Comic Cutz - the art of Barrie Mitchell (part 8)

The Barrie Mitchell exhibition that took place in Ryde in February 2026 had many highlights and a LOT of art. I tried to take photos of all the art but there was too much! Anyway, here's the start of a long series of posts all about the art that was there...

1). Harlem Heroes was here

2). paintings of cars was here

3). his work for Red Dwarf was here

4). some football art was here

5). some Dr Who art was here

6). some more Dr Who art was here

7). yet more Dr Who art was here

even more Dr Who comic art...

Eric Parker - miscellaneous work, part 12 (of 23)

I've recently begun a lengthy series of blog posts all about renowned illustrator Eric Parker (check out his Wikipedia entry here) who had a 50 year (!) career as a comic illustrator.

I've looked at Roughs (part 1) here
Roughs (part 2) here
Roughs (part 3) here
Roughs (part 4) here
Female heads (part 1) here
Female heads (part 2) here
Female heads (part 3) here
Female heads (part 4) here
Pubs (part 1) here
Pubs (part 2) here

Overseas (part 1) here

Overseas (part 2) here

Overseas (part 3) here

Overseas (part 4) here

Overseas (part 5) here

Overseas (part 6) here

Overseas (part 7) here

Overseas (part 8) here

Overseas (part 9) here

Overseas (part 10) here

UK scenes (part 1) here

UK scenes (part 2) here

UK scenes (part 3) here

UK scenes (part 4) here

Character studies & groups, drafts (part 1) here

Character studies & groups, drafts (part 2) here

Character studies & groups, drafts (part 3) here

Character studies & groups, drafts (part 4) here

Character studies & groups, drafts (part 5) here

Character studies & groups, drafts (part 6) here

Life drawings (part 1) here

Life drawings (part 2) here

Life drawings (part 3) here

Life drawings (part 4) here

Life drawings (part 5) here

Life drawings (part 6) XXXX

Life drawings (part 7) here

Life drawings (part 8) here

Life drawings (part 9) here

Life drawings (part 10) here

Gentlemen is here

Horses (part 1) is here

Horses (part 2) is here

Furniture is here

Old soldiers (part 1) is here

Old soldiers (part 2) is here

Old soldiers (part 3) is here

Sexton Blake is here

More soldiers is here

Miscellaneous is here

Layouts & scenes is here

And now we turn our attention to a final (albeit large selection of his work). Next up is his work on "letters". These are a variety of sizes - from the very small to the quite large.

UPDATED: - Fusion covers

I'm grateful to Andrew Wolf for bringing these fanzine to my attention. He did so over on the "Fans of Alan Davis" Facebook page (here). I've not seen other covers for Fusion so if you can help me out with other images that'd be great. Andrew says 9 issues all with a print run of less than 200 copies.

UPDATE (21/07/26); now with covers for issues 1 & 3 added (thanks to friend of the blog Andrew Wolf - check out his Miracleman blog on Tumblr here)

UPDATE (01/07/26); with thanks to Comics Tony & Ewan Brownlow for their feedback on the original post. Updated with covers for issues 4, 6 & 7.

Fusion fanzine, #1, 30p

cover by Alex Breadner

Fusion fanzine, #2, 30p

cover by Alan Davis

Fusion fanzine, #3, 30p

front cover art by Mark King

back cover art by Grant Morrison

Fusion fanzine, #4, 30p

cover by Grant Morrison

Fusion fanzine, #5, 40p

cover by Alan Davis

Fusion fanzine, #6, 30p

cover by Grant Morrison

Fusion fanzine, #7, 40p

cover by Tony O'Donnell

Jim Baikie - Orkney exhibition, part 9

For approximately the umpteenth time I'm indebted to Norman Boyd for his help with this blog. This time he was kind enough to send me some of his holiday photos from a recent trip to the Orkneys. 

Whilst there he was able to visit the exhibition all about the local artist that was on (from 03/05/25 - 21/09/25) at the Orkney museum in Kirkwall. Comics artist Jim Baikie was the focus of the exhibition. Norman took a lot of photos so I'll spread them over a number of posts, enjoy!   

Part 1 was here

Part 2 was here

Part 3 was here

Part 4 was here

Part 5 was here

Part 6 was here

Part 7 was here

Part 8 was here

Excalibur auctions - part 2

Some images from the recent auction of original comic art from Peter Hansen's amazing collection. This art was sold on Saturday 9th May 2026 by Excalibur auctions.

Part 1 was here

Just some more images from the auction - including this fantastic Dan Dare handkerchief

SSI journal - 1985

I've looked before at all things to do with the SSI (Society of Strip Illustration) here and I like the newsletters they produced BUT these were produced in very low quantities so you stand virtually no chance of collecting a set. 

I've looked at some examples of the SSI journal for 

1992 here 

1981 here

1982 here

1983 here

and for other years I'm just going to collect images for the covers as and when they come up for sale on ebay. Over time we might end up with a full (??) set. So here's the start of a covers gallery for SSI journal for 1985...

SSI journal, June 1985

SSI journal, October 1985

originally for sale c/o here

SSI journal, November 1985

c/o friend of the blog Andrew Wolf

Z comic - issue 4

I've looked previously at Z comic (from the Zodiac toy shop chain - see this blog here all about this leading toy shop of the 1980s)...

Issue 1 - part 1 was here

Issue 1 - part 2 was here

Issue 2 was here

Issue 3 was here

and now I've finally found a cover image for the 4th, and final, issue. Good luck tracking this one down!

A4 sized, 48 pages, full colour throughout.

Contributors include Mark Hannon, Craig Dixon, Mike Gibas, Leslie Kett, Z. Lagowski, George Nicholas, Simon Dixon, Peter Holman-Read, Peter Reading and more.