George Heath

[philcom55]

People may be interested to know that David Ashford and Norman Wright highlight the career of George Heath as No.31 in their excellent 'Great British Comics Artists' series for the June issue of Book & Magazine Collector. Though probably best known for his ground-breaking run on 'The Falcon' in AP's Radio Fun he later went on to produce a significant amount of work for DC Thomson's boys' titles during the 1960s (including a number of Victor's 'true war' cover stories). One thing I hadn't realized is that he was also the father of the even more famous cartoonist Michael Heath whose work can be found to this day in the pages of many major newspapers as well as Private Eye.

- Phil Rushton

[colcool007]

Would anyone mind picking up a copy of this for me? I would order it here, but I would end up paying about €15! I've just sent the query of how much the subs would be to my current address!

[philcom55]

If it's any help Col, the Victor covers which the article credits to Heath are:
5, 10, 12, 15, 21, 22, 24, 47, 54, 85, 86, 87, 103
- Apparently he also drew 'The Roll-Along Logans' and 'The Jungle Bus' for the same paper, both in 1962. (To be honest the style is so radically different from his previous work for AP and Fleetway that I'd never have been able to identify it on my own! )

- Phil Rushton

[colcool007]

If it's any help Col, the Victor covers which the article credits to Heath are:
5, 10, 12, 15, 21, 22, 24, 47, 54, 85, 86, 87, 103
- Apparently he also drew 'The Roll-Along Logans' and 'The Jungle Bus' for the same paper, both in 1962. (To be honest the style is so radically different from his previous work for AP and Fleetway that I'd never have been able to identify it on my own! )

- Phil Rushton

Not knowing what George's style was for Fleetway, I don't feel able to comment on that one! And the credits are useful, Phil.

George's work has such a different 'feel' to most Victor artists, that it almost feels like it doesn't fit. I know that it is irrational, but I feel the same way about the Wonder Mann and Last Six Hundred artist.

[Kashgar]

If you feel you can trust me guys it was I who discovered George's work for the Thomson boy's picture papers.
Re Norman and David's BMC article on George Heath it does contain one or two factual errors that I may as well correct here.
1) The Falcon didn't end his career in Radio Fun in his 'Batman-type' outfit. His final series for the paper was in naval uniform in 'The Falcon at War in M.T.B 103' in issues 3/9/60-14/1/61.
2) The TV Fun series 'Roar with the Lyons' wasn't a reprint of the earlier Radio Fun series featuring Ben Lyons and his wife Bebe Daniels. It was written and drawn especially for TV Fun with George using his light adventure strip style rather than the comic strip style he used on the earlier Radio Fun strip.
3) 'His last work for the weekly Fleetway comics was for the Lion in 1960' - It's always dangerous to make a definite statement when referring to the work of a comic artist (and I should know) as they often return to bite you in the bum!
In fact George continued to provide work for Lion's companion paper Tiger at least until the middle of the decade with his credits for that paper including 17 episodes of the police dog patrolling a rough urban district series 'Mick of the Manor' between 30th Oct 1965 and its end on 12th March 1966 and he then provided the first six instalments of the strip that replaced 'Mick', featuring the Fleet Air Arm in WWII, 'The Battling Birdmen'. As well as these he also contributed at least two instalments for the long running motor racing series 'Skid Solo'.

[Phoenix]

Radio Fun series featuring Ben Lyons and his wife Bebe Daniels.

Just to clarify. I have no knowledge of the series in Radio Fun, so I may be partially barking up the wrong tree here. However, the word Lyons was always a plural where the immensely popular radio show was concerned. The main characters were Ben Lyon, his two children, Richard and Barbara, and his wife Bebe, who was always introduced on the programme as Bebe Daniels Lyon. I obviously acknowledge the BBC's copyright over the uploaded images.

[Kashgar]

A slip of the finger. It is of course Ben Lyon in the singular and his family and he in the plural.
BTW one other entry for George Heath that occured to me was for Fleetway's boys magazine Ranger in 1966 for which he drew 'Rip Solar - Interplanetary Investigator' between 19th Feb and 30th Apr.

[philcom55]

I'll need to check in order to make sure but I think Rip Solar was a reprinted Captain Condor story from Lion in which Heath replaced Geoff Campion half way through.

- Phil Rushton

[Kashgar]

If it is Phil and I haven't had time to check, they must have somehow managed to just publish the George Heath half in Ranger as the dates I gave, Feb to Apr 1966, encompass all 10 episodes of the story.

[philcom55]

I'm afraid you're missing out the first episode of Rip Solar Kash - this actually appeared in the issue of Ranger dated Feb. 12th 1966 (not Feb. 19th as you stated above) and it clearly features Campion artwork.

- Phil Rushton

[crow]

Hi.
Is there any chance someone could post a piece of George Heath's artwork on here? It'd be nice to see an example of his work.

Cheers!



http://www.britishcomicart.netfirms.com/

[philcom55]

Good point!

Here's an example of his early 1950s style from "The House with Red Shutters" in TV Fun:


...Followed by the conclusion of 'Captain Condor and the Planet of Destruction' as it originally appeared in the issue of Lion dated 17th September 1960:


Personally I thought he made a thoroughly acceptable stand-in for Geoff Campion; unfortunately the same issue also contains an advert for Keith Watson's debut on the character with 'Operation Catastrophe', which effectively left Heath without a strip of his own yet again.

(Incidentally Kash, I've checked and the Condor page does indeed reappear as 'Rip Solar' in the 30th April 1966 issue of Ranger, but the reproduction is much poorer and several panels have mysteriously disappeared in the process! )

- Phil Rushton

[Kashgar]

Thanks for pointing out Rip Solar was an abridged reprint of the Capt Condor adventure 'Planet of Destruction' Phil. Sorry I doubted you. I lazily took the starting date from the Fleetway Companion which gives 19th Feb as the starting date which, as you also pointed out, is wrong. It still doesn't excuse me missing the Campion start to the strip though as episode two is also by him in both instances before George Heath took over the reins, rather commendably I thought, from issue three. As the original Lion version ran for 15 issues and the Ranger version for only 11 it's obvious that quite a bit of editing must have been done to the George Heath portion of the strip when it reappeared in Ranger.

[Kashgar]

Speaking of Norman Wright and David Ashford's series on British artists in BMC I understand that there is one in the pipeline featuring the career of Alan Philpott (1916-1997) who was not only the first artist to draw Lion's Robot Archie but also drew more than fifty picture serials and well over one hundred cover strips for the D C Thomson boys picture papers alone ( So a treat for you there Col). Heck! his work even turned up in the pages of the much discussed Sparky comic for a short time.