The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

It isn’t every day we get an email from one of Brit comics legends, so you can understand we were pretty delighted to hear from Leo Baxendale. Leo has been one of the mainstays of British comics and cartooning for decades and it is no mere hyperbole to say he was and is a huge influence on generations of comics creators and readers (don’t blush, Leo, its true). His Bash Street Kids alone are probably responsible for warping untold generations of happy kids (in the best possible way); still running all these years later and still delighting readers – I think the Bash Street Kids, along with other Beano strips, are probably the earliest comics memories I have and I suspect that is true for a huge number of British comics fans. Come on, admit it – 20, 30, 40, 50-something or more, there is some part of your comics soul that, no matter how sophisticated and postmodern you think you like your sequential art today, will always belong to the Beano.

(the immortal – and often immoral – Minnie the Minx by Leo Baxendale)

If you were to do a poll to find the most influential living British cartoonist we imagine that Leo Baxendale might well be sitting on top of the pile. In the 50′s and 60′s he redefined the level of anarchy in UK children’s comics creating along the way (among many others) Minnie the Minx, The Banana Bunch, Little Plum and most famously The Bash Street KIds. In all he produced over 2,500 pages for ‘The Beano’ and also went on to create work for other publishing houses such as Odhams (Wham and Smash) and a myriad of titles for Fleetway/IPC. His style frequently changed over the years but the drawings are distinguished by an assured line and a frenetic energy to the panels, without doubt some of the best cartooning ever. Leo now publishes wonderful editions of his work (think the UK equivelant of Peter Maresca’s ‘So Many Splendid Sundays!’ Little Nemo book) and they can be bought directly from his website here.

Now in his mid seventies – “decrepitude looms” as he put it – Leo’s characters continue to flourish, not just in the form of today’s artists continuing series he began, but cropping up in other places, as with the appearance of Grimly Feendish in the recent Albion and, as Bryan Talbot told us a few months ago Leo has also contributed a page to Bryan’s upcoming (and eagerly anticipated) Alice in Sunderland. And instead of bowing to age stereotyping and donning a trilby hat and spending his days playing lawn bowls Leo has been organising a new exhibition of some of his work entitled ‘Stroppy Women’, which will feature (as you might infer from the title) some of his stroppier female creations from Minnie the Minx and the Bash Street Kids’ Toots onwards (oh yes – long, long before Tank Girl chased kangaroos through the outback British comics boasted some seriously naughty – and yet loveable – bad girls). Stroppy Women opens in Mills cafe/winebar/gallery, which Leo tells us at the medieval Whitheys Yard, just off the Shambles in the heart of Stroud, opening on Monday 12th of March and running through to the end of April. Here’s Leo to tell us about the exhibition:

“If you look at my website reaper.co.uk and click on the link An Ascent of Parnassus, you will find an absurdist narrative which is an amalgam of Treasure Island, and the Friday conventicles of sundry Stroud poets in The Shambles for coffee and subversive talk. That narrative is the source of the centrepiece of the exhibition: the Treasure Island Triptych (featuring Sophia Silver, stroppy descendant of Long John.)

The poet U.A. Fanthorpe will perform the official opening at the Private View (nothing actually very private about it – wine and chaos.) Note: When Ted Hughes died, The Guardian ran a strenuous campaign to have U.A. Fanthorpe made Poet Laureate, but she was pipped at the post by Andrew Motion (although on a happier note she received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2003; you can find out more about her and her works via the very fine Peterloo Poets, one of the excellent small presses who help to keep poetry alive in the UK – Joe).

At the View, when the master of ceremonies, poet Jeff Cloves, judges that enough people have been crammed in, he will use his ‘Thunderer’ (a piercing bosun’s whistle, as used on the Titanic) to call the throng to order. I will say a few pungent words, then hand over to U.A. Fanthorpe.”

(I couldn’t resist borrowing this image from the Necropolis Halt art gallery on Leo’s website, with Leo showing guests around as James Joyce visits)

Leo is also one of the creators interviewed for the upcoming BBC4 series of three one-hour programmes on British comics which we mentioned here a while ago; the director, Merryn Threadgould, contacted Leo recently to say it is mostly now in the can (the first part will deal, appropriately enough, with the Dandy and the Beano) and she is now “off to film voles on Exmoor”. The show should be going out this summer and we’ll try to let you know more about it when we hear it.

Not content with this Leo is already planning his next exhibition to follow Stroppy Women with ‘Beano UR 70’ which he aims to have running for July 2008 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the venerable British comic, where another British cartooning legend, Hunt Emerson, is now drawing Ratz, the strip which replaced the long-running Little Plum which Leo first drew many moons ago. Putting the new exhibitions into some context, Leo explained “in 2003 I put an exhibition together, and the committee (Steve Bell, David Lloyd and Corinne Pearlman) of ‘Cartoon County’ at Brighton framed the exhibits up and sent them trundling round the country for two years.

However, after I turned 70 I decided to become like the Oozlum Bird, moving in ever-decreasing circles, so in 2005 put together another exhibition, ‘The Beano Room’, framing it up myself, and for exhibiting in Stroud. Ditto the ‘Stroppy Women’ exhibition opening next month, and ditto the ‘Beano UR 70!’ show in 2008.” All in all it sounds like a treat for any comics fan (of any age) and we wish Leo all the best with it; for more on Leo click on over to his reaper.co.uk website (there is also a large fansite run by Peter Gray with a lot of Leo’s work on it here).