British Comic Strip Artists & Artwork

"If you are lucky enough to possess 1957 and 1958 Beano comics, it is worth buying a hand lens. All the Beano work was drawn 'twice up' (four times the area of the printed page). To people who have only seen printed comics, original artwork is a revelation.

A hand lens will double your enjoyment of these comics. It is not quite the same thing as having the drawings - the printing process always loses the beauty of the original ink line but the lens will let you really see the imbecilic facial expressions and the tiny comic details." [1]

"Pages for the D.C. Thomson comics were normally drawn twice up which meant four times the area of the printed job. This was a lot of acreage to cover. Early in 1962 I tried drawing some sets 'half up' - twice the area of the printed page. I found that this cut working time without loss of quality.

In the summer of 1962 (I think it must have been May or early June) we were spending a week in Lancashire. I decided to take the time-saving technique a step further. I drew a Bash Street and a Banana Bunch 25% up (i.e. just over 1 1/2 times the area of the printed jobs) and posted them off to the Beano and Beezer with covering notes (I will digress here to mention that during the fourteen years since I left D.C. Thomson, I have drawn hundreds of pages 'half up' and 'twice up'. I vary the size according to the nature of the set I am drawing)." [2]

Leo Baxendale (born 27 October 1930 in Preston, Lancashire) is legendary as being the British comic artist who created 'The Bash Street Kids' (1953) and 'Minnie The Minx' (1953) for The Beano. He also created 'Little Plum' (1953), 'The Three Bears' (1959) for The Beano, and 'The Banana Bunch' (1956) for The Beezer. After leaving publishers D.C. Thomsom in 1962 he went on to create most of the characters for Odham's legendary WHAM! comic (1964-68) including 'George's Germs', 'Eagle-Eye Junior Spy' (with Grimly Feendish), 'The Barmy Army', and 'The Tiddlers' (of Canal Road School).

Artworks by Leo Baxendale are difficult to come by, but those created during his time at D C Thomson are particularly scarce - why, even Leo has had trouble getting hold of those!! Apparently, whilst he was attempting to settle a long-running dispute with his former employers, D C Thomson, he was minded to try and get some of his artworks back from them. Here is a part of Leo Baxendale's account, given in his book Hobgoblin Wars:-

"The High Court action I carried through from May 1980 to May 1987 was a copyright action.
Right at the beginning, my barrister told me I could not hope to get back any of my drawings as well.
Neverthess, at the end, during the intense negotiations with the Defendant determining the terms of the out-of-court, pre-trial settlement they had offered; though the drawings were at a tangent from the heart of the copyrights case, I pressed the Defendant to return to me some of my drawings. I asked for fifty. They refused, and agreed to give me back thirty.
During my 22 years creating and drawing for the three major firms of the comics industry, I had drawn between five-and-a-half thousand and six thousand pages. Of these, I now had thirty.
Thirty isn’t much in the scale of things, but that thirty, all drawn for The Beano, was crucial." [3]

- Leo Baxendale

'The Banana Bunch' artwork - 'Canary's Pet Ambition' - The Beezer issue 29, 4^th August 1956

"I remember this drawing well, with its delightful denouement.
After I'd finished inking the Beezer and Beano drawings, I would use a pencil to scribble in the speech balloons, which were then lettered by specialist letterers in the staff artists' room. Some pieces of lettering were stuck onto my drawings using Cow Gum, a petroleum-based adhesive that allowed re-positioning.
With the passage of time, some of these pieces tended to drop off, and you can see this had happened in frames 3, 6 and 16 of the drawing you have." [4]

- Leo Baxendale, November 2010

In the published comic (Beezer issue 29 of 4^th August 1956), the captions in frames 3, 5, 6 & 16 are presented as white lettering on a black background which was probably achieved photographically simply by 'reversing' standard black lettering. So, the captions would have been printed on photographic paper, a different paper from that used for the speech bubbles, which might offer a clue as to why the captions were the first materials to go adrift from this artwork.

"The way my drawings were dealt with using Letterpress [printing presses] were as follows: When I had finished pencilling and then inking one of my drawings and handed it in at The Beano room, it was taken to be photographed in its black-and-white state. Then the drawing was taken next to the staff artists room. The drawing was then painted by a staff artist in full colour; but this was not for reproduction, but was simply a visual guide for the reproduction technicians to refer to when applying the Ben Day tints. The Ben Day tints (of dots and lines and patterns - there were a great number of different ones) had been invented by a New Jersey printer, Benjamin Day, late in the 19th. Century. There were only two colours used on the Letterpress blocks, red and black, printed separately of course, but by using varied patterns of Ben Day tints, some with red and black separately, but in others with red and black patterns superimposed, it was possible to produce great depth and atmosphere in the printed pages." [9]

