Becoming Ken...

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philcom55
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Becoming Ken...

Post by philcom55 »

klakadak-ploobadoof has mentioned that his enviable collection of Ken Reid's comic strips starts in earnest with the first appearance of 'Jonah' in March 1958, and this set me to wondering where that electrifyingly original style of over-the-top absurdity that Ken went on to display throughout the 1960s could have come from.

As this example from 1960 demonstrates the 'Jonah' strip didn't depend on the titular character for its peculiarly brilliant blending of the grotesque and hysterical: it was as though Reid had invented an entirely new comic language all of his own that could be applied to any scenario!

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Once this language had been perfected it enabled him to take the world of British comics by storm with a succession of outstanding strips that, in a few short years, introduced us to the likes of Ali Ha-Ha, Frankie Stein, Jasper the Grasper and Queen of the Seas. Personally I feel that this astonishing body of work places Ken on a level with comic virtuosos like Spike Milligan, Tony Hancock and Kenneth Williams, and that the lack of any readily available collected edition counts as something of a national disgrace.

And yet if one were to go back just a few years before Jonah made his debut it'd be hard to imagine that Ken would ever turn out to be any more than a solid practitioner of the traditional DC Thomson style. What's more, it wasn't even certain that he would specialize in humour at all; here, for example, is a story from the 1957 Beano Book that gives some indication of his possible career as an adventure artist along the lines of Paddy Brennan:

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At first sight it's hard to believe this is a Ken Reid strip at all!

So where did it come from, this unique voice that suddenly seemed to appear out of nowhere with Jonah? Was it inspired by some unfairly neglected scriptwriter, or did the Goon Show open Ken's eyes to a new form of humour?

...Or had there been a gibbering maniac lurking inside him all his life, just waiting for a chance to burst out to cries of "...Aaaaaggghhh! It's 'im!!!!!"

- Phil Rushton

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Tin Can Tommy
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Re: Becoming Ken...

Post by Tin Can Tommy »

According to Wikipedia Ken did some work for comic cuts. Surprisingly a search on here for this did not turn up anything.

Also did Ken do anything for any DC Thomson comics other than the Beano or the Dandy. The book of the Beezer doesn't list any strips being done by him for the Beezer.

Also does anyone think Fudge the Elf worth a look at. Is it similiar style to Ken Reid's 'goonish' humour of Jonah or because it pre-dates that is it more similiar to the above example of Ken's adventure strip work.

Lew Stringer
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Re: Becoming Ken...

Post by Lew Stringer »

philcom55 wrote:...the lack of any readily available collected edition counts as something of a national disgrace.
Agreed. We live in an age where 1950s horror comics are now collected into handsome hardbacks, with three volumes of Steve Ditko so far and counting. Surely there must be a market for one Ken Reid book, a Retro Beano presents Jonah or something? But the old question is still "Would enough people buy it?"
philcom55 wrote:So where did it come from, this unique voice that suddenly seemed to appear out of nowhere with Jonah? Was it inspired by some unfairly neglected scriptwriter, or did the Goon Show open Ken's eyes to a new form of humour?
I think with the re-energized Beano of the mid 1950s, with Baxendale, Law, and Reid all setting new standards, each artist was having a ball and it shows in the progression and experimentation in their work. I'm sure that as soon as Ken knew he could turn a 12 panel script into 16 or 20 panels it gave him the incentive to push it further, and improve his comic timing even more.

Ken really put his all into his work but, as his son revealed in the Comics Britannia TV series, it sadly led to Ken having a nervous breakdown around the late 1950s. Perhaps the reason his style became even more manic after then was it was a form of catharsis? If so, I hope he knew what absolute joy his pages brought to thousands, or more likely, millions, of readers.
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Niblet
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Re: Becoming Ken...

Post by Niblet »

Tin Can Tommy wrote:Also does anyone think Fudge the Elf worth a look at. Is it similiar style to Ken Reid's 'goonish' humour of Jonah or because it pre-dates that is it more similiar to the above example of Ken's adventure strip work.
Have a look here http://www.fudge-the-elf.com/

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stevezodiac
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Re: Becoming Ken...

Post by stevezodiac »

Here's a teaser for Angel Face which I think was his first work for DC Thomson? This is from the Dandy 675 dated 30 October 1954. oddly the first three panels look like a different artist to the second three.

