Come In and Introduce Yourselves!

Well, we know who we are; so, who are you?

Hi! Alan (Ultron5) Smith here! Ironic that my `title` is a US Marvel Villian eh!?

Anyhow I am 54 years and my era of comics was 1960 to 1972. My favourite `fun` comic by far is Sparky and I am a BIG!! fan of the "I. Spy" strip which began in 1969 in the comic!

I used to have Dandy, Smash, Pow, Thunder, Jet, Lion & Thunder, Valiant & Smash and sometimes the Beano, Topper, Beezer and Wham when money was availiable (from my Parents)

Retired early due to Thyroid condition and now have time to re-collect my Sparky collection -and others!

I am the fellow who has offered the "Sparky File" article to Crikey! and another about my favourite EVER!! Adventure strip titled "Moon Madness" which ran for a few weeks in early 1966 `Smash`

alanultron5 wrote:Hi! Alan (Ultron5) Smith here! Ironic that my `title` is a US Marvel Villian eh!?

Anyhow I am 54 years and my era of comics was 1960 to 1972. My favourite `fun` comic by far is Sparky and I am a BIG!! fan of the "I. Spy" strip which began in 1969 in the comic!

I used to have Dandy, Smash, Pow, Thunder, Jet, Lion & Thunder, Valiant & Smash and sometimes the Beano, Topper, Beezer and Wham when money was availiable (from my Parents)

Retired early due to Thyroid condition and now have time to re-collect my Sparky collection -and others!

I am the fellow who has offered the "Sparky File" article to Crikey! and another about my favourite EVER!! Adventure strip titled "Moon Madness" which ran for a few weeks in early 1966 `Smash`

Welcome, Alan-glad you found it. And if anyone hasn't yet checked out the Moon Madness piece and part one of The Sparky File in the features section, you're missing a treat (the Sparky File will also be seeing print in the Crikey! magazine later this year).

A fairly comprehensive list of the best of British humour comics of the time, there...

Hello,

My 'real' name is Warren (screenname refers to a fave character in 'The Borribles', my favourite novel as a youth) and I'm 41, so my comic era starts circa 1975.

I still read new comics, mostly Marvel, Judge Dredd Megazine, and Commando now and then -- if only there were still a UK comics industry, rather than the dominant reprint & licensed titles!

My first favourite comic was... Sparky! Although I never saw the individual comics in the shops (I grew up and still live in Birmingham) so it was a fave due to the annuals.

Later had the Beano, Jackpot (another fave), Buster, Scream (a fave), Speed/Tiger (fave again!), relaunched Eagle and odds and ends.

I'm glad Crikey has a forum -- long overdue!

Spiff_B wrote:Hello,

My 'real' name is Warren (screenname refers to a fave character in 'The Borribles', my favourite novel as a youth) and I'm 41, so my comic era starts circa 1975.

I still read new comics, mostly Marvel, Judge Dredd Megazine, and Commando now and then -- if only there were still a UK comics industry, rather than the dominant reprint & licensed titles!

My first favourite comic was... Sparky! Although I never saw the individual comics in the shops (I grew up and still live in Birmingham) so it was a fave due to the annuals.

Later had the Beano, Jackpot (another fave), Buster, Scream (a fave), Speed/Tiger (fave again!), relaunched Eagle and odds and ends.

I'm glad Crikey has a forum -- long overdue!

A New Eagle fan! I was starting to think I was the only one. A very underrated title, I feel. And of course, it eventually incorporated some of the best features from Speed, tiger and Scream.

I share your feelings about the decline of British comics, but there's probably more out there than we tend to think offhand. The problem, of course, is getting comics back in the high street!

Welcome aboard everybody and, yes, this Forum is LONG overdue. Thanks for Tony and his gang for setting it up...

GBF wrote:Welcome aboard everybody and, yes, this Forum is LONG overdue. Thanks for Tony and his gang for setting it up...

Your words say welcome, but your avatar appears to be giving us the finger, Glenn-and from that blue colour, I think you have a circulation problem!

tony ingram wrote:A New Eagle fan! I was starting to think I was the only one. A very underrated title, I feel. And of course, it eventually incorporated some of the best features from Speed, tiger and Scream.

