Steve Dillon exhibition (Stevenage) - part 8

Some images from the recent Steve Dillon exhibition that was held in Stevenage...

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

From the visitor book...the message from B[ernard] Dillon here that simply says "Can't help being proud of our son"

Ring Raiders - Sandy James art mystery

A couple of weeks ago friend of the blog John Freeman spotted this lovely piece of art for sale on the Catawiki auction site (here). He identified it as being by artist Sandy James and he wrote a short piece for his amazing Down the Tubes site here about Sandy & about the short-lived Ring Raiders comic that this work was for / from.

 

So here's where it gets interesting...Ring Raiders only lasted 6 issues in the UK (9 issues in Germany as we saw a couple of weeks ago). Sandy's art appears in all 6 issues - in the strip "Freedom Fight!". There's 3 pages of art per issue so a total of 18 pages of art in total. BUT that story is set in South America 1966 and there are very definitely NO vikings in it.

The Ring Raiders special that was published subsequently has the final 3 pages of the "Freedom Fight!" strip in it. This would have been in issue #7 of Ring Raiders. The final frame of these 3 pages has our heroes flying off into the sunset with the words "...to await our next mission!"

And that mission presumably involved travelling back to good 'ol viking time in issue #8 onwards. Guess we'll never know for sure now!

UPDATED: Big Value Comic (1995)

Big Value Comic was a short-lived (just 18 issues in total) all reprint comic from 1995 featuring material from Buster, Whizzer and Chips, Whoopee and Big Comic Fortnightly. 

UPDATE (02/05/26); now with covers added for issues 10, 12 & 14. All images taken from here

UPDATE (07/04/26); now with covers added for issues 5, 7 & 8. All images taken from here

Here's my (incomplete) covers gallery...

Big Value comic #1, February 24th 1995

Big Value comic #2, March 10th 1995

Big Value comic #3, March 24th 1995

Big Value comic #4, April 7th 1995

Big Value comic #5, April 21st 1995

Big Value comic #6, May 5th 1995

Big Value comic #7, May 19th 1995

Big Value comic #8, June 2nd 1995

Big Value comic #9, June 16th 1995

image not to hand - can you help?

Big Value comic #10, June 30th 1995

Big Value comic #11, July 14th 1995

Big Value comic #12, July 28th 1995

Big Value comic #13, August 11th 1995

Big Value comic #14, August 25th 1995

Big Value comic #15, September 8th 1995

image not to hand - can you help?

Big Value comic #16, September 22nd 1995

Big Value comic #17, October 6th 1995

image not to hand - can you help?

Big Value comic #18, October 20th 1995

image not to hand - can you help?

UPDATED: All the Bears

There's a story to be unpicked somewhere about all the following characters and, right now, I'm not sure how it all hangs together so I just need to start somewhere by working out all the instances of the character appearances that I've found so far.

The characters are Star Bears, Scare Bears and Were Bears...

UPDATE (01/05/26): Here's a 48 page long, full colour, A4 sized comic that I've never seen before...

and here's the back page...

So the comic contents are as follows...

1). front cover - 1 page

2). Scare Bears meet the St. John badgers - 2 pages, new material

3). Star Bears - 4 pages, (reprinted from Zodiac comic #1)

4). Scare Bears - 4 pages, (reprinted from Zodiac comic #1)

5). Scare Bears - 12 pages

6). Star Bears - 4 pages, (reprinted from Zodiac comic #2)

7). map of the events going on in Hyde Park that day - 2 pages

8). Star Bears - 4 pages, (reprint from Zodiac comic #3)

9). Scare Bears - 4 pages, (possible reprint from Zodiac comic #4)

10). Star Bears - 6 pages, (possible reprint from Zodiac comic #4)

11). Scare Bears - 3 pages, reprinted from Zodiac comic #2

12). advert - 1 page

13). rear cover - 1 page

UPDATED: I've found an image of the Scare Bears stickers (25 in a pack for 24p!) so I've added that in below...

1). Star Bears 

Created by Craig Dixon and Matt Gibas

Here and here I looked at Z comic...

...which has 4 pages of Star Bears content...

...and then there was the sticker book (here)

And in this book there's a 6 page strip...

Here's an example page...

2). Scare Bears 

Illustrated by Craig Dixon and Matt Gibas

Illustrated by George Nicholas

This featured in the sticker book (here)

Here and here I looked at Z comic...

which featured a 4 page Scare Bears strip

there was also the Scare Bears monster party book that I looked at here

The Scare Bear also feature on the cover of 'Cartoon Aid' which I looked at here

and this has two newspaper style strips

plus this full-colour 12-page strip (illustrated by George Nicholas - my list of his work here)

3). Were Bears 

another comic from George Nicholas - which I looked at in more detail here - a title from 1990/1. So I'm assuming that the Scare Bears evolved into Were bears

Eric Parker - miscellaneous work, part 7 (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

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