welcome and enjoy!

Hi and welcome to my blog about comics from other people’s childhood! It is dedicated primarily to British humour comics of the 60s and 70s. The reason they are not from my childhood is simply because I didn’t live in the UK back then (nor do I live there now). I knew next to nothing about them until fairly recently but since then I’ve developed a strong liking for the medium and amassed a large collection, including a number of complete or near complete sets. My intention is to use this blog as a channel for sharing my humble knowledge about different titles, favourite characters and creators as I slowly research my collection.

QUICK TIP: this blog is a sequence of posts covering one particular comic at a time. The sequence follows a certain logic, so for maximum results it is recommended that the blog is read from the oldest post up.

Copyright of all images and quotations used here is with their respective owners. Any such copyrighted material is used exclusively for educational purposes and will be removed at first notice. All other text copyright Irmantas P.



Wednesday, May 7, 2014

A LOOK AT MONSTER FUN STRIPS: TOM THUMBSCREW



This weird little strip was set in the dark Middle Ages and offered the readers of MONSTER FUN COMIC a weekly helping of dungeon humour. The main character was young Tom Thumbscrew who worked as a torturer in the King’s caste; the title of the strip tells us he was the torturer’s apprentice but actually he was the master of the dungeon and answered directly to the King.



Tom wasn’t much of a torturer: he tended to side with the prisoners and was generally on friendly terms with them. He spent more time playing cards with the captives than actually trying to make them ‘talk’ and tormenting them with his branding irons, stretching rack and iron maiden. Sometimes he even helped them escape. There were usually at least two or three prisoners chained to the wall of the dungeon but they seemed to be quite happy in Tom’s custody. The young torturer did his job only when the King imperatively commanded him to, and even then he preferred soft methods, such as feather tickling, telling lame jokes, making a dirty robber wash, telling the offender to eat both of the apples he has pinched or shaving off a guy’s hair and beard to dissuade him from escaping because he knew the guy preferred not to be seen like that in public.


The other regular character of the strip was the King (or Kingy). He was the one who was really violent and always eager to keep Tom busy. Kingy was often worried that Tom wasn’t torturing his prisoners properly so he liked to check on him in the dungeon. The King was a willing participant in the torture sessions and liked to experiment with new methods. The honey-on-buried-prisoner torture must have been his favourite - he tried it as many as four times. Besides, the King liked to entertain his noble guests by inviting them to do some torturing together or watch his prisoners being branded and stretched on the rack. Obviously, the King was the baddie in the strip and often found himself at the receiving end of the various torturing schemes gone wrong.


All this sounds worse than it looked in the strip which was in fact quite jolly and bright. Tom Thumbscrew ran in MFC issues 1 to 73 and missed issue Nos. 14, 24, 48, 51, 56, 58, 62, 70, 71 and 72. The regular artist was Norman Mansbridge who took charge of the strip starting from issue 12. The opening story in MFC No. 1 was by Trevor Metcalfe who would have made an excellent job as the illustrator of the entire run, on par with Norman Mansbridge:


The episodes in MFC Nos. 2 – 11 were by the less-excellent Andy Christine – the illustrator of another concurrent MFC strip Giant Bearhug… GIANT, who signed his sets of Tom Thumbscrew in issues 2 and 4. Here is an example from MFC No. 9:




12 comments:

  1. I think Andy Christine’s artwork is put to far better use here than in Grizzly Bearhug, which may seem odd as the style’s the same. Maybe it’s because of Grizzly’s size, or maybe because, as discussed before, the former story wasn’t exactly marvellous. Tom certainly was, and with absolutely no bloodshed!

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    1. I wonder what became of Andy Christine after Monster Fun. I don't think I've seen his drawings in other comics before or after....

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  2. I've yet to read those Major Jump strips, Irmantas, but I will at some stage and let you know what I think. Did you know that your strips aren't appearing in a straight line, one on top of the other? Some are over to the right.

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    1. When you have time, Kid :)
      As for strips not appearing in a straingt line - I have arranged the first six examples in lines of two and that's how they are showing on my screen now. May I ask you to e-mail me a screenshot or two of how the page appears on your screen please? I am trying to keep this blog tidy and convenient to read...

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    2. For the life of me, I can't remember how to do a screenshot. However, instead of two comic pages sitting side-by-side, one sits almost above the other. However, the top one is off to the right so that only one vertical half sits above the lower image, which sits right in the centre of the page. That any help?

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    3. Thanks, I will try to sort it out. It's weird that they are all in straight lines on my screen... Is it only this post, or others as well?

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    4. I've noticed it in a few of your recent posts also. I've sometimes found that when I'm composing a post with two images side-by-side, it looks okay until I publish it, then one image can sit above the other. I usually just reduce the size of the images and that sorts the problem.

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  3. What I want to know is, if Tom were the torturer’s apprentice, where was the torturer?!! Don’t recall ever seeing him (or her) in the BMF Specials, my main source of MF info growing up. Seems likely that he (or she) wouldn’t have been very popular for obvious reasons, and kept out of sight!

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    1. You are right, the master tortuter is absent in all weekly episodes. Since the King seems to be a tortuting enthusiast, perhaps the reference is to him?

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  4. Irmantas, on an unconnected note, do you have the Guy Fawkes mask given away with Whizzer & Chips #3?

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  5. I've got the mask, but I'm unsure as to whether it's a facsimile or not. If the original's dimensions match up to mine, then it would give me a better indication.

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