Ten British comics that could be turned into movies

Inspired by a column published by Tuppence Magazine on Saturday, here are my suggestions for ten characters from British comics that should be made into movies, or maybe into a 13-part Netflix series. You're welcomes to disagree and compile your own list. These are in no particular order.

1 – The Steel Claw
I have a penchant for noir crime fiction, for thrillers and for science fiction, and The Steel Claw combined all three. The artwork by Jesus Blasco (aided by his brothers) was superb and Tom Tully was a writer of extraordinary power. When I look back at the strips I remember most fondly from my childhood, Tully's name comes up time and time again.

2 – The Trigan Empire
This would make an epic movie if made on the scale that some movie-makers now put into battle scenes. Think big—think Lord of the Rings scale—with a Viet Nam-style war going on by which I mean low tech vs. high tech... swords against the lightning!

3 – Spinball
Forget Harlem Heroes (sorry Tuppence Magazine), let's get back to something with some guts. OK, so the guts were twisted around broken motorbike parts and pinball flippers, but few bloodthirsty teenage boys would be able to resist this variation of Rollerball.

4 – Wilson / Tough of the Tracks
The epic stories of Wilson the Wonder Athlete and Alf Tupper—the Tough of the Tracks, would be an inspiration at a time when there are more obese people in the world than underweight. After the government dropped the ball following huge public response to sports following the Olympics, one of these needs to be greenlit and filmed in time for the Rio Olympics.

5 — Zenith
I was going to suggest Marvelman – not Mick Anglo's original, which was only barely original, but the revived version by Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman – but if there's even the tiniest chance Zack Snyder would direct it, I'd rather not take the risk. Instead, what about Grant Morrison's Zenith. Deadpool proved that it can be done.

6 – Charley's War
We've had many epics based around World War II and some – All Quiet on the Western Front and Paths of Glory spring immediately to mind – based on the Great War. This would probably be better as a series, with multiple storylines woven out of what happens to Charley's family both in the trenches and at home.

7 – HMS Nightshade
I almost suggested Darkie's Mob, but that might just be a bit too harrowing! Nightshade has the advantage that it is being told by a survivor, which might temper the horror that the sailors are forced to go through as they risk everything against U-Boats, ice and the cruel, cruel sea.

8 – Gulliver Guinea Pig
This one is completely left of field but we haven't considered animation yet and I'd love to see what Hayao Miyazaki / Studio Ghibli would make of these charming, funny stories for youngsters.

9 – Heros the Spartan
A good, old-fashioned historical epic with a hint of the supernatural played out on the kind of scale Ridley Scott could get his teeth into. A close second would be Wulf the Briton.

10 – Bash Street Kids
I don't know how it could be done but we need some Leo Baxendale zaniness in our lives. Perhaps the people currently doing Danger Mouse could have a go.

Eric Sykes (1923-2012)

Eric Sykes died on Wednesday following a short illness. He was 89. Sykes was one of the last surviving writers of the Associated London Scripts group who helped create the golden age of British radio comedy - The Goons, Hancock's Half Hour, etc. - and some of television's finest moments. A good outline of Sykes' career can be found on Wikipedia.

Sykes, unlike some of the people he wrote for, did not appear widely in British comics. The above article is from TV Express, which also ran a 4-part biography of the comedian in 1961 around the time that Sykes began appearing on the TV in Sykes and A..., the sitcom co-starring Hattie Jacques. The series ran for 59 episodes between 1960-65 and was revived as Sykes, which ran 68 episodes in 1972-79. Sadly, only one series of the latter has appeared on DVD.

The story of Eric's early life was drawn by Bill Mainwaring. For the full story, it is well worth tracking down a copy of Eric's autobiography If I Don't Write It Nobody Else Will – see the Amazon link below.

 

(* © TV Publications Ltd.)

 

Hwyl Llyfr Mawr

With thanks to Alistair Moffatt, we bring you some pages from Hwyl! Llyfr Mawr – Hwyl! (Fun!) being a Welsh-language comic begun in 1949, and the Llyfr Mawr being the 'Big Book'. This 1952 annual was published, and partly drawn, by Ivor  Owen.

"This was the first children's comic to appear in the Welsh language and had a very sketchy, naive (perhaps amateurish!) charm to the illustrations," says Alistair, "although Owen did contribute some well-crafted lino-cut illustrations depicting famous Welsh figures."

"Among the characters to be found within the pages of Hwyl! were Captain Llewellyn Glyn, Detective (and his young assistant Iolo), Plancton Jones (a kind of Welsh superhero) Mister Mostyn the  schoolteacher and Porci (Pig). It also featured the cowboy/Western series Y March Coch (The Red  Horse) by Bryn Williams."