I share your feelings about the decline of British comics, but there's probably more out there than we tend to think offhand. The problem, of course, is getting comics back in the high street!

I came to New Eagle in two phases -- from launch, with the photo strips, which I didn't last too long with, because of the price I think. Then later of course when Tiger merged with it, having moved to Tiger when Speed merged with it (plus Scream later -- whole lotta merging going on!). I read it for a few years after the Tiger merger, till I got too old for it.

Of course, a few years ago eBay allowed me to buy several years of New Eagle, from issue one till end of 1987 (or therabouts)!

tony ingram wrote:I share your feelings about the decline of British comics, but there's probably more out there than we tend to think offhand. The problem, of course, is getting comics back in the high street!

I don't know whether they'll ever be popular again in themselves, rather than as offshoots from TV series.

Spiff_B wrote:
I came to New Eagle in two phases -- from launch, with the photo strips, which I didn't last too long with, because of the price I think. Then later of course when Tiger merged with it, having moved to Tiger when Speed merged with it (plus Scream later -- whole lotta merging going on!). I read it for a few years after the Tiger merger, till I got too old for it.

Of course, a few years ago eBay allowed me to buy several years of New Eagle, from issue one till end of 1987 (or therabouts)!

I actually really liked the early photostories phase (I'm probably one of the few fans of that era). I think Doomlord in particular worked very well as a photo strip. I dropped the title after the move to newsprint, and didn't really pick it up again regularly until the Tiger merger, but I've since filled in a lot of the gaps.

I don't know whether they'll ever be popular again in themselves, rather than as offshoots from TV series.

2000AD and Commando still do very well though, while the licensed titles seem to have a finite lifespan, generally (the venerable DWM aside). I think it really needs someone to take a chance and launch a new title into WH Smiths or similar. The big problem at the moment is that many people simply aren't really aware that comics still exist to any great extent!

That 'Blue Finger' is 20 foot high, 60 ton Moai I photographed on Easter Island a few years ago - but I see what you mean! And I DO have a 'circulation' problem - with this bloody magazine!!
PLUG:
Anybody interested in purchasing my film about Easter Island should contact me through this page! (it's absolutely brilliant and the best buy you'll have for a six quid!)

GBF wrote:That 'Blue Finger' is 20 foot high, 60 ton Moai I photographed on Easter Island a few years ago - but I see what you mean! And I DO have a 'circulation' problem - with this bloody magazine!!
PLUG:
Anybody interested in purchasing my film about Easter Island should contact me through this page! (it's absolutely brilliant and the best buy you'll have for a six quid!)

Easter Island is a place I've always thought quite fascinating. Those Moai are a remarkable feat of engineering-how the Hell did they move them?

Of course, if you believe 2000AD's sublimely silly Hewligan's Haircut, they didn't...

They chopped all the trees down and 'rolled' them (yeah,right!) from the quarry near Tongariki (to the north of the island) and set them up all around the island. Over 800 in all. They all look inward (except 7 moai at a place called 'Aku Akivi'), protecting the 3000 inhabitants from evil spirits.
The island is 3 miles wide at it's, er, widest and 17 miles long...the smallest Moai weigh about 10 tons, the largest 60. Remember that when you see the height one of the statues, the same is lost beneath the ground...

Simples!!

Hi all.

This looks like a great place - supporting an equally great magazine - so thanks to Tony for the invite and I hope you're all happy and healthy as we enter another bloody decade.

Er...I don't really know very much about British comics and tended to prefer reading US ones when I was a kid. And er...still do. But I'm years behind in my reading of those too, so yet another reason why I'm not sure I'm here. I'll do my best to think of stuff to say from time to time regardless.

I don't look anything like my avatar.

But I'm happy to accept private messages from anybody who does.

I think you may have a long wait...

My name is Mike, and i'm 25. My "era" of comics was around 1988/9 (very fuzzy memories!) to 1998, when i got bored of The Beano. I started off getting some comics, but i can't remember which (i think relatively random ones that mum bought me). Then i got into "turtle comics", a tie-in with the Teenage Mutant Hero* Turtles show. I kept getting my mum to buy that until she eventually started getting The Beano for me instead (the turtles comic had probably ended, as these tie-ins do). The first Beano i got had part 1 of the "Pink Glove" story in it.

