Football's Comic Book Heroes - new book.

[Digifiend]

That is big - was he 6 foot tall or something?

[Lew Stringer]

That is big - was he 6 foot tall or something?

Going by the theory that each generation is taller than the last, and given the age of the photo, he was probably 4' 9".

Lew

[Phoenix]

I agree with that 4'9'' assessed measurement, Lew. But how tall do you think he was?

[AndyB]

... but a good one

I estimate 6'3"-6'6", based on the crossbar being at 8' - based on the fact that a friend of mine is 6'4" or so and fairly towers over my 6'1".

[Digifiend]

I googled Fatty Foulke - turns out the info was on Wikipedia - it's estimated at 6 foot 4 inches, and 24 stone in weight. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Fo ... ootballer)

Interesting, seems he helped invent Ball Boys!

[Phoenix]

Interesting, seems he helped invent Ball Boys!

He would probably just have wanted them for snacks while United were attacking.

[Kashgar]

Ah! Something akin to the Queen of Tonga's lunch of Coronation Day fame.

[Lew Stringer]

I've just received my copy from Amazon (who were incredibly quick and I didn't even use the express delivery option). Haven't time to read it just yet (it looks great) but browsing though it I didn't notice any names of, or credit to, the many artists and writers who made all those stories possible. Or am I mistaken?

Lew

[Richard S.]

My prize winning copy has arrived, yay! Like Lew I haven't had time to do more than glance throught it yet, the production values are certainly very high but I'd agree that there does seem to be a lack of credits (even for the later strips which would be easier to identify than the many examples from the boys papers). Al get an acknowledgement I see.

[Kashgar]

No credits! That's disappointing. It did say in the publicity blurb that collectors had been consulted but obviously not the right ones as artist credits could have been added without too much problem I'm sure had the right people been asked.

[Kashgar]

Further to the writers contacting collectors, if they had free access to areas like the Thomson archives I would have thought contacting an expert like phoenix4ever would have made sense beforehand (they haven't been in touch have they Derek?) as wading through the whole of the boy's story paper archive without an expert guide looking for football related material would seem to be a needlessly time consuming exercise virtually guaranteed to overlook key moments in the history of the genre.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still looking forward to reading this book and any others that may eventually get published in the series. I just think it's a shame that a project like this might miss out on being the very best it could be, as I don't imagine the oppurtunity will manifest itself again, for the sake of contacting the right people.

[Phoenix]

Further to the writers contacting collectors, if they had free access to areas like the Thomson archives I would have thought contacting an expert like phoenix4ever would have made sense beforehand (they haven't been in touch have they Derek?) as wading through the whole of the boy's story paper archive without an expert guide looking for football related material would seem to be a needlessly time consuming exercise virtually guaranteed to overlook key moments in the history of the genre.

No, Ray, they didn't contact me, and I do have to hand an accurate list of all the football serials that ever appeared in any Thomson story paper between the first issue of Adventure in 1921 and the demise of The Rover in 1973, with dates, issue numbers and a clear idea of their storylines. As I haven't seen the book yet, I don't know what emphasis they've place on Thomsons' output, but I would certainly have been prepared to guide them, to direct their focus onto key characters, even to do summaries where required. I would also have been able to advise on the development of text story paper characters like Gorgeous Gus and Bouncing Briggs into The Victor, The Hornet and the other picture papers, particularly after the editors had exhausted the repeats and commissioned new serials. However, let's not be taking up the cudgels before we've even read the book. It's a great idea and I hope it succeeds.

[Lew Stringer]

Just received the When Comics Went to War book from Amazon. Like the footie one, another well illustrated and well researched book. Half of the books are devoted to story papers rather than comics, but that's fine as that's an interesting history in itself, and the story papers did evolve into comics of course.

One slight niggle in the war book though; Charley's War is briefly mentioned but the page they chose to illustrate this superb anti-war strip is a rather gung-ho piece from a Battle Annual that doesn't even seem to be written by Pat Mills. Surely a more appropriate page could have been found for a strip that is, as the book calls it, "considered to be the finest war story ever to appear in a comic".

I wasn't contacted either but as my knowledge of football and war strips is virtually nil I wouldn't have expected to be.

Lew

[Bob Frankland]

We have noted your comments regarding credits to illustrators etc. As much as we would like to have listed this was not feasible.

Unfortunately from our start point in the mid/late 1800's details were not always available. Companies came and went, records were lost and very few references existed even from the established publishers, DCT and IPC excepted.

Image files were incomplete and we, in a number of instances, worked from photocopies from micro film references held by the British Library. A number of the early images used in the book required re-drawing, fortunately talented unsung illustrators still exist (I challenge anybody to identify the re-draws). This is in addition to every single image in the book requiring cleaning up, photocopy/scans from comics printed on newsprint which do not reproduce particularly well. There are any number of examples of books in print who have gone down the cheap and cheerful, we work up to a standard not not down to a price.

In compiling the book we realised from the outset that rather than just bang out a list of comics, storylines, dates, authors and illustrators we had to make the book attractive to a wider public. The amount of material that we researched was staggering and we could have easily produced a 1500 page book, this is was obviously not commercially viable, and would not have appealed to the mass book buying public.

We believe the continuing exposure we have achieved for the book, and the positive response we have received, suggests we probably got more right than we got wrong. We have introduced the talent of Barrie Mitchell, and other illustrators, to a new audience who like the correspondents on this messageboard will realise the talent.

Without books like ours the archives at the major publishers will, in the main, remain unused and unexposed to the general public.



With regards to a book identifying the talents of the football comic illustrator, watch this space.

[Lew Stringer]

I think we all appreciate the hard work that's gone into these books Bob. Having just read the first two chapters of Football's Comic Book Heroes during lunch I'm very impressed with the amount of research that's obviously been involved, and with the easy going writing style.

However comics must be the only artform where the identities of the creators are sometimes considered irrelevant. I can appreciate that the names of the artists of the early story papers would be difficult and even impossible to track down, but the more modern comic strips would not have presented any problem. (Indeed, the later issues of Battle actually feature credit boxes!)

As for space being a premium, an art credit (where known) after a picture caption would not have taken up any space from the main text.

Please don't see my comments as belittling the books in any way. As I said at the top, they're fine books and a fascinating read. War and football are two themes I rarely followed in comics so these books are a real education for me and much appreciated. I'm particularly impressed by the way the story of the comics is shown to have been influenced by real world history and social trends. This to me is the ideal way to tell the history of comics, rather than just focusing on story synopsis' in an insular way. Well done to all concerned.

Lew