Cast Iron Chris ...Non-stick?

 

This character like many others that appeared in Swan comics never had any sort of origin tale (that I know of).  The Iron Boy is weird enough, but more about him another time.

 These were just strips drawn to fill pages for a few shillings by creators who didn’t have the luxury of expanding beyond one page with sometimes nine panels.

To all intents and purposes, Cast Iron Chris is a British superman but without a costume and more in the mold of other characters such as Desperate Dan –one wonders whether that might have been the intention?  John “Jock” McCail seemed to be a mainstay of Gerald Swan’s line of Swan Comics (Ah Wong, Dene Vernon, etc.) and drew some Cast Iron Chris strips. We have no idea whether Chris was a creation of his or not.

This was all “throw-away” entertainment after all and few creators chose to sign their work from choice.  We do know that in Slick Fun No. 22 (1945), McCail depicts Chris getting into a battleships 20 inch guns and falls asleep –he is fired into a German naval vessels and his impact sinks it.

That’s pretty good invulnerability.

But there is more.  In Black Tower Gold (volume 4) I reprinted another Cast Iron Chris strip from the Slick Fun Album, 1950).  

In the opening panel Chris is having a letter “C” tattooed onto his chest…using a pneumatic drill as opposed to a tattooist needle!  He then loses a book down an open manhole cover where there is a gas leak –striking a match to find the book in the dark, Chris is blown hundreds of feet into the air.  He goes through the cockpit floor of an aircraft and jumps back down to earth carrying the pilot.

Now, if that ain’t super human then I have no idea what is!

There is no doubt that this is John McCail's style as seen in TNT Tom and many other strips. Back in 2010 I thought the work was by someone else but why I thought that I have no idea 12 years on!

One can use one’s imagination to work out an “origin” but, honestly, the reader being a youngster, was supposed to just accept it all –a suspension of disbelief as it were. And that’s how it was supposed to be.

I have used Cast Iron Chris over the years and more recently a cameo in Parallel Motions (not yet published due to lack of art scanning equipment -ie an A3 scanner).

But, once again, Ben Dilworth stepped in with some, as usual, unplanned Jo Long and D. H. Wilberton strips. Some I did not feel worked with Chris but as you will see others work well -and no "re-boot"!

As for an origin well, I have one in mind and it will involve none other than--- oh. Wait. That would be a spoiler. Guess you'll have to wait and see then!

(c)2022 J Long, D H Wilberton and Black Tower Comics and Books

Comic Bits -Magazine of British Comic Book History

 Each 80pp issue contains lots of art as well as a few rare to very rare photographs (something Black Tower has specialised in). That's 80pp for the (UK) price of £8.00 which is the bare minimum price it could be offered at to encourage those with an interest in the subject to purchase. 

£6.00 for a couple of months work with articles and information it might take you a year or so to find for yourself is not bad. 

If interest picks up in the future the title can be bought back to life but until then only the first two issues will remain available.

A4
B&W
80pp
Text, comic strips and some rare photographs!
£8.00
https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper/comic-bits-no-1/paperback/product-kjgvzy.html?page=1&pageSize=4

The return of THE British Golden Age of Comics magazine! 

Interviews with Mike Western, John Cooper and Jon Haward plus a look at Ally Sloper on film, Defining the Ages of British Comics, William McCail plus a lot of art and stripwork. At this price -cheap!

Ed T Hooper-Scharf
A4
B&W
80 pp
£8.00
https://www.lulu.com/en/en/shop/terry-hooper/comic-bits-no-2/paperback/product-2ed6pe.html?page=1&pageSize=4

The second issue of the magazine celebrating creators, titles and characters of the British Platinum, Golden and Silver Ages of comics. 

In this issue William A. Ward finally gets some long deserved recognition for his contribution to comics John McCail gets "bigged up" something rotten!

