Monday 19 April 2021

New comic! STATUES OF LIVERPOOL

Footballer Dixie Dean.

One of the new things I've done recently was to illustrate four pages for a brand new one-off comic for Liverpool Heartbeat. Statues of Liverpool is a lively educational comic focused on the history represented by Liverpool's many statues. Scripts were provided by long established writer Tim Quinn, and other contributors include Nigel Parkinson, Russ Leach, and Dicky Howett.

A section of my Ken Dodd page.

My pages feature the statues of Ken Dodd, Dixie Dean and others. It was a challenge to draw in a slightly different style as it needed to be semi realistic but I found it immensely satisfying and a very pleasurable job to do. For the Ken Dodd page I also created a background of theatre posters inspired by the various designs of posters from Ken's long career. I couldn't resist adding a TV Comic cover from 1969 too as it featured Ken Dodd and his Diddymen.

A section of my page on the Blitz.

Here's Tim Quinn to tell us more about the comic...

"One of the best things about being the editor of a brand new comic magazine is that you can choose the illustrators to bring the story to life. In the case of this particular publication I thought I would try an experiment by pooling 6 of the great diverse talents I've been lucky enough to work with over the past 50 years to tell a single story. As I approached each artist in turn and set the book in motion, I suddenly had doubts that there would be no blurring of the lines and that you would be able to see the join between each illustrator and that that join would be jarring. Happily, as soon as pages started coming in those fears were put to rest and it became obvious that we were creating a unique comic book in its own write and draw as John Lennon might have said. The illustrations are superb as we bring Liverpool and its history to life. This is one proud editor. And it's all for a great cause as every penny made from the book goes back into projects that educate and entertain the young people of Merseyside via that fabulous charity organisation Liverpool Heartbeat."

Order your copy today at the following link: 

https://www.liverpoolheartbeat.co.uk/shop/

Fab cover by Russ Leach!

 

5 comments:

Manic Man said...

it's good to have information on local statues and the like, more then just idiots saying "Look, it's a statue of a Human, as as all humans are fallible, this person's statue must be torn down and replaced with a statue of someone who is also fallible but gives a bit of lip service to us for the current time and will be found very fallible to in a few years"..

I don't like people trying to forget or 'replace' the past.. you should remember it, in order to stop the bad and encourage the good. Most people would say George Best is a hero to many.. i say he is a terrorable drunk who cost the country a fair bit in work to get him to live at the expanse of others (given a new liver, didn't stop drinking, wasting it and dying young) but I don't say don't remember his football work as he was said to be a great player. Don't forget the bad, but don't forget the good. Giving goood information is the better way. No-one is perfect, either perfect evil or perfect good.

Lew Stringer said...

Well, George Best was only destructive to himself really. It's not like he was a slave trader. If someone has committed a great evil then I think their statues should be removed. The whole idea of a statue is to literally put them on a pedestal as a figure to look up to. If they're not worthy of being a role model they shouldn't be there.

Anyway, Statues of Liverpool is about honouring the people who DO deserve our respect, so let's focus on that.

Manic Man said...

well.. stealing money from strangers, drink driver, using country's money (Via the NHS) to fund his drinking lifestyle, quite possible that someone died or atleast could have via the liver issue. someone that would have changed their habbits (in full discloser, i would say i have had close friends and family members die due to alcohol and not really a victimless crime..

of course, as much as Ken Dodd was a good comedian, he was also a tax fraud and.. oh.. technically slave labourer..

the problem I was trying to make is, things are fluid and no-one is perfect. I can't think of anyone I would be able to raise on a pedestal and say 'This is a role model'.. even one of my role models, which surprisingly, is Johane (Jeanna) d’Arc. A role model and someone I look up to, but had her faults, despite being killed at the age of about 19..

So look up to people, look up to them for the good they did, but don't forget the bad. everyone and everything has two sides and the truth (or as much as is known) should not be forgotten or it might be repeated.

Lew Stringer said...

Ryan, it's just intended to be a nice comic for kids to learn some positive things about their city, whilst raising some money for the Liverpool Heartbeat charity. Can't we just look on the bright side for once? Life is miserable enough right now for everyone without going off at tangents to complain about people who aren't even relevant to the subject.

Manic Man said...

fair enough ^_^ I think it IS a good thing as it is being a nice thing for people but yeah, I admit to often going a bit off track for various reasons ^_^ sorry about that. Still standing by that it's a good thing to give the people information to help them learn.