The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

As regular readers will know BBC4 will soon be treating us to a comics season, the centrepiece of which is Comics Britannia, comprising three one-hour documentaries all dedicated to one of our favourite subjects in the whole, wide world: British comics. The episodes, in order of transmission, are The Fun Factory which looks at the colourful delights of children’s comics from the emergence of the Dandy and Beano in the 30s onwards, Boys and Girls which takes in – yes, you guessed it! – the realm of comics for boys and girls such as the revered Eagle and girl’s fave Jackie and finally Anarchy in the UK which brings us to 2000AD, Deadline, Viz and the emergence of comics for grown-ups (but not always grown-up comics!) and right up to the present with Alice in Sunderland, a three-part structure to the series which roughly follows the age ranges of the readers and the changing tastes as the decades pass.

I was very fortunate to get an advance look at Comics Britannia (thanks must go to the production team and the BBC’s press folks for that) and I bring you good news, my comic amigos – it is a terrific set of programmes. We’re not talked down to, the comics medium isn’t treated as a lesser artform, the people who create them and who read them aren’t denigrated – nope, this treats the world of comics with a fair bit of respect and a great deal of very warm affection, drawing on a diverse array of contributors from the world of comics, including Paul Gravett (who looks so dapper in his bow tie I thought he could just as easily pass for a legal or medical professor, gave the medium a wee touch of class!), David Lloyd, Leo Baxendale, Pat Mills, Steve Bell, Gerald Scarfe, Alan Grant, Bryan Talbot, Charles Shaar Murray, Euan Kerr and Alan Moore among others. The subjects, like the comics we love, range across a grand vista of subjects and styles, from the early kid’s comics like the Beano and Dandy in the late 30s to photostrips in teen girl’s comics in the 70s and 80s (some of which feature some surprising actors – keep your eyes peeled for younger versions of some now very famous faces!), ultra violence in Action, the rebirth of the medium for adult readers with Deadline and V For Vendetta and even takes in some of the naughty bits with Alan Moore discussing The Lost Girls.

(Leo Baxendale’s immortal Bash Street Kids, heroes to generations of Beano-reading schoolkids and incorporating little subversive touches such as Teacher’s Wife looking just like him, a hint at a possibly naughty relationship I’d never picked up on as a kid, (C) DC Thomson)

The first episode, The Fun Factory (which launches the season on Monday 10th September on BBC4 at 9pm), begins largely at the beginning, with the colourful and crazy antics of DC Thomson’s Dandy and Beano exploding onto the 1930s scene to the delight of children everywhere. Of course there is a warm rush of nostalgia inherent in the series, most especially with this first episode – I think pretty much all of us have fond memories of the Beano, Dandy, Topper, Beezer and a multitude of other kid’s comics. But the show captures the feel of those days through personal recollections, artwork and archive footage of schoolkids swapping comics in the playground (sigh, remember those days?) but without becoming too mawkish or overly sentimental about it.

Instead this episode revels in the humour of those comics and I found myself laughing out loud at much of the artwork; so many of those characters are still funny, often more so for the expressions their artists gave them than the actual prank they are playing. How very appropriate that I would laugh so much watching this episode. There are appearances from various folks, including Paul Gravett (introduced with a cartoon caption reading ‘Comics Brainiac’) and DC Thomson’s Euan Kerr (who you may recall chatted to us about the Beano and Dandy last summer), but the main focus is on some of the great names: Dudley Watkins, Ken Reid and Leo Baxendale, with plenty of time given to them (and a good helping of Leo, always a welcome sight to British comics readers). Given how few of the creators of that period were actually credited by name on their creations it is nice to see them being given such recognition here.
Boys and Girls (which airs on Monday 17th at 9pm on BBC4) does what it says on the tin – looks at the comics for boys and girls, those titles readers graduated to after starting on the kid’s comics. That means thinking about what girls want in a comic, which is interesting in itself – today we often discuss gender portrayal in comics and the imbalance between female creators (and readers) and the male, but in the 50s these comics sold in their millions and what the girls wanted wasn’t a ‘female Dan Dare’ adventure like woman pilot Kitty Hawk, they wanted stories about friendship, school, love and ballet dancing (enter Belle of the Ballet) – how times change. The boys, of course, wanted adventure and they got it, most notably with Dan Dare and his colour pages brightening up a post-war, Austerity era Britain with dynamic art, daring-do and an optimism in the future – and along the way influencing a number of young readers, some of whom would grow up to become highly respected comics writers and artists themselves, in turn influencing more up and coming readers and creators.

