Smash and Odhams - Leo Baxendale Hands Over The Reins

Time to take a look at one of the absolute best comics the United Kingdom has ever produced - Smash. When Smash launched back in 1966, top artist Leo Baxendale was already overworked thanks to its sister comic Wham, which he was essentially illustrated cover to cover. 

Ok I exaggerate, but despite the workload he still managed to draw the front covers for first three issues of Smash (I shared a few pages from issue three here), all of which promoted the free gifts given away to help get the comic off its feet. Issue one came with a "Big Bang" carboard gun (quite a fun and somewhat common idea for a gift, but more on that here) and issue three had a "Phantom Fighter Jet". To be honest, I'm not quite sure what issue two had. I've pulled the scan of the front cover below from elsewhere and as you can see it says "TOP SECRET", but based on the clues it looks like a hopping cardboard frog. Fun!

Anyway, back on topic. After the gifts ran out, Baxendale pulled out a bright and exciting single panel featuring his character The Man From B.U.N.G.L.E. for issue four. The character is of course a silly parody of spy show The Man From UNCLE. However, he would only ever draw two of these covers for issues four and five, before handing over the reins. Below is the absolutely stunning front cover of issue five, and what Baxendale dubs among his last "official" work for Odhams. More on that in just a moment.

I can only imagine how seeing this front cover on the shelves in 1966 must have felt. As much as I love the Beano and Dandy, covers like these must have made them look dated in comparison. It couldn't be much different to how they made other comics look old fashioned when they hit the shelves in the 30s!

When issue six was published the following week, Baxendale's signature was not to be seen. Instead, I think it was the fabulously talented Ron Spencer who took over the immense task of filling his shoes. And credit where credit is due, he did a fantastic job. Below is the cover of issue six.

"

In his 1978 autobiography A Very Funny Business, Baxendale talks about these few Smash front covers. Rather than reword or summarise, I'll just let him do the talking: 

"While I was drawing all these features for Fleetway comics, I was producing a massive amount of 'undercover' work for Odhams. My last 'official' work for Odhams was the Eagle Eye episode in Wham no. 96, for 16 April 1966 (a lovely drawing). Wham's sister comic Smash had started on 6 February 1966. After drawing the first three special 'free gift' front covers for Smash, I created Man from Bungle as the permanent cover feature -- in an attractive big single-picture format. I only drew two of these, before handing over to somebody else. My Grimly Feendish character in Eagle Eye had proved very popular, so he was given a page of his own in Smash. I drew the first nine Grimly Feendish pages very rapidly, using a simplified variation of my normal drawing style. I gave Grimly some daft little subsidiary characters. This was an attractive strip, and was printed in full colour on the back cover of Smash. I also created Bad Penny (A Minnie-the-Minx-type character) as a double-page spread for Smash. These sets (along with the Eagle Eye episode for 16 April) were the last 'official' pages I drew for Odhams.

"I was by now in full spate for Fleetway. But I was reluctant to give up the lucrative Odhams market. Their rates of pay channelled large quantities of pages to Odhams via Mike Brown, a cartoon-film animator. I pencilled and Mike inked them in. One series we did in this manner was the Eagle Eye adventure which ran from 30 July to 7 September 1966. We turned out larger numbers of Grimly Feendish pages and Bad Penny sets in this way."

A Very Funny Business is a must-read for any
fan of British comics.

So for any young Smash fans who missed Baxendale's work once his stunning front covers ceased, all they had to do was flip over to the back page. Here are the Grimly Feendish strips for issues five and six respectively.

From Smash #5.

From Smash #6.

And finally, a quick look at Smash number 9. I'll show the front cover too, because Spencer has done a stunning job, but it's the back cover that is of real interest for this post. As Baxendale mentioned in the quote above, he drew nine Grimly Feendish pages "very rapidly". As such, that would make this back page his very last "official" work for Odhams and the wonderful Power comics.

Willy the Kid badges (again!)

I have written about the Willy the Kid badges before (link here) and am pleased to say that, only 10 years later, I have finally completed my set with the badge 'Willy the Kid a bit of a twit'! I do, however, have one question about them: does anybody know the order?

Before he passed away in 2017 I did speak several times with Willy's creator Leo Baxendale. Although he confirmed no badge was made for the special edition book in 2002, titled The Worst of Willy the Kid, I foolishly neglected to ask him about the order. Oops. So if you know, please do comment.

In some personal news, I have recently moved from New Zealand to Melbourne, Australia! Before I left NZ I did take a few photos of some comics I want to cover so do stay tuned for that. Sadly I had to leave my comic collection behind. I still own them, but 2600km or so doesn't exactly make them accessible. Til next time (very soon)!