The 'Big Book' was an occasional publication published in 1952 and 1972; a third volume was published undated and possibly pre-dates the edition seen here.

 

 

 

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Wendy: The British Comic Not Published in Britain

Wendy: The British Comic Not Published in Britain

by Jeremy Briggs

There is a modern comic associated with DC Thomson that gets mentioned from time to time but most people know little about it because, unlike Commando, BeanoMAX or the other DCT titles, we can't just go into a shop and buy one - not in the United Kingdom at least. Wendy is a comic magazine aimed at 8-15 year old girls with a theme of horses and ponies that is currently published by Egmont in Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Various comic strips that have appeared in Wendy are supplied to Egmont by DC Thomson and are referred to collectively by DCT as Pony Stories. Wendy is copyrighted to Wendy Promotions Ltd which is made up of Egmont and DC Thomson & Co Ltd.

Before he retired DC Thomson editor Bill Graham edited the Pony Stories for Wendy and in a 2008 interview on the downthetubes comics site he said, "The magazine called Wendy was first published in Germany in 1986, using stories reprinted from our girls' papers. The character Wendy first appeared in 1991. Wendy is published weekly in Germany and fortnightly in Denmark, Sweden and Norway by the various arms of Egmont. It is also published under licence under other titles in France and Holland (I think quarterly). Wendy is huge in the territories where it is published. Along with the magazine there is considerable marketing. A range of toys based on the characters was launched last Christmas and I believe it won Toy Of The Year in Germany."

While that interview is now over three years old and the publication schedules have changed, putting 'Wendy' into the search engine of the German Amazon.de shows just how many Wendy related items are still available in Germany from toys to books, CDs to computer games.

This is the November 2011 Swedish issue of Wendy. In Sweden the title is now published 8 times a year, so approximately every 6 weeks. It is a full colour, glossy, stapled magazine that is 52 pages long and, like so many UK comics aimed at a similar age range, it is bagged with gifts and has a cover price of 39 Krona which is around £3.50 - £3.75. There are three different comic strips in this issue, the adventure strip Wendy which is 19 pages long split 10/9 over two parts, the animation style strip Horseland which is 12 pages long and the single page humour strip Snobben & Skrutten. Of the rest of the magazine, 12 pages are given over to features, posters, pin-ups and quizzes using colour photos of horses, there are 4 pages of adverts, 2 pages of a text story with no illustrations, plus the front cover and the contents page.

Wendy is a 15 year old blonde, horse loving girl who lives with her parents and younger sister and who has adventures with her friends. In this Swedish version her surname is Thorsson, however in Germany she is Wendy Thorsteeg, in Denmark Wendy Thorup and in Norway Wendy Thorn. The other characters, both human and equine, change name between countries as well. In this story entitled Den Svarta Mustagen (The Black Mustang) Wendy is on holiday at a ranch in America and is taken by one of the local Indian tribe to see cave paintings of horses while hoping to encounter a wild horse.

Horseland is a more tongue-in-cheek story of an equestrian centre with six friends plus their horses and other assorted pets and farm animals. In the strip the animals talk to each other, but not to the humans, in the same way that Snowy in Tintin or Jolly Jumper in Lucky Luke talk to other animals. In this episode entitled Stackars Timmi! (Poor Timmy!) the humans, along with the help of their animals, rescue hedgehogs would were looking for Timmi, the missing youngest member of the hedgehog family. As the art is in a modern animation style it is not surprising to discover that the strip is based on an American CBS-TV animation series of the same name and was supplied by Tooncafe and not DC Thomson.

Snobben & Skrutten is a one page humour strip about two horses, one a posh thoroughbred and the other a down-to-earth pony. In Denmark the pair are known as Snobby & Snuske while they are Lord & Lauser in Germany. The Snobben & Skrutten page in this issue of Wendy has modern stylised artwork but the strip was originally illustrated by DCT artist Willie Richie in a much more traditional humour style. While it has never been published in the UK it does have an English title, Snooty and Scamp, and a page of it in English was displayed at the Willie Richie art exhibition in Dundee University as part of the Dundee Comics Day in 2010. In his tribute talk about his late friend and colleague on that day, Bill Graham told the attendees that Willie Richie had drawn over 800 pages of Snooty and Scamp over the years for Wendy.

In the downthetubes interview, Bill Graham also listed the various other artists that he had used on the Pony Stories strips including British artists Barrie Mitchell, Jim Colthorpe and Phil Gascoine plus Spanish artists Jaume Forns, Rodrigo Comos, Jesus Pena, Antonio Perez and his son David, and Joaquin Romero along with Rojo, Roca, Blase and Redondo.

