MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

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alanultron5
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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by alanultron5 »

Seems old `Cap H` is not popular here! Many of those strips were jingoistic in the extreme! I have never found anything to laugh about regarding `humourous` war strips. The one exception bieng Thunders `The Steel Commando`.

Sadly, Sparky comic created `Baron Reisch Pudding`circa 1973/4 (not sure which year) I just cannot find any strip regarding WWI funny at all! I'm no `Politically Correct advocate` (Ben Elton bored me stiff!!) But WWI was utter hell for those who fought it, how it could possibly lend itself to a humour strip beats me.
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Lew Stringer
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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by Lew Stringer »

alanultron5 wrote:Seems old `Cap H` is not popular here! Many of those strips were jingoistic in the extreme! I have never found anything to laugh about regarding `humourous` war strips. The one exception bieng Thunders `The Steel Commando`.

Sadly, Sparky comic created `Baron Reisch Pudding`circa 1973/4 (not sure which year) I just cannot find any strip regarding WWI funny at all! I'm no `Politically Correct advocate` (Ben Elton bored me stiff!!) But WWI was utter hell for those who fought it, how it could possibly lend itself to a humour strip beats me.
Agreed. Baron Von whatsit was another strip I skipped. I'm pretty sure I stopped buying Sparky around that time too as I felt it was a waste of two rare colour pages.

Incidentally Captain Hurricane started out as a "straight" adventure strip and became more slapstick as time went on.

Another strip I intensely disliked was Sergeant Rock - Paratrooper in Smash! Also, the two footballing Eskimo kids in Joe 90 Top Secret (Ninepence + Tenpence = Sport). I didn't mind some footie strips (Solano's Nipper for example, or Football Family Robinson when Joe Colquhoun was drawing it) but Ninepence + Tenpence was absolute pants.

Lew
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STARBOY
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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by STARBOY »

The only footie strip I wasn't that keen on was the Lions Carsons Cubs (a firm fav of that titles readers for many years), I was mostly put of by the art (very nice but not a footy artist IMHO) also didn't like and rarely read the Wee Willie Haggis the Spy from Skye strip in Pow (loved Odhams books but they had a few turkeys) just thought it was a very poor strip that had potential.

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DJDogfart
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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by DJDogfart »

i seem to remember being bored rigid by a half page strip called Fido in Buster around 1979ish, i think it must have been a reprint 'cos it didnt look 'right' even to me at the tender age of 9. also around the same time was 'Little Orbie' (or something like that) which was about a dreamy American (i think) boy with a large head who got lost in his dreams, much like Buster's Dream World but not as good.
Scccrrruunnge

Lew Stringer
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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by Lew Stringer »

DJDogfart wrote:i seem to remember being bored rigid by a half page strip called Fido in Buster around 1979ish, i think it must have been a reprint 'cos it didnt look 'right' even to me at the tender age of 9.
It was a reprint of Fidosaurus from Eagle around 1962. It was in full colour in its original printing - good work from Reg Parlett. Lost something in greytone for its reprint though.

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Peter Gray
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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by Peter Gray »

Love to see it in colour anyone got an Eagle 1962 to hand...to show here..

I've only seen the grey version..

thanks in advance..

I found Smasher from the Dandy a bit boring though Brian Walkers version was better..
Smasher looked too much like Dennis the Menace..

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Captain Storm
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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by Captain Storm »

alanultron5 wrote:
(Ben Elton bored me stiff!!) But WWI was utter hell for those who fought it, how it could possibly lend itself to a humour strip beats me.
:offtopic1: Ben Elton actually promoted the absurdity of WW1 through the medium of comedy in his Blackadder Goes Forth tv show.And nobody can forget the tragic ending.Boring it certainly was not.

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Digifiend
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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by Digifiend »

Peter Gray wrote:I found Smasher from the Dandy a bit boring though Brian Walkers version was better..
Smasher looked too much like Dennis the Menace..
Must be the hair! But Walker did draw Dennis as well (in the "Go Granny Go!" strip) and he didn't look that much like Smasher. I agree about one thing though, it's a rare case where the later artist was better. However, Smasher's first artist gave him red hair - if they'd kept it like that then we wouldn't be comparing him to Dennis. I think they had to change it though when Smasher got the Dandy back cover, which only used blue and yellow.

