Football's Comic Book Heroes - new book.

[Phoenix]

That article is laughably packed with errors Though i could kind of understand why Hotspur might accidentally get called a football comic. By somebody who had never seen one, anyway.

Well that's the Daily Mail for you, FM. It never was a football comic, of course, but unlike the other four members of The Big Five, The Hotspur did start out life in 1933 as a school story paper. Indeed, most of its serials had an educational base of some description throughout the thirties, and very inventive the writers were too. Wartime had its fair share and, although there was some dilution in the late forties and fifties, we do have the original policy to thank for such post-war schoolboy football luminaries as Cannonball Kidd, Napper Todd and Dozy Danny Lorimer.

[Phoenix]

Yesterday afternoon I went to WH Smiths in Southport and bought When The Comics Went To War by Adam Riches. When I have read it I will post my thoughts.

[Kashgar]

It's weird but I genuinely thought that you had already posted your thoughts on this Derek. I must have slipped into an alternate universe and read your comments there. Given your general disinterest in war stories BTW your other self rather liked it. I seem not to have commented on the book in either time-line but will do so in due course.

[NP]

Yesterday afternoon I went to WH Smiths in Southport

And it was Liverpool last month, wow, you certainly get around!

[Phoenix]

And it was Liverpool last month, wow, you certainly get around!

I'm just restless, I suppose, NP. I was also in London last month, which you will already know as you are tracking my movements. A bit of advance notice here for you, I will probably be off to Cornwall sometime next month to stay with my grandchildren. To be fair, I didn't go into Smiths to buy Adam's book. I was with my three-year-old granddaughter, Lois, who has been visiting this week, and we went in to buy some Ladybird fairy stories to add to my stock of books to read to her, which consisted solely of Goldilocks. While I was there I thought, 'I wonder if they've got When The Comics Went To War.' They had, so that went into the bag along with Rapunzel and The Elves And The Shoemaker. I can report that Rapunzel was a triumph, as was a rereading of Goldilocks. However, before we could tackle the elves she was sidetracked by her desire to watch her new Peppa Pig DVD. Have you ever seen one of these, NP? There must be hundreds of episodes one after the other. Mind numbing!! It didn't bother her though. She sat or knelt or vaguely fidgeted at my desk, watching the episodes on my computer monitor with unwavering concentration. At least she's imbibing some useful language.

[Phoenix]

It's weird but I genuinely thought that you had already posted your thoughts on this Derek.

When I was at school we had a selection of smart replies to a comment like that, Ray. My favourite was, You know what thought did. Followed a muck cart, thought it was a wedding.

I must have slipped into an alternate universe and read your comments there. Given your general disinterest in war stories BTW your other self rather liked it.

That should delight Adam and his team. Whether my doppelganger in this timeline will be similarly seduced remains to be seen. Incidentally, how did you slip into the alternate universe, the subtle knife method or the weed way? Whichever, if you come across colcool007 next time you go, give him a hand. He's a nice guy and he doesn't deserve to be forever lost in space.

[colcool007]

I'm not lost, just dimensionally challenged! Also, Phoenix has posted his thoughts on the Football Book, he certainly hasn't posted his thoughts on the war book.
I know that he had been holding back on buying the war book, but the 2 for £7 deal must have worn him down!

[Phoenix]

I'm not lost, just dimensionally challenged! Also, Phoenix has posted his thoughts on the Football Book, he certainly hasn't posted his thoughts on the war book. I know that he had been holding back on buying the war book, but the 2 for £7 deal must have worn him down!

I was planning on reading my new Riches today, Colin, but because last night I watched Enid (Blyton), and found it quite riveting, this morning I took down from a bookcase A Childhood At Green Hedges by her younger daughter Imogen Smallwood, a book that I bought years ago but never found the time to read, and have been reading that instead. In this procedure I am following the Roman advice Festina lente (Make haste slowly). As far as the 2 for £7 deal is concerned, I suspect that there must be galloping inflation in the alternate universe you are wandering around in. In Smiths I paid full price for the Ladybirds and still had change from a fiver.

[philcom55]

Speaking of football comics I was looking through some old DC Thomson Topical Times Annuals yesterday at the NEC and was really impressed by the short, biographical strips they each contained about famous footballers such as Jimmy Greaves. Some of the photo-realistic artwork was quite outstanding - does anyone know who drew them?

- Phil Rushton

[Kashgar]

If they were really early it might be the work of John Batchelor, Phil

[Digifiend]

I think it's the second Topical Times Football Book, published 1960.

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/productdet ... uct=201097

[philcom55]

Yep, that's definitely the one with the Jimmy Greaves strip - at £5 in excellent condition (with dw) I rather wish I'd bought it now. Going by the style of artwork John Batchelor sounds quite a good call, though assuming he's the same artist who went on to produce all those aircraft prints I didn't even know he'd done any strip work. Very interesting. (From what I remember there were quite a few cartoons included as well).

- Phil Rushton

[steelclaw]

philcom55 was it anything like this strip from 'Wizard' 4th March 1970? I used to enjoy these early years of footballers, it was one of the strips I looked forward to every week.

[philcom55]

The Jimmy Greaves strip I saw was about five or six pages long and though it was also in black and white the rendering was much more detailed than the Wizard version (though, knowing DCT, it's entirely possible that the script may have been recycled in some way). Of course, neither strip finds time to mention Greaves' grim battle with alcoholism...

- Phil Rushton

[Rogerhat]

I've just started a group on Facebook for Football's Comic Book Heroes. In the next couple of weeks we are going to be running a competition to win a limited edition of the book and some other prizes. If you click on the link below you can join up

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2 ... 559&ref=nf