Another DC Thomson staffer who worked on Wendy was editor Bill McLoughlin who again was interviewed on downthetubes in 2008 and when asked if any of the thousands of pages of comic strips produced for the Wendy comic had been published in the UK said, "A version of Wendy appeared in Animals & You, but I don't think there are any plans to publish stories here."

Wendy may not the sort of comic that readers of Judge Dredd Megazine or CLiNT would be interested in, but it is a title that has provided work for British comics creators for over two decades.

Further Information

The website of the German Wendy comic is here.
The website of the Danish Wendy comic is here.
The website of the Norwegian Wendy comic is here.
The Swedish Wendy comic does not have a separate website.

German TV advert for Wendy Gee Gee Friends toys.


(* Wendy is © Wendy Promotions Ltd.)

TV Express Scrapbook: Tony Hancock and Sid James

More features on the stars of yesterday from the pages of TV Express, these two relating to the comedians Tony Hancock and Sidney James.

The two had been working together for years on Hancock's Half-Hour and had made the successful switch to television together. But with the end of the TV show's sixth series, James was dumped by Hancock who feared that he and James would be seen as a double act. Hancock went off to star in the film The Rebel and James was left to his own devices. But Sid was already an established film actor with about 150 movies under his belt and would have no trouble finding more work, including the launch of a new star vehicle on TV, Citizen James. The show was in effect Hancock without Hancock, Sid playing much the same character as he had on the radio, with support from Bill Kerr, another star from Hancock's Half Hour. The series was created by Galton & Simpson, although later episodes were by Sid Green & Dick Hills, better known for working with Morecambe & Wise.

Citizen James ran for three series and 32 episodes in 1960-62, during which time James also established himself as the leading star of the Carry On movies. He went on to star in a number of TV series, including Taxi!, George and the Dragon, Two in Clover and the long-running Bless This House.

Hancock, meanwhile, had successfully transitioned to solo player in Hancock, but his follow-up to The Rebel, The Punch and Judy Man, which was at attempt to get away from the character of Anthony Aloysius Hancock and prove he could tackle a more dramatic role, was not so well received. His film career on hold, Hancock split from Simpson & Galton and made two more TV series in 1963 and 1967 but eventually left for Australia where he hoped to relaunch his career with Hancock Down Under. He managed three shows but committed suicide during the production in 1968.

 

(* © TV Publications Ltd.)

TV Express Scrapbook: Gerry Anderson

Today's scrapbook pages are a couple of features about Gerry Anderson shows, Four Feather Falls and Supercar.

(* © TV Publications Ltd.)

TV Express Scrapbook: No Hiding Place

'No Hiding Place' was based on the long-running TV series which was broadcast between 1959 and 1967, a total of 236 episodes. The show starred Raymond Francis as Det. Chief Supt. Tom Lockhart and Eric Lander as Det. Sgt. Harry Baxter, who were also the stars of the comic strip. After 140 episodes, Lander was replaced in 1964 by Johnny Briggs as Det. Sgt. Russell.

The strip version of 'No Hiding Place' also had a reasonable run of 81 episodes between 1960-62, drawn initially by Mike Western but later handed over to others when it switched to complete stories. In its latter days it introduced a spot-the-clue feature by which time Gerry Embleton had taken over the artwork. Below are a few episodes by Mike Western, along with the preview published a week ahead of the strips' debut.

(* © TV Publications Ltd.)

TV Express Scrapbook: Col. Pinto

More art by Ron Embleton following up yesterday's 'Biggles' strip. The strip actually makes an error from the very beginning -- Oreste Pinto's rank was Lieutenant-Colonel, not Colonel as ascribed by TV Express, although I learn from Wikipedia that Lt.-Col. is often shortened unofficially to Col. You can find out more about Pinto if you scroll down.

 

 

 

 

 

(* © TV Publications Ltd.)

TV Express Scrapbook: Biggles

Here are a couple of scans from the pages of TV Express from 1960 introducing the Biggles strip that began running in 1960. The artwork is by Ron Embleton and followed on from his work on 'Battleground' and 'Wulf the Briton' (which came to an end on the rear cover of issue 306, hence 'Biggles' appearing only on the front). Embleton was working at the top of game at this time -- was he ever off his game? -- and his every contribution he made to Express Weekly and TV Express would be worth reprinting. Thankfully we now have one strip (Wulf) reprinted in its entirety. Maybe one day we'll see more.

(* © TV Publications Ltd.)

Paul Temple: Light Fingers

This is the only Paul Temple short story that I've been able to discover. It's a spot-the-clue story and, for fun, I'm going to delay publishing the solution until tomorrow... see if you can work out how Paul resolved the case.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(* © Associated Newspapers.)