- Leo Baxendale

"When the Banana Bunch was drawn in strip format, most of the scripts were written by Walter Thorburn, a prolific scriptwriter on the Beezer staff, and they moved even further from reality. The Bunch appeared to live in a hut in a field - they even slept in beds in a hut all night. Did they actually have any parents? Were they orphans? What was going on? I never figured it out myself. But this ambivalence never seemed to diminish their popularity. Perhaps readers liked the idea of living in a hut with their pals, without any adults to tell them what to do." [5]

- Leo Baxendale

"I created Bluebottle and Basher for Valiant at the beginning of 1968. This was the most 'cartoony' page I ever drew. A huge fat burglar, Basher, was locked in weekly conflict with a tiny policeman - Bluebottle. I enjoyed writing the scripts, because I found I could work a vein of zany humour from the weekly ding-dong battle. I enjoyed drawing it too. Basher's big bladder shape gave a bold look to the page." [7]

- Leo Baxendale

Herbert Sydney Foxwell (1890-1943) was born at Camberwell, London, on 20th April 1890. Foxwell studied fine art at The Addey & Stanhope College of Science, Art and Technology in Deptford. Working for Amalgamated Press (AP) his work appeared in 'The Favorite Comic', 'Comic Cuts', 'The Rainbow', 'The Monthly Playbox', 'Puck', 'Children's Fairy', 'Bubbles', 'Tiger Tim's Tales', and for The Daily Mail. He was particularly well-known and admired for his anthropomorphic work, the creation of animal characters with human traits, the most popular being Tiger Tim.

'Bubbles Comic (and the Children's Fairy)', was aimed at young children, a weekly comic which first appeared on April 16th 1921 starring 'Bubbles, The Boy Clown and His Performing Pets' on the cover. 'Bubbles Comic' was formerly 'The Sunday Fairy', published in 1919, then the first religious comic, soon changing its name to 'The Children's Fairy'.

Herbert Foxwell - original black and white artwork for the highly coloured front page of Bubbles comic - 19th August 1932
(Herbert Sydney Foxwell initialled his work, HSF - see bottom right corner)
Does anyone have this comic? Any chance of a scan of this cover please? ( Paul Mason at buryanpaul@yahoo.com )

From 1923 H S Foxwell drew a series for Bubbles comic entitled 'Mrs Bunty's Boarding School', a cartoon strip that appeared regularly on the cover page. Mrs. Bunty's Boys were children who represented the League of Nations - Snowball (an Eskimo boy), Pompey (a Negro), Redwing (a Red Indian), Ching (a Chinese boy), Jackie (British) and Hans (a Dutch boy). The artworks were drawn using pen and ink, with Amalgamated Press staff being responsible for colouring in and adding captions beneath the drawings. Curiously, at the foot of the page sits a fairy (The Children's Fairy?) who blows soap bubbles which spread between the comic frames - and each week the image of the fairy appeared slightly altered, reflecting some element contained in the new Bunty Boy's set.

Suggested Reading
'The Best of British Comic Art', Alan Clark, Boxtree, 1989; pp 60-76 - an illustrated book focussing on six noteable English comic artists including Herbert Sydney Foxwell, with a chapter devoted to each.

Robert Robertson McGillivray was an artist worked for several publishers during his career, and his strips appeared in comics as diverse asThe Dandy Comic, Diana, Mandy, Knockout and Cowboy Comics Library. For The Dandy McGillivray drew in 1941 'Jock McSwiper - the Dandy Piper' and in 1942 'Diver Dick'.

JOCK McSWIPER - THE DANDY PIPER

'Jock McSwiper - The Dandy Piper' artwork by Robert McGillivray - The Dandy Comic 1941
Does anyone have the comic which contains this strip?
Please let me know the date & if possible let me have a scan of this episode, or any other similar? ( Paul Mason at buryanpaul@yahoo.com )

The character of Jock McSwiper was introduced in 1941, in the middle ofWWII during a time when paper shortages pushed D C Thomson to limit issue of their weekly fun comics, The Dandy and The Beano, to once a fortnight, on alternate weeks.

Clearly a very capable artist, Bob McGillivray drew 'Jock McSwiper - The Dandy Piper' for about two dozen issues (#174 - #199) of The Dandy Comic, from about March to October 1941. It was not unusual for D C Thomson, the publisher, to try out new strips for fairly short periods, they would even sometimes re-introduce characters in later creations. Another of his strips for The Dandy Comic was 'Diver Dick' (1942).

'Jock McSwiper - The Dandy Piper' artwork by Robert McGillivray - The Dandy Comic 1941
(excerpt)

Hard to imagine this Jock McSwiper story being drawn today, about a gardener being kicked out of his job on a whim, but back in 1941 the employment laws in Britain would most likely have been insufficient to protect a casual worker against this kind of physical abuse and unfair dismissal.

Allan Morley (1895-1960) was one of D.C. Thomsom's most prolific artists, working for them from 1925 to 1950. He drew strips for The Beano, The Dandy Comic and The Topper, including 'The Magic Lollipops', 'Hungry Horace', 'Big Fat Joe', 'Freddy the Fearless Fly', 'Sammy's Super Rubber' and of course.. 'Keyhole Kate'!

