Although I moved onto American comics early on in my career as a comic reader and collector, British comics still have that feeling about them that the Yanks could never quite get. Sure, they had crappy paper and full-colour, too but the Yanks could never match anything like our quaintness in either the production or rendering of our comics.
Ours were funny while theirs were a funny size. We all know about Andy Capp, Korky the Kat and Lord Snooty. Those guys could knock the socks off any Ben Grimm, Thor or Hulk – and didn’t we know it. While the Americans had Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko we had Leo Baxendale and Joe Colquhoun. Not bad at all.
I sat down the other day and looked through some old TV21s from my collection. Although I’ve already covered a lot of what I think about Frank Bellamy, Mike Noble, Don Lawrence et al in Crikey! as a sort-of on going series (as our regular readers will know), I still thought it was worth another look.
I kinda wished I hadn’t. They just reminded me of days long gone when artwork was paramount and the stories were clear and precise. Those comics were, and still are, just beautiful to look at. If some of the aliens over in Nevada get hold of them (if they haven’t already) they won’t need to be able to read the words. Just take a look at the pictures, guys…
So it was with awe and a little melancholy that I took more time than I had to look at these magnificent beasts again. I remember my dad trying to explain the different types of printing to me all those years ago. He wasn’t a print expert by any means but he had a way of explaining to my ten-year-old brain that the different techniques employed brought about different quality. And he showed me different magazines and newspapers to put his point across.
Of course, I learned about printing techniques from photogravure (the technique used to print TV21) to wooden blocks when I was at art college, a little under a decade later. And my dad was dead right.
Wooden blocks? Well I never thought I’d still see any artwork produced in such a fashion until a couple of years ago when I visited Easter Island. There I witnessed some of the locals printing artwork onto fabric using that very same method. My own talent for comics and illustration has been given vent through the influence of comics and various artists from being a nipper right up to the present day: Kirby, Noble and Cam Kennedy. One of my biggest challenges was to draw, wait for it – Postman Pat!!
Anyway, in these days of graphic novels – and they are graphic – I miss the old style comic. The look. The style. The freshness. The anticipation of going to the papershop (we never had our comics delivered) and looking through the selection, wanting them all, coming away with only two or three has never left me. Living in the past? No, not really. Just wishing for one last taste of those innocent times that I guess all children go through.
I doubt the kids feel that expectation about anything these days and that’s a shame. My peer pressure was whether I’d seen the latest Beezer or Beano, not whether I had the latest £100 trainers. A sign of the times I guess (yes, we’re all turning into old gits! – Joe). What am I trying to say here? Well, I’m trying to say that if you get a spare four days or so and you have the collection or at least access to your mate’s stuff, just go over that artwork again and take a good look because I doubt we’ll ever see anything like it again.
Except, maybe, in Crikey!…
Issue #5 of Crikey! is out now and can be ordered from the official website or found in your friendly, neighbourhood FPI store.
Sat, Jun 7, 2008
Comics and cartoons, Crikey! It's Saturday!