(Frank Hampson’s Dan Dare in the eighth issue of the Eagle, 1950, arguably still one of the UK’s most influential strips. (C) the Dan Dare Corporation)

As the decades pass the styles change from the relatively wholesome, largely middle class stories to more diverse strips telling very different tales as the times changed and what kids expected changed with them. This is well summarised in the famous football strip created by Frank S Pepper, Roy of the Rovers, over the years going from a warm-hearted footie tale to the late period when the titular star is horribly maimed and taking in a homage to then-popular 80s soap Dallas when Roy is shot by a mystery assailant. The world of comics was getting darker and more violent as creators like Pat Mills gleefully warped the minds of many a young reader (and oh how we loved him for it!). By the 70s kid’s expectations and demands have changed and so has the country: economic crisis, fuel crisis, massive strikes, inflation, racism – we were ready for Anarchy in the UK.

The third part of Comics Britannia will have a special resonance for any 30 or 40 something fan: this is the era of 2000AD, the time when Viz took the deceptively simple styles of kids comics like the Beano and turned them into rude, vulgar and bloody funny stories for adults (going from a small press to national bestseller in the process) with Biffa Bacon and the Fat Slags, the time when creators were looking to make comics which appealed to mature readers – and when those of us who were growing up fast were looking for comics that would still appeal to us as we got older. Lucky us, we had one of the last big hurrahs of the British comics industry with publications like Crisis and Deadline alongside 2000AD. And we got V For Vendetta. Despite the fact comics were now selling far less than their heydays (when several million a week were purchased by eager readers) in the face of competition from video games, VCRs, multiplex cinemas and more this was an incredibly fertile period for British comics and, as the show says, one which was important for the rest of the global comics community too because it highlighted creators like David Lloyd and Alan Moore to the world. Alan, by the way, does a very nice, creepy croaking-voiced reading of some of Rorschach from the Watchmen as well as gleefully exploring the idea of comics porn-erotica with Lost Girls.

(Lordy, lordy, it’s the Fat Slags!! (C) Viz)

The series has a very strong graphical style to it (supplied by Kiss My Pixel) which is very appropriate to the subject matter and also refreshingly different from the normal approach you might expect in this kind of show of having a ‘talking head’ interview subject with perhaps some static artwork behind them. Not here – instead good use is made of graphical technology to create moving comics panels showcasing the artwork but also dropping many of the contributors right into the art, with the comics world becoming a virtual set, so we see Leo Baxendale sitting in a period comics living room or Alan Grant discussing Judge Dredd while apparently astride the future lawman’s Lawmaster bike. It would have been simpler and easier to cut away from a talking head to a close-up of a few art panels with a voice-over, so I think kudos to the CB team for using graphical technology to create this much more vibrant, dynamic and engaging approach and integrating it so well between the art and the contributors – I felt it captured that buzz we all got from reading comics panels very well, not to mention being an attractive (and distinctive) look for the programmes.

