I appreciate the depiction of young women in these strips---we never got to see this sort of thing in the BEANO, naturally!
It's not every comics artist that can draw effective attractive women: a bit like good caricaturing, it's a rarer gift, which says a heck of a lot about the talents and ability of Wakefield and other Greats.
Well, it's all part of the factory system of getting comics out on time I suppose. I can't really see any harm in another artist drawing the heads if the rest of the strip is of the same high quality, - which I think it was in the case of Film Fun. Better that, than having an artist not so good at caricatures spending hours trying to get it right.
I don't think I'd heard of that particular method before, Rab, but I had heard of how Film Fun reprinted old strips and added new heads on the stars to reflect whoever was in vogue at the time. Now that was being cheeky!
As a cartoonist, Lew, you must surely enjoy doing the facial expressions, one of the most enjoyable parts of the job!
But yes, there are many real good fantasy cartoon artists who just don't have the spark required to assemble good-quality caricatures, hence the need for Editor Fred Cordwells pragmatic approach regarding this method.
As a direct result of joining in on these posts, I've just ordered a second-hand copy of the Alan Clark book, which impressed me greatly at the time---it cost 14 pounds 95 in 1989, out of my price range at the time [comics work had dried up at that time and I was living off my savings until I got employment in the Animation Industry in 1990]:
I picked it up for a fifth of the original face value: dunno if it even has a dust-jacket---would be nice if it did have.
Firstly Phil sorry for calling you Steve at the top of my last post but one. I'd just been on the phone to my son Steve when I was writing the entry and well, let's just call it a senior moment!
Re Frank Minnitt he did find work other than Bunter hard to come by in his latter years but then again he was still producing two Bunter pages per week right up until the time of his death in May 1958 aged 64. So he did die in harness unlike Terry Wakefield.
I think we should also point out here that after the death of Billy Wakefield in 1942 the mainstay on his strips wasn't his son Terry, who was away on war service but Norman Ward whose work continued to appear in Film Fun right up to the time of his sudden death, aged 54, in 1959. Ward's work, although I think quite distinctive, often being mistaken for that of Terry Wakefield's in the 1950's.
Oh, and thanks to everyone who has went to the bother of greeting me on my return to the forum. It is much appreciated. It is nice to be back.
Feel free to call me whatever you like Kashgar; I know all about 'senior moments'!
That's a great buy Rab, I'm sure you won't regret it. I was really pleased to see Alan back in print with The Sloperian recently - I hope there are more issues in the works! (who knows, there might even be a second volume of The Best of British Comic Art some day!)
Speaking of pretty girls and identikit images, I'm reminded that the two were combined in 'The Beverley Sisters' - surely one of the weirdest strips that ever appeared in Film Fun's companion title Radio Fun (though without the help of Mr. Cordwell's sticky-back heads in this instance!).
I could be wrong but these both seem to be late examples of work by Bertie Brown - the legendary Charlie Chaplin artist dealt with in the first chapter of Alan's book.
As previously mentioned by me I have hundreds of Film Fun pencil roughs drawn by Wally Robertson who drew many different characters including Max Miller, Joe E Brown and George Formby. I also have some try outs for a Bob Monkhouse strip with notes to him from Denis Gifford - was looking at it a couple of weeks ago but can't find it now.
Those [SATIRE: 'SASSY BABES' END SATIRE] in the previous two strips have quite an effect on me--they are only pen-and-ink drawings, but boy are they effective.
ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:I appreciate the depiction of young women in these strips---we never got to see this sort of thing in the BEANO, naturally!
It's not every comics artist that can draw effective attractive women: a bit like good caricaturing, it's a rarer gift, which says a heck of a lot about the talents and ability of Wakefield and other Greats.
From what I was told by bodgers (staff art assistants) who worked in boys comics in the 1970s, IPC actively discouraged any sexiness in female characters, getting the bodgers to decrease the bust size or white out any hint of cleavage (or lengthen skirts). A complete contrast to the AP attitude of 20 years earlier, as evidenced by the Film Fun examples here, of leggy women and their clinging tops.
ISPYSHHHGUY wrote:Those [SATIRE: 'SASSY BABES' END SATIRE] in the previous two strips have quite an effect on me--they are only pen-and-ink drawings, but boy are they effective.
I think it might be a very good idea, Rab, if you put comics aside for a while, and get stuck in to a healthy dose of post-war text story papers. The only women in those are fat, jovial landladies, and the occasional footballer's homely wife.
Lew Stringer wrote:From what I was told by bodgers (staff art assistants) who worked in boys comics in the 1970s, IPC actively discouraged any sexiness in female characters, getting the bodgers to decrease the bust size or white out any hint of cleavage (or lengthen skirts). A complete contrast to the AP attitude of 20 years earlier, as evidenced by the Film Fun examples here, of leggy women and their clinging tops.
Same with DCT - every woman in the humour comics was flat-chested until the late 80s.
Tom Paterson and Bob Nixon were among the first to break that mould for IPC (but hardly the only ones), and certainly Bob was the first to do it on his return to DCT. The likes of Mike Lacey, Ron Spencer and Dave Sutherland have never been known for busty women in their comic strips.