I also got Commando a few times when i was around 14-15 at the seaside.

Nowadays i much prefer Boys' Own type comics, especially the text-only ones from the early 20th century. I got into these thanks to an article about Sexton Blake in the Judge Dredd Megazine.

I was, at the time, planning on making my own "penny dreadful" full of gratuitous violence and gore, but making it "look like" the Victorian penny dreadfuls (or at least what i imagined them to look like, which was nothing like what they were actually like). However reading Boys' Own stories instilled a sense of patriotic jingo in me, and my comic eventually changed (before the first issue even came out**!) into "The Red, White & Blue", which has Sexton Blake stories in it XD


*-Yes it was called that when it first appeared in Britain. "Ninja" was considered to "too violent" a word. In the same way that 'throwing stars' were censored from several videogames - in one they were replaced by darts!!

**-Full title list: Clowning Around (0 issues, abandoned because the band it was going to be a fanzine of broke up) / SCV (0 issues, was going to be a VIZ rip-off but with gig and film reviews, might get made independently one day) / The Horrific Picture Paper (0 issues, did write a text story for it, and made a logo) / The Red, White & Blue (2 issues, number 3 in progress).

How does one obtain a copy of 'The Red, White & Blue', Mike?

Hi All

Only just come across the excellent magazine (issue 12) and website.

What bad news about the Borders situation - hopefully it is just a temporary set back and the mag will be up and running in full colour soon.

As for me - my comic days go way back to the mid 60s (although I was born in 1963).
Each Friday evening my dad used to bring me home a huge stack of comics - not sure where he got them from - ranging from British "Fun" comics to Commando and even lots of American comics - Batman, Superman etc. some issues from the 50s.
I was much too young to really appreciate them though.

Unfortunately we moved home when I was 5 years old and my mum decided not to take my comics with us.
I'm not exagerating when I say I left behind a cellar full of comics and toys !!!!

My next memory of comics is maybe when I was 8 or 9 and Saturday mornings when my dad would buy me the great comics like Beezer, Topper, Sparky and some others that I can't remember the titles of.
I was never into the Beano or The Dandy.
In later years I remember titles like Whizzer and Chips and Monster Fun - reading all the above whilst SWAP SHOP was on.
Great memories.

I then got into American comics - DC only - Batman, Superman, Flash etc and started building up my collection with the odd dip into the UK Marvel stable.

I strayed from the path for many years - when in later teens and then working, drink and girls came along.
I got back into the American comics in the late 80s for quite a few years before getting married and children coming along.
I've kept all my comics (much to my wife's annoyance re space taken up) and I have even tried to introduce some of the old British comics to my children - but strange as it may seem they were unsure how to read the comic (which panels to follow) or even get the jokes or storylines !!!???

Coming across this excellent magazine and website has fired up my enthusiam for British comics again and I will look to start buying some 70s annuals to relive my youth (don't tell the wife!!)

This is a strange phenomenon I've only just recently become aware of; the current generation, or a lot of them, actually seem to be 'comics illiterate', to a degree. Reading comics used to be an instinctive process, but now an increasing number of kids seem not to be able to work out how to follow word balloons or panel layouts, or even to be able to distinguish between word balloons, thought balloons and cations. Is this because the current generation is the first one to grow up in a Britain almost devoid of comics?

Good point Tony
It was quite strange having to direct my children around a page and yet as you say to us it was instinctive - no one taught me how to read a comic !!

ITALIANHAMMER wrote:Good point Tony
It was quite strange having to direct my children around a page and yet as you say to us it was instinctive - no one taught me how to read a comic !!

I actually learnt to read from comics. My grandmother taught me before I started school, using Beezer and Topper amongst others, and later moving me onto Spider-Man Comics Weekly. There is concern apparently that children these days have a lower standard of basic literacy than in the past. Could this be to do with the demise of comics, I wonder?

...and the introduction of computers in the home, games etc. I was drawing and writing stories from as far back as I remember and have even been paid for my work (as a 'grown up'). Do people still read books of any worth? S'pose it depends on one's idea of worth. And I don't mean Master Potter...though I do wish I'd written that...

