Comics UK

As younger reader comics have been discussed recently I thought I would give 'Toby' comic a mention.

I know the Cap set up a site dedicated to 'Toby' called 'one day when the sun was shining' named after one of the stories.

It is a nice compact little comic that must have been a good read for any younger reader at the time.

Two strips in the comic that interest me are both scanned below 'Grandma-next door' and 'The Little Prince', I am one hundred per cent sure that they are both drawn by Andrew Wilson (although I have been wrong before!). Also included is a typical Toby cover.

You didn't get any replies to this but I just wanted to belatedly say thanks for highlighting these strips; I'm an Andrew Wilson fan - especially of The Byrds of Paradise Isle in Buster - and it's good to know about these. The Little Prince looks like an especially nice, fun strip of nursery-style adventure!

Thankyou Raven, they are nice strips, I will post another 'The Little Prince' later.

Another artist that worked rugularly in 'Toby' comic as mentioned under artists was Peter Woolcock, who drew 'one day when the sun was shining' these examples are from a 'Toby' summer special.

That's a fine example of Peter Woolcock's skill with lighting effects.

matrix wrote:Thankyou Raven, they are nice strips, I will post another 'The Little Prince' later.

Thanks, matrix, I'd like to see more!

As promised for Raven, and anybody else interested in seeing these, two more excellent 'The Little Prince' examples from Andrew Wilson.

To my mind 'One day When The Sun Was Shining' was one of Peter Woolcock's best ever strips, even though it may well have been his last for the UK market. The thing that really appealed to me was the emphasis on old-fashioned storytelling reflected in the title which gave him scope to produce wildly imaginative tales like this pitch-perfect spoof of The Hound of the Baskervilles:





Appropriately the series finally came to an end with the entire cast of characters setting sail for Australia - just as Woolcock himself prepared to leave this rainy island for a well-earned retirement under the sun in Bermuda.

- Phil Rushton

matrix wrote:As promised for Raven, and anybody else interested in seeing these, two more excellent 'The Little Prince' examples from Andrew Wilson.

Thanks, Matrix - great to see some new (to me) Andrew Wilson artwork; lovely, detailed backgrounds and scenery.

Another artist later took over 'Grandma - Next Door' but Wilson stayed with 'The Little Prince' right up to this final episode dated 23rd September 1978:



- Phil R.

Having recently picked up 60 or so issues of Toby at a boot sale I must admit that I'm a little puzzled about the origins of the title character.



Toby the Terrier appeared in colour on the cover and two inside pages of most issues, enjoying magical adventures that owed a lot to the style of Alfred Bestall's Rupert stories. And like Rupert's mythical home of Nutwood, Toby also inhabited a very old-fashioned version of the English countyside where fields were still ploughed by horses - though modern devices such as cassette tape recorders were also in evidence from time to time (at least they were modern in 1978!).

Because of its 'old world' feel I must admit that I'd always assumed Toby had to have been reprinted from somewhere or other, in the same way that Leonard Matthews later repackaged old Bestall stories in the Rupert comic he produced for Marvel during the 1980s. Having failed to find any earlier appearances of the character either on TV or in books or comics, however, I've come to the conclusion that he must have been a brand new creation after all. What's more, even though none of the stories carry any artist's byline, Denis Gifford's Encyclopedia of Comic Characters attributes it to one 'Doris White' - an artist whose only previous credit seems to be for a series called 'Tales of Tootle Town' which appeared in the Amalgamated Press's Playtime way back in 1929!

Of course it's quite possible that there were two different Doris Whites, though it would certainly explain Toby's curiously old fashioned style if they were the same person. One interesting detail that seems to add credence to the latter assumption is the fact that Doris White was also the name of the owner of Link Studios - an art agency that represented many major artists who supplied material for British comics throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

It's fascinating to think that Toby might have been the brainchild of this important but little-known figure in the history of comics, whose protégés had included prominent figures such as John Burns. Could this have represented a treasured idea that she'd nurtured for many years, constantly putting her own ambition on the back burner as she promoted the careers of others...until retirement finally gave her an opportunity to produce something that was uniquely her own?

- Phil Rushton

Didn't Captain Storm have a Toby web site?

http://theyellowedpages.blogspot.co.uk/ ... label/Toby

http://tobycomic.tripod.com/index.html

That final Little Prince is a bit grim. He's had a happy childhood ... but now he has to go into the military and train to fight. No more hanging around with art teachers for him. Thanks for posting, Matrix.

Interesting musings, Phil. A reminder of how little we know about the background to Britain's nursery titles.

Has anyone picked up one of the Toby Annuals, and can reveal if they're full of wonderful illustrations, epic Little Prince adventures, or anything interesting?

I definitely remember this comic, and going by the high quality artwork seen above, is a worthy contender within this forum.

Raven wrote:That final Little Prince is a bit grim. He's had a happy childhood ... but now he has to go into the military and train to fight. No more hanging around with art teachers for him.

Tragically Prince David and the flower of Goldanian manhood were slaughtered just a few years later in the Battle of Jena - after which the Kingdom ceased to exist as an independent entity!

Although 'The Little Prince' and 'Grandma - Next Door' both came to an end with the final issue of Toby Andrew Wilson continued to be represented in the pages of the combined Jack and Jill & Toby by taking over the long-running series 'Fun at School with Miss Muddle'.





- Phil Rushton

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