Tuesday, 10 March 2020

BUSTER's 30th Anniversary.... 30 years ago! (1990)



While I'm busy finishing off my contributions for the Cor!! Buster Easter Special I thought you might like to see a strip I did for Buster weekly way back in 1990, for the comic's 30th anniversary!

 I'd forgotten all about this until Peter Gray reminded me by posting it on his UK Comics Facebook page. These are Peter's scans as I don't have time to dig my issue out at present. 

 As you know, Tom Thug was usually a single page strip, but as the character had become popular the editor Allen Cummings allowed me two and a half pages that week to do justice to the anniversary story I'd come up with. I really enjoyed drawing the old characters such as Faceache and Pongo. I embellished them with a grey wash to reflect the days when Buster was a black and white comic, and also to give them a ghostly appearance. 

 I miss working for Buster, but it's great to be drawing pages for the new Cor!! Buster specials! Especially as this year is the 60th anniversary of Buster! 

 Were you a reader of Buster years ago? Post your thoughts and comments about the comic below!

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11 comments:

  1. Manic Man10 March 2020 at 16:14

    Nice strip.

    lets see.. Other then Named characters, we have.. (cause I get bored often)
    Mummy's Boy, Deadly Headly, Pete's Pimple (of course), Shiver the ghost, The Eager Beavers? okay.. That's a really good one to include.. they lasted what, almost 2 years? but it was Terry Bave so good choice, Clever Dick, Tin Teacher.. oh damn, I recognises a few more but can't quite put my finger on them..

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  2. Mj10 March 2020 at 16:53

    Splendid stuff Lew. Buster was always a good read from way back in the 60's and your strip above does full justice to it.

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  3. McSCOTTY10 March 2020 at 18:18

    I was a reader of the Buster back in the mid 69s to around 1971 when it nerged with Jet Back then it was of course a mix of humour and adventure and a very different product to its latter incarrnation as an all humour comic I picked up a few issues when it went all humour and was surprised it didnt last longer as it looked and read well.

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  4. Steve Maslin10 March 2020 at 18:22

    Lew - I was a Buster reader back around 1972 - 1974 when it was Buster & Jet and Buster & Cor.

    It felt like a natural progression from Beano and I dont think the mix of adventure and humour stories was ever bettered anywhere.

    My particular favourites were Zarga, Faceache, Leopard of Lime Street, Von Hoffman's invasion and The Kids of Stalag 41. I remember the Stalag 41 commandant was called Von Schtink! I know the language used is not very fashionable now, but I loved that strip!

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  5. Lew Stringer10 March 2020 at 19:22

    I preferred its mixture of humour and adventure too. In 1969 Buster was the comic I started buying after IPC changed Smash! as it was the closest thing I could find to the old style Smash! I still think it was a mistake for IPC to segregate comics into 'humour' and 'adventure' departments. I know the idea was to encourage readers to buy more comics but considering how short lived some were in the 1970s I don't think it quite worked out.

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  6. Lew Stringer10 March 2020 at 21:06

    The characters shown include Pongo (which reprinted/renamed the strips originally called Fidosaurus when they were in Boys World), Deadly Headley, Eager Beavers, The Big One, a ghost from Rent-A-Ghost, Tich, Mummy's Boy, Tin Teacher, Big Chief Pow-Wow, Clever Dick, The Twitopians, Pete and his Pimple, Thundercap, and I can't remember the name of the one with whiskers.

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  7. Ian M10 March 2020 at 23:24

    I'm afraid most of the Buster characters passed me by, as I wasn't a regular reader of Buster (for me it was mostly The Beano or The Sparky, and from the IPC stable, Cor! or Whizzer And Chips). I do remember the ghost though, but not sure what his name was!

    Love the 60s Buster characters in the Tom Thug strip though! I especially like your rendering (if that's the correct term) of the late great Ken Reid's "Faceache".....superb.

    Thanks for posting this Lew - I never got to see any Tom Thug stories at the time, but enjoy seeing them now when they appear!

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  8. Lew Stringer10 March 2020 at 23:45

    I'm hoping that Rebellion might reprint some Tom Thug stories one of these days if they ever do a Best of Buster reprint collection. In the meantime, he turns up in a few panels in the Buster strip in the new Cor!! Buster Easter Special next month.

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  9. Manic Man11 March 2020 at 08:01

    Ah.. the ghost from Rent-a-ghost.. standard ghosts pretty much look the same.. though yeah.. Shiver was more rounded.

    I gotta agree with Ian though, the face ache is very much looking like Ken Reid style ^_^ which isn't too much of a surprised,

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  10. Ian M12 March 2020 at 22:10

    Thanks for the heads-up on the Cor!! Buster Easter Special Lew, will look out for it!

    Manic Man, great Faceache isn't it? I'm sure Ken would be smiling....!

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  11. Lew Stringer12 March 2020 at 23:47

    Thanks Ian. See my latest post for a preview of the new Buster strip.

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