Badtime Bedtime Books

Buster, Whizzer and Chips, Whoopee, Wham, Smash, you name it!

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tolworthy
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Re: Bad Time Bed Time Books

Post by tolworthy »

DJDogfart wrote:If you don't already have Willy book 1 I would urge you to hunt a copy down as I can't pick it up without crying with laughter!
Not only do I have it (or rather, sadly had it. Excuse me while I go and kick myself again) but I received it as a gift from the man himself! I don't remember the exact sequence of events (I was 8 at the time) but I somehow became aware of his autobiography and bought a copy, and sent some fan mail. He replied a few weeks later (it was the first time I'd ever heard the word "belated") and if memory serves, included a copy of the first Willy book! Naturally I bought the other two as soon as I could. His autobiog remains my favourite book. But sadly I later went through an expended period of being a bit of a religious zealot and sold my entire comic collection (well all but about ten items) for peanuts. Now, lo these many years later I have sobered up and have seen the error of my ways.

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Re: Bad Time Bed Time Books

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Peter Gray wrote:I've scanned the first and last pages below
That is wonderful! Thanks! It's interesting to compare that to later books. Apparently that first one was drawn actual size, and was only intended as a rough pencil mock-up of what the books could look like. According to his autobiog, the pencils were shown to the publisher at a meeting, they liked it and said "righto, please make a finished inked version. And by the way, we need it in two days." So he had to ink the tiny comic-sized version. But it looks great!

Later books were of course drawn at a larger scale and shrunk down. Some of the typed text is tny - almost smaller than the dots that make up the coloring. In the example linked below, find the "spot the ball" joke. The answer is printed in the tinest font I have ever seen in my life. I had to scan that at 180 DPI and you can barely read it. But for the first bok, being drawn at the smaller scale to start with, the scanning resolution you chose is just perfect.

Anyway, I've started work ont he web site. It's very rough and ready now, I have so many other comic related pages I want o upgrade and add, so this wil probably grow slowly over a period of months (if not years). So don't expect too much yet!

Intro page (no pictures yet):
http://www.enterthestory.com/badtime_bedtime_books.html

Badtime book checklist: this is based on the autobiography, and shows the limit of my knowlkedge. BAsically, after book 12 I don't have a clue.
http://www.enterthestory.com/badtime_checklist.html

Moby Duck: a sample Badtime book. This is my favourite kind of story: big theme, strong story, covers several locations around the world, a nod to the classics, great characters, lovely Leonard Rottongsocks bit at the end, loveley gags... it hits all my buttons. My only gripe is with the lettering (I wrote about it on the intro page) but it's only a minor thing.
http://www.enterthestory.com/badtime_moby_duck.html

Eventually I'd like to have all the books on line at that kind of scanned resolution, but I'll have to work out some kind of rotation scheme so that only one story is shown each week, so the copyright-infringing isn't quite so blatant.

tolworthy
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Re: Bad Time Bed Time Books

Post by tolworthy »

bustercomic wrote:Two scans and a passing reference over at my place http://www.bustercomic.co.uk/pullouts.html.
LOL! I like how they've added the prefix "Buster's..." back then nobody could admit to actually reprinting an old classic. :) I didn't know about any of that. Thanks!

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Re: Bad Time Bed Time Books

Post by tolworthy »

DJDogfart wrote:Al kindly supplied me with an almost complete list as to which book goes with which comic cos mine had all been removed and stapled when i got them. I can list them if you like (it will take a bit of time, i've got the print out but have a new computer so i don't have the original email)
That would be extremely helpful, thanks! Everything I know so far is here: http://www.enterthestory.com/badtime_checklist.html Beyond that I'm totally in the dark.

Kashgar
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Bad Time Bed Time Books

Post by Kashgar »

Hi Tol, I'll post a full list of the Badtime Bedtime Books here tomorrow. Regards, Ray.

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Bad Time Bed Time Books

Post by Kashgar »

Hi Tol, Details of the Badtime Bedtime Books as follows (note that Badtime and Bedtime are written as two words and not four). In total there were 43 BBBs published in Monster Fun. The numbers refer to the issue of Monster Fun in which that particular BBB appeared as, unusually for a Fleetway title in the 1970's, all 73 issues of Monster Fun were numbered.
1) Jack the Nipper's Schooldays
2) Robinson Gruesome
3) Punch and Chewday
4) Dr Jackal and Dr Snide
5) Little 'Red' Riding Hood
6) Jack and the Beans 'in tomato sauce' stalk
7) Little Boy Glue
9) Trouser Island
10) Davey Jones
11) I Spy with my little Guy
12) Little Miss Stuffit
14) Oliver Twister
15) Sherlock Bones
16) Ghoul Dilocks and the Three Scares
17) Marzipan and the Japes
18) Star Truck
19) Moby Duck
21) Little Bo Creep
23) KIng Arthur and the Nightmares of the Round Table
24) Moby Duck
25) The Underwater World of Jacques Custard
26) Babes in the Woad
28) William the Conk
30) Dick Twittington
32) The Ghoul and the Pussycat
34) Gong of Kong
37) Half a Dollar (12 1/2p) Boy
39) Doctor Poo
41) A Fist Full of Chips
43) Planet of the Japes
47) Cooljock
48) Ten Little Renegades
50) The Scarlet Pimply-Neddy
51) Mummy's the Word
56) The Greatest Escape
58) Rumpimpleskin
61) The Hound of the Backstreet-villa
62) Space: 999
64) The Wonderful World of Hannibal
69) The McCurse o' Red Hairy McLegs
70) The Ghoulies
71) Supa Spyderbrat
72) At the Apples Core
Of the 43 published 34 were printed with half the pages in full colour while the remaining 9 were published in b/w. The 9 published in b/w were in Nos 11, 14, 15, 16, 24, 26, 34, 48 and 51.
Leo Baxendale drew 21 editions, 13 of which he signed, while the remainder were mainly the work of Mike Brown although Jack Clayton also drew a couple and there were the odd one-offs from the likes of Terry Bave and Artie Jackson.
Hope that answers most of your queries Tol.