 We look at comedian and actor Bob Monkhouse's comic creation career 

Steve Dowling -Father of the Garth newspaper strip speaks to Denis Gifford (the ONLY interview he ever gave) 

There is a look at Dennis M. Reader and his comics work that spawned some of the UKs first super heroes. 

also a look at William Fletcher Thomas, Ernest Wilkinson, Jos Walker, Mary Byfield and William H A Chasemore... oh, and LOTS of lovely art and stripwork!

The Enigma of the Robert Edwards Annuals

 The first thing to state is that what follows are my original scans and notes. References to these two annuals usually comprises of "Robert Edwards Ltd"/"some rather crude art" and "1950 +/-".  If you see any of the following scanned pages or information on other blogs/sites without a credit to me, well, that's plagiarism.

Now the next thing to mention are the covers which are card making them paperbacks -some sources have stated "hardback".

Robert Edwards Ltd: despite a very long search I cannot find any information on this publisher and certainly no other books published by him/them. This is thrown in with the fact that all we have is "Printed and published by Robert Edwards (London) Ltd, London, N.W. 1" and that raises suspicions. 

Material published in the books comes from the comic packagers Bayly and Souster who put material together for the large number of Independent publishers trying their hands at comics in the early 1950s (there were a LOT). Dick Hercules and Captain Vigour appeared in their own Cartoon Art Production (CAP) comics and Hal Starr by Sydney Jordan appeared in Strange Worlds published by Man's World/Atlas.

Let's look at the dubious world of comics angle first. Someone pulls together some comics and adds filler pages of quite crude art that, honestly, no real publisher would have used or paid for at the time. Were the amateur strips by whoever published the books or even a family member or, perhaps, someone who wanted to be in comics?  The truth is that we will never know unless anyone involved comes forward but at 2/- 6d (two shillings and 6 pennies) these were not cheap. Were these rip-off books?  Hence no address (very unusual at that time) and, perhaps a made up  name? Oh, and adding "Ltd" to your publishing name is not unheard of (even into the 1980s and we should all know who I mean).

Above: contents of Adventure Comic Annual

______________________________________

The alternative is that someone, Robert Edwards, saw the boom in comics and thought they might try their hand at it -annuals appeared just before Christmas each year so having two on sale might show a profit. Getting some cheap art and adding it to licensed(?) strips or remainder comics would be cheap if you were looking for a profit. Legally, even back then, you would be sued for ripping off another publisher -as we do not know the deal CAP had with Bayly-Souster it is possible they owned the rights and could sell them around.

Next the ever elusive date of these books. "1950 +/-" is the date everyone seems to give but there are major clues that I spotted straight away -as should anyone owning the books. The first is that the Rob Roy strip has almost every page signed by C (or G) Vernon Stokes and most have the date "1953" or "53" on them. Next is the fact that Hal Starr first appeared in 1954, Dick Hercules 1952-1954 and Captain Vigour, likewise, 1952-1954. If we look at those as guidelines then we can narrow these annuals as being 1954.  Two titles had ceased publishing and Hal Starr had begun that year.

All other strips, the more professional and amateur, are all unsigned apart from C or G. Vernon Stokes.  I can find no comic artist by that name so if anyone does know of him let me know please. G. Vernon Stokes was a well known animal artist (hounds a speciality) but he was born in 1873 and died in 1954...I think we can kind of rule him out.

Let's take a look at a few of the pages from these books -firstly the Adventure Comic Annual.

Above: I am guessing by the style that this comes from the Captain Vigour comic which makes sense as it seems to have been included complete.

Above and below: uncredited but just within comic standards for the time.

Below: definitely not within the standards or even the 1940s comics but again uncredited. Some of the strips are presented as "based on real events"

Below: NOT Kangy the kangaroo kid but Kangi the Wolf Boy

Below: I love that title!  There is some nice marine art here but human anatomy is poor but a fun little yarn.

