 |
| Copyright relevant owner |
Here's a nice little eBay acquisition which I 'won' today - a 1960s 'Two-In-One' book of Garth and Romeo Brown. Garth is on one side, Romeo on the reverse, so once you've finished one strip, you turn the book over to read the other. This will complement my Garth books for 1975 and '76, all three bearing the Daily Mirror name on them.
Interestingly, each side of the cover refers to the other as the 'back', although when the price on the spine is the right way up, Romeo Brown is actually the 'front'. Was Romeo being accorded a subtle degree of favouritism? Having said that, Garth's name on the spine is above the price, thereby coming first, so perhaps that evens things out - or maybe the publishers didn't think it mattered?
Anyway, just thought you might like to see the book. Anyone a Garth fan?
8 comments:
You could call me a Garth fan, but only when drawn by Frank Bellamy. In my comic buying (back in the day - can't recall when I last bought a new comic)I have always tended to follow artists around from title to title, with a couple of exceptions - used to buy The Hulk no matter who the artist was.
I've only recently become a Garth fan, PC, though I've known about him for decades and owned the 1974/'75 book for years. (Only read it a few months back.) As for artists, I loved Mike Noble on Fireball XL5, but wasn't so keen on Zero X - even though Mike drew it. Strange, eh?
I was a Garth reader in the early 70s. I only ever sighted him a paper. Then he vanished . There were a few strips like Garth that came and vanished. The Little King was another.
I think I first learned of Garth in The Penguin Book Of Comics in 1972 (the '67 edition), LH. I've quite enjoyed the strips in the '70s Daily Mirror books and look forward to the one shown in this post arriving. Some of the Garth stories remind me of The Legend Testers from Smash!
Peter O'Donnell is presumably the link - both strips were being written by him in the early 1960s, before he created Modesty Blaise.
I'd say you're right, BS. Although the most obvious link is probably that both strips appeared in the Daily Mirror.
I read Garth in the Daily Mirror for as long ago as I can remember which is the 50's. It was always interesting stories but uninspired art until Frank Bellamy took it over. Martin Asbury was a good replacement for Bellamy but by then I had moved to the US. I have the three Daily Mirror reprint books and the memory of how a number of us at art school were delighted when Bellamy took over.
Shame he couldn't have done them in colour, T47, though I know they've been coloured since for reprints. However, I mean colour the same as in his Thunderbirds strips. Of course, that would be too expensive for a newspaper to accommodate at the time, but they could have done it at weekends in the Sunday magazines.
Post a Comment