Cartoons and Comic Strips by Terry Bave

I finished reading Terry Bave's autobiography entitled Cartoons and Comic Strips a few days ago, and it was a smashing read! The book, which has just over 300 pages, talks about Terry's early life, breaking into comics and the inspiration for creating characters for many years.

The book is illustrated with suitable scans and cartoons both published and rejected, including Terry's first submitted cartoon and his first one published (which appeared in Picturegoer in 1954). Throughout the book are well over 100 drawings, many of which are full comic strips!

Terry goes very in depth with the creations of his characters, particulary Baby Whamster, his first break into comics, and how he quickly developed to producing half a dozen pages, if not more, every week! One thing I found very interesting is Scribbler, who turned out to be "too popular for his own good" - the strip was ended because he recieved TOO MUCH fan mail! 

I was thrilled to see so much of the book dedicated to Whizzer and Chips which, as regular readers of this blog may know, is my favourite comic. Terry contibuted a good number of strips to the first issue of Whizzer and Chips and even created the 'raids', but I'm suprised to learn that he didn't even know the name of the comic until it was released! He also mentions the television advertisement for the comic, which featured an animated Ginger the cat (one of Terry's strips - Ginger's Tum). I've been looking for this ad for a long time, and have contacted many different companies and archives, but sadly with no success. Maybe somewhere someone has got it recorded, and will one day bring it to light.

At the back of the book is a complete list of all of Terry's characters and appearences in specials, annuals etc. The list, accompanied with occasional images, is a huge 44 pages long, and also notes when a strip first appeared, which comic it was in and wether Terry or Shiela created it or took it over from somebody else etc!

The book covers a lot of stuff, and I definitely recommend it for fans of his art, others looking for tips and tricks of the trade or somebody just looking for a good read. At the moment the book can only be ordered from Lulu and costs $23.75, which is equlivelant to about £15 at time of writing, and can be ordered by clicking on the link below:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/terry-bave/cartoons-and-comic-strips/paperback/product-20625272.html

Yesterday I got my copy of Lion King of Story Papers by Steve Holland in the post, and, although I haven't read it all yet, I've flicked through and read the first chapter, and it is incredibly well researched and beautifully laid out with suitable illustrations. I'll be posting my thoughts once I've read it, but if you've already decided you want to get a copy, click on the link below!

http://bearalleybooks.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/lion-king-of-picture-story-papers_3.html