GBF wrote:...and the introduction of computers in the home, games etc. I was drawing and writing stories from as far back as I remember and have even been paid for my work (as a 'grown up'). Do people still read books of any worth? S'pose it depends on one's idea of worth. And I don't mean Master Potter...though I do wish I'd written that...

Do people still read books?

ITALIANHAMMER wrote:I've kept all my comics (much to my wife's annoyance re space taken up) and I have even tried to introduce some of the old British comics to my children - but strange as it may seem they were unsure how to read the comic (which panels to follow) or even get the jokes or storylines !!!???

Lucky you've kept all your comics! My wife's friendly towards my comics -- has to be really, because in return I could nag her about all her books (tho I've too many myself, if you include the comic-based books). And if you've kept comics from your youth: priceless!

I can't remember how I was introduced to comics -- sometime after I'd learnt to read from 'Janet and John' books at school -- but it seems odd that anyone would find them difficult to follow (well, the occasional American artist has poor panel design but...).

The odd thing about children reading books today is it's so limited -- apparently the only books that have wide appeal are Potter ones or those with a similar theme. To me, Potter seems very old-fashioned -- wizards, magic, boarding school (equivalent of).

I believe the BBC's range of new Doctor Who books have done quite well, though how many are actually being bought by kids is another matter.

tony ingram wrote:I believe the BBC's range of new Doctor Who books have done quite well, though how many are actually being bought by kids is another matter.

Dr Who novels have always done well though -- new Who novels began publishing years before the TV programme came back.

Spiff_B wrote:

tony ingram wrote:I believe the BBC's range of new Doctor Who books have done quite well, though how many are actually being bought by kids is another matter.

Dr Who novels have always done well though -- new Who novels began publishing years before the TV programme came back.

I know-only two years after it ended the first time, in fact.

tony ingram wrote:How does one obtain a copy of 'The Red, White & Blue', Mike?

Come to this: http://www.ukwebcomixthing.co.uk/

Yep, for now it's on sale precisely once a year in one location! Maybe i'll set up some kind of e-shop later, but before that i'll need to buy a proper big A3 laser printer, and those are either very expensive, or cheap "if you can take it away" but miiiles away. Though my dad does have a big van.

I'd love to create an A3 sized comic, but a paper increase of two fold is a price increase of ten fold!

felneymike wrote:

tony ingram wrote:How does one obtain a copy of 'The Red, White & Blue', Mike?

Come to this: http://www.ukwebcomixthing.co.uk/

Yep, for now it's on sale precisely once a year in one location! Maybe i'll set up some kind of e-shop later, but before that i'll need to buy a proper big A3 laser printer, and those are either very expensive, or cheap "if you can take it away" but miiiles away. Though my dad does have a big van.

I'd love to create an A3 sized comic, but a paper increase of two fold is a price increase of ten fold!

I sympathise. But keep on plugging, it'll be worth it in the end if you persevere, I'm sure. And let's face it, someone has to keep producing comics in Britain!

Hello!

My name is Charlie. I've been a rather loyal follower of Judge Dredd and Doctor Who in various forms over the years.
Stepping out of the closet slightly, I was so addicted to Judge Dredd I even bought the American ones.

Please don't hurt me.

At the moment I'm re-reading all the Dredd strips from Prog 2 onwards. I've just finished off the very first appearance of Judge Death.

Other characters that interest me are Batman when he's being properly gothic and depressing, Doctor Doom, the Watchmen, V -- dark tortured people really. Love it!

Charles Daniels wrote:Hello!

My name is Charlie. I've been a rather loyal follower of Judge Dredd and Doctor Who in various forms over the years.
Stepping out of the closet slightly, I was so addicted to Judge Dredd I even bought the American ones.

Please don't hurt me.

At the moment I'm re-reading all the Dredd strips from Prog 2 onwards. I've just finished off the very first appearance of Judge Death.

Other characters that interest me are Batman when he's being properly gothic and depressing, Doctor Doom, the Watchmen, V -- dark tortured people really. Love it!

Welcome, Mr Daniels-glad you made it. Though I'm not sure we shouldn't be riding you out of town on a rail for admitting to buying the American Dredd series-good grief man, that's beyond the pale! (hastily shoves his DC Dredd issues under the bed)

Judge Death is a great story, some fantastic Bolland art there-and scarily, I can actually see the Judge's point. Crime is only committed by the living! Though Sidney does rather take his philosophy to extremes, I feel. How he ever got past the Bar, I don't know...