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Bad Time Bed Time Books

Post by Kashgar »

Don't know where those smiley faces came from in the above post but in each case they have replaced the number eight eg 18, 28 etc

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Shaqui
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Bad Time Bed Time Books

Post by Shaqui »

Kashgar,

The shades faces appear because you have an 8 and a ) next to each other - thus 8 ) or 8)

Now I'm curious if the 'Space:999' is a loose play on 'Space:1999', and as I'm at Colindale on Saturday I can look this up!

Cheers!

8)

PS - Tolworthy, as I'll be obtaining the late 1976 volume of 'Monster Fun' to look at for this, is their any information I could get for you?

tolworthy
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Re: Bad Time Bed Time Books

Post by tolworthy »

Shaqui wrote:PS - Tolworthy, as I'll be obtaining the late 1976 volume of 'Monster Fun' to look at for this, is their any information I could get for you?
Thanks! Nothing specific, but anything and everything will be gratefully received and used on the site. I should have an improved version up in a couple of hours. Please let me know if there are any links or acknowlegments I should add for the folks here - everyone here has been so helpful.

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Re: Bad Time Bed Time Books

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Kashgar wrote:Hi Tol, Details of the Badtime Bedtime Books as follows
That's priceless information. Many thanks!
Kashgar wrote:(note that Badtime and Bedtime are written as two words and not four).
LOL that caused me some confusion at first.
Kashgar wrote:unusually for a Fleetway title in the 1970's, all 73 issues of Monster Fun were numbered.
It's scary how that comic has influenced me. MF was the first comic I ever bought and I've always had the strong feeling that a proper comic MUST have issue numbers. I never realized until now why I felt that way. :)
Kashgar wrote:Leo Baxendale drew 21 editions, he remainder were mainly the work of Mike Brown although Jack Clayton also drew a couple and there were the odd one-offs from the likes of Terry Bave and Artie Jackson.
Just under half. Interesting. All I know about them (until now) comes from dim memories of the comics themselves and Baxendale's autiobiography, so I naturally see them as HIS work. He always wrote well of other artists, but as a freelance working from home he didn't meet them much so mainly talked about his own work. It would be really interesting to see bios or interviews by the other guys covering the same period.

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Dizrythmia
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Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by Dizrythmia »

I have the first issue of Monster Fun sitting on my scanner right now with the first Bad Time Bed Time Book. I plan on doing some updates on bustercomic.com on the weekend, so keep an eye out...

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philcom55
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Bad Time Bed Time Books

Post by philcom55 »

Given their unusual format it occurs to me that these stories (especially the Baxendale ones) would be right at home in today's market if Egmont ever collected them in a 'manga-style' edition! Any commissioning editor's out there?

Incidentally I've always thought Leo Baxendale is a kind of British version of America's Sergio Aragones, and looking at "Jack the Nipper's Schooldays" I'm particularly struck by the way in which his marginal vampire gags echo the sort of miniature cartoons that Aragones famously sprinkled throughout the pages of Mad Magazine.

One other point: the 'division of spoils' regarding IPC's properties appears to have been pretty rough and ready since I've seen a number of pages that clearly came from Buster amongst the job lot mentioned by Lew. However the question remains as to what's happened to the bulk of the artwork retained by Egmont: I wonder if there's any likelihood this will also come up for sale in the near future; or has it all just been dumped to save on storage costs?

- Phil Rushton

tolworthy
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Re: Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by tolworthy »

Dizrythmia wrote:I have the first issue of Monster Fun sitting on my scanner right now with the first Bad Time Bed Time Book. I plan on doing some updates on bustercomic.com on the weekend, so keep an eye out...
What a guy! I've just added you to my will.

Incidentally, I tracked down an old photo this morning for my web site, it's of me aged 16 sitting on top of several large piles of comics (I sold three and a half thousand at that time) and most of them on top are clearly Busters. Now that's depressing. I'm pretty sure I had at least 300 Busters, not to mention various others, and now they're all gone. Oh why was I so foolish. Oh the frailties of youth. :(

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Re: Bad Time Bed Time Books

Post by tolworthy »

philcom55 wrote:Given their unusual format it occurs to me that these stories (especially the Baxendale ones) would be right at home in today's market if Egmont ever collected them in a 'manga-style' edition! Any commissioning editor's out there?
Absolutely! All 43 books would fit neatly into a typical 340 page manga. And all 21 Baxendale stories would fit into a normal 160 page trade. It wouldn't cost much to do, the printing required is nothing special and the pages are already the right size.

I wonder, if we started an online petition, how many signatures would we get?

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Re: Bad Time Bed Time Books

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Kashgar wrote:Details of the Badtime Bedtime Books
Some questions:

Two of the issues (19 and 24) are both labelled "Moby Duck" - was the same one reprinted twice or was it a sequel? (The one I have was rather open ended, and if there is a sequel I have to have it!! :) )

Is Trouser Island the one based on a traffic island? I always remember that story as my favourite Badtime book, so I hope I haven't got it confused with a completely unrelated comic. Now that would be embarassing!

As far as I can tell, Issue 11, I Spy, is not by Baxendale. Is that correct?

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