Retro Beano pages this week..

[Peter Gray]

What a good one this week 1950's Bash street kids..When the bell rings..
love the amount of detail that Leo put into his work..
I would spend £1.50 alone just for these gems..imagine what a whole Retro Beano issue would be like!!! the reproductions are just wonderful..on the original colours and on glossy paper..

Love the Dad having a sneaky smoke of his pipe in class..
also the amazing amount of kids wrecking the fun house..and what a lot of gags inside..including walking on Teachers face as a doormat..tabletop tv..

Leo Baxandale certainly packed it in..

[swirlythingy]

I couldn't believe the amount of detail put into two panels of the house story - he even went as far as to draw individual faces for all the characters in front and a surprising number of those behind as well. Must have taken days! There's a good reason for the "grey lumpy splodge" phenomenon, or the increasingly popular Paterson ploy (as in: "HORDE OF FEARSOME MULTITUDES WHICH YOU CAN'T QUITE SEE!").

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

This sort of hyper-detail was almost standard and expected in many strips back then, Swirly, as you're doubtless aware!

Today's scaled-down artwork makes this sort of thing impractical today, so it obviously seems a bit of a novelty to younger readers especially today.

[Lew Stringer]

This sort of hyper-detail was almost standard and expected in many strips back then, Swirly, as you're doubtless aware!

Today's scaled-down artwork makes this sort of thing impractical today, so it obviously seems a bit of a novelty to younger readers especially today.

We can draw the pages as large as we like these days Rab. They're sent by e-mail, so they can be resized in the office. I've drawn lots of pages twice up like they were in the Fifties. It's the only way to get 20 to 25 panels on a page.

And take a look at Nigel Parkinson's illustration from a recent Dandy:
http://nigelparkinsoncartoons.blogspot. ... harry.html

[Digifiend]

Just one page this week (thanks to a Donkey Kong advert) - The Country Cuzzins. Drawn by the same artist as The Smasher, and you can tell even if they hadn't said so, as the youngest Cuzzin actually looks exactly like him!

[stevezodiac]

Hugh Morren drew the Smasher - he also drew the Wack strip in the Sun for many years after it was launched in the late 60s which was their answer to Andy Capp although Wack worked in a factory. I remember he always had a wrench sticking out of his back pocket.

Found an image:



er sometimed had a wrench sticking out of his back pocket.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

This sort of hyper-detail was almost standard and expected in many strips back then, Swirly, as you're doubtless aware!

Today's scaled-down artwork makes this sort of thing impractical today, so it obviously seems a bit of a novelty to younger readers especially today.

We can draw the pages as large as we like these days Rab. They're sent by e-mail, so they can be resized in the office. I've drawn lots of pages twice up like they were in the Fifties. It's the only way to get 20 to 25 panels on a page.

And take a look at Nigel Parkinson's illustration from a recent Dandy:
http://nigelparkinsoncartoons.blogspot. ... harry.html

Large-scale artwork printed today seems to be the exception rather than the norm, though, Lew: you can tell by the more compact look of the characters and economical look of the composition in most modern comics artwork. Looking through an older 60s or 70s BEANO is very different than the version you guys do today regarding the apparant scale of artwork.


Robert Nixon's Roger the Dodger of the late 60s has a very different in look to the 80s version he returned to. The entire approach to page composition is altered noticably by the confines of space: some artwork is actually suited to the smaller scale, and artists can adapt to it. I personally prefer looking through more vintage comics though, as the visuals were more film-like in many cases, with room for more dramatic or spectacular imagery.

That's not to say smaller-scaled artwork can't be good though, and it still requires skill on behalf of the artist.

The Baxendale-like longshot that NP done would only really work drawn larger-scale to look more authentic, but the approach here seems to be more novel than standard.


I draw extremely small strips myself at only 4 inches high and even scaling up to a mere A4 size for a frame can make a huge difference. I adapted to drawing tiny-sized , I've got used to it and I don't really mind it now. I don't need specs at my age so hopefully my eyes will remain good enough.

[ISPYSHHHGUY]

Regarding WACK: he had a dolly-bird blonde girlfriend, an interfering Mother-in-Law, and a bald Boss he mocked, Steve....ah, the black-and-white stereotypes of the early 70s.

[Brendan McGuire]

Steve, you cropped the last panel from that Wack. It had a very funny ending as I recall.

[Peter Gray]

I'm loving these early pages..

I'm going to have to look up who drew these gems..

Freddy Flipper feet was a bit like Korky the cat after the fish...

[swirlythingy]

What I'm wondering is... what was originally in the last third of that first page?

[Digifiend]

Peter the Penguin - the entire issue in question is on beano.com - it's pages 3 and 10.
http://www.beano.com/retro-beano/1940's

[Peter Gray]

Love the clear shadows and shading of the night in The Bash street kids by Leo in 1956..also the duck in bed gag..

[Peter Gray]

No retro pages this week...really missed it...

Nice Freds Bed and minnie though..

[Digifiend]

Haribo and Nintendo are to blame. It'll be back to normal next week.