When I wrote my intro, forgot that Crikey also covers newspaper comic strips. So, far above and beyond anything else, my favourite is The Perishers (up to the point Dennis Collins retired).

Spiff_B wrote:When I wrote my intro, forgot that Crikey also covers newspaper comic strips. So, far above and beyond anything else, my favourite is The Perishers (up to the point Dennis Collins retired).

Mine, too! A fantastic strip, which never grew tired despite being around for decades. I always identified with Wellington, the dreamer forever trying to make it alone in a world that didn't appreciate him (though my favourite actual sequences always tended to be the annual visits to those mad, lascivious crabs in the rock pool).

I wrote a lengthy piece onn The Perishers for inclusion in Crikey an eternity ago. One day, it will appear (looks pointedly at GBF)...

tony ingram wrote:

Spiff_B wrote:When I wrote my intro, forgot that Crikey also covers newspaper comic strips. So, far above and beyond anything else, my favourite is The Perishers (up to the point Dennis Collins retired).

Mine, too! A fantastic strip, which never grew tired despite being around for decades. I always identified with Wellington, the dreamer forever trying to make it alone in a world that didn't appreciate him (though my favourite actual sequences always tended to be the annual visits to those mad, lascivious crabs in the rock pool).

I wrote a lengthy piece onn The Perishers for inclusion in Crikey an eternity ago. One day, it will appear (looks pointedly at GBF)...

I meant my favourite above any comic in any form, BTW, not just fave strip!

I identified with Wellington too! I remember at one point as a child I had a habit of sweeping the family backyard in a world-weary 'moiling and toiling' way, deliberately Wellington-like!

The crabs are very popular, but I don't think I have a favourite recurring sequence/theme. Didn't like the Boots and B.H. strips much, or those with Beetle/Caterpillar/Adolf, but liked Boot solo ones, and ones with just Boot and Wellington even more. The 'Wellington's birthday' theme was oft over-egged, but loved his flogging buggies to Marlon, Marlon fending off Maisie, Marlon's inventions, Baby Grumbling's battles of wits with Maisie, the summer holidays (inc crabs), Marlon's sandwiches...

Would love to see anything Perishers-related in Crikey.

I must admit, I rather liked Adolph Kilroy and his unwilling fellow conspirators.
'Trotskyite!' 'Marmite!'

I also loved the somehow timeless feel the strip had-it could have been set in any era of post war Britain. And I was strangely proud of the fact that the kids' home town of Croynge was named for Croydon and Penge (I grew up just off of Croydon Road, down the road from Penge. It really was very like Wellington's dreary home town)

Penge - so now I know someone who actually lived there!

GBF wrote:Penge - so now I know someone who actually lived there!

Well, I wouldn't call it 'living' when you're talking about Penge.

Howdy do everyone, I'm Mel.

I've been reading comics since the early 60's, in particular Wham, Smash, Pow, Fantastic and Terrific (checkout Paul Ware's excellent fanzine "Reviews from the floor of 64" regarding the last two) and, of course, the usual suspects TV21, TV Comic, Beano, Dandy, Buster, Victor, Valiant etc.
I still have the Wham, Fantastic, Terrific and Victor collections in the loft but the others have, sadly, been destroyed forever - my Mum was a dinner lady and took them to school for the kids to read! I'm sure other members of the forum will have similar tales of woe.

I'm also a huge fan of the Perishers - Dennis Collins' art is just fabulous - and am looking forward to the "upcoming" Crikey! article.

Mel Horton wrote:Howdy do everyone, I'm Mel.

I've been reading comics since the early 60's, in particular Wham, Smash, Pow, Fantastic and Terrific (checkout Paul Ware's excellent fanzine "Reviews from the floor of 64" regarding the last two) and, of course, the usual suspects TV21, TV Comic, Beano, Dandy, Buster, Victor, Valiant etc.
I still have the Wham, Fantastic, Terrific and Victor collections in the loft but the others have, sadly, been destroyed forever - my Mum was a dinner lady and took them to school for the kids to read! I'm sure other members of the forum will have similar tales of woe.