The only thing that I could say is wrong with the series is that I wanted more; there are comics that only got a mention in passing and so many writers, artists and editors who it would have been terrific to see included. But I can’t blame that on the producers – they have three hours of airtime and that means there is a limit to what can be included in those hours. I’m sure some viewers will be asking why such and such isn’t included, but there are limitations on any programme maker – all in all I think they managed to get a good representative sample of some important and influential comics creators into those three hours and they presented them well, treating them with respect as artistic creators. Perhaps if the programme is well received (as I hope it will be) then that might allow for some form of follow-up programmes – I’m sure most of us would be happy to see that.

The series also manages that delicate balancing act between offering enough detail for the comics geeks like myself and still making sure the show is accessible to the casual viewer – and since this is a TV programme from a public service broadcaster they have to try and make it appeal to many people (without dumbing down). And in this respect too Comics Britannia succeeds well in my opinion – for the comics fan it is must-see TV but equally for the person who perhaps hasn’t picked up a comic since their early teens there’s a huge amount to enjoy here. Let’s face it, almost every person in the UK over the age of 30 grew up reading comics at some point in their lives and that’s another facet of the series – it isn’t just saying comics are genuine art (which we’ve always argued anyway) it is illustrating how embedded into our shared cultural heritage they are; we all know who Dan Dare is, we all know who eats a Cow Pie, even people who haven’t touched a comic in decades. My mum and dad could watch this and enjoy it as well as any comics fan. It is very rewarding to see our beloved medium being treated with such respect and affection (and it is a nice reminder to folks who don’t think of themselves as comics readers that comics are in their cultural DNA all the same); as mature material lures in readers from beyond the normal comics readership to try these new-fangled graphic novels perhaps series like this will stir others to think “why did I stop reading comics when I got older?” and come into their local comics stores and ask, what’s good on the scene now? I want to start reading these again.

As well as a sneak-peek at the programmes I’ve also been lucky enough to have a quick chat with Alastair Laurence, who is the series producer and director and so one of the folks directly responsible for bringing Comics Britannia to our screens. Alastair was also involved with the BBC’s brilliant Animation Nation, so he has an admirable track record in showcasing top Brit artistic talent to viewers. He took some time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions for the blog:

FPI: Hi, Alastair and thanks for taking some time to chat with us. First off, congratulations on Comics Britannia – having just seen a sneak peek at the series I have to say I’m impressed and I’m sure comics fans will be too when they get their chance to see it soon on BBC4. I suppose we should probably start by asking about your own personal comics experiences – are you a comics reader yourself, or perhaps like many folks you grew up as reading them but drifted away as you got older?

Alastair: I was a big reader of war comics in the sixties so I grew up with some not terribly useful attitudes to Johnny foreigner – Captain Hurricane was a personal favourite. But I put away comics until the eighties when like most of us I developed a taste for Viz.

(boy’s comics get violent in Action, 1976, (C) IPC)

FPI: How well I remember some of those – not exactly a portrayal of foreign people the UN would approve of today! Can I ask what was the inspiration for creating Comics Britannia? The comics medium has been slowly gaining some respectability as an art form in recent years – it still isn’t in the respected position the medium enjoys in countries like France, but there does seem to be more acceptance of the medium as a valid artform as well as popular entertainment, with regular reviews of graphic novels in the broadsheets and discussion panels at the Edinburgh Book Festival. Is it a subject you’ve wanted to work on for a while or did the time feel just right to look back at the medium – or was it a combination of factors?

Alastair: A couple of years ago we produced a BBC4 series called Animation Nation which celebrated the achievements of British animators. We were looking for a follow up and the idea of comics was a natural one. Again the purpose is to tell our viewers that comics are simply one of the great glories of our popular culture where writers and artists were working whose magic should be the equivalent of other artforms – this is the British ninth art. We should be proud of our comics history.

FPI: You get no arguments from us on that score – we’ve been arguing for ages that comics can be (and indeed are) a serious artform as well as entertainment. Comics Britannia is obviously going to appeal to comics readers like myself, but one of the things that struck me about the series is that it is also very accessible to the more casual comics reader – the person who read the Dandy or Bunty or Warlord when they were young but hardly any comics since will still find it interesting and there is an obvious nostalgia element there for many viewers too. How important was it to you to make the programmes interesting for a wide range of viewers and not just the die-hard comics fans and how did you set about trying to create that balance between making it accessible for viewers who may not have read a comic in years and the serious fans who will want lots of detail?