Below: the same artist as for a lot of the more amateur strips drew another "real life! account full of what you might expect from post war Britain.

Below: Sydney Jordan's Hal Starr

Below: this was the Hal Starr back-up strip so it seems the comics were printed as a whole.

Next we come to the Wonder Comic Annual

Above: Now this is very cheeky. Firstly, no Mexican character appears in the book and secondly, as soon as I saw this I realised the character was from Amalgamated Press. I had first thought Knockout and checked my annuals but, no. I have a few hundred annuals and so I left it! If anyone can identify him let me know.

 Above the contents page
Below: Rob Roy o' the Glen by C/G Vernon Stokes

The credit and date in close up

Below: uncredited

Below: Sydney Jordan work?

Below: I say NOTHING about the title! Uncredited and I did think Mick Anglo at one point

Below: Dick Hercules

Below: another "based on fact" story

 Below: in case you were wondering about that pirate themed cover....

Which brings us to another based on fact tale....

Some might ask why I bother showing the "lesser quality" strip work. Well, it forms a large part of the annuals and who ever the artist was he deserves some credit because at least he tried and, perhaps, had hopes of getting on in comics. We will never know. THAT to me is the sad thing about these early comics.  So much is unknown or forgotten or hidden away for shady reasons but every creator deserves to be credited.

Anyway, those are my comments and thoughts on the enigmatic Robert Edwards Annuals. If anyone knows more then PLEASE get in touch because this is comics history that should not be forgotten.

(c)2020 Terry Hooper-Scharf

Wait...I Am Back -Why?

 

Oddly, my mother used to ask the same question whenever I walked into the house. But my family is no ones business and I do not care what the police say.

But it is a good question. Why am I now re-opening this blog?

Someone contacted me and asked why I had npothing online about old UK or British comics and kids papers from the Platinum, Diamond and Golden Ages of comics. Seemed odd so asked why he was asking and got the response "Well everyone quotes you and you've been mentioned in a couple books on the subject as the expert!"

I know one book he is referring to and to be honest although he sent all thje links to the sites he had been on my eye can no longer take more strain on the computer (I was up until after 0300 hrs working on wildlife files!) so I left it at that.

After having gone through re-pricing books (the print on demand company is a pain) and a whole host of other stuff and there are just about 200 books on the online store I just got total energy drain when it came to comics and having a PC from 2009 that is constantly failing and a now dead scanner and no money to buy replacements I just sank back in the chair. I guess burn-out after 40 years is allowable?

But I then heard from matey-boy and found a few emails in spam that thanked me for keeping alive these brilliant old characters and not "rebooting" them.  I then realised that the people who steal info and other stuff from this blog are just losers. They want to lie and say its all 'their' work and get congratulated on it (making their readers look like idiots) then fair enough.

I have a couple hundred old Swan albums and other items that give me a smile when I open them up.

Am I going to be such an arschloch as to stop others getting that little smirk of joy?

Nah.

So I am back.

Please leave a comment so I know real people check the blog out and please check out the online store: https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/hoopercomicsuk

THANK YOU

interior of the old printing works of William Walker

1988 View of the interior of the old printing works of William Walker printers of the Wharfedale and Airedale Observer, before they closed down and the business moved to a new office in Boroughgate with modern printing equipment. This printing machine would have been built in Otley, which pioneered the printing machine industry from the mid-19th century.

Michael Kirby

Back in the early 70s I worked as a compositor, at William Walkers in Otley, they were in the main street. with a pub either side of the entrance into the backyard. A general printer and also printers and publishers of the Wharfedale Observer series of papers. They were a very old fashioned company even then,machines were driven by belts running from a shared power source, the typecasting machines had gas crucibles, rather than the more modern electric onesthat every other printer then had. 

