Oink! where Pete reads a Brickman comic and dreams of being the superhero Captain Pimply! This was the spotty superhero's only appearance. I should have done more. Maybe I will one day. 

There's also an early Tom Thug page from Oink! which features the very first appearance of Wayne Brayne, a later Tom Thug page from Buster in full colour, and a Robo-Capers strip from Transformers. (I don't have many Robo-Capers originals left now so I'm not sure how many more I'll list.)

If you'd like to own some of my original artwork, visit my eBay page here to see more details and photos of the pages on offer. Good luck!

Make Mine Marvel!

Several years ago Panini UK were reprinting Chris Giarruso's Mini Marvels strips in their licensed Marvel comics. They eventually ran out of them so in 2006 they asked me if I could provide brand new ones, script and art for their new Rampage comic.

I was asked to keep to Chris' style to a certain extent, so the characters were more compact than I'd otherwise draw them. Even so, I really enjoyed doing the strip and it was refreshing to draw in a slightly different style.

Rampage eventually folded but a couple of years later, in 2008, I was asked to provide a second series for Panini's Spectacular Spider-Man comic. Panini's staff had coloured the strip when it was in Rampage (and a great job they did) but I was asked to colour the new series, which I enjoyed immensely. 

Here's a handful of my Mini Marvels strips. Firstly the rough pencils which I sent editors for approval, then the finished artwork prior to it being lettered by Panini.

Unfortunately, Disney (Marvel's owners) no longer allow outside companies to generate new artwork on the comics they license from Marvel but it was great while it lasted!