Face Book Pages Close

This is probably going to be referred to in amongst those interested on the net so here goes.

I set up the UK Golden Age comics page because that subject has no coverage.  Lots of covers from other countries comics were posted so to stop confusion I set up an International GA FB page.

Been unwell so apart from approving a few members yesterday, which is when the page was set up, nothing until this morning.

Here:

The last week, on top of everything else, I have had one idiot after another cause me problems on the net.  This morning I could hardly move but on opening my FB what do I get?...

“Lin Harrell

I am the admin for another [rather large and growing] comic book group and I don't like the idea that your guy ... Richard Boucher ... is asking members to leave my group and join this one. He is also posting links to another one of your groups. How about you do the work and build your own group. Stop feeding off other peoples hard work. He's banned from my group and I will not be adding anyone who is a member of this group or your other one.”

So I responded:

Lin. 'Thanks' for the rather aggressive message. I only set up my Face Book group yesterday morning and being unwell left it at that other than approving some people who asked to join.

I cannot be held responsible for what other people are doing without my consent.

I have a British Golden Age Comics FB page because there is very little about the UK GA out there so this was added to my web site. I started getting lots of postings of GA covers from other countries which is why I set up the International GA (which does not include US GA comics).

Banning some of your members because they joined mine?? And YOU joined it to find out who they were???

Man, what happened to freedom of choice and democracy??

I'm quite sure the new members are dumbfounded because I am. I am NOT filching your members -if they are members of your group they are still (or were) there but were probably interested in seeing another perspective.  I have no idea since I've not seen your group or what it's about and am banned anyway.

Is this what internet comic fandom has come to??? "You are in my collection of members and if you look at someone elses page -yer out!"

It would have been far better had you messaged me and explained what was going on so that I could have asked whoever is responsible to stop. I do not even know the name of your group or else I would have joined (nothing came up when I searched FB).

You HAVE over reacted without contacting me first because if your group covered the same subject as mine I would have closed mine.

Terry”

Yes, HE joined to see who from his page had joined mine to ban them.  I know America is going slightly insane and comic fandom is not what it was but really? I do agree that they guy involved should NOT have started posting to his group about mine but I should have been told about this not have the pratt join my group to find out who else was on it.

I’m closing both my groups because these aren’t fans or people interested in comics just in themselves and I have nothing to say to them.

Face Book Page

Not sure whether anyone is going to be interested but I set up a UK GA Face Book page where people can ask questions, etc..

I'm also wondering whether GA fans or those interested might be equally interested in a get together at the 2014 Bristol Comic Expo?

https://www.facebook.com/groups/531190066953781/

No "Point Scoring" Allowed.

In the old days you had the fan press that used to have LOCs -Letters of Comment".  There were articles by fans on characters and or specific comic titles or artists. You would get the odd "nasty" letter but once the moron responsible realised he would be getting no publicity he stopped.

The advent of the internet has put pay to that.

Trollers and flamers abound not just attacking via peoples' personal blogs but on "comic forums" (where for the most part they seem to be allowed to write whatever they want and get away with it -the moderator/owner having a spine of jelly).

I have been the victim of name calling, lies, slurs on my reputation and skills and knowledge.  I have had this every week, sometimes as many as ten mails a week.  Now I note ISP numbers and report them. They seem to think that they and their snide little pals can hide behind anonimity. That shows how dumb they are.  Even posting from cyber cafes or, of all places, public library computers, you leave a signature.

Those people, they know who they are, have mental health problems. It is as simple as that.  They contribute nothing.

But the type I really do hate are those who set themselves up as "comic experts" and who try, continuously, to demean other comickers.  They waste your time as you try to be helpful and then do not reply via email, where they set you queries, giving you all the information they asked for, but on publiv comments on blogs.

WHY would someone ask for information on characters and then tell you they have the information already having wasted hours of your time?

These are not true comickers. Not fans. They are trying to score points against you -"Nyah-nyah -HE doesn't have the information I asked for but I do!"

Sadly, these people get onto internet You Tube communities where it is easy to set up fake email names. Or they join your groups under THREE different names so if you kick them off once for misbehaving they are still there with two more chances.

All we can do as an online comic community is cold shoulder these people. Ignore them.

Comics are fun and some of us enjoy them!

William A. Ward's Sheriff Fox

William A. Ward, creator of The Bat (for Gerald Swan) and many others. A 1948(?) strip of Sheriff Fox!

Professor Crackpot by Protheroe...

Another of those Golden Age British nightmare pages to share.

Firstly, thanks to smoky1980 for scanning/forwarding this and its from a batch of loose pages marked "Swan 1948/49".

Even had this not been signed the art style is a dead give-away.  This is the work of Glyn Protheroe who was born in Swansea, Wales, on the 3rd July, 1906.  Sadly, I can find no record of when he died. After leaving school, Protheroe went on to study art under Walter Fuller.  

In the 1920s he moved to London and became a professional cartoonist and press artist.  At that time he had a studio in  Shaftesbury Avenue but also worked from Southampton Row. His work appeared in Sports Post, The Journal, Sporting News and The Leader -all well known national publications.

His comics work took off in the 1940s when Soloway, Amex and Gerald Swan used his work.  His first work for Swan appeared in 1942 and titles he contributed to included War Comics, Cute Fun, Topicaol Funnies, Slick Fun, Thrill Comics and New Funnies.  Work was also contributed to a number of albums from Swan -Albums were collections of reprint strips with more pages than weekly comics -more like the yearly annuals but soft covered not hard cover.

For Soloway, starting in 1943, he contributed to Comic Capers, All Star and Comic Adventures.