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Digifiend
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Re: Becoming Ken...

Post by Digifiend »

Roger the Dodger predates that. Ken was the first artist and it started in 1953.

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Peter Gray
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Re: Becoming Ken...

Post by Peter Gray »

Really great seeing these early Ken Reid comic work...

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swirlythingy
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Re: Becoming Ken...

Post by swirlythingy »

Digifiend wrote:Roger the Dodger predates that. Ken was the first artist and it started in 1953.
In fact, Roger will be celebrating his sixtieth birthday in April next year, just in time to celebrate two years since the strip was put into reprints.

Sigh.
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stevezodiac
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Re: Becoming Ken...

Post by stevezodiac »

Re the first three panels, perhaps Ken's version was not deemed acceptable - too manic or violent? Or just too off the wall.

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Re: Becoming Ken...

Post by Lew Stringer »

stevezodiac wrote:Re the first three panels, perhaps Ken's version was not deemed acceptable - too manic or violent? Or just too off the wall.
Neither, I'd guess. It was just a promotional strip that would have been assembled in the office by using stock art and extra bits drawn by a staff artist.
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philcom55
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Re: Becoming Ken...

Post by philcom55 »

I doubt if Ken had anything to do with that rather crude Angel Face preview, though as Lew suggests part of it was probably based on his designs. In some ways the idea of a heroine whose 'angelic' exterior masked her inner Machiavellian tendencies was poorly suited to an artist who specialized in drawing wildly expressive faces, so it's unsurprising that Ken was never very happy about the strip (in fact he admitted to being uncomfortable with most female characters). Even so he pulled off a remarkable feat by developing a kind of subliminal leer that briefly twisted Angel's doll-like features when nobody but the reader was looking.

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In many ways Angel Face (along with Minnie the Minx and Beryl the Peril) could be seen as a proto-feminist role-model who was years ahead of her time - something sadly lacking in most contemporary publications that were aimed at older women.

- Phil Rushton

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Peter Gray
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Re: Becoming Ken...

Post by Peter Gray »

Ken Reid drew Roger's Dad in the early days had a manic angry energy then...

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philcom55
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Re: Becoming Ken...

Post by philcom55 »

You are, of course, quite right that Ken was evolving his distinctively manic style in most of the pre-Jonah humour strips he worked on during the 1950s Peter. As you say, even Roger the Dodger (arguably his most successful creation, at least in terms of longevity) shows glimpses of it from time to time - though I've always felt that it tended to be one of his least characteristic pieces of work. While explosions and 'scrunging' faces are slightly less in evidence, however, the element of sheer absurdity often shines out - as in this example from 1956 where we're asked to accept that inexplicably tall school chimneys towered over the countryside, and that teachers had never even heard of Health & Safety:

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- Phil Rushton

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Peter Gray
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Re: Becoming Ken...

Post by Peter Gray »

:lol:
love that school chimney...

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philcom55
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Re: Becoming Ken...

Post by philcom55 »

Though Roger the Dodger rarely presented Ken with the sort of epic subject matter that Jonah did it's worth remembering that he stuck with the character right through his time at DC Thomson. Bearing this in mind it's interesting to contrast these two examples taken from opposite ends of that period.

The first page comes from 13th Feb. 1954. Though Reid had already been drawing Roger for several months by then, and Davey Law's Dennis the Menace had been around since 1951, it could nevertheless be argued that this particular week marked the real beginning of the Beano's golden age as it was the same issue that introduced Leo Baxendale's Bash Street Kids to the world in the very first episode of 'When the Bell Rings!' Indeed, Ken's style looks remarkably developed when compared with Leo's very early (and barely recognizable) version of Little Plum. It's also noticeable that he was already adept at cramming vast amounts of detail into each tiny panel - in spite of being lumbered with a dauntingly verbose script.

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By contrast the second example comes from July 1964 - over ten years later and just weeks before his departure for pastures new in the pages of Odhams' Wham! Though the panels are larger and the style is more confident Ken had clearly perfected his depiction of grotesque expressions and hysterical action: from here it was just a short step to Frankie Stein and the World Wide Weirdies!

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- Phil Rushton

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