(John Armstrong’s Bella from Tammy, 1983, (C) IPC)

Alastair: If you look at the mix of contributors we have in the series you will see how important it was to pull in all kinds of interested viewers. For die hard fans you can listen to Leo Baxendale and Alan Moore. But you can also relate to the core theme of growing up with comics by listening to people like Jacqueline Wilson, Nick Park, Steve Bell, Gerald Scarfe and Frank Skinner. You can satisfy the demands of fans by dealing with key artists but you can also fascinate others by revealing the hidden hands behind classic strips – who was the artist behind Dennis the Menace or Dan Dare for example. This is popular mainstream television!

FPI: It was fascinating to hear how comics fans like Nick Park or Jacqueline Wilson (who does a lot to promote reading among the young as well as penning extremely popular books) were influenced by their early comics experiences – you have to wonder how different their own work might be if not for those influential strips. Even a youngster today who hasn’t read the Beano but loves Wallace and Gromit is subject to that influence filtered by the original influence the comics had on Nick Park for instance.

Comics are, above all, a visual medium and obviously any programmes on them have to reflect this. I was expecting to see pictures of classic comics artwork and characters in the shows, but I was surprised and delighted at how well you had integrated the artwork. Instead of cutting away from an interview to a static shot of artwork the art is quite alive in CB, comics panels moving along the screen, characters foregrounded to give a more 3-D effect, some movement suggested – I thought it captured that vibrancy which the comics medium can often produce. Was this the idea all along, to try and give something of the feel of a comics page, or was this approach something you developed along with Kiss My Pixel (who I thought did a terrific job) as you realised what technology could allow you to do visually?

Alastair: The idea from the beginning was that from the first frame of the documentary you were in the comics world and trying to copy the experience of reading a comic – which is a complex but dynamic act. That was the theory at least! So that was the brief we gave our graphics colleagues at Kiss My Pixel. Our style emerged pretty much as we went along – evolutionary if you like – trying some things and discarding others. But I like to think it was thought out!

(Judge Dredd in Origins, art by Carlos Ezquerra, (C) Rebellion)

FPI: Well I think you pulled it off very well; it suits the subject matter and gives the series a distinctive visual hook. The graphical approach was also applied quite often to the contributors. We’re used to seeing a ‘talking head’ spot in this kind of programme, with a subject talking to the camera with perhaps an appropriate image added into the background, but here the subjects were often dropped into rolling comics panels between the artwork, or had comics ‘sets’ and props around them – I thought the scene where you had Alan Grant apparently sitting on Judge Dredd’s Lawmaster bike was a brilliant example of that. It also had the nice effect of putting writers and artists almost into their creations, which I’d assume was part of the idea?

Alastair: Yes I have my favourites as well! Little Plum looking up adoringly at Steve Bell. Mark Lawrenson stuck between a couple of football fans as he remembers Roy of the Rovers. Again that was a deliberate attempt to place our contributors directly in the worlds they were talking about.

FPI: You’ve been fortunate enough to have a great range of contributors on all three programmes, from Leo Baxendale to Alan Moore, to give that vital first-hand insight into the medium – was there anything you learned during their interviews which was a surprise to you?

Alastair: I think the sheer hard work of the medium – as Leo says there are 52 Beano weeks in a year and they all have to be filled. And the artistry involved – whether writing or drawing – there was a seriousness of intent behind all the great strips.

