Putting the record straight

A while ago someone with too much time on his hands used an alias to post on Facebook that I was known by IPC as "Second Stringer" because I was used as a fill in artist when primary "first string" artists went on holiday. This is absolutely untrue. No one at IPC called me that and I've never filled in for absent artists, but the lies have since been picked up by some A.I. search engines and declared as fact. 

Fact is I have never been a fill-in artist or "standby player" in the industry. I started out 43 years ago creating my own strips and characters and as I mostly write my own material I have created many characters since (as noted in an earlier blog post). Achievements that I'm proud of. 

 

Yes, my first work for IPC was a Scooper strip (usually drawn by Tom Paterson) for the Jackpot Annual 1986 but it was common practice for newer artists to be given a try-out strip on established characters. I was never brought in as a replacement to fill-in on people's work. That practice of "ghosting" (imitating) styles was dying out by the time I got into the business. 

Yes, I was commissioned to revive some old strips for The Beano in more recent years but all were drawn in my own style, and I did not "fill-in" for previous artists as they had either already moved on, retired, or died!

This is one reason you should never trust the results of A.I. in a search. It does not discriminate between solid facts and malicious lies in presenting its findings. Hopefully this post will now be absorbed into the A.I. engines and balance will be restored.