BUSTER COVERS BY LEO BAXENDALE

The Spanish artist Angel Nadal was responsible for the vast majority of BUSTER covers in the period from 1962 till 1974. The few exceptions included six episodes of Buster's Diary by Leo Baxendale in 1967 (the issues cover-dated 6th May, 15th July, 5th Aug, 26th Aug, 23rd Sept and 21st Oct).

My speculation is that the Editor wanted to have insurance in case Nadal’s artwork didn’t arrive on time in the post from Barcelona, so he asked Leo Baxendale to draw some and kept them “in reserve”. Here are some of the covers. I prefer Nadal’s version of Buster’s Diary. 

ACCIDENTAL RUDENESS

I recently received a small joblot of the Beano from the mid-fifties and found this early episode of When The Bell Rings in issue No. 630:

I decided to show it because of something I spotted in the first panel:

I remember reading somewhere that publishers had an internal directive warning against the use of certain innocent words in comics because they tended to look rude when printed, and ‘flick’ appears to have been one of them. It seems that in this case DCT realised it before it was too late but they were more careful when reprinting the episode in the Dandy Beano Magic Moments book nearly 40 years later:

All Images 2015 © DC Thomson, Ltd.  All rights reserved.

REPRINTS IN MONSTER FUN COMIC

MONSTER FUN COMIC wasn’t big on reprints but it still included a few that probably served as space fillers when artists failed to deliver their weekly strips on time.

The Robot Maker was a short-lived strip in the early issues of COR!! illustrated by Frank McDiarmid in his version of Ken Reid’s style. Only one episode was reprinted in MFC No. 47 where it substituted Teddy Scare which failed to appear that week.

Stoneage Brit Ancient Nit was another reprint from COR!! It made a surprise one-off appearance in MFC No. 40 where it was introduced as a Fave Funster from the Holiday Special:

The same goes for Sam’s Spook: the caption above the first episode of the strip in MFC suggests that many readers wrote in asking to see more of the strip after it was (re)printed in the first MFC Holiday Special. The original run of Sam’s Spook appeared in SMASH! in 1970 - 1971 where it was illustrated by Leo Baxendale. Reprints of Sam’s Spook can be found in MFC issues 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 38 and 46. Originally it was a b/w strip but two episodes in MFC Nos. 24 and 34 were couloured in:

Hairy only made one appearance in MFC No. 7. I am unsure if it was a reprint and if it was one, I don’t know where from. Can anyone help?

All Images 2014 © Egmont UK Ltd.  All rights reserved. Used with permission.

A LOOK AT MONSTER FUN FEATURES – BADTIME BEDTIME BOOKS – Part THREE

In my first blogpost on Badtime Bedtime Books I suggested that the BBBs can be classified into three periods –the Leo Baxendale period, the ‘grey’ period and the Mike Brown period. 

I’ve already dealt with the work of Leo Baxendale and made a few inroads into the second period because the periods don’t have clear-cut time lines and occasionally overlap, e.g. during the LB period Sherlock Bones in MFC No. 15 was drawn by Tom Paterson, while Ghoul Dilocks and the Three Scares in MFC No. 16 and Dick Twerpin in MFC No. 24 may have very well been the work of Bob Dewar. See the comments to my previous post.

The ‘grey’ period was the time when, trying to cope with Leo Baxendale’s departure from comics, Bob Paynter experimented with other artists. Mr. Baxendale’s last BBB (William the Conk) was in MFC No. 28 (20th December, 1975) so theoretically, the beginning of the ‘grey’ period coincided with the start of the New Year. In his book A VERY FUNNY BUSINESS Mr. Baxendale recalled how Bob Paynter complained to him that other artists were reluctant to take the job because of the amount of work the BBBs involved.

24) The first BBB of 1976 was Dick Twittington by Terry Bave. It appeared in the first issue of the year (MFC No. 30, 3rd January, 1976):

25) The Ghoul and the Pussycat in MFC No. 32 (17th January, 1976) was by Leslie Harding:

26) Gong of Kong in MFC No. 34 (31st January, 1976) looks like the work of Mike Brown but initials ‘RG’ in the last panel suggest differently. Any ideas as to who may have drawn this one? Perhaps the whole story was illustrated by Mike but someone else was asked to draw the last frame and sneaked in the initials? 

MFC issue No. 36 (14th February, 1976) had a BBB pull-out poster, presumably from the hand of Leo Baxendale. You can see the image in the first post of the series HERE.

27) Half-A-Dollar Boy in MFC No. 37 (21st February, 1976) was another quick job by Leslie Harding:

28) Doctor Poo in MFC No. 39 (6th March, 1976). This one has no signature and/or initials, and my two candidates for art credits are Mike Brown and Tom Paterson. I think it looks more like Mike’s work:

From this point all but two of the BBBs were by Mike Brown as confirmed by his signature/initials or the general look and feel of the artwork. Come back soon for the gallery of covers.

All Images 2014 © Egmont UK Ltd.  All rights reserved. Used with permission.