They used to print 'magic painting', tracing and other toy books, with the little lad (striding across the globe, with a teddy orbook in his hand) logo on the back. They had hundreds of thousands of magic painting books in stock, unfortunately, it was a very old damp warehouse,and virtually all of the colours had run, making them worthless, but nobody seemed to mind. The boss's son, who was in his late fifties whould have preferedto be a pig farmer, so he did not have much interest in how things were being run. His dad, Ray Renwick, was in his early nineties, but he came in mostdays to see how things were going on. 

The composing room was on the top floor, and when things were quiet, we used to play a version of indoor cricket, using a slip galley and a rolled up ball of paper. One of us used to be stationed around the corner, near the lift, pretending to cut up lead spacing materials onthe antiquated electric saw. If Ray emerged from the lift, it would take him a minute or two to shuffle the 25 to 30 yards to the comp room. When he passed,the lookout would pull on a piece of string, that ran around the wall, into the comp room, where it was attached to a couple of empty tin cans, alerting the'cricketers'. When Ray eventually reached the comp room, he found a hive of industrious activity. 

I started there in January 1971, when there was quite a lot of snow, another game we played, I think during evening overtime, when we had a short break, involved one person standing out on the street, he would give a signal, and half a dozen or so of us, stationed in the back yard, would launch snowballs over the roof onto unsuspecting pedestrians in the main street.

 In the 80s or 90s the office entrance and shopfront featured in Emerdale, as the 'Otten Observer', where 'Amos Brierley' was one of the local community reporters. I was only there for about six weeks, once the overtime ran out I found a job back in Leeds, but it was a rather different an interesting experience, that still gives me happy memories. I wonder if they are still there?

15-Oct-2008

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H. L. Diamond....It's A Family Thing

  My brother and his partner are looking into the family history. As you might expect from Hoopers and Cases there are a few mysteries and odd goings on. However I was then told that there was an Olive Diamond related to my grandfather and that she was listed as "Childrens paper editor" -in the 1930s. She also lived in Bath.

I laughed and said that the only Childrens papers (comics) company I knew was Henry Louis Diamond who ran Target Publications from Bath.

Thought no more until I was informed that Iwas in fact related to Henry Louis Diamond! I got far too excited for a man of my age. Double and triple checked the documents supplied and, yes, it is true.

So, I guess comics editing, writing, drawing and getting ripped off by publishers is in the DNA.

I own some old Target publications and...well. I am chuffed but sadly never met the old boy who died in 1966 when I was still a youngster but a comic reading and drawing strips in old books.

'Micky's Christmas Day' (Merry Midget, 26 December 1931).

Henry Louis Diamond was a British comic artist, editor and publisher, who ran Target Publications in Bath. As a publisher he launched various comic magazines, including The Rattler, The Dazzler, Chuckler, Target, Rocket, Sunshine, The Bouncer and Ovaltiney's Own Comic. These were vital for offering various British comic artists career opportunities throughout the 1930s. But Diamond was also a rare example of a comic publisher who also wrote and drew for his own comic series and magazines.

Early life and career
Henry Louis Diamond was born in 1904 in Bristol. His father was an iron moulder. Diamond's graphic career took off as a postcard designer. He worked for newspaper The Daily Herald and made his first comic strips for the magazines published by Fleetway Press from 1924 on. Among his earliest features were 'Sweet Hortense' (1924) in The Monster Comic and 'High Jinks at High School' (1924) on the front-page of The Golden Penny Comic. This was replaced in 1927 by 'Pot T. Pot and his Pet Patient, Piecan' (1927-1928), an oddball strip about an asylum keeper and an escaped lunatic. From 1926 on he also worked for the Amalgamated Press, drawing 'Ginjor the Turk' (1926) and 'Rose Budd' (1926) for Butterfly, and 'The Tomboy Two' (1926) and 'Wild West Wally' (1926) for Comic Cuts.

'Pot T. Pot and Piecan'.