This Week In: 1973 - Shiver and Shake

The issue of Shiver and Shake that went on sale this week 41 years ago saw the introduction of not one, not two but "four super fun features". The full-page advertisement from the previous week's issue shows what they were. 

Although it isn't the order in which they appeared inside the comic, I'll look at them as they appeared on the advertisement, starting with Charlie Williams and moving clockwise. Williams was a Shake resident, appearing on page five of the elephant's comic or page fifteen overall. Illustrated by Alf Saporito this strip is rather similar in format to the celebrity strips that appeared in Buster in the early 1960's. Below is Charlie's page with a Charlie Drake page underneath for comparison. Illustrated by Arthur Martin, it can be found in Buster dated 19th May 1962.

Wizards Anonymous is next, and it appears just over the page. This strip is my favourite of all the new features - it has a good, fun story with excellent accompanying artwork by Brian Walker.

The other two new features both appear in the Shiver section. Ghouldilocks is next on the above advertisement, and appears on page eight. The artist is Stan McMurtry and this particular episode is a reprint from Jag, although some fresh pages were drawn for her run in Shiver and Shake.

The final of the "new fun features", both on the advert and in the comic, is Grimly Feendish, a character originally created by Leo Baxendale as Eagle Eye's arch nemesis in Wham. Here the artist is Stan McMurtry and this episode is a reprint from Smash no. 58. Some new strips were produced for Shiver and Shake by a young Tom Paterson.

Wham Turns 50!

It was 50 years ago today that the first issue of Wham was dated for sale. Wham was the first of the five power comics, followed by 'Smash' and 'Pow' as humour comics and 'Fantastic' and 'Terrific' as adventure comics. Wham was a fantastic comic, created mostly by Leo Baxendale who was commissioned by Odhams to create a "super-Beano". The comic also includes some fantastic artwork by the great Ken Reid, most notably in the form of Frankie Stein, which arrived with Ken in #4.

My first taste of Wham was in the form of the 1968 annual, which I picked up soon after I started reading comics in a nearby antiques shop. This and issue #4 are my only two Wham comics (the image at the top of this post comes from Phil-Comics' website).

For me, Wham will always be the best of the Power comics (even if it wasn't called a "power comic" from the start). I've never been a fan of either Fantastic or Terrific, and Smash and Pow seem to lack something Wham had, regardless of the quality of Ken Reid's Queen of the Seas or whatever else was in the others. Despite their short runs (Wham would produce just 187 issues) the impact of the power comics is huge, and remains memorable to this day.

UPDATE

After posting this it's good to see a few other people joining in with the birthday celebrations. Here are some links (in order of time posted):

Scans of the complete first issue of Wham (in two parts) by Kid:

Part 1 - http://kidr77.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/super-free-birthday-gift-wham-1-part-one.html

Part 2 - http://kidr77.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/part-two-of-wham-1-super-birthday-free.html

Advertisements for the first two issues by Irmantas:

http://kazoop.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/advert-for-wham-no-1.html

Birthday celebration post by Lew Stringer:

http://www.lewstringer.blogspot.co.nz/2014/06/whams-50th-wham-iversary.html

Smash! No. 3 (1966)

I've never looked at an issue of Smash on this blog but today that changes as we dive into the pages of the third issue, dated 19th February 1966. It cost 7D, which seems like a lot of money, especially in comparison to The Dandy and The Beano that cost 3D, but then Smash did have eight more pages and was bigger in size. To add to the package was the free 'Flying Phantom Fighter', which Leo Baxendale's superb front cover piece promotes. I don't own the gift but here's an image of it:

Baxendale drew four pages in this issue and was drawing pages for Wham as well, so was a very busy man in 1966. His first strip inside is Bad Penny, an excellent two pages with lots of lovely detail.

Of course, I can't write about Smash and fail to mention Ken Reid's contribution. Queen of the Seas is a beautiful set with so much detail and depth that I'm sure I could feel the rocking of the boat as I read it!

Next up - Danger Mouse; no, not the animation but the comic strip version by Artie Jackson, which predates the television show by fifteen years!

To wrap up this post I'll leave you with the back page strip - Grimly Feendish by Leo Baxendale.

The Beano Book 1957

It cannot be said that The Beano Book (or 'annual', as it has been known since 2003) has not had some great covers, my favourite is the 1941 cover, with Big Eggo peering over his eggs as various Beano characters clamber out (I even used an edited version of this cover on the first issue of 'Atomic Comic' back in 2012). Dudley Watkins executed the cover perfectly and I just love the intense blue that surrounded the logo. Also up there at number two is the 1957 wraparound cover, this time illustrated by James Crighton.

