Badtime Bedtime Books

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Conor B
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Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by Conor B »

I think i found the 1982 book one!! Shiver and Shake of that year has William Conk but looking at your website I think its a reprint.
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stevezodiac
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Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by stevezodiac »

I posted the Monster Fun book to you yesterday second class, if you got it today, Tuesday, that's pretty good from London to the Scottish Highlands. It occurs to me that you will have absolutely no idea what Pie, Mash and Liquor is - it is a traditional cockney meal - the liquor being a bright green sauce. you smother it with vinegar and pepper and eat with a spoon. There are two pie ans mash shops in Deptford High Street so i never go without. BTW now that you have the annual you will have noticed that Mike Brown's art is identical to Leo Baxendal'se. Brown has intrigued me since the 1960s when I first saw his work in the Power comics and i wish I could find out more about him. I started a thread about him elsewhere in this forum. He drew Brenda's Brownies and Wendy Witch in Sandie comic which is the last regular work I remember him doing.

tolworthy
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Re: Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by tolworthy »

Conor B wrote:I think i found the 1982 book one!! Shiver and Shake of that year has William Conk but looking at your website I think its a reprint.
Thanks for the info! I'll add that to the next site update.
stevezodiac wrote:It occurs to me that you will have absolutely no idea what Pie, Mash and Liquor is
Ah, but is it as good as haggis, cloutie dumpling and deep fried Mars bars? :)

On reflection, the answer is probably "yes." :?
stevezodiac wrote:Mike Brown's art is identical to Leo Baxendale's.
I wonder if that was deliberate or if he was told to do it that way? In his bio, Baxendale tells of when he started at DC Thompson, they gave him a pile of art by some great artist of the 1940s and told him "draw it like that!" and he comments that after he became well known new artists were told "draw like Baxendale". And he says that's odd since his own style changed drastically over the years. :)

But the really odd thing is that Mike Brown's Baxendale art (in that one annual at least) is actually better than Baxendale's own art! I'm not saying it was always better (I don't know his work well enough) but it was odd.
stevezodiac wrote:Brown has intrigued me since the 1960s
I didn't know he'd been going that long! When I saw the 1980 stuff my first thought was "this looks like the kind of thing I would have drawn when I was a kid, putting in a huge amount of effort to imitate my artistic hero's style. It has less originality than the Baxendale work, but has more energy and detail."

If you do find out about him, I hope you post it somewhere, now you've made me curious too!

Lew Stringer
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Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by Lew Stringer »

Mike Brown worked on the Odhams comics in the 1960s, "ghosting" Baxendale's style. Annoyingly, a lot of people credit Bax with the work of his ghosts, even though some of it isn't as good frankly.

Baxendale signed most of his Odhams strips, so that's a good pointer.

One good Bax "ghost" was Graham Allen, who drew the majority of The Nervs strips in Smash! A very talented and funny cartoonist who could also turn his hand to adventure strips. (Typhoon Tracy in Tiger for example.)

It used to be common practice for editors to ask new artists to imitate the house style. Baxendale's being the "house style" of sorts for the Odhams funnies. (In the 1940s the "house style" was that of Roy Wilson, and artists were asked to copy him back then.)

Artists such as Mike Lacey and Ron Spencer (and Dave Sutherland) all followed the Baxendale style. So did I to an extent.

Artists who ghosted Bax and then really developed their own distinct spin on it would be Jimmy Hansen and the brilliant Tom Paterson.

Lew

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stevezodiac
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Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by stevezodiac »

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Mike Brown was an animator who inked Baxendale's pencils but I'm not sure about the inking part, that usually only happens in US comics. Graham Allen is my favourite living cartoonist, I collect his cartoons from the Daily Express on Fridays and Sundays but they are all sports based. He is probably the best at caricature there has ever been. I never knew he drew Typhoon Tracey. But his Nerves was a work of genius - really repulsive. I always considered he had a style of his own even when I first saw his work on Kicks in POW! and even as a youngster could recognise it from other artists. But Mike Brown didn't just draw like Baxendale he managed to include all those funny incidentals as well just like Paterson does now. Big up to Mickey B!

