Buster by Baxendale

The excellent Kazoop! blog is always worth a visit for fans of British comics and today is a perfect example of that. Blogmaster Irmantas has found the six Buster's Diary strips for the covers of Buster that Leo Baxendale did as fill-ins in 1967 and has posted four of them on his blog today. I was aware of them as they were listed in the Buster Index by Steve Holland and Ray Moore 20 years ago, but I don't think I'd seen them before. 

Usually back then, a fill-in artist would be asked to 'ghost' the regular style but clearly Leo was allowed to do them in his own way with the distinctive style he was using at that time. Great stuff!

Head over to the Kazoop! blog here to see the four covers:
http://kazoop.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/buster-covers-by-leo-baxendale.html

Buster and Monster Fun Holiday Special 1990

IPC's weekly Monster Fun Comic only had a short run (73 issues from 1975 to 1976) before merging with Buster. The combined Buster and Monster Fun dropped the 'Monster Fun' part of its masthead after a while but the company kept it around in the form of the Buster and Monster Fun Holiday Special. This was in addition to the regular Buster Holiday Special.

Here are a few pages from the 1990 edition, (published by Fleetway after IPC had sold off their comics division to Robert Maxwell). It featured a fantastic cover (above) by the great Jimmy Hansen. A cracking piece of comic-horror art. 

The special had 64 pages on good quality paper, mostly in black and white but with some colour pages. Many of the contents were reprints but the ones I'm showing here were originated for the special.

Dracula Dobbs was a great fun character, very nicely drawn by Nigel Edwards...

Terry Bave's work had a clear, enjoyable feel to it. Here's a busy activity page he did for the special...

Comics veteran Reg Parlett had been a mainstay at Amalgamated Press / Fleetway / IPC / new Fleetway almost throughout the history of British comics! An incredible talent whose pages were a joy to see. He was 85 when he drew this Beastenders strip and although his style had loosened up over the years it's still absolutely top rate...

I thoroughly enjoyed writing and drawing this Tom Thug in Monsterland story, at it remains one of my personal favourites 25 years later. I couldn't resist giving a cameo appearance to Grimly Feendish on the second page...

Mark Bennington was another Buster regular with a lively, fun style. Here's one of his Horrorday '90 strips from the special...

On the back page, Chalky, drawn by Gordon Hill rounded off the special...

I also did a two page Vampire Brats strip for that issue, which you can see over on my other blog:
http://comiconline24hcomics.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/monster-fun.html

Latest sale of original artwork

Here's an unusual item from my art archive. Back in 1991 one of the several strips I drew for The Viz Pathetic Sharks Bumper Special was the Albert O'Balsam and his Magic Hat strip above. The script was by Chris Donald, and I drew it based on layouts from an earlier unpublished version by Roger Langridge. 

I've put the complete two page strip on eBay this week, along with another item, a Vampire Brats page from Buster from around the same year. If you're interested you'll find them by clicking here: Buy my stuff please!   

Bidding ends on Sunday 12th April. All bids very much appreciated! 

Viz and Buster pages on eBay

Now that Christmas is well and truly over, postal deliveries are back to normal and people have hopefully had time to put aside some disposable income I'm starting to list some original artwork on eBay again. This week I've listed a Tom Thug page from Buster and a Suicidal Syd page from Viz. 

Bidding ends on Sunday 8th Feb, so if you're interested in these pages all bids are very welcome. You'll find my eBay page by clicking here. Good luck!

Trade Ads for Sixties Comics

My thanks to Shaqui Le Vesconte for discovering these ads for 1960s comics that appeared in the magazine National Newsagent Bookseller Stationer for the retail trade. I've always been fascinated by stuff like this; the way comics were promoted to retailers in adverts that we as readers would never have seen. 

The ads speak for themselves so I'll post them without comment, - except to say that promoting "The comic the children have asked for" with what might be perceived as a picture of a naked man with a logo covering his modesty might not have been the wisest choice. (Yes, we know it's the Sub-Mariner and he's wearing trunks behind that banner but would the old lady running the corner shop know that? Still, it was the 1960s. Crazy times, man!) 

Christmas Comics: BUSTER (1969)

This was one of my favourite Christmas covers as a child. Firstly, the logo was a different colour than the usual red-on-yellow background design, then it had a large image as opposed to just a full page strip, and thirdly all that snow! It's a simple illustration, but very effective. Artwork by Angel Nadal, who was the regular artist on Buster's Dream-World, with Buster being a sort of backstreet Little Nemo for the duration of the strip.

There were many Christmas themed strips in this issue. Here's just a few of them, starting with an episode of Crabbe's Crusaders, a sort of powerless British X-Men. Art by Carlos Cruz...

Over the page, it's The Twitopians, drawn by Gordon Hogg...

A few pages further on and here's Big Chief Pow Wow by Leo Baxendale...

I was never a fan of Tin Teacher but I know some of you liked it so here he is. Drawn by Peter Davidson...

Finally, The Astounding Adventures of Charlie Peace with art by Jack Pamby. Charlie's exploits usually backfired on him (and the character was an inspiration for my Tom Thug strip years later) but, as it's Christmas, Charlie has a happy ending this week...

I hope you're enjoying this dip into the festive archives. Another one soon! 

Original Thugs!

A last minute mention that my auction of original Tom Thug pages from Oink! and Buster ends this evening. If you're interested, please visit my eBay page here:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/graphite47/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

All bids are appreciated. Thanks in advance, and good luck!