Preview: The latest DAFT DIMENSION

Here's a little clipping from part of my latest Daft Dimension strip that appears in the new issue of the official Doctor Who Magazine, out this Thursday. You'll have to buy the mag to see the full version, plus 84 pages of features, interviews, and the main Doctor Who strip! 

This particular Daft Dimension is based on a suggestion by John Freeman (who was editor of the mag 30 years ago) so thanks for that, John! 

Doctor Who Magazine No.551, on sale Thursday 30th April... or available by post (or digitally) from the magazine's website:
https://doctorwhomagazine.com

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

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!

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

Ivy the Terrible (Beano, 2014)

Being asked to draw a classic strip like Ivy the Terrible was a great privilege as it had originally been drawn by the late great Robert Nixon. I was asked not to deviate from his style too much, but that wasn't difficult as he'd been one of my many influences anyway. 

The thing about "ghosting" an art style is that it immediately becomes absorbed into your own style, so little quirks and techniques become evident. I don't know if my style is distinctive (you can't always tell if it is yourself) but I know there's little bits of various artists in there from Leo Baxendale, Ken Reid, and Roy Wilson, to Jack Oliver, Tom Paterson, and Bob Nixon and more. 

These two Ivy the Terrible strips appeared in The Beano issues dated 4th October and 11th October 2014. Scripts by John Anderson (who's now the Beano editor) and art and colours by me. 

I've been working in comics now for 37 years and I'll delve into the archive and show some more old work soon!

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

Tom Thug in 1991

When I created Tom Thug for Oink! in the 1980s the intention was that it'd be a cathartic experience for anyone who was bullied to see the bully get his just desserts every week. That's how most episodes played out, with Tom's bad deeds backfiring on him by the final panel.

This episode, from Buster dated 28th September 1991, is a bit unusual in that Tom doesn't end up in the karma-type situation of losing due to his own misdeeds. As he doesn't actually do any bullying in this one, there was no need to have him fall foul of it. It was during this period that I'd decided to make Tom's overly-fussy mum a teacher at his school, to cause embarrassment to Tom and puncture his belief that he was a hard case. It added a new spin to the long-running strip although most weeks the traditional plot of his bullying backfiring on him was still used. 

Script and art by me, with lettering by Jack Potter. Jack was a brilliant letterer who'd been in the industry for years, but I didn't care for the tails of the balloons touching the edge of characters. That's usually a lettering no-no. Speech balloons only need to point to the characters, not look like they're physical balloons tethered to them! 

I hope you like this page from my archives. Click on the image to see it full size. I'll show something else from years ago soon. If you have any preferences, let me know by posting a comment below...

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

Adding a bit extra

The Vampire Brats was a strip created by Mark Rogers that I drew from his scripts, as a replacement for my Pete and his Pimple series in Buster. It began in 1989 but by the time of this example from 1990 it was written by Roy Davis, who was a veteran cartoonist/writer responsible for many strips in the old comics.  

Roy always supplied his "scripts" as roughed out comic strips, rather than typewritten manuscripts. In this instance he wanted the characters drawn in silhouette in most panels too indicate it was pitch black night. A nice visual idea that didn't take long to draw, but I felt a bit guilty that I wasn't earning my fee, and that the readers might feel short changed too.... so, I decided to create a little spontaneous extra at the foot of the page with Monsters on Parade! 

This page originally appeared in Buster dated 14th July 1990. By this period it was sub-titled "The All-Colour Comic" and although some pages did feature fully coloured strips, a lot of them (like this one) were limited to basic mechanical flat colours. Personally I thought it looked too garish and would have worked better just using red or blue, but perhaps the readers liked it, I dunno. 

Another page from the archives soon! If you have any requests, post a comment below.

++++++++++++++++++

My comics pals

Comic cons from 1980 to 2019.

Posting this photo compilation of comic conventions from over the years again because I'm finding that the many happy memories we shared are a comfort during this lockdown.

Working alone it's always a pleasant break to be invited to a comic con to hang out with friends in the business and meet the readers. If you're stuck for something to do, see if you can identify the faces in these photos! Most are comics creators from the UK, a few are from overseas. (Click on the image to enlarge it.)

Same goes for friends outside of comics too of course. Missing you all and looking forward to the days when we'll meet again! In the meantime, let's remember the laughs and smiles to keep us going! They were happy times!

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

A Walk in the Woods

There are some woods near to where I live so for my short daily walk the other day I had a stroll through them. Just for a few moments it was a peaceful, timeless distraction from living in 2020, wandering in a place that could exist anywhere in time. I thought I'd share the photos I took to hopefully bring you some peace too.

I hope you also have somewhere peaceful to visit during this crisis. 

For those of you who'd rather read about comics... don't worry, I'll be back to blogging about those next time. 

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