Provincial Comics
In the 1930s he briefly drew picture strips like 'Oswald the Odd Job Man' (1931) for DC Thomson's illustrated boys' magazine The Rover, but was mostly involved in magazines published by the smaller publishing firm Provincial Comics, ran by Jack Long in Bath from 1931. Diamond drew the title comic 'Mickey Midge the Merry Midget' (1931) for the front-page of The Merry Midget. For that year's Christmas issue, Diamond drew himself and the magazine's staff as characters within the story. Diamond also drew 'Alfie, Auntie and Annabel' for Provincial's The Sparkler (not by be confused by the Amalgamated Press title of the same name, which started in 1934). Diamond eventually also served as editor on these titles, although Provincial already went out of business after a couple of months.

Target Publications
Diamond subsequently turned to publishing, starting with the weekly story libraries CID (Crime, Intrigue, Detection) (December 1932-July 1933) and Target Library (March-August 1933). In 1933 he established his own comics publishing company, Target Publications, in Bath's Lower Weston suburb. Diamond's former colleague from Provincial, Bert Hill, became one of his lead artists. Besides Hill and Diamond himself, Target's artist team consisted of S.K. Perkins, Harry Banger and G. Larkman. The magazines were worth their money, as they contained 12 to 16 pages, compared to the 8 pages of the Amalgamated Press titles.

Target's magazines
Over the decade, Target launched numerous magazines. August 1933 saw the publication of The Rattler (on pink paper) and The Dazzler (on yellow paper). Both comics ran 294 issues. Chuckler (on orange paper) hit the market in 1934, for which Diamond drew the characters 'Sammy Smile' (1934) and 'Harry Coe, Our Has Been' (1936) before Bert Hill took them over. In 1935 he published Target and drew the first issue entirely by himself. This included the feature 'Tom Tip and Tim Top the Tricky Toddlers', which was also taken over by Bert Hill from issue #2 on. The same year Rocket was launched as well. Diamond was also the man behind the Ovaltiney's Own Comic (1936-1939), a giveaway supplement magazine based on Harry Hemsley's popular radio show 'The Ovaltineys', which came with Rattler, Dazzler, Chuckler and Rocket. The latter featured Diamond's 'Bertie Bounce the Bonny Bounder' (1935-1939), a cheerful chap with big bow tie and little bowler hat. In 1938 Sunshine appeared in print, followed by The Bouncer (sixteen pages for a penny) in 1939. The Bouncer ran Diamond's own dramatic picture story 'Pauline's Peril'. Those efforts didn't last long, because in April 1939 Target Publications was bought out by the Amalgamated Press, who incorporated Dazzler, Sunshine and The Bouncer into Golden, Jingles and Jolly comics.

Later comics work
H. Louis Diamond was allegedly promised an editorial post at AP, but this never happened. He then returned to freelancing, and supplied Amalgamated Press titles like Crackers and Jester with artwork, including the feature 'Buster Button'. During the war he worked for the Admiralty at Lansdown, Bath, while making his first adventure strips for publisher A. Soloway, such as 'Caleb King's Mine' (1943) in Comic Capers. In the post-war period he served as editor for the comic titles produced by Martin & Reid, such as Jolly Western, and contributed to mostly smaller publishers until the early 1950s. Diamond for instance worked on celebrity comic strips for Fizz Comics (1949), the comic book edited by Denis Gifford and Bob Monkhouse. One of Diamond's final comic strips was 'Happy Hal' in Mick Anglo's British superhero comic 'Wonderman', published by Paget Publications. He additionally worked as an Income Tax officer. Henry Louis Diamond passed away in 1966, at the age of 62.

'Micky Midge'.

Let's Keep it in the Local Planetary System: Mars Man and Moon Man

I wanted to make another appeal to blog readers with a collection of old comics -I know, so far every appeal has failed but I'm too stupid to give up.

If anyone has scans of the Mars-man and the Moon Man strips and are willing to forward them to me then I would be very grateful because after 20 years I've still never seen a copy.

Thanks