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Re: Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by Lew Stringer »

stevezodiac wrote:I never knew he drew Typhoon Tracey. But his Nerves was a work of genius - really repulsive.
He he. If you thought Graham Allen's Nervs strips were repulsive what did you think of Ken Reid's version? :o

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stevezodiac
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Post by stevezodiac »

That's got me thinking, maybe it was Ken's version I was thinking of. I seem to remember the character drooling over a girl which was pretty repulsive. And when Dare a day Davy got mangled he went over the top with the contusions - wouldn't be allowed today, they even stopped Dennis, Minnie and Beryl from getting spanked years ago. I know Graham Allen did Super Dad and then moved to TV Comic where I think he ended his comic's work. Nellie's Telly was it? Another artist took over and try to ape his look.

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Re: Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by Lew Stringer »

stevezodiac wrote:That's got me thinking, maybe it was Ken's version I was thinking of. I seem to remember the character drooling over a girl which was pretty repulsive. And when Dare a day Davy got mangled he went over the top with the contusions - wouldn't be allowed today, they even stopped Dennis, Minnie and Beryl from getting spanked years ago.
Well, naturally. Times change. They still show the spankings in the reprints in Classics from the Comics though.

The Nervs strip you're thinking about was by Ken Reid.

Lew

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Re: Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by tolworthy »

Lew Stringer wrote:
stevezodiac wrote:they even stopped Dennis, Minnie and Beryl from getting spanked years ago.
Well, naturally. Times change.
Don't they just! SteveZodiac kindly sent me the Monster Fun annual 1982, and it contains a strip where X-Ray Specs gets spanked for a series of events that seeemd realy unjust, almost cruel. He was only trying to help his Dad find dad's slippers, but got sidetracked along the way by finding his old toys, with comical consequences. But he didn't really do anything bad, and kept on looking for his Dad's slippers until he found them. And then his Dad used them to spank him for the accidents along the way. it's a good job I didn't take the trip too seriously, as his Dad came across as a thoroughly unpleasant character.

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Shaqui
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Post by Shaqui »

I just got my photocopies of 'Space:999' from the BL, and notice an in-joke in one panel - a van with 'B. Paynter Builder and Decorator' on the side - Bob Paynter was the head of the Juvenile Publications at Fleetway at this point wasnt he? Would he have written any of these?

8)

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Re: Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by tolworthy »

Shaqui wrote:I just got my photocopies of 'Space:999' from the BL, and notice an in-joke in one panel - a van with 'B. Paynter Builder and Decorator' on the side - Bob Paynter was the head of the Juvenile Publications at Fleetway at this point wasnt he? Would he have written any of these?

8)
Why not place a scan of the page here? So I can steal it and put it on my web site. :) :)

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Re: Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by Lew Stringer »

Shaqui wrote:I just got my photocopies of 'Space:999' from the BL, and notice an in-joke in one panel - a van with 'B. Paynter Builder and Decorator' on the side - Bob Paynter was the head of the Juvenile Publications at Fleetway at this point wasnt he? Would he have written any of these?

8)

Bob did write some scripts. He'd often sketch them out in biro as a guide too. (He was no artist but his basic stick figure work did help to show that a strip could be drawn. Some writers ask for too many different angles in one panel for example, which is impossible to accomplish.)

If he'd written that one I doubt he'd have asked for his own name to be added as an in-joke. It's probably just a tribute by the artist.

Lew
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Shaqui
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Re: Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by Shaqui »

tolworthy wrote:
Shaqui wrote:I just got my photocopies of 'Space:999' from the BL, and notice an in-joke in one panel - a van with 'B. Paynter Builder and Decorator' on the side - Bob Paynter was the head of the Juvenile Publications at Fleetway at this point wasnt he? Would he have written any of these?

8)
Why not place a scan of the page here? So I can steal it and put it on my web site. :) :)
Ha! :twisted:

tolworthy
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Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by tolworthy »

Thanks to eBay, and a very generous collector with a scanner, the badtime bedtime book site now has a lot more cover scans, and a few more complete stories with added commentary.

http://www.enterthestory.com/badtime_checklist.html

I'm trying to limit the number of complete stories, for copyright reasons. I know that technically I shouldn't put up even one, but I tell myself that the copyright owners are reasonable fellows if I use restraint.

If anyone of you kind folks feels the urge to take pity on me, and scan page one of a missing badtime book, then the badtime bedtime fan community (both of us) will be forever in your debt.

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Muffy
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Badtime Bedtime Books

Post by Muffy »

Lovely web site Tolworthy. :)

Will have a look when I get a chance for some non-shown covers. I do have some badtime bedtimes (but not all) - nice to see them listed so clearly. :)

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