Combat Colin and co. on Comixology

Today's an important day for digital comic Aces Weekly! Up to now, the weekly anthology has only been accessible to read whilst online on their website, but from today, May 7th, you'll be able to buy Aces Weekly Volume 1 to read on the Comixology app. Hundreds of pages of exclusive strips from David Lloyd, John McCrea, David Hitchcock and more including a new three page Combat Colin story by me. Only £6.99.

Comixology have changed their tech recently so the app is just a reader now and you have to purchase the comics from their website here:
https://www.comixology.co.uk/Aces-Weekly-1/digital-comic/83759

This evening, at Orbital Comics (8 Great Newport Street, London WC2H 7JA), you can meet some of the Aces at a signing / sketching session in the shop. Attending creators will include David Lloyd, Mark Montague, David Hine, Steve Marchant, David Leach, Chris Geary and more! 

I can't make it there myself but if you're in London get along to Orbital Comics between 5pm and 7pm.

*****************************

Then, for another comics fix the same evening, go to Gosh Comics (1 Berwick Street, London W1F 0DR) at 7pm for their latest Process Workshop to see Jessica Martin talk about creating her It Girl comic. 

Over "100 Years of Fun" at the Lakes

At this year's Lakes International Comic Art Festival I'll be presenting a talk on over 100 years of British humour comics, from Ally Sloper to Toxic. Plans are for it to be illustrated on screen with images from my collection. 

It'll be good to see some of you there if you can make it. Here's the details:
http://www.comicartfestival.com/hundred-years-fun-lew-stringer/

Cor! Wor Nicky joins The Sunday Post

Thanks to 'colcool007' on the Comics UK Forum for bringing this to my attention. Today's issue of The Sunday Post introduces a brand new regular comic strip; Wor Nicky, written by Morris Heggie and illustrated by Ken Harrison.

Billed as "Our first all-new cartoon since 1936" Wor Nicky is a community nurse and a "feisty lass from Geordieland". A non-Scot comics character in the Post? Yes indeed, as the paper acknowledges that one-third of its sales are in England, primarily in the North East.

Comic fans will recognise the name of Ken Harrison as the artist who has previously drawn The Broons and Oor Wullie for the paper, along with many pages for the DC Thomson comics over the years, including a long run on Desperate Dan for The Dandy. 

The Broons and Oor Wullie still continue every week of course, along with mini-strip Wee Harry, all drawn these days by Peter Davidson.

You can read all about the new strip over on the Sunday Post website.

Mickey Mouse Weekly (Coronation issue 1937)

Comics have often commemorated various points in history which adds to their interest as they become social documents of the times. This 66th issue of Mickey Mouse Weekly was no exception. Published on May 7th 1937, it celebrated the upcoming coronation of King George VI which took place on May 12th. (George's brother, Edward, had abdicated in order to marry divorcee Wallace Simpson. Different times back then, with Edward's actions making him unsuitable for the throne.)

Inside, an editorial claimed that the cover to this issue had been "specially drawn for ALL of you by Mr.Disney". It certainly bears Walt Disney's signature, but the likelihood is that it was drawn by Wilfred Haughton, a British artist who was the regular cover illustrator. Unless any of you know differently? 

Mickey Mouse Weekly was a splendid comic. Published by Odhams, it was tabloid size with glossy paper, quality printing, and four of its 12 pages in full colour. Compared to its rivals, which were mostly 8 pages in black ink on on cheap coloured paper, Mickey Mouse Weekly must have seemed really special.

The contents were a mixture of Disney newspaper strips and originated British strips and prose stories. Here's one of the pages by British creators: Elmer and Tillie sharing a page with Skit and Skat. Basil Reynolds was usually the artist but this page looks a little rushed in places for his style. Perhaps it's just not Reynolds at his best, or perhaps he was a bit down because this was the last time these characters would appear for a while.

There's a myth in UK comics that all British comics featured text beneath the panels until The Dandy came along in December 1937 and started featuring speech balloons more regularly. I disproved that tale two years ago with this post: http://comiconline24h.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/myth-of-speech-balloon.html

As you can see, Mickey Mouse Weekly, which predates The Dandy, also proves that claim is untrue, as speech balloons appear throughout the strips, none of which are burdened with text under the pictures. It's time to rewrite the history books.

