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.