I've enjoyed collecting newspaper strip reprints for some time now (partly because they seem even more under-appreciated than 'normal' British comics do) and I was pleased to recently pick up this reprint from the Daily Mirror
I'd come across this slightly 'puppet' like front cover on another Daily Mirror reprint...Belinda in 'shooting star'...the effect is slightly...odd.
Anyway back to Captain Reilly-Ffoul...a quick look at Wikipedia (here) tells me that the strip ran in the Daily Mirror from 1938-1952 and it was drawn by Bernard Graddon. The strip is...
A satire of dramatic films and other comic strips, Just Jake depicted events at the village of Much Cackling in the county of Gertshire. The prime character, Captain A.R.P. Reilly-Ffoull, squire of Arntwee Hall, was parody of early movie villains. He was aided by his servant/butler Eric and the local serf, Titus Tallow. Jake, the original hero of the title, seldom appeared after the first year. Other characters were schoolgirl Missy, old crone Maida Grannit and Cactus, a black man.
(having seen a drawing of Cactus I can confidently say that this strip isn't going to get reprinted anytime soon)
Perhaps the most memorable feature of the strip is the fact that one of the captain's exclamations 'stap me!' was used by Dennis Gifford as the title for his early work on the British newspaper comic strip...
The book was dedicated as follows..."For Pandy - and in memory of Captain A.R.P. Reilly-Ffoul, F.F.I. and bar" so the strip was clearly a favourite of Gifford's.
Anyway, back to the captain...here are a few pages from the book that give you an idea of the strip.
The book starts at strip reference D244 ('Educating Eric') so I don't think this can be the first ever strip. The strip runs to D308 and then there's another strip that runs from E1 to E37.
32 pages plus covers in all. Black & white artwork throughout in a slightly not quite square format.
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