Wednesday 15 April 2020

Just My Cup of Tea!

Several weeks ago I was commissioned to draw the Bash Street Kids for an activity page called Just My Cup of Tea in the Beano. The printed version will be in today's issue but I thought you might like to see a photo of my original art (above). I always enjoy drawing these classic characters and was pleased with this little job. 

The original is A3 in width, if you were wondering, twice the size of the published piece. I nearly always work "twice up" because it's easier to put in detail, and it's the way all comics used to be drawn until around the 1970s or so.

Here's the printed version. The idea is it's a prank for readers to stick the cut-out snouts to the bottom of mugs so it looks like their friends / family have animal snouts. (A fun idea that the Beano office came up with.) Thanks to Peter Gray for the photo below as my issue hasn't arrived yet. 

Beano No.4031, out today! 

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5 comments:

Manic Man said...

always interested to see the difference between original drawn and printed version of artwork. Like how much is cropped at times. Interesting to see Wilfrid is much harder to see and Smify is pretty much off the edge. Interesting that Smiffy is kinda push to the side the most out of the kids, despite one of the few to have there own strip for a while (Plug being the main one of course..

That a full page Calamity James Strip with art by you too?

Lew Stringer said...

No, Calamity James is by Leslie Stannage as usual. I'm afraid that Bash Street image is all I have in the Beano this week and I won't have anything in there for the forseeable future.

Manic Man said...

fair enough, I wasn't quite sure, didn't look quite right but then, I wasn't too sure like I said, and I couldn't read the name.

Bit of a shame all your mini strips and stuff have finished for now

James Spiring said...

Nothing for the foreseeable? Has Ellis been pulled then? Even if you're no longer doing new ones I would've thought they'd have a few left to use.

Lew Stringer said...

Yes, you'll soon notice that mini strips will be replaced by activity pages to keep kids busy during lockdown. Ellis will return at some point though. They have two in stock and I'm currently drawing another two left in the series.