Thursday, December 21, 2017

THE STORY OF FATHER CHRISTMAS - PART TWO



Here is the rest of The Story of Father Christmas by Geoffrey Squire from December 1957 issues of PLAYHOUR. I don’t have a hard copy of issue No. 168 so I can’t show the front cover, but I found a scan of the centre pages on the web, so enjoy! 

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!








Monday, December 18, 2017

1957 PLAYHOUR X-MAS: THE STORY OF FATHER CHRISTMAS FEAT. NORMAN GNOME - PART ONE



In 1957 PLAYHOUR celebrated the Holiday Season throughout December. Christmas-themed stories appeared on the front covers as well as inside, including The Story of Father Christmas presented on centre pages in full colour. The story was painted by the now largely-forgotten British illustrator Geoffrey Squire (1896-1989). The quality of art in those nursery comics of the 50s and 60s never ceases to impress me. 

Below are the front covers of the first two issues of December (Nos. 165 and 166) and the first two installments of The Story of Father Christmas. The remaining two will follow in my next blogpost. 











Friday, December 15, 2017

X-MAS ON 1956 PLAYHOUR FRONT COVERS



To celebrate the Holiday Season, here’s a nice sequence of 4 covers of PLAYHOUR young children’s comic from December 1956 featuring Dicky and Dolly & Co., illustrated (I believe) by Harold McCready. The realism of those anthropomorphic animal characters has a strange air of creepiness, don’t you think?





Wednesday, December 6, 2017

FACEACHE VOL. 1 FROM REBELLION




Last week I received my copy of Ken Reid’s Faceache published by the new copyright owner. I am proud I had an opportunity to make a small contribution to the preparation of the book, and I am pleased that the editor included a special thank you to me in the credits.


I like nearly everything about the book: introductions by Alan Moore and Ken’s son Antony are an entertaining read and offer some fresh insights; I like the endpapers and the back cover (not so thrilled about the front one); reproduction quality is impressive, considering that the stories were scanned from newsprint comics; it is nice the book is printed on plain paper rather than the glossy stock used for Marney the Fox collection published earlier this year.


The sub-title says “The Ken Reid Years”, so I would have preferred if they had left out the poorly-drawn pages by the substitute artist (16 altogether) and filled the book with Ken Reid’s art from cover to cover. 


That aside, it’s an excellent volume, a must for every Ken Reid/Faceache fan! I very much hope it does well in the bookstores and Rebellion find it worth their while to release Vol. 2, 3, etc. of this great character that happens to be one of my favourites in British comics.


P.S. - Have you noticed that the actual front cover differs from the version used in the various online articles and blogposts that promoted the book when it was first announced? Amazon and eBay sellers are still using the first version of the front cover. I am glad Rebellion changed it because as many as five scrunges in the first version were drawn by the substitute artist, while those appearing on the actual book are all by Reid!