I'm also a huge fan of the Perishers - Dennis Collins' art is just fabulous - and am looking forward to the "upcoming" Crikey! article.

Another Perishers fan! There can never be too many. Welcome, Mel-I'm also a fan of the Odhams titles and the sterling work of the 'gang in the garret'.

hiya folks: I was a nipper throughout the 1960s: a great time for comics, with THOMSON artists and writers putting out very polished, imaginitive comics: DUDLEY WATKINS and DAVEY LAW were around for the whole decade----well, almost in DDW'S case.

TOPPER and BEEZER were very memorable 'technicolour widescreen' offerings of the period, as were the glossy TV 21 and offshoots publications with advanced colouring techniques: sadly, a whopping 'sevenpence' in real money meant this was a rare treat. We also had the wierd-and-wonderful ODHAMS releases: WHAM!, SMASH! and POW! that were steeped in grotesque but hilarious wonder: comics genius KEN REID, of course, inhabited these intruiging publications in the latter '60s.


1969 saw the relaunch [or rather, 're-thought-out' version] of SPARKY comic, which was the most impressive comic of my childhood, mostly for the early I SPY, which was a staggeringly inventive and imaginitive true one-off that haunted my head for many years. incidentally, Tony, is the hopefully-upcoming I SPY piece in CRIKEY! the one I penned fairly recently? ----my real name is RAB SMITH.]


In the 70s I probably preferred the more novelty-bound IPC titles of SHIVER and SHAKE, or MONSTER FUN. In 1977 I totally changed track, embracing the often sadistic but imaginitive 2000 AD which was a very different, but equally rewarding reading experience.


Today, I welcome the bright and dazzling colour pallettes offered by computerized colouring, but I lament the modern trend of putting out postage-stamp sized artwork, which I partly blame for the decline in UK comics.


Sadly I have stopped buying all contemporary comics, and only buy vintage comics from my youth. Ironically, I work on my own comic strips using old-fashioned techniques only, and this is where I get most satisfaction regarding comics.


Keep up the good CRIKEY! work guys: it really is a well put-together, classy enterprize.[b]

Cheers, Rab-had a sneaking suspicion you were Mr X's secret identity! And yes, it is indeed your I-Spy piece we were talking about. Sorry it's taken so long, but we've been slowed down somewhat by recent events...

OK, Tony, now that's finally cleared up, [I actually waited 18 months before my first-ever comics artwork saw print, so I know what is expected regarding putting material 'out there'] I can proceed with my JOHN GEERING piece, if you have nothing similar in the pipeline.......

MR X wrote:OK, Tony, now that's finally cleared up, [I actually waited 18 months before my first-ever comics artwork saw print, so I know what is expected regarding putting material 'out there'] I can proceed with my JOHN GEERING piece, if you have nothing similar in the pipeline.......

Go for it!

Eh? "postage stamp sized artwork?" Don't modern comics usually have less and bigger panels to a page than something like, say, Jonah?

Mike; JONAH was an extreme example in which KEN seemed hell-bent on shoe-horning as many frames as was humanly possible into a comics-page [on the back-page of BEANO, of the early '60s].

However, the scale to which KEN drew to was in the older tradition, and I will wager that the size of the individual frames used in over 90 per cent of comics artwork of the time was noticably larger than the majority of today's A3-sized original scale : although 5 rows of panels were sometimes apparant in the late '60s/early 70s, by far the 'norm' was 4 rows of panels, which is mostly what we still see today.


In effect, today you are seeing 'close-ups' of the artist's work, which reveal the restrictions of the arist's penwork, whereas anyone who has ever 'shrunk down' an image of artwork will know that a lot of blemishes/inaccuracies, etc, are rendered almost 'invisible' through reduction, and I feel that a lot of hand-drawn impurities are painfully evident in today's more 'close-up' work.




Just my own thoughts................

MR X wrote:Mike; JONAH was an extreme example in which KEN seemed hell-bent on shoe-horning as many frames as was humanly possible into a comics-page [on the back-page of BEANO, of the early '60s].

