CAP-LESS BUSTER

A couple of posts ago I showed a cover of BUSTER by Leo Baxendale in which Buster’s cap flew off – a very unusual occurrence indeed because Buster was famous for never appearing without his trademark accessory. He always kept the lid tight on his head and took extra care not to loose it, whatever the circumstances. Even when he had to wear something else (e.g. a cook’s hat, King’s hat, an army helmet, etc.), he always donned it on top of his green checkered piece of headwear.

It is believed that the only time when Buster was shown cap-less was in the very last issue of the comic (see the image above) but the Baxendale cover confirms this wasn’t the case, so I decided to see if I can find more examples.

So far I have checked the run of BUSTER from the first post-tabloid number (30th Oct., 1965) till the end of 1971, and found two. The first one came up right in the beginning of the run.  Buster made such a fuss about keeping his cap on that I find it surprising it took the scriptwriter so long to come up with a story in which someone played a trick on him. I don't know the name of the artist who drew this one:

The second example is interesting because Nadal made an exception and showed Buster cap-less without any reason at all, just like Baxendale had a couple of years before him. It is the only time that Nadal ignored the rule during the run I’ve checked.

I will check other issues when I have time and report my findings in due course…

BUSTER CHRISTMASES. PART TWO – THE SEVENTIES

The seventies were off to a rough start for Buster because it fell victim to printers’ industrial action and no issues were published for eleven weeks in the end of 1970 and the beginning of 1971, hence no 1970 Christmas edition. 

Here are three more covers by Nadal with the snowy logo:

By Christmas 1974 Nadal was replaced by Reg Parlett who remained in charge of the character for more than a decade. 

 

BUSTER CHRISTMASES. PART ONE – THE SIXTIES

2012 was a good year for me as a collector. I have finished putting together several sets and made some serious inroads into my wants lists for other British comics that I want to have complete runs of. BUSTER happens to be one of them. With only some 20 weekly issues of the title remaining on my wants list, I have all but one Christmas editions of the title so I thought it would be fun to take a look at the four decades of BUSTER Christmases and see how the main character (and the comic itself) developed over the years – from the infancy days as Son of Andy Capp, to childhood and teenage years from the brush of Angel Nadal, to the youth and adult age of Reg Parlett era, to maturity portrayed by Tom Paterson and Jimmy Hansen and finally the feeble old age of reprint.

Let’s start with the 60s and the first Christmas edition – the only one I don’t have a hard copy of. I found the image on George Shiers' blog here. Art by Bill Titcombe.

A year later the illustrator was Hugh McNeill:

1962 was the beginning of Angel Nadal’s era:

BUSTER was a tabloid-sized paper from first issue until the middle of 1965. By Christmas of 1965 the paper had shrunk and become closer to the standard well-familiar format of IPC comics, but still larger than that. It looks like Nadal was substituted by another artist on this one:

With a few exceptions, Nadal contiued drawing Buster for well over a decade until 1974.

 

Come back soon for Buster Christmases of the 70s!

 

SPORTS THEME IN BRITISH COMICS TO CELEBRATE LONDON OLYMPICS 2012 (DAY 4)

Let’s take a quick look at tennis today. As I mentioned it in my previous post, tennis was one of the privileged sports in British comics. Many popular characters tried a hand at the sport once in a while so it probably won’t be the last time that we see it in this series of Olympic posts…

This lively set appeared in 1977 SHIVER AND SHAKE Holiday Special and was a reprint of the Lion Lot from LION by Leo Baxendale