TV Comic - which publisher & non-TV strip memories

[DavidKW]

Not sure where TV comic would fit re:publishers.
Am having memories of some of the less obvious non-TV strips (ie excludes MIghty Moth/TV Terrors etc).
I'm remembering first, Nelly & Her Telly, about a girl who watches a telly, daydreams herself in the show, then back in reality she's acting it & getting herself into a lot of trouble & hidings. Those that do remember it, note it for how badly-drawn it was & how ugly she & her parents were - must say I agree, but then TV Comic always got remembered for its shoddy artwork (wheras the likes of Look-In & TV21 had the Harrods of artists, TVC's were positively Poundland standard!).
Also in the late 70s - Lochie The Funny Wee monster about a snake-like Scottish (stereotype?) monster having mis-adventures.
Was also Texas Ted, which featured a stereotype American - not funny & did no favours for Anglo-American relations (same said for Lochie & ANglo-Scots perhaps...).
Any memories?

[Raven]

I'm remembering first, Nelly & Her Telly, about a girl who watches a telly, daydreams herself in the show, then back in reality she's acting it & getting herself into a lot of trouble & hidings. Those that do remember it, note it for how badly-drawn it was & how ugly she & her parents were - must say I agree, but then TV Comic always got remembered for its shoddy artwork (wheras the likes of Look-In & TV21 had the Harrods of artists, TVC's were positively Poundland standard!).

I wouldn't agree with that. Bill Titcombe, whose work was spread throughout TV Comic, was a brilliant artist - his Tom and Jerry was unbeatable. Nelly & Her Telly was by Graham Allen, a good artist who also did a lot for IPC. Texas Ted was by Frank McDiarmid (The Gasworks Gang, Cheeky Weekly, etc.), one of the top artists of the period. I also liked the Pink Panther artwork a lot; I don't know the artist's name, though (a good example of this strip was featured on Kid Robson's blog: http://kidr77.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/it ... is-it.html - typically clever stuff.) I thought TV Comic of this period, published by Polystyle, was a high quality publication until it went 'Mighty' in the mid-70s.

There's an appreciation of some TV Comic material by Lew Stringer here:
http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2010/ ... opeye.html
I'd say the artwork is mostly pretty fab!

[Peter Gray]

that is a very clever Pink Panther and I agree the artists were all top notch..though admit I didn't get into Tv Comic in the 80's..

might be fun to buy an earlier one..

[Raven]

that is a very clever Pink Panther and I agree the artists were all top notch..though admit I didn't get into Tv Comic in the 80's..

might be fun to buy an earlier one..

Well, after the mid-Seventies, it started filling with reprints, American newspaper strips, they started reprinting Jon Pertwee Doctor Who strips but drawing Tom Baker over him, etc. and it dropped in quality.

For this period of the comic, I'd recommend initially trying any from the early Seventies till about 1974. 1972 has a really nice blend of strips: Adventure (The Avengers, Skippy, Grasshopper Island, Tarzan) and some of the best humour strips at a peak (Tom and Jerry, Basil Brush, Texas Ted, Tich & Quackers, Popeye, Pink Panther, and Ze Inspector are probably the best) with some lovely cartooning. A little later on, nice Bill Titcombe strips of Barney Bear, Wacko! and Dad's Army are added at various points.

I should add that another artist did draw Nelly and Her Telly for quite a while, before Graham Allen I think, and this might be the one DavidKW is remembering.

[tony ingram]

Actually, the reprinted Doctor Who strips were Patrick Troughton strips by John Canning redrawn as Tom Baker, not Pertwee, if I recall correctly.

[Raven]

Actually, the reprinted Doctor Who strips were Patrick Troughton strips by John Canning redrawn as Tom Baker, not Pertwee, if I recall correctly.

I thought it was mostly Pertwee strips, with possibly just one Troughton also being redrawn, as listed here (and on other websites):

http://alteredvistas.proboards.com/inde ... thread=489

[philcom55]

Yes, I think the first reprint was a Troughton story in which Canning adjusted his own artwork with likenesses of Baker, but all the rest were Pertwee stories where Canning rather hamfistedly altered Gerry Haylock's art. What's more, when some of the original pages were offered on Ebay a couple of years ago I was horrified to see that Haylock's actual artwork had been physically defaced to achieve these changes rather than using overlays or photocopies!

In my opinion Gerry Haylock's version was the best of all the comic strip incarnations of Dr Who (not counting the handful of pages produced by Frank Bellamy for Radio Times), but it was painfully obvious that he put far less effort into his later TV Comic stories than the ones he drew in colour for Countdown and TV Action.

- Phil Rushton

[stevezodiac]

Neville Main and Bill Mevin spent many years drawing for TV Comic. Main had a quite ugly style of drawing. Barry Glennard joined in the 60s and had another long run. I enjoyed the Popeye strips which seemed to alternate between two artists, Chick Henderson being one of them. Both artists did very well with the characters - Glennard may have been the second artist but I don't have my TV Comics to hand to check. Dick Millington was another TV Comic mainstay.

I haven't looked at Lew's blog so excuse me if I'm repeating stuff.

[philcom55]

I could be wrong but I think Mike Noble drew some of the Popeye strips for TV Comic; a shame they never thought of putting him on Supercar instead! (though I did quite like Bill Mevin's interpretation of the latter series, which was certainly preferable to the cartoony b&w version that subsequently appeared in TV Century 21)

- Phil R.

[Peter Gray]

http://www.petergraycartoonsandcomics.b ... -1982.html

Tv Comic was still a pretty good comic even in the 80's...its very hard to tell what were reprints..Ken Dodd Diddy men must have been...
The Pink Panther and Bugs Bunny ones are the funniest..

[Peter Gray]

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/ ... -1952.html

a very early Tv Comic..

[Raven]

http://www.petergraycartoonsandcomics.b ... -1982.html

Tv Comic was still a pretty good comic even in the 80's...its very hard to tell what were reprints..Ken Dodd Diddy men must have been...
The Pink Panther and Bugs Bunny ones are the funniest..

Yes, seems to be okay again there, though I think a lot of it will be reprints from the Seventies, with the Diddymen a reprint from the Sixties.

[Raven]

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/ ... -1952.html

a very early Tv Comic..

The earliest I have is from April 1954; it's aimed much younger in those early days, with characters like Muffin the Mule, Sooty (drawn by Tony Hart), Larry the Lamb, and Prudence Kitten.

[Peter Gray]

http://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2008/ ... -1965.html

TV comic 1965


Can you put up Sooty when you have time by Tony Hart he is a hero of mine..I've also met him and have a drawing of his of a giraffe on my wall..

[Raven]

It's the Easter 1954 issue, so it's a little Easter tale. This is only a couple of years after the little yellow bear first appeared on TV, and he didn't even have his own show yet.