Jonah by Ken Reid is a classic and one of the highlights of Ken’s career.
When
I first set out to collect the complete run of Jonah some 7 yrs. ago, I realised it was going to be quite a challenge
and thought I’d be better off collecting reprints instead (in parallel…).
In
case you didn’t know, Ken’s original Jonah
series started in The Beano No. 817
(March 15th, 1958) and concluded in No. 1090 (August 8th,
1963); b/w reprints can be found in Hornet
Nos. 395 – 623 (3rd April, 1971 - 16th August, 1975), and
then in Buddy, in full colour/ part colour,
in all 130 issues of the comic (Feb. 14th, 1981 – Aug. 6th, 1983).
Unless
one has access to complete sets of the comics concerned, there's no way of knowing how
much of the original series was reprinted and in what order, or how much of the artwork/text remained
as it was in the reprints. I have the complete original run in the Beano and the full 130-issue set of
Buddy with Jonah reprints in nearly every issue, also a large pile of Hornets from the period in question but not a complete run. For what I’ve seen, the reprints in Hornet
are faithful reproductions of the strip as it appeared in The Beano, minus colour. Therefore, comparing the Beano and the Hornet versions of Jonah wouldn’t
be very interesting because they are essentially identical. I can show one or two
examples in the future, if anyone is curious.
The
reprints in the 80s Buddy are in colour/part-colour, with a different lettering but without major text
alterations. To illustrate the difference, I’ll show two consecutive original episodes from The Beano alongside with reprints in Buddy more
than 20 years later. Here’s the first
part, with matching rows of the two versions side-by side.
Be sure to come back for part two because I
will show a few panels of Ken’s original Jonah artwork from the next episode.
(click to enlarge!)
Fascinating stuff, Irmy - definitely more, please! I have to say that I hate the Buddy Typeset lettering, and not just because I used to do hand-lettering, but because it somehow makes even Ken Reid's pages a little less than they were (although still brilliant, naturally).
ReplyDeleteI agree very sad the lettering was changed and some of the colouring...look forward to your next post..
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion the modern lettering in Buddy did the strip no favours at all; Reid’s original captions, resembling a typical treasure map, are far superior. I get that they were going for uniformity with the other strips’ lettering and that 20+ years had elapsed, but they should have left well enough alone.
ReplyDeleteWhy does the Beano version say Tenth Lord of the Admiralty instead of First? The Buddy version used First Lord and I think that was the original intention because Tenth looks like it was patched in to the Beano version.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting article. I agree about the lettering spoiling the look of the strip in Buddy. Great stuff; more please.
ReplyDeleteI grew up with 1980s Beano lettering, so seeing the same thing in the redrawn balloons isn't terrible; just... less individual than the original. Fascinating to see how often these were revised and re-revised—and I'll add to the choir that the original Beano printing seems to have had First Lord intended and changed...
ReplyDelete