:?: Which makes me wonder, was the end of The Beezer Book why Walker stopped working for Thomsons, as he drew Pop Dick and Harry for it. Smasher finished at around the same time.

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philcom55
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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by philcom55 »

Peter Gray wrote:Love to see it in colour anyone got an Eagle 1962 to hand...to show here..

I've only seen the grey version..
Actually Fidosaurus ran for years in Eagle, and though some of the strips appeared in colour during that time (as did some instalments of XYZ Cars), the majority were drawn in black & white. Even so, the reproduction of Parlett's subtle wash technique was much better with Odhams' photogravure printing than in the later Buster reprints. It really is a shame Reg didn't get to produce more colour work during his long career.

Here's an example of the prehistoric poodle in colour from the 1966 Eagle Summer Special:
Image

As for humorous strips set in the First World War, don't forget that loads of these were produced during the conflict itself, and rather than being accused of bad taste they actually seemed to make the sheer awfulness of it all a bit more bearable for many people - a point that Pat Mills himself made in some of the early episodes of Charley's War!

- Phil Rushton

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Peter Gray
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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by Peter Gray »

Thanks Phil R nice to see...looks lovely...

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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by Lew Stringer »

philcom55 wrote: As for humorous strips set in the First World War, don't forget that loads of these were produced during the conflict itself, and rather than being accused of bad taste they actually seemed to make the sheer awfulness of it all a bit more bearable for many people - a point that Pat Mills himself made in some of the early episodes of Charley's War!

- Phil Rushton
True, but there's a difference between the black comedy of the trenches produced by people who were there, and the slapstick silliness of Baron Von Rice Pudding done 60 years later.

Lew
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Raven
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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by Raven »

alanultron5 wrote: Sadly, Sparky comic created `Baron Reisch Pudding`circa 1973/4 (not sure which year) I just cannot find any strip regarding WWI funny at all! I'm no `Politically Correct advocate` (Ben Elton bored me stiff!!) But WWI was utter hell for those who fought it, how it could possibly lend itself to a humour strip beats me.


Do you find Snoopy's imaginary exploits against the Red Baron in Peanuts offensive, too? (Presuming you're familiar with them ... )

There was a very rich tradition of cartooning during World War I itself ('World War I in Cartoons' by Mark Bryant is a very good collection) making fun of the figures of the enemy. Cartoons of the goose-stepping Germans with their helmets and dodgy cuisine, etc. filled the likes of Punch, and the Baron (it's *Reichs*-Pudding; that's the joke, as in Reich meaning the German empire) seems to be very squarely in that tradition. It's quite the sort of thing that might have been published during WWI to cheer up the British!

Though, really, its airborne antics bear no more relation to the grim reality than Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines.

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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by Lew Stringer »

Actually you're right. I'd forgotten that Comic Life featured comedy Huns and jokes about the war, as I'm sure did most other weekly comics of the period.
http://lewstringer.blogspot.com/2008/1 ... -1916.html

Lew

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ISPYSHHHGUY
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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by ISPYSHHHGUY »

I have the 'WORLD WAR in CARTOONS' book by MARK BRYANT, Raven.....it's excellent; a lot of powerful imagery......HITLER himself collected anti- NAZI cartoons, apparantly. However, I suppose for the poor souls who went over the top in WW1, the notion that future generations would have used this hellish backdrop as a basis for comedy, would have been less than appreciative. [this would have surely have been one of the last things on their minds, surely.......]

-------regarding the most nauseating character ever, after much racking of brains, my candidate is early 70s IPC character FUSS POT.

alanultron5
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Re: MOST `Nauseating` comic character of all time!

Post by alanultron5 »

Raven. It is ONLY my personal view and not a stated fact! I do not find humour in WW1 at all, but I know that for others it can be so! Blackadder 4 was good in the final ep, prior to that-not for me! I'm only giving my opinion not stating the law! Honest!
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