Captain Condor -Prisoners of the Outer Spaceways (1954)

 

William Fletcher Thomas

WFT drawn by Tom Downey

 William Fletcher Thomas, was born at 4 St John's Place, Broughton, Salford, Lancashire in 1863, son of James Thomas, a cotton yarn agent, and his wife Louisa née Kershaw, who married at Wakefield in 1859. 

By 1881, his father James, now a machinery agent, had moved to 69 Shrewsbury Road, Stretford when young William is described as 'apprentice'. William married at Altrincham, Cheshire in 1887, Emily Parkinson and in 1891, an 'artist', living at 'Primrose', Brunswick Road, Sutton, Surrey where their son Gilbert had been born the previous year. 

A landscape painter who exhibited a view of Walberswick at the Royal Academy in 1901 from Lydstep House, 3 South End, Southwold, Suffolk. In 1911, 'an artist in black & white', living at 124 Edenbridge Road, Bush Hill Park, Edmonton, London with his wife and 20 year old son Gilbert Eric Thomas, an unemployed electrical engineer. 

His gift for caricature was deployed from 1888 on weekly drawings relating the inept antics of 'Ally Sloper', the world's first comic strip character, when launched in 'Judy Magazine'. The character was 'killed off' in 1916, but not before the Army Service Corps had been nicknamed 'Ally Sloper's Cavalry'. 

He died at Edmonton in 1938, aged 76.

Gilray and Hogarth -the original bad boys

 William Hogarth 10 November 1697 – 26 October 1764) was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic, and editorial cartoonist. His work ranges from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects", He is perhaps best known for his series A Harlot's Progress, A Rake's Progress and Marriage A-la-Mode. Knowledge of his work is so pervasive that satirical political illustrations in this style are often referred to as "Hogarthian".

James Gillray (13 August 1756 – 1 June 1815) was a British caricaturist and print maker famous for his etched political and social satires, mainly published between 1792 and 1810. Many of his works are held at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Hogarth

Gillray has been called "the father of the political cartoon", with his works satirizing George III, prime ministers and generals. Regarded as being one of the two most influential cartoonists, the other being William Hogarth, Gillray's wit and humour, knowledge of life, fertility of resource, keen sense of the ludicrous, and beauty of execution, at once gave him the first place among caricaturists.

V0010922 Dr. John Burges, on tiptoe outside a building in Warwick Lan
Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images
images@wellcome.ac.uk
http://wellcomeimages.org
Dr. John Burges, on tiptoe outside a building in Warwick Lane. Coloured etching by J. Gillray, 1795.
1795 By: James GillrayPublished: 3 July 1795

Two Rare 1943 Comics

 These are not my oldest British comics (both published in December 1943) but they are the most delicate -"delicate" as in I am not forcing the pages apart to fit on a scanner in case they tear or...gulp! crumble!

Almost Quarto size and the standard 8pp -all the work by Frank Jupo. Publisher Philmarx (Phillip Marx) re-released these in a larger format in 1948.

Mary Byfield Penny Dreadful artist

 Active during the first half of the 19th century. Engraver (wood). Mary Byfield was the sister of John Byfield and, like him, an engraver. She designed illustrations for works published by the Chiswick Press.

A selection of some of her more "palatable" images -she was a true Mistress of Horror!

Master Criminal! Resistance Fighter! International Crime Smasher -The Black Sapper

   The Hotspur comic version of the Black Sapper was unlike the original was an arch villain, The Black Sapper appeared in text stories with illustrations -these are taken from the weekly boys paper, The Rover, 1931. 

The Hotspur creative team were (artists as I cannot find writer(s) names) master comickers Jack Glass; Terry Patrick; Keith Shone.

The Black Sapper  started as a criminal in his early adventures but in the Hotspur stories  he fought on the side of law and order. He  made use of his marvellous drilling machine "the Worm" (in the original series it was called "The Earthworm"), which could burrow through the earth. Although the Sapper  was the " crew" occasionally it did carry a second person. In the Hotspur series there is mentions that the worm was designed by Professor Jordan and his son, Johnny and that it is atomic-powered. (Hotspur issue 619). The machine was also lightweight, being made with metal that 'was half the weight of aluminium, but tough enough to act as a heat shield for a moon capsule'. (Hotspur issue 611).

The Sapper's uniform remained the same in both the early and later series. Although the later version of the worm had up- to -date equipment, such as an outside camera so the Sapper could see what was happening above ground on a television screen which kind of makes sense as you don't want to end up inside a nuclear reactor, army artillery range or in someones bathroom.

In the first series drawn by Patrick, Britain has been invaded by an eastern race the Khansus and The Black Sapper fights along side the British resistance in the fight back against the invaders (hmm. I'm sure Bill Savage might have come in handy).  A later series would see the Sapper on the trail of a gang of international crooks led by the mysterious and sinister Octopus.

The series drawn by Shone sees the Sapper having broken up the international gang of crooks in the last series, hunting down its scattered leaders. A complication arose when the Sapper was blinded by an explosion and he enlisted the aid of a young orphan boy Jeff, who was  to act as his "eyes". 

I believe that this was the last Black Sapper adventure but he had a legendary career from 1931 to the 1980s.

Oddly, as with Spring-heeled Jack, my first knowledge of the character came from my grand dad, Bill who had memories of the master5 crook from his youth!

Sadly, D.C. Thomson has never taken advantage of the old characters it has because they could still be made viable.

A little addenda here as I just found some of my notes from the Face Book British Golden Age Comics page:

According to the legend:"In the police records of Scotland Yard,no name occupies more space than the Black Sapper." The "BLACK SAPPER" had invented a diamond hard drilling machine with a name to strike terror into the hearts of even the bravest of men...the, uh, "Earth-Worm"! 

Marot was the mechanic who worked with the "SAPPER" and he was with the mastermind when he first robbed the Bank of England on 24th August,1929, in ROVER no. 384 ,a text story. 

The criminal genius was thwarted by Commander Breeze of the Yard [of course]. The "SAPPER" later disappeared and managed to keep his head low until his dramatic re-appearance in picture-strip form -once again coming up against Breeze of the Yard! Mind you, they were now in the BEEZER no.196, 17th October, 1959! Over a decade later the character returned for a 1971-1973 run in the HOTSPUR, as well as appearing in the HOTSPUR ANNUAL 1973 pitting his abilities against "THE MYSTERY MAN FROM THE FLAMES."

And you’ve guessed it, yes, the "BLACK SAPPER" had returned as a champion of law and order starting with the 1971 run. Jack Glass was the artist who also drew "THE AMAZING MR X", [DANDY 1944], "BOOMERANG BURKE" [DANDY,1941], "BUCK WILSON" [DANDY,1937-

Well, there you go. I keep so much rubbish on discs that I was bound to forget something but that is as complete a history of the British  Golden, Silver and Bronze ages character as you will find anywhere!

John Byfield Penny Dreadul Artist

19th century engraver and illustrator like his sisters Ann and Mary, John knew what the public wanted =heathen savage foreigners and gore!

Ignored by many as these were not comic sets (strips) they still heavily influenced comic artists for decades.