The beginning of the new decade coincided
with the change of the logo. Reg Parlett was still in charge of Buster:
In 1985 BUSTER logo was changed once again and Tom Paterson took over as illustrator
of the comic’s main character.
I have mixed feelings about the change. Mr. Paterson
was an excellent artist, his ‘manic’ style is beyond criticism and many of his BUSTER covers are absolutely beautiful but there is something about the stories that
makes them difficult to follow at times, especially towards the end of the
decade. I don’t know if Tom Paterson wrote his own scripts but IMHO his style
worked well in monster humour like Sweeny Toddler, Strange Hill and Hyde and
Shriek, not so much in stories about everyday life of ordinary school children. Why
the majority of Buster’s fellow kids gradually developed into dumb hysterical
brats is not quite clear to me. The difference between the Buster of Nadal and
Parlett and that of Paterson is enormous...
Remember the 1965 Christmas issue? In that nice little episode Buster and his
friends found a gas cylinder and used the gas to blow up lots of balloons,
eventually sending their scout hut floating into the air. The script writer
created a believable story – gas-filled balloons do rise into the air, so
perhaps if you blow lots of them up indoors they can cause your house go straight
up... The idea of a house drifting in mid-air, courtesy of baloons, is recycled in the story below, only this
time the writer doesn’t bother with small details like gas cylinders – here a
bunch of worked up crazy kids rush about trying to decorate a Christmas tree, grab
and blow up some balloons and the house goes up just like that. The same idea
but two fundamentally different stories from very different eras…
Here is the last BUSTER Christmas cover story by Tom Paterson. The comic was in for more changes in the coming year…
Although I absolutely love Tom's 'imitation' Baxendale, I was never too keen on the style he used on School Belle or Buster himself. I once remarked to Bob Paynter (IPC group editor) that I preferred Reg Parlett's version of Buster to Tom's (not long after the change) and Bob admitted that it may have been a mistake to make such a radical alteration to the character.
ReplyDelete... and still Tom continued drawing Buster for half a decade! Do you know if he wrote the scripts too?
ReplyDeleteI don't, unfortunately. Although I suspect that, unless Reg Parlett was writing his own scripts, they just continued with the regular scriptwriter. Couldn't say for certain 'though. I have the impression that it was less-than-enthusiastic reader reaction to the 'new' Buster that prompted Bob's candid confession, but it was probably regarded as unwise to change things yet again, hence Tom's five year run. I couldn't say if the sales were affected (probably not), but Buster probably took a dip in the popularity charts, which would explain Bob's remarks.
ReplyDeleteMark Bennington wrote the scripts and very imagnative he was...he also wrote the crazt centre pages...
ReplyDeleteI agree I prefer Reg to tom's Buster...I didn't like seeing Buster getting beat up all the time...