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| Image copyright REBELLION |
Back in the 20th century - 1973 to be exact - an envelope addressed to myself popped through the letterbox one morning. Being only 14 or so, receiving personal mail wasn't a regular occurrence for me, so naturally enough I wondered what it was. I soon found out - a postal order for £1, along with a cover-note telling me that my "Creepy Creation" would be featured in the very next issue of SHIVER & SHAKE.
When the day arrived, I rushed out and bought a copy. Nevertheless, thrilled as I was about my moment of fame (to say nothing of my untold wealth), I was surprised to see that it seemed to be my actual drawing that had been printed - albeit with a super-duper, touch-up inking job by the mighty KEN REID. I'd hoped that my original drawing would be good enough to be published as is, but I was resigned to the likelihood that it would be completely redrawn by Mr. Reid himself.
But no - all the glaring imperfections of my original art were still all-too obvious - surely Ken would've fixed them if he'd completely redrawn my submission from scratch? Honest - that really appears to be my basic drawing under the super-slick inking style of the artist of FRANKIE STEIN and FACEACHE and loads of other characters. The wings are a bit more ornate than I would've rendered them, but what you're looking at is a genuine Robson/Reid collaboration.
Ken wasn't the only one to recognize quality when he saw it, though. (Relax - my tongue is half in my cheek.) A few years later, someone traced my character and submitted it to a competition in one of MARVEL's U.K. weeklies (I think) - and was one of a 100 runners-up. To add insult to injury, I'd also entered the competition and was amongst the top ten of those 100 runners-up, but my prize of a Treasury Edition must have been lost in the Twilight Zone because I never received it.
So feast your eyes - the only Kid Robson/Ken Reid drawing in existence. (I suppose his name really should come first - but it's my blog. And he got paid far more than a £1 for his share of the work.)
2 comments:
Seems that the Creepy Creations were an endless source of "original characters" for cheating kids.
DC Thomson's Cracker had a "Ghastly Geezers" gallery, and several of the readers' drawings appearing there were copies of the Shiver & Shake or Whoopee monsters.
Apparantly some of them also made it to Tony Hart's gallery!
Wouldn't surprise me at all. No doubt they're all running their own companies now, taking credit for and living off the ideas of their employees.
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