For Amex, Protheroe contributed to Merry Midget, Midget Comics, Bantam Comics these were all from 1943.

The sets (strips) that Protheroe provided were usually a collection of jokes strung together in a "talking heads" format.  According to Alan Clark, from whom most of the data is culled: "His style was instantly recognisable; his characters looked like clowns...a distinctive 'morose' quality." 

And the artist signed himself as either "Glynne" or "Protheroes".

The below Professor Crackpot strip is a typical nightmare and the orange ink might have looked bright and fun to war time kids but....oy.

I had to remove the colour and alter brightness and contrast four times to make it a mere black and white page. 

So, here is your example of Glyn Protheroe at work!

An extra treat for you all!

The British Golden Age, Collectors And The British Comic Book Archive

A re-posting from the old CBO site.

____________________________________________________________________________

Denis Gifford in his The Complete Catalogue Of British Comics (Webb & Bower, 1985) notes that the 1930s was the UKs Golden Age.  The 1920s had seen comics develop  so that by 1930 the creators/editors were producing quality entertainment for children.

The 1930s also saw the creation by D. C. Thomson of The Dandy 4^th December, 1937), The Beano (30^th July, 1938) and Magic (22^nd July, 1939).  Radio Fun 15^th October, 1938) and Knockout (4^th March, 1939) came from the Amalgamated Press. These were the new look comics.

Unfortunately, some former Austrian Corporal decided to go and start a “bit of a tiff” in Europe that became World War II.

This ushered in what Denis called “The Dark Ages.”





After the Germans took Norway the paper shortages really kicked in.  Puck, Tiger Tim’s Weekly, Joker and other titles began to disappear.  However, even if new comics were not really allowed the law did allow for unconnected one-shots which was a god send to many.  Philipp Marx, a refugee, issued two undated and un-numbered editions of The New Comics.  These sold out.  Kids were starved for comics in the UK while their US counter-parts were enjoying the four colour Golden Age.  So, Marx issued a new title each week (almost –no dating means it is hard to tell!).

Gerald Swan and many others tried their hand at comics, even if Swan did later consider his comics a non-topic for discussion but would only talk in depth about his pulp sci fi/horror books.


These comics were printed on any type of paper.  That is no exaggeration –any kind of paper available was used.  Stiff beige cardboard, silver paper in fact, if it could take ink it was used.  The print quality was also poor at times.  This all led to easily torn pages, fading ink and even problems you might not really expect with paper and ink.





My favourite is orange or purple –even a sort of blue- ink.  Little solid black so you got black, white and orage but with faded blue text in speech balloons.  The low quality paper stock also meant that “foxing” (the brown spotting you find in very old books) kicked in very early.  Low quality stapling created its own problems since no one was going to use good quality staples when any and all metal was scarce.

Many, many comics never even reached the British Museum, supposedly deposited for copyrighting.  Books in Denis’ collection did not exist in the British Museums collection.

Of course, as in the US, there were all sorts of drives going on –metal shortages led to dust bins, park railings and much more being collected.  Paper rationing led many parents to throw out the kids’ comics.  Many kids feeling that “war spirit” were all too keen to hand in old comics.

The poor quality of printing, the paper stocks used and trashing of these old comics mean that, as with the US Golden Age comics, many became very very rare.  In fact, probably rarer than US GA comics.
There are collectors who have these books and I know of several who have scanned their collections.  However, they will not share or even help with projects such as the British Comic Book Archive for one main reason.  The reason, they give is that “sharing scans of the books will make my comic collection less valuable!”

That in itself is rubbish.  You can have the internet flooded with these Golden Age British comics but they are just scans.  An actual book you can touch is far more valuable to a collector or prospective buyer because it is a real, actual object. True, even these rare GA British books are not that valuable –some on ebay recently were going for £1.99 and £3.99 ($2-4).

Also, the collectors I spoke to had no intention of selling their books which makes the whole argument even more pointless.

As collectors in the US and elsewhere have found out, scans can tend to peak interest and make printed books more valuable.  As it stands, only a few old farts like me know or remember the characters and publishers from this period –it kills any potential interest.

Even my Black Tower Gold Collections do not attract great sales but, as I think I’ve written before, these were pet projects intended to keep interest in the characters going and offering comic fans the chance to see these lost strips.  Also, the collection is all black and white reprint so the collector/hoarder has the advantage of colour original books.

I never expect collectors in the UK to share as Australian, New Zealand, German and US comic collectors do. It’s just how British collectors are.  After 20+ years of trying I’ve frozen the BCBA.  I would like to see it grow but….

If you have non-Amalgamated Press/Thomson comics you want to add to the few meagre examples forwarded mainly from the United States (!) please feel free to get in touch and maybe, one day, a fully British Comic Books Archive can be re-launched.

The Disasterous UK Golden Age Q&A Idea....

Hi, Comickers. Quick up-date on my Golden Age Q&A proposal made a while back.

Things have been VERY slow in getting any questions to respond to regarding British Golden Age Comics -NOT D. C. Thomson nor Amalgamated Press- even my own Yahoo groups have only produced two questions: already answered in previous postings.

The deadline was the 20th August. Tomorrow. I guess I should not find it hard to believe that people are a little ignorant of the non Beano, Dandy comics.  People lapping up 1950s/1960s comics on other groups tend to get a little snooty when you mention Gerald Swan or Forshaw, et al  -some have made it clear they "do not even consider these seriously". At least one person told me that he would never even look at one of these comics??

Snobbery.

Oh boy. The difference between the UK and US...even other countries where they are looking at their own Golden Ages. Incredible.

But I'm not going anywhere just yet so any questions....