Ken Reid's strips between 1969 and 1973

[klakadak-ploobadoof]

Hi,
I had posted this question right before this forum collapsed some weeks ago and it must have become one of those lost and unanswered posts...
Anyway, I am looking for information about Ken Reid's strips during the period between the end of his career with Odhams in 1969 and the beginning of Creepy Creations in Shiver and Shake in 1973. I know he did some football series for Scorcher. When did his Faceache start in Buster? Did he do the Robot Maker in Cor!!, or was it somebody else ghosting Reid? Thanks!

[Peter Gray]

Faceache started in number 1 Jet.which merged with Buster very soon after...

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

I remember KEN'S 'QUEEN of the SEAS' strip in 'JET' around 1971, but whether this is reprints from an earlier era or all-new work, I'm not sure....his work from ODHAMS onwards has a timeless quality to it, and the only way to date it is through proper research, unlike his early 'BEANO' work, which has a more innocent, easier-to-place look.

[Kashgar]

Queen of the Seas was a reprint from Smash. Apart from Faceache nearly all of Ken's work in the 1970-1973 period was for the football themed title Scorcher eg Sub etc. I'll provide a list of his Scorcher work if you want.

[klakadak-ploobadoof]

I'll provide a list of his Scorcher work if you want.

I would appreciate seeing the list, thanks a lot!

[NP]

[quote="ISPYSHHHGUY"]I remember KEN'S 'QUEEN of the SEAS' strip in 'JET' around 1971.[/quote]
Can someone confirm the dates Queenie was in Jet? I recall it being reprinted in Buster in 1975. (And in very poor quality in that Hawk Book).
Thanks!

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

NP; I have checked, and right enough, 'QUEEN of the SEAS' was in fact reprinted in 'BUSTER' [I must have seen the 1 JAN 1972-23 SEP issues, when it ran].

'JET' [which I also got ] only ran from 1/5/71 -25/9/71.


It really was a fantastic work of comic genius: --just check THIS out:

[Lew Stringer]

Ken also did a strip called Banger and Masher (two rival kids) that ran in Valiant around 1969/70 or thereabouts.

Lew

[Raven]

Jimmy Jinks was running in Scorcher and Score in January 1974, a strip very similar in style to the Faceache strip (Jimmy himself looking quite similar to Faceache.) I'm not sure how much earlier that one started.

[Kashgar]

Ken Reid and Scorcher 1970-1974

In his otherwise excellent book 'The Best of British Comic Art' Alan Clark dismisses Ken Reid's work for the football themed IPC's boy's picture paper 'Scorcher' (later Scorcher and Score) with the following rather disdainful remark 'for this he drew several unexceptional pages, none of which was worthy of note'. This assessment I would personally take issue with as in nearly five years of working on the paper Ken illustrated eight seperate comic strips in a total of over 200 pages of artwork and in each one of these series there was something of Ken Reid at his best to admire.
The work Ken drew for Scorcher, along with a few elucidating comments, was as follows.

Sub - he's always on the sidelines (10/1/70)-(8/8/70)
The eternal substitute of Biggleswick Wanderers Duggie Dribble tries all sorts of devious ploys to get himself off the bench and onto the pitch.

Football Forum (15/8/70)-(16/1/71)
A reader participation strip in which you could win £1 if you wrote in and asked a question (the more ludicrous the better) for the panel of 'experts' to answer. The panel consisting of referee Percival Pheeps, centre-forward Charlie Cannon and a week by week guest speaker.

Manager Matt (23/1/71)-(7/8/71)
The trials and tribulations of the beleaguered boss of Mudchester United, the worst run football club in Britain.

Hugh Fowler - the man who hates football (14/8/71)-(6/5/72)
The ultimate, pathological anti-fan who will stop at nothing to sabotage a game.

The Soccernauts (13/5/72)-(12/8/72)
In the distant future Sid Starr is the player/manager of the worst football team on Earth. So bad in fact that they have to take to the stars, in their aptly named space-ship the MISS-KIK, in search of suitably worthless opposition.

More anon

[Kashgar]

Ken Reid and Scorcher 1970-1974 Pt 2

Harry Hammertoe - the soccer spook (19/8/72)-(18/10/73)
Originally the work of Reg Parlett (to 14/10/72) Harry was the greatest player, in Victorian times, that Slowdown Rovers ever had. Now, he haunts the managers office and helps out the current boss with his injury problems by conjuring up suitable substitutes from the team-sheets of the long dead.

Jimmy Jinks (25/10/73)-(17/8/74)
Each week the manager of Slopville Wanderers may well inwardly cry 'Aargh it's 'im!' as he tries to prevent this, football daft, dry-land Jonah from attending his team's matches because when he does they lose.

Triptoe Triers (24/8/74)-(5/10/74) final issue before merger with Tiger.
Another reader participation strip but this a whopping fiver was up for grabs for anyone who suggested a novel way for the Triers to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

All of the above, although admittedly some more than others and despite the seeming limitations of the football theme, gave Ken plenty of scope to employ those classic Reidian elements, the fizzog scrunging and general artistic 'weirdness', for which he is justly acclaimed and as such don't deserve to be dismissed quite as summarily as Alan Clark would have had us do.

[Kashgar]

Ken also did a strip called Banger and Masher (two rival kids) that ran in Valiant around 1969/70 or thereabouts.

Lew

Banger and Masher ran for a year in Valiant from July 1970 to July 1971, a short year which included just over forty issues thanks to the printers strike which lasted the best part of three months (Dec 1970-Feb1971). Ken drew most but Frank MacDiarmid in his Ken Reid copyist mode also contributed.

[klakadak-ploobadoof]

Thanks for all the detailed info.
What about the Robot Maker in the early Cor? Was it Ken Reid's or Frank MacDiarmid's work? Looks more like the latter's to me.

[Kashgar]

Thanks for all the detailed info.
What about the Robot Maker in the early Cor? Was it Ken Reid's or Frank MacDiarmid's work? Looks more like the latter's to me.

Neither, Frank M was a far better KR copyist than that.

[stevezodiac]

Don't forget Big Head and Thick Head on the back cover of the Dandy. Also replaced by McDairmid.