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| Image copyright REBELLION |
From IPC's popular soccer-themed SCORCHER weekly, cover-dated December 26th 1970, comes FOOTBALL FORUM, another manic KEN REID illustrated strip to warm the seasonal cockles of your heart. Although never interested in football, I bought Scorcher for a while, as well as SHOOT, and also SCORE. There was just something about a new comic that I could never resist. Funnily enough though, I don't recall this strip.
However, I'm sure you won't forget it - and neither will I again.
On one hand I have zero interest in anything to do with sport while on the other I'd check out anything created by the great Ken Reid, even if it is, like this a less than stellar piece from his illustrious career. Still, to paraphrase, even a bad Ken Reid is better than a 'good' piece from a number of other cartoonists you could name (but I won't - they know who they are). Thanks for posting.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say that the art is bad, PC, but the story isn't exactly the funniest I've ever read. However, the characters expressions are humorous in themselves. Sadly, Ken's artistic spontaneity dissipated in his later years.
ReplyDeleteWhat I was trying to say, as the heat fries my brain in the middle of a Heatwave here in Aus, is that it is only bad (probably the wrong word here)in relation to the work he was producing in the mid 60s. I have seen a few of these later sports pages and while it's obviously Ken Reid wielding the pencil he doesn't seem to put in quite the time and detail as we see in strips from the earlier years.
ReplyDeleteI'd say (and have said, a number of times) that what you say is certainly true of his later work in the '80s, PC, but I don't think that any decline is yet evident in this page. I think it's more a case of the underwhelming premise of the strip not giving him enough room to flex his artistic muscle. His later pages were very stiff and stilted, but there is still some evidence of spontaneity visible in his '70s work, I'd say.
ReplyDeleteIve not seen this one before (I have loads of Ken "Scorcher" work as Im a footy fan) and I have to say that some of his work on these strips (from "Sub" to "Manager Matt" etc) is on a par with anything he did in the past , it was just a different humour genre . Saying that I thought his "Hugh Fowler" strip wasnt his best work (still great though as its Ken Reid after all) and he went on to do "Faceache" and other stuff after this which again wason par with the Odhams work (in the erly days of those strips not the latter work)nice to see his thanks for posting it.
ReplyDeleteNae bother, McScotty - thanks for appreciating it and commenting. Loads more to show.
ReplyDelete