'The Magic Lollipops' artwork by Allan Morley - 'Whip & Top' - The Beano c1950
Does anyone have the Beano with this episode - can you let me know the date? Oh and any chance of a scan of this piece please?
( Paul Mason at buryanpaul@yahoo.com )

Childrens Games by Pieter Breughel c1560 - Whip and Top

The game of whip & top has been with us for a long, long time, with wood carved whip-tops discovered in Egypt, dated to between 2000-1400 B.C.

'The Magic Lollipops' artwork by Allan Morley - 'Bee Hive' - The Beano c1950 - detail of the tramp

'The Magic Lollipops' by Allan Morley - 'Reading the Beano'
(excerpt from issue of 9th September 1950)

'The Magic Lollipops' featured a boy with a jar of lollipops, which, if you licked them would turn into what you wanted, though not necessily in quite the way you wanted. 'The Magic Lollipops' ran in The Beano from 1941 until 1951, during which time sweets were in short supply. The rationing of sugar and sweets in Britain during WWII was severe and continued for quite a few years after the war.

Children with carrot lollipops

People were fairly starved of chocolates and other sweets, so children would even resort to eating carrots on sticks, which, if they were very lucky, would sometimes be smeared with caramelised sugar!

'Keyhole Kate' artwork by Allan Morley - 'Gloves' - Dandy issue 390, February 26th 1949
Does anyone have this comic? Any chance of a scan of this strip please? ( Paul Mason at buryanpaul@yahoo.com )

Allan Morley was one of only two artists permitted by D C Thomson to initial his work
(last panel in an artwork of a 'Keyhole Kate' strip - published in Dandy issue 390, February 26th 1949)

It is of note that of the artists working for D.C. Thomson (the publishers of Beano, Dandy, Beezer & Topper), only veteran artist Dudley D. Watkins was allowed to actually sign his artwork, and only from late 1946 onwards. Fellow artist Allan Morley, who drew 'Keyhole Kate', was also allowed to identify his work by initialling his drawings with 'A.M.' from January 1947 until he stopped drawing comic strips in 1950.

Apparently, Leo Baxendale would sometimes sign his work only to find it had been whited out prior to publication. However, during his Wham! days at Odhams many of his strips bore his signature, but it was not to last....

"As soon as I started working for Fleetway [from 1966] I became anonymous again - my signature on the drawings was painted out with process white, as it had been at D.C. Thomson. When I spoke to Sidney Bicknell [Jack LeGrand's second-in-command at Fleetway] about this, I could never prise a logical answer from him." [8]

Suggested Reading
'The Best of British Comic Art', Alan Clark, Boxtree, 1989; pp 60-76 - an illustrated book focussing on six noteable English comic artists including Allan Morley, with a chapter devoted to each.

Vic Neill

Vic Neill ( -2000) is best known for his work in Plug (1977-79), the short-lived comic which ran for just 76 issues. His later work for D.C. Thomson included taking over Dudley Watkins' strip 'Mickey the Monkey' in The Topper, and drawing various titles for The Beano such as 'The Germs', 'Wee Ben Nevis' 'The McTickles', 'Tim Traveller', and the famous 'Billy Whizz'. He also worked for IPC producing strips for various comics, including the wonderful School Fun, and also Buster, where he drew 'Top of the Class'.

Buster 29th May 1982 header

Top of the Class title

Top of the Class page6

Top of the Class page7

'Top of the Class' artwork - 'Brollies' - Buster 29th May 1982

Top of the Class - Buster - 29th May 1982
'Top of the Class' - Buster and Jackpot comic - 29th May 1982

The runaway success of Baxendale's 'The Bash Street Kids' in 1953 later spurred the creation of classroom strips by other artists. One of the better imitations was 'Top of the Class', starring the Scruffs and the Toffs, which ran in Buster from 6th February 1982 until 23rd May 1987, drawn by Vic Neill. It seems that a strip similar to 'Top of the Class' appeared as 'Class Wars', running in School Fun (1983 -1984). [I don't have my School Fun comics anymore, so cannot check on this].

The theme of scruffs and toffs had of course already been popularised in 'Lord Snooty and his Pals', a strip which appeared inThe Beano as far back as 1938, about a young Lord who lives with his chums in Bunkerton Castle. Lord Snooty was drawn by Dudley D Watkins (1907-1969) the artist behind the iconic 'Desperate Dan', Watkins also drew 'Our Gang', being the continued adventures of the child stars of American Hal Roach's hugely successful 1922 comedy hit. Lord Snooty's pals bear a resemblance to 'Our Gang', whilst Lord Snooty himself appears to have been modelled on the star of another once popular movie, 'Little Lord Fauntleroy' - the 1936 film based on Francis Hodgson Burnett's 1886 book of the same name.