FPI: Was it harder trying to find material and people for the first episode, the Fun Factory? For the third part – Anarchy in the UK – you’re into more recent history where more art is archived and the creators are still around, but for the early Dandy and Beano material you’re having to stretch back seven decades – not the easiest task for your researchers, I’d imagine. I found myself laughing out loud throughout that episode – it was amazing how well some of the older strips have held up and how easily they can still make us smile.

Alastair: We were fortunate to make contact with collectors who were very generous with their support once they knew we were serious about what we were doing. And DC Thomson in particular were very good about looking into their archives to help us out with specific rare strips.

(Desperate Dan in the Dandy in 1945, drawn by the great Dudley Watkins, (C) DC Thomson)

FPI: It’s good to hear you got such support for the programme. You were working to fit your material into three one-hour programmes, but with such a diverse range of subjects and creators to tackle I’d guess there would be material recorded that simply couldn’t be fitted into the final cut – do you think we might get to see some of that, perhaps on the CB website, after the shows are transmitted, almost like the extras on a DVD?

Alastair: There is a little more interview from Leo Baxendale and Alan Moore to be seen on the website. Aside from that we are of course aware that some comics have been missed out. A follow up for disappointed fans?

FPI: Well on that very topic I was going to say that some of the contributors are fascinating enough that you could almost have a show just on them alone – I’m sure many of us would love to see a programme dedicated to Alan Moore or Leo for instance, or one just covering that period of 2000AD and Crisis etc. Did working with any of them give you ideas for potential future shows?

Alastair: The answer is yes, if BBC4 would like them!

FPI: Fingers crossed on that score then! I got the impression from the shows that you weren’t just trying to create a documentary about comics, you were trying to show that this often maligned mass medium is embedded into our shared culture, something most of us have grown up with, something other creative artists like Steve Bell or Jacqueline Wilson have been influenced by, that they are a part of our cultural heritage – would that be a fair assessment?

Alastair: Yes that was the point of what we were doing, to show how we grew up with comics and how comics grew up with us. They didn’t exist in a kind of vacuum but reflected all kinds of other cultural and historical phenomenon.

FPI: Has the creation of BBC4 been a help to you in getting programmes like this made? I know when it first started it seemed a little light on content and the channel has to make do with a very small slice of the BBC’s budget, but now it really seems to have found its feet as a home for some fascinating factual programming. Is it giving programme makers like yourself more breathing space to get shows like this created and broadcast? I mean I can imagine before the digital channels that perhaps BBC2 might have aired a show on the subject of comics, but I imagine it would have been harder to be allowed to do a series of them like this.

Alastair: I think that BBC4 is the natural home for a series like this though my feeling is that it could happily run in peak time on a terrestrial channel like BBC2. BBC4 certainly allows us room to breathe and take a chance where other outlets might be a little more cautious. But I do think this series is for all of us, not some self conscious television constituency. This is the story of all of our lives who have reached a certain vintage.

FPI: Something we always ask our guests on the blog – what comics and/or books are you enjoying at the moment? And given the programme I should probably also ask if you came across any graphic novels during the filming and thought, I’ve never seen that before and I just have to read it?

Alastair: I’m going back to school – to the Bash Street Kids – and paying more attention this time around.

(The Bash Street Kids as only Leo Baxendale can truly do them, (C) DC Thomson)

FPI: Good choice! Comics Britannia continues on thematically from the well-received Science Fiction Britannia last year – are you hoping to continue this approach with future series and if so can you tell us anything about what you’re thinking on for your next series?

Alastair: Sadly this it not down to me but those who run BBC4. I think we have hit on something though.

FPI: I certainly think you have and it is a style with more potential in it, so let’s hope the Powers That Be take note and commission more in this vein. Alastair, thank you very much for talking to us. The first part of Comics Britannia, The Fun Factory, which looks at children’s comics from the birth of the Dandy onwards, will be shown on BBC4 on Monday 10th of September at 9pm and is part of a season of comics related programmes on the channel; full details of each show can be found on the Comics Britannia website, along with galleries of comics art, video clips and more

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