The full colour centrespread of this issue featured a mixture of American Sunday newspaper strips, although the 'pirates cave' vertical strip is very British in style so is presumably original.

A British adventure serial in the issue was The City of Jewels, illustrated by John McCail...

Being the coronation issue, a photograph of the royal family was expected, - appearing after a text adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper. That's the current Queen in the bottom right there, as a young princess, which gives you some scale of the age of this comic. 

On the back page, Mickey Mouse in the Foreign Legion; reprinting the US newspaper strip serial by the great Floyd Gottredson. 

I recently bought this comic on eBay and I'm very pleased with the purchase as the condition is excellent. It just goes to show that paper will keep in top shape for decades if stored in the right conditions and isn't treated roughly. 

The Day Batman Was Too Late

Art by Jack Kirby

I see that IDW have just published a collection of Batman Sunday newspaper strips from the sixties. (Batman: The Silver Age Newspaper Comics Vol.1: 1966 - 67). These were the same strips that UK comic Smash! reprinted every week on its cover back in 1966. 

However, there was one week when the copies of the strips were too late in arriving from the USA, so Smash! featured the Hulk on the cover instead. (See above. Smash! No.34, dated 24th September 1966.) Page two explained the reason...

The Incredible Hulk was a regular reprint series in the pages of Smash! anyway, so promoting him on the cover, albeit as a last-minute fill in, was a good way for the editors to turn a problem to their advantage. That iconic image of the Hulk originally appeared as half of the cover to Tales to Astonish No.67 (1965) and a small version was later used regularly in the corner box of Astonish, and its successor The Incredible Hulk every month for a few years.

By the way, that same issue of Smash! was the one which featured the infamous goof by an Odhams art bodger. Extending panels for a reprint of Avengers No.2 to fit Smash's different page layout, he obviously didn't know the panel below was a close up of Iron Man's eye and he added an extra pupil!

While I'm at it, I can't let the moment pass without showing the back cover to that issue, featuring an episode of Ken Reid's Queen of the Seas. It's Ken at the top of his game, despite the muddy printing on the cheap newsprint.

The following week, the cover of Smash! was back to its regular look, with the delayed Batman strip in its usual place.  

If you're interested in buying the collection of Batman strips you can order it through Amazon by clicking here.

By the way, I'm sure you already know (but there's always someone who says the images are too small), - click on the images to see them much larger and to read them better. 

Aces Weekly signing at Orbital Comics

The evening of Wednesday May 7th will see a group of contributors to the digital anthology Aces Weekly on hand at Orbital Comics in London for a signing and sketching session to meet the readers. Here's the info from publisher David Lloyd from the event page on Facebook:

"The very first in-store signing by Aces Weekly, to celebrate reaching our TENTH volume, and mark our appearance on premier digital comic store, ComiXology, on the same day - May 7th! The great David Hine, David Lloyd, David Leach, Chris Geary, Steve Marchant, Mark Montague, and more will be on hand to chat, sign, and sketch! Never met these geniuses before? Live near London? Come and see us! You'd better - otherwise we'll sic some dinosaurs on you! Wednesday, May 7th, 5-7pm!"

All of the characters in the image above, and more, (including Combat Colin) will be in the incredible, over 200-page, Volume One of Aces Weekly, which will be on sale on Comixology on that day.

Aces at Orbital event page on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/events/232721430261387/?ref=22

Aces Weekly website:

http://www.acesweekly.co.uk

Orbital Comics website:

http://www.orbitalcomics.com/

Countdown to the publication of this great new book

Cover to the forthcoming book.

Before 2000AD was launched in 1977, the best British comic of the 1970s was, for me, Polystyle's Countdown comic, launched in 1971 and retitled TV Action a year later. You can read more about it in some of my previous posts here:
http://comiconline24h.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=Countdown

The comic is still fondly remembered to this day for its high production values (in its Countdown incarnation) and quality of artwork (John M. Burns, Brian Lewis, Harry Lindfield, etc). Now comics historian Steve Holland is to publish a book covering the history and background of the comic, including an index to the strips. Keep an eye on Steve's Bear Alley Books website for ordering information coming soon:
http://bearalleybooks.blogspot.co.uk/