However, the scale to which KEN drew to was in the older tradition, and I will wager that the size of the individual frames used in over 90 per cent of comics artwork of the time was noticably larger than the majority of today's A3-sized original scale : although 5 rows of panels were sometimes apparant in the late '60s/early 70s, by far the 'norm' was 4 rows of panels, which is mostly what we still see today.


In effect, today you are seeing 'close-ups' of the artist's work, which reveal the restrictions of the arist's penwork, whereas anyone who has ever 'shrunk down' an image of artwork will know that a lot of blemishes/inaccuracies, etc, are rendered almost 'invisible' through reduction, and I feel that a lot of hand-drawn impurities are painfully evident in today's more 'close-up' work.




Just my own thoughts................

When did the change to an A3 size come about? I've a few pages of 2000AD artwork from about 1980 and they're far larger than that.

I can only really speak for the 'funnies', Tony, and the reduction in size artwork appears to have been the norm from the early 80s onwards......at one time, there was an uneasy mix of tighter artwork combined with 'older school ' stuff like 'DANNY'S TRANNY' by KEN HUNTER which only really worked drawn larger-scale.......eventually, probably by the late '80s, most artwork was scaled-down in size, even BASH STREET KIDS stuff by Dave Sutherland, which really was top-quality material in the mid-60s.

Regarding 2000 AD, I bought this between 1977-1986 and it seems to have stood steadfast longer than the 'funnies' regarding scaling down to A3, but eventually there was a noticable shift in many cases to more compressed artwork: often, this forces the artist to change the approach of the visuals: with more close-ups of 'talking heads' for example, which I feel scales down the sheer spectacle of the visuals that can be attained by larger-scale artwork.


However, I haven't seen 2000 AD for a few years [although I did notice that the dreaded smaller-scale artwork was creeping in gradually] and hopefully some creators are holding out for more freedom [ie: more space!} in which to express themselves.

I've just gone and done a little comparison based on this, checking a recent 2000AD issue against one from '86 and another from '96, and I see what you mean. There's a marked change between the '86 issue and the '96 one, artwise. It becomes much more simplistic. However, the more recent issue has some much more complex art, which looks far more polished. Hmm...

2000AD is no longer owned by the "traditional" and perhaps "convention-following" (if there is such a thing in British comic publishing nowadays!) Egmont/IPC/Fleetway, though, so creators probably get more freedom to do the art in the way they choose, just so long as it's done on time!

Also i remember issues in the 90's being mostly painted artwork - wether it suited the story or not! These days any number of styles are in a single issue, even black and white.

As for my own stuff, i generally draw it "1-up" because i don't have an A3 scanner to do increased sizes easily, i did do one image "2-up" though:
http://deathbringer.livejournal.com/506133.html?mode=reply
I'll be certianly doing more!

I just checked out your artwork, Mike: very stylized, and well worth a look.


Regarding the changes in artwork size over the decades, the best way to grasp this shift in visuals is of course by showing examples.

Here's a 1969 'ROGER' page by BOB NIXON: at the time, almost ALL strips in comics were done to this larger scale; --sorry, I forget the exact dimensions-----and as can be seen, the scope for lavish detail and polished-looking artwork is crystal-clear: to attempt to draw something like this in today's A3 size would be awkward and painstaking...........perhaps that's why a lot of scenarios in today's BEANO only uses this sort of thing in larger spreads.

Nor is this ROGER page untypically impressive for the time: this was simply the required standard of the day, and this was the quality to aim for at the time, also from IPC in the same period. [Although, Thomson probably attracted the best artists of the era]. Needless to say, this larger-scale work must have taken considerably longer for the artists to complete, but I feel that the end results are noticably more impressive than what is the 'norm' today.

Next up we have a more up-to-date image of the same character, by BARRIE APPLEBY in this case. This frame is very slick and professional, but it is evident that because of space restrictions within the smaller frame, the artwork has to be executed quite differently: it's fine for a slick, glossy close-up, but try putting extra detail in the background here: not a good idea! Best to simplify everything down in this case, there's no way you can pack in a lot of comic activity----and still have it 'read' clearly---- at this scale.


Kids today mostly won't know any better, as this is probably all they are exposed to; and of course it's entirely possible that they're perfectly happy with their 2010 BEANO........but this is not how comics looked when I was a kid!



-------great colour work, though, which is an improvement of another sort.