What a cover! And it certainly makes up for the fact that there is no spread over the inside covers, replaced this time with some jokes that seem to me are just panels taken from regular Beano strips. So skipping these, and the 'this book belongs to' page, and we are greeted with 'The Beano Book Song' as an introduction.

Also nice is the artwork on the contents, it adds some life to what would otherwise be a fairly boring page.

Now onto the comic strips, and with contributions from Davy Law, Ken Reid, and Leo Baxendale this sure is a high quality book, so it's difficult to choose where to start. I'll start at the start though, and the first comic strip in the book is Dennis the Menace by Davy Law. Dennis was hugely popular by this point, Dennis' second Dennis the Menace annual was released simultaneously with this Beano book.

Next up is this Minnie the Minx episode. Not only excellent artwork by Leo Baxendale, but a good story as well.

One more strip for this post, and that will be When The Bell Rings, again by Baxendale. Of course, this would later become The Bash Street Kids.

To wrap up the post I'll leave you with this question: what is your favourite Beano Book (or annual) cover?

Eagle Eye - In France!

It may be little known to anybody in the U.K but Eagle Eye, another of Leo Baxendale's fantastic creations, who originally appeared in Wham was reprinted across the channel in France.

What a page!

Although I can't read French the artwork is still good to see all in one place and I think it's long overdue that the stories are printed here in the U.K, along with other classic comic strips. 

On the topic of Leo Baxendale in France I also recently discovered that his creation Willy the Kid had some strips appear in a French publication called Eppo, and that these particular strips were fresh to the paper and have never seen the light of day in English. Unfortunately I couldn't find the complete strips (but I am tracking down issues of Eppo) but somebody has been good enough to scan almost 250 of the French Eagle Eye (where he has been renamed to Archibald Razmott) strips, all available in one convenient location. Please click the link below to go there! 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39629411@N00/sets/72157608567824513/

Firworks Fun With The Beano (1958) and The Dandy (1959)

It's time for my favourite celebrations of the year - especially when it comes to comics - Guy Fawkes Night! Fireworks means bright front covers and exciting stories, and this time we're heading back to the late 1950's to take a look at copies of The Beano and The Dandy. We'll go oldest first and start with The Beano.

This issue was dated November 1st 1958 so was a bit early for the fireworks celebrations (especially considering the comic actually went on sale on the 25th October. As can be seen above, Dudley Watkins illustrated the front cover that featured Biffo the Bear. This particular episode is a favourite Biffo strip of mine.

Over the page and it's Leo Baxendale who kicks off the fireworks fun inside with his Little Plum strip. I've shown this strip before but it's good stuff so I'll happily show it again (you may notice that the final panel is an exact copy of part of the first one)!

Sadly, neither Minnie the Minx or The Bash Street Kids get up to any fun with fireworks, nor does Dennis the Menace for that matter. Roger The Dodger does however, except that Roger could hardly have called it "fun" himself, but it would have been a great spectacle for any passerby who had at some point been at the receiving end of one of his dodges! Ken Reid is the artist here.

Moving on to The Dandy, which went on sale a little over a year later with a cover date of November 7th 1959. Unlike in The Beano we just looked at where there were no more than three fireworks themed strips this issue of The Dandy had no less than eight, and it all kick starts on the cover with Korky the Cat, as illustrated by James Crighton.

Moving on inside and the first strip we come across is Robinson And His Dog Crusoe, a clear spoof on the classic novel Robinson Crusoe. George Martin did a fine job with the art here; the final panel is (quite literally) cracking!

And next up is Dudley Watkins' Desperate Dan, who won't settle for a small fireworks display but has to have a JUMBO one! You'll get that joke when you read the strip...

Next up is Charlie the Chimp, a strip drawn in the more realistic  "adventure" style and is about, obviously, a chimp called Charlie. George Ramsbottom did a fine job illustrating it; I love that final panel - it has lots of depth and feeling!

Also drawn in an "adventure" style was Cat's-Eye Kelly, about a boy with eyes like a cat, which enabled him to see incredibly clearly in the dark. I'm unsure of this artist on this strip, it was either Toby Baines or Jack Glass. This episode explores the origins of Guy Fawkes Night, and explains how it really happened!

The next page had not one but two firework strips. At the top is Big Bang Benny, a smashing strip illustrated by the great Ken Reid, and is followed by Mr. Mutt, illustrated by George Martin.

And finally, Smasher just has to get in on the fireworks fun, and does so in blue and yellow on the back page and even uses the rockets to evade a whacking! Art by Hugh Morren.

I've started the fireworks celebrations today as (here in New Zealand at least) today is the first day you can legally buy fireworks, as they can only be sold from November 2nd - 5th, so that is when my celebrations here will take place!