Comics UK

As I mentioned previously last week i picked up 14 girls' annuals from the 1970s for 50p each. Anyway three of them were Sandie annuals and they featured Brenda's Brownies and Wendy Witch both of them drawn by Mike Brown. For anyone who has never seen his work he spent the 60s and 70s drawing in a very convincing Baxendale style. Here are those two strips from the 1973 Sandie annual. (shown on two posts as you are only allowed three images per post). Some of his comic pages were even more Baxendaleish than these examples.

And here's Wendy Witch:

Great to see...thanks for that..

it does look very like Baxendale...

I saw Wendy the witch in Funny Fortnightly..

There have been a few posts lately discussing work that looks like Baxendale's and just to make things even more confusing here is some more very Leo-ish art from Mike Brown from the 1979 Krazy Annual. He may also have drawn the Krazy World of Sherlock Bones in the 1981 Krazy Annual but that one isn't signed but I'd swear its Brown.

Would you mind posting a page of Sherlock Bones for us?

The Sherlock Bones strip is eight pages - here are the first three. Still in the Baxendale style but he seems to have eased off a bit.

Sherlock Bones is a reprint of a Leo Baxendale 'Bad Time Bed Time Book' from Monster Fun

Interesting you note it's still in the Bax style but eased off- Leo changed his style subtly year by year. Mike Brown started in about 1967-8 duplicating the style of that era, but by 1975 (when Sherlock Bones was first published,) his style didn't look like Bax's then-current style.

I am forever looking at strips and wondering if they are Baxendale or Brown. Bad Penny in Smash around 67/68 could be either. Brown always seems to put those downhill sloping pavements into his strips. With that Sherlock Bones strip it is the faces that have changed somewhat from the classic Baxendale style. I think Brown drew the Group in Pow! as I think some were signed but I think Lew pointed out here a while back that Brown would finish off Leo's pencils. I wish Leo would come on here and clear it all up for us. Its like when I bought all the pop papers in the early 70s and in the Record Mirror John Lennon went through the Lennon/McCartney catalogue explaining who wrote what. I still have the page somewhere. (whoever sang the lead vocals was the composer, basically)

I dunno - Sherlock definitely has that Baxendale look about it. I'd've guessed Martin before Mike, to be honest, but once you're told it's Leo, it could only possibly be Leo.