I Never Give Up Asking -Looking for Scans of Grail Comics

 

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Now you might assume (I always do and I think that is a mistake) that someone reading this blog must have copies or at least scans of the books I have been looking for since...the 1980s!!

PLEASE if you can help with scans of any of the items mentioned below let me know at hoopercomicsuk@yahoo.com -subject "Vintage Comics" or you might go into spam. And here is the usual appeal.

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 I have found two collectors who have these comics as well as the Krakos the Egyptian collection. They have stated that although they have scanned the books that is for private use and they do not intend to share.  I ought to point out that scans being published DO NOT undermine the value of the actual printed original because those will always be wanted.  The truth is UK Golden Age comics do not command a high price and where they are offered at high prices they do not sell.

So.....

I was asked by someone what my "grails" were. I gathered he meant what books I'd like to get hold of.

Obviously William A. Ward's The Bat the strip or the alleged collected edition.

The list used to be on the Yahoo groups but I have filled in a lot of "want to see/haves" since then -full Iron Warrior and Krakos strips (I would love to see Krakos' first appearance). Mars Man, Moon Man in Zip Bang.

Sad though I might be I would dearly love to put faces to the creators -the McCails, Len Fullerton, Alf Farningham, William A Ward and so on. That I have found images of some original Penny Dreadful authors is perplexing since we have portraits or even sketch portraits but no photos of people who are more modern era -John Spencer (Samuel Assael), Gerald Swan and so on.

For me just finding a new character or even the odd photo tends to be a boost.

Of course if anyone out there has any of these things -get in touch!

Denis Gifford And The Birth Of The British Super Hero

 

I have written a number of times about one of the Founding Fathers of British comic book history, Denis Gifford (the other Founding Father is, of course, Alan Clark).

Denis worked on many comics as a scripter or artist -or both.  He also created many comic book characters. He should also be credited as being creator of the first British super heroes.

The first of these, of course, was Mr. Muscle (no, not that advertising character from TV). Mike O'Leary stumbles across a body in a dark alley -the man speaks:"Quick! Car BOL 1570 ohhhh!"  The man is dead. Mike sheds his every day clothes to reveal "the famous uniform of Mr. Muscle!"   it doesn't take the costumed hero long to track down the Japanese saboteurs in "The Invasion Plans"

"Britain's Superman" was the work of a seventeen years old Gifford in 1945 and appeared in a tuppeny (2d or two pennies) eight-pager titled Dynamic Comics.

"Mike O'leary drinks the essence of strength" is something I have read.  This is odd since when I asked Denis his response was "No origin. He just appeared and went into action!"   That was the norm in those days  It was produce an action story.  No time for long convoluted explanations.  Unless Denis forgot (!) I think this is a mistake on someone's part.  I know Denis had a copy of the comic but he never ever let anyone borrow or take anything away to copy.

The intention had been that this was "Britain's Superman"!

In 1947 appeared Streamline Comics.  The hero was...guess? Streamline who was billed as "The Fastest Man Alive!".  The first of the four issues was drawn by AC1 (Air craftsman 1) Denis over a weekend as a Duty Clerk in the Royal Air Force.

Denis designed the costume and gave scientist Keenan King an origin: he injected himself with Elixir-X and became a speedster.  "The first thing to do is to get a skin-tight uniform" says Keenan.  What else?

The character was a collaboration between Denis and Bob Monkhouse (creator of The Tornado and Pat Peril).  Issues 2-4 were drawn, badly compared to Gifford's work, by Bryan Berry who was to go on to become a top Sci Fi auther.

 Below: some sources (who have NOT done their work) claim Berry "drew the cover to #4"  whereas he was the artist of interior art as well.

 Cardal Publishing is said to have gone out of business due to court cases over the "erotic" books they published -UK obscenity laws were very draconian at the time and even saw "saucy seaside" postcard artists such as Donald McGill prosecuted.  In fact, Denis very strongly hinted at the publisher being "very shady" and taking the money and running.  That does seem far more likely!

In 1949 appeared issue number 1 of Ray Regan. Regan was a hard nosed 'tec and you'll notice from the cover the banner reads: Ray Regan -Also Tiger Man!  I used to have a full colour image of this but everything saved to 3 inch floppy disk was lost back in the 1990s!  Still better than nothing.  Find a scan anywhere else if you can (if you do please let me know!).

 Denis Ray, an American comic fan sent me scans of the Tiger Man strip and I thank him!  I should have asked for a cover scan!

Basically, the origin of "The mightiest man of action"  goes as follows.  Phil Britton and Professor Beauclerc are in deepest, darkest Africa when Britton is attacked by a sabre-toothed tiger.  Yes, a tiger.  Go with the flow.  The tiger dies and Britton develops great strength.  The Prof. not really qualified in my opinion, believes to tiger died after its power flowed through its sabre teeth into Britton.   Hey -Timely (Marvel) Comics character The Whizzer got his powers after a "transfusion of mongoose blood"  Go figure.

There seem to have been a few tigers in deepest and darkest Africa according to UK comics.  And, yes, I came up with an explanation linking them all.  But that's another matter.

Britton is shown in tiger-skin pants (yewch!) so the assumption is that he was to be one more jungle lord (there was one every 5 square miles back in the day).  But when I asked Denis about this I was told that had there been a second issue, Britton would have been back in the UK in a Tiger Man costume that Monkhouse had sketched out.

That was it.

Denis was quite happy to see his characters get a new lease of life and thought Mr. Muscle and Streamline running around after Robert Lovett (Back From The Dead) was "a hoot!"

Now there were heroic characters before these three -but they all conformed to the British norm for powered action heroes: civviy- clothes.  TNT Tom is a prime example.

Dennis M. Reader was to later bring forth more costumed characters but Gifford was first in 1945.

Today all of this seems to have been forgotten.  After all, if it isn't in full colour or after 1998 and Marvel or DC it doesn't seem to matter.  But let's give credit where it is due!

The Lost Gold of the Incas

 

Still Alive

 A brief explanation on why no posts. About two weeks ago I was writing a post between

drawing some comic pages and got a very sharp and painful sensation in my right eye. My only good eye.  Clearly I had over done things and strained the eyes so was left sitting around like a loon.  

I had my eyes checked and new spectacles are on the way and luckily it was nothing to do with the slow bleed in the eye (type 2 diabetes).  It means that even with glasses I need to cut back on a lot of what I do as it is never going to "get better".

That's it. Stop doing anything involving my eyes or risk damaging the eyesight further. 

It really is a pisser when you start getting older and your supposed only income are the comics you publish and then struggle to get new ones sorted.

My advice is simple: don't get old. Stay 30 for as long as possible😂

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