"...eclectic and entertaining" - John Freeman (Down the Tubes), "...essential reading" - Hibernia Comics, "...always a good read" Graeme Neil Reid, "...a terrific blog" Ian Wheeler, "...one of my favourite sites on the web - always fascinating and informative!" Michael 'Judge Dredd' Carroll
Over here on the National Archives blog a fascinating post has just gone up highlighting the work of artist Norman 'Jane' Pett illustrating a newspaper strip of George Orwell's seminal book, Animal Farm. This was new to me so I wanted to highlight the article and show some of the images...
As the National Archive blogger notes...
The plan was to tell the story ‘in approximately 78 cartoons, each cartoon containing three or four panels. Thus, if the feature were run by a daily paper, it would take about 13 weeks to tell the whole story’.
One of the files contains some very interesting correspondence which is illuminating about the production process for the strip cartoon. It is correspondence between Mr Lt. Col. Leslie Sheridan of the IRD, Don Freeman, an artist who lived in East Grinstead who provided the ‘roughs’ of the drawings, and the cartoonist Norman Pett who lived in Crawley (who produced the final versions of the cartoons). The correspondence between them is very friendly – both Don and Norman address Leslie Sheridan as ‘Sherry’ (as I shall now refer to him), and they all regularly meet for lunch at the ‘Press Club’ – but sometimes, of course, alterations to the work are called for and Sherry has to deliver constructive criticism (and sometimes apply some pressure regarding deadlines).
One of the first comics I ever blogged about (here, here and here) was a title called 'Wanted' - it was published by 'Celebrity' - a publisher about whom I knew very little (then or now!). It would turn out that Celebrity's most successful title would be their Count Duckula comic (which I covered here), but they had at least one other title published. This was The wisdom of gnomes, an (according to wikipedia) animated series made in Spain and was a spin-off from the series 'David the gnome'.
I've looked at artist sketchbooks here, here and here
I've subsequently found some more, so without further ado let's see what else is out there for you...
Duncan Fegredo
for £20 and it's available here
for £20 and it's available here
David Millgate
Art from Sinister Dexter co-creator and Judge Dredd artist. This high quality 48 page A4 art-book, featuring concept art, sketches, 2000AD art, pencil, colour and inked work, produced with permission from 2000AD.
The first print run was just 100 copies, retailing at £14.99 plus postage (£3.00 UK), it was initially on sale at ICE Comic Con in Birmingham on 9th September 2017.
Or you can STILL pre-order a signed copy via Baden James Mellonie via Paypal badenmellonie@hotmail.com (for £17.99 UK, please ask about non-UK postage before ordering) or contact Baden on Twitter @MelMellonie
Frank Quitely
With three decades of comic art behind Frank Quitely, Drawings + Sketches selects work from Jupiter's Legacy, Jupiter's Circle, WE3, Pax Americana and more offering insights into the stories and processes behind them. Comics were invented in Glasgow. It is fitting then that Glasgow should be home to Frank Quitely, known worldwide for drawing Batman, Superman and X-Men. A standalone beautiful and inspiring art book, a must-have for any fan or aspiring comics creator.
I've looked previously at Hulton Press books/annuals that were produced to accompany Swift (here) and there were similar types of books produced to accompany Eagle and Girl. I won't look at the 'usual' Girl annuals instead I want to look at the spin-off books.
I'm not a Girl collector but if you are and can let me know what I've missed out then do just let me know...
I've also left out the Girl novels because I've covered them before here and here
A Girl book - World ballet (1958)
