Comics Britannia – Leo’s experience | The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

Comics Britannia – Leo’s experience

Wed, Sep 5, 2007

After reading the Comics Britannia article the other day Leo Baxendale, who features heavily in the first episode, dropped me a line about his experiences with making the programme. After being less than impressed with a much earlier BBC programme on the Dandy and Beano he was, he says, not best disposed to the BBC and the production team had to work to persuade him that they were intent on treating him and the comics genre with respect (which as I said yesterday I think they have). Leo also had some issues with the moral rights to the work, which seems appropriate since the issue of the creator’s rights is picked up in the series. Fortunately these issues were all resolved so we could be treated to Leo in the first episode. Leo’s kindly given permission to post his thoughts here -I thought it served to give a little more insight into the programme and the efforts that go on behind the scenes by the production people and the contributors which normally we’re largely unaware of when we actually watch the show:

“I’d like to mention Merryn Threadgould (a freelance) who directed the first programme in the series, The Fun Factory. Last autumn, when the BBC e-mailed to ask me to be filmed for the series, I sent back a stroppy answer turning them down, due to my contempt for the BBC’s corrupt Arena The Dandy-Beano Story of January 1988. I was nonplussed when they then said they couldn’t do the programme without me, and could they come up to Stroud?

Alastair Laurence, Merryn Threadgould and Andy Hall duly met me and Peggy at Mills cafe/gallery in Stroud, the medieval place where I have exhibitions nowadays. Mills have the most superb food, so Alastair, Merryn and Andy had slap-up feeds (I just had half of a cup of coffee, because I was too busy talking). At the end of the meeting I agreed to take part, with stipulations (this led to a ding-dong later on, about the Moral Rights part of the BBC contract, but that was sorted to my satisfaction).

(Leo’s Bash Street Kids acting nicely to Teacher – you just know that means the wee rascals are up to something! (C) DC Thomson)

Shortly afterwards Merryn Threadgould came up to Stroud alone, for a further meeting with me for a more detailed discussion about the filming. At the filming, Merryn, as the director, sat in the chair facing me, asking me questions. After the filming, she got on with the editing. There was thereafter an extended hectic period, with flurries of e-mails to-ing and fro-ing between Andy Hall and myself, asking subsidiary questions of me, and requests for further visual material, and I was sending off photographs and inkjet images of my drawings to be filmed, and so on and so on.

(Cover to Leo’s “The Beano Room”, available from his site)

The team had available for reference my book A Very Funny Business (published Duckworth 1978); the images of Davey Law’s ‘clockwork toy’ Dennis page were taken from the book, and so on. They also had copies of my books ‘On Comedy; The Beano and Ideology’, and ‘The Beano Room’ for reference (check Leo’s site for more on his books – Joe). Later, when the editing was finished, Merryn told me that she had originally booked the editing suite for three weeks, but that in the end it had taken ten weeks. Then she handed over the edited material to the special effects people, to weave their wizard spells. Her work done, Merry went off to film voles and badgers on Exmoor.”