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| Copyright REBELLION |
Here's the cover of the last Christmas edition of the old-style SMASH! from 1968. A mere three months later, the comic got a new-look and the MARVEL reprints (The FANTASTIC FOUR & The MIGHTY THOR) were jettisoned in favour of home-produced content. (As 'home-produced' as strips drawn by foreign artists can be; the writers were British though.) I believe that LEO BAXENDALE usually drew The SWOTS And The BLOTS, but the above page looks like the work of MIKE BROWN or MIKE LACEY perhaps. (Feel free to chip-in.)
However, there's no doubt that this two-page BAD PENNY strip is by ol' Bax, as it has all his trademark daftness and drawing style. You have to hand it to him - his strips were usually always a visual delight, and tended to feature more daft sight-gags per page (and sometimes per panel) than an entire issue of MAD. Someone should gather together all the IPC strips that Bax produced and publish them in a series of special collectors' editions. He wouldn't like that unless he got paid, of course - but I'm sure comics fans everywhere would love it. Although younger readers would probably presume that they were all drawn by TOM PATERSON.
