Happy New Year... from 30 years ago!
Happy New Year for 2020! Here's a couple of pages I did for the New Year edition of Buster thirty years ago! These strips appeared way back in 1989 but I still remember drawing them.
I've always enjoyed doing Christmas and New Year issues as it's often an opportunity to decorate the pages with holly, snow, bells and other things associated with the occasion. In the page at the top of this post I created a new logo for the Tom Thug strip, with deliberate bad spelling of course as it's supposed to be the Brainless Bully's own graffiti. Script and art by me, lettering by Mike Peters.
The Vampire Brats strip that issue had a bit more decoration around the top of the page, and a "Snappy" New Year pun. Script, art, and lettering by me. Mark Rogers was the original writer of The Vampire Brats and I was the artist, but when he fell ill he asked me to take over the scripts as well for a few months. (Later, Roy Davis became the scriptwriter as Mark had sadly passed away.)
Thirty years on and I'm drawing three pages over the next couple of weeks for the Cor!! Buster Easter Special featuring Buster and Delbert... but you can be sure that Tom Thug and the Vampire Brats will make cameo appearances!
Wishing you all the best for 2020 and thank you for your interest in my work. Although my Blimey! blog has ended now I'll be showing more of my pages from the archive soon on this blog, as well as peeks at upcoming strips of course!
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The Vampire Brats have been mentioned before, and I immediately thought of Mark, but then I saw Roy Davis as the writer and figured I had got mixed up. Now I understand what happened. Mark really liked your work, Lew, and said you were meticulous (which I think means "no longer infectious", but I haven't looked it up.)
ReplyDeleteThanks Graham. That's really nice to hear. I thought Mark was incredibly talented, not only as a writer who could turn out so much good work but also as an editor who always changed scripts for the better. Not only did we lose a good man but the UK comics industry lost one of its greatest talents.
ReplyDeleteI just love how British funnies use 'soundwords' like WAIL SCREEEECH WAIL! to signal the noise from desperate people. So much better than the usual 'eeeeeeeek!' or something along those lines...
ReplyDeleteIn this case I wanted it to mimic the sound of the bagpipes from panel one but, yes, we like to vary the sound effects